Nufflenomics: The High Elf Thrower

 An interesting question arose yesterday when I was practicing High Elves ahead of taking them to Thurdball. The thrower has a unique combination of skills – pass, cloudbuster and safe pass. We were looking at one turn strategies and, as my pass was intercepted, we were wondering whether due to the combination of skills it is better to throw a long pass rather than a quick pass. I will talk through the skills the thrower has and explain why this might be.

Pass

This should be familiar to most coaches – it allows re-rolling of a pass made by this player. The mathematical effect is to change the chance of success from - for a 2+ passer such as the high elf thrower – a 5 in 6 (83%) chance of success to a 35 in 36 (97%) chance of success.

Safe Pass

This is a skill that I would imagine is on the lower end of the most frequently picked skills list. It means that if a pass is fumbled (i.e. it a natural 1) then the ball is not dropped but remains in the hands of the passing player. It also does not cause a turnover. This has no mathematical affect on the pass.

Cloudbuster

Another infrequently picked skill, although both of these are not to be shirked at when getting them for free with a player. This skill allows a coach to force a re-roll on an interference attempt when making a long pass or long bomb. As an interference attempt to an accurate square is -3, players with AG 2+ will be making an interception on a 5+ if they are unmarked. In all other situations it would be a 6+. This therefore reduces the chance of successful interference from – in most cases – 1 in 6 (17%) to 1 in 36 (3%). Or to look at it the other way, the chance of avoiding a successful interference increases from 83% to 97%.

The Pass

Let’s look at the chance of an accurate pass at each of the passing ranges.

Range	Quick (2+)	Short (3+)	Long (4+)	Bomb (5+)
Fumble*	3%	6%	8%	11%
Wildly inaccurate	0%	6%	17%	33%
Accurate	97%	89%	75%	56%

 

* as noted, the player has safe pass so it would not be a fumble but the thrower would retain possession.

As we’ve seen, most interceptions will be on a 6+, with the very occasional one being on 5+.  If we multiply the chance of an accurate pass with the chance of avoiding a successful interference, we get the chance of the ball making the target as below.

Range / Chance of interference	Quick (2+)	Short (3+)	Long (4+)	Bomb (5+)
None	97%	89%	75%	56%
6+	81%	74%	73%	54%
5+	65%	59%	67%	49%

What we can see is that the chance of the ball making the target can decrease substantially if there is a 5+ interference option (e.g. a gutter runner or an elf), reducing from near certainty on a quick bass to around 1 in 3 chance of failure (which makes sense as a 5+ roll is a 1 in 3 chance of success).

The interesting thing to note here is the relatively low drop off rates on long passes and long bombs. This is due to the re-roll from the cloudbuster skill. There is also a quirk in that a long pass is more likely to reach it’s target square than a short or quick pass when the interference option is a 5+.

This is not going to change much in practice. The best option will almost always be a shorter range pass, and this is especially so when there is no interference option. However it is interesting to note that the difference between a long pass and a short pass when the only interference option is a 6+ is just 1%. As such, it is probably sensible not to risk a rush to reduce the range in these circumstances.

Obviously, this will all likely become null and void as and when Mr James Workshop gets around to re-releasing the high elf team, but it is an interesting quirk of the cloudbuster skill to note.