As I stand here before the field of last year's surviving players --*sigh*
-- y'know, you people are really hard on the world's diamond supply.
*lots and lots of high-level spell slots later*
Talk about your revolving door afterlife... and here we are at the start of another death spree, or as the rest of the world likes to call it, a new NFL season. Which itself nearly turned into the first victim of the year, but the murderer is back and ready to rack up a collection of glass slides which would put Mr. Morgan to shame. (He's a hockey fan. Lucky him.) So if you want to be this year's sole survivor in a very literal way, this is where you sign up for your excellent chance of dying. Because only one person wins this thing. And everyone else --
-- eventually, we are going to run out of diamonds.
The rules:
1. Each player chooses one team per week whom they believe will lose their game. That's right: lose. We're all about the losing around here. You haven't seen this many losers since the last casting call for Bachelor Pad, nor have you wished them dead so badly. (Let any secret attractions remain so.)
2. Your choice must be in no later than half an hour before the first game of the week kicks off. This applies no matter which game you're picking. Yes, this will hurt when we get to Thursday NFL Network games. I don't care. Most of you are going to die and my concerns about your personal comfort do not exist.
Your pick should be posted in public, but the secretive may PM them in if they absolutely must. Just be warned: all privately-sent picks will be revealed in the following week's thread. How else is anyone going to know why you're out? (Oh, right -- see below.)
3. Miss one pick, you're out -- and it's probably going to be gory. (Posting details of your exact game suicide method from beyond the grave is encouraged.) Miss a week and you're out. Pick a game that ends in a tie and while your chosen team probably lost some playoff possibilities, you just lost the pool: out. It's a suicide pool. You should not expect mercy. There is only one thing you should expect and you think you can actually avoid it. Silly you.
4. Each player can only pick a given team once per season: no repeats. So even if you believe with all your heart that the Panthers will need twelve weeks just for the players to figure out that they need to tackle the people in the other uniforms, you still only get to anti-back them for one week. Spread your losing ways around. Everybody loses eventually. (Even the Patriots.) But your taking a team only locks them out to you.
EXCEPTION: Starshine, as last year's sole survivor (lowercase still used to avoid lawsuits), holds the Winner's Edge: upon announcing its use, he may take a personally already-used team for a second time. The Edge may only be turned in once per season and may be used in any week from the second one on, including the last. Think that's too great a power to possess? Just be glad I didn't include The Judge's CPR.
5. The point spread doesn't matter. Your team must lose the normal way: by having the opposition ring up a higher score. Respect the classics.
6. The last player standing gets to dance on the graves of the dead. Isn't that enough of a reward for anyone? (Any sigpics will have to be made by or for the winner.) Oh, and you don't have to go cold turkey on that nasty oxygen habit. Although you arguably should. That stuff will kill you.
6a. Should all remaining players go out in the same week, we'll have a lose-off. Details should they become necessary -- but it won't be the same as last year's.
7. There is a twist coming in Week #1. It may or may not affect the game. It may be completely ignored. In fact, you're probably better off if you do ignore it. Surely it's not worth taking that kind of risk in exchange for power. Risking your one and only game life just for the ability to tamper... no, who would do that, especially with the odds so long against you? Nobody. So let's pretend I didn't mention it. Until I do.
Think you can stay ahead of the reaper? Convinced that the gawds of last-second disasters love you best? Believe with all your heart that none of this love for watching others drop will ever karmically catch up to you?
Heh.
Run for me, hamsters. Run.
Right towards the edge of the cliff.