The Madden Arena Chronicals: Week 1 Labbing via ranked matches
Intro:
Madden 10 is on the shelves finally, and I am just starting to get the hang of the new features. Over the duration of this fall Madden season, I will be participating in a Gamebattles Arena Ladder. I have never entered any gaming tournaments of this sort. (last one I was in was a gameboy link cable tournament for Poke’mon at the mall) I will be detailing the events of my matches and preparations. Hopefully this is helpful to readers who are on the edge about joining gamebattles, or just want to see what strategies other gamers are rolling with.
Week 1 Labbing the Colts
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Offensive strong points:
Peyton Manning 99
Reggie Wayne 95
Dallas Clark 91
Joseph Addai 85
Jeff Saturday 93
Defensive strong points:
Bob Sanders 95
Dwight Freeney 94
Robert Mathis 92
Raheem Brock 85
Antoine Bethea 88
Gameplan:
I’d like to take control of the game from an offensive standpoint. Seeing how I have very low expectations for my Linebacking crew. I’m going into every game expecting to play it safe, west coast style. I’ll be trying my best to make zero mistakes because controlling the game offensively requires an error-free drive. I anticipate having little to no problem picking defenses apart with Dallas Clark lining up in the slot in Indy’s special TE Slot formation. Every now and then I plan on throwing in a pitch or a dive just so they dont start dropping back in Prevent or anything cheesy like that. If I can dominate time of possession, I’m pretty sure I can put up the points needed to win.
In the event I do need to rely on my defense, I will be looking at running a lot of 1-5-5 mainly. Although I’m not so sure putting 4 of my linebackers in is a good plan either. They all seem to be sub-par, even the highest rated one, Gary Bracket is a freaking joke. Maybe I should run 46 or some other type of spread defense. I haven’t decided which formation will be my base but I’ll definitely be using the Multiple D playbook.
Matchups:
Non-Gamebattles Ranked vs Vikings (My PB’s: Run & Gun + Multiple D’s)
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I won the toss, got the ball first, and found that running with Indy isn’t as hard to setup as I thought it would be. I didnt even establish the run, before I started throwing in playaction passes. My first playaction attempt ended in a 53 yard touchdown catch for Joey Addai. The play was Ace PA DBL GO, I motioned the left TE to the right to see if it was man coverage. Once I saw it was zone I kept his route the same. If it had been man I would have hot routed him to a drag pattern.Youtube
My second offensive drive was even quicker than the first, It took me three plays to go 79 yards. Every play of the drive I used motion in hopes that he wouldnt notice i run basically the same routes every down just switching them between WR’s. Here’s my entire 2nd drive on video! Youtube
My defense didn’t really have any trouble except for Tarvaris Jackson evading my nano blitzes in the red zone to score a TD 
Heres a clip of just that.
Youtube!
I didn’t end up dominating the time of possession like I thought I would. Maybe that’s because both of my TD’s were supposed to be short throws over the middle but the play action blew the safeties outta my way! I was very pleased with my offense, especially my running attack considering that Vikings front 4 are beasts, my D on the other hand was better than expected but still lacking, maybe I just called some bad/risky plays on 3rd downs. Who knows? But I think next match I’m gonna run the 46 playbook. I liked the spread nickel defenses, but not having 3 or 4 down linemen was too inviting for a great running back
like Adrian Peterson.
After thought:
I think I’m ready to start playing some ladder matches on Gamebattles. (Especially because I’m sick of people quitting in the 3rd quarter when I’m only up by 11, you know who you are!)