Blaseball is not quite baseball. As we explained in 2020, It's "a simulated baseball league with the occasional Hellmouth" which wrapped up its ninth season with a goddamn JRPG boss fight. In 2021 Blaseball evolved into a "massively co-operative tactical strategy game" that somehow saw a team sucked into the nether realm by a black hole. Something like that, anyway.
Soon all of that strangeness will come to the corporeal realm as Blaseball: The Card Game, a competitive game for two players, each of whom will lead a Blaseball team through the top and bottom of the ninth inning. It's being developed by board game company Wayfinder Games in partnership with Blaseball developer The Game Band, but will be completely separate from and have no interactions with the Blaseball website.
"Blaseball: The Card Game takes place in a separate, splintered timeline, where some things are the same, and some things are different," the Blaseball: TCG website explains.
While there isn't a lot of detail at this point, the site notes that Blaseball: The Card game is not a trading card game, and that there will be no sales of randomized card packs. The collaborative approach to the fan base that's so central to Blaseball will be maintained in the card game, however.
"We’d like to emphasize that the fans’ ability to make their own original fanwork remains the same. Please create what you're inspired to create, and if it’s yours and original, feel free to sell it."
This continues the Game Band's unique policy on fan-made content, which it shared to Twitter in August 2020, shortly after Blaseball went live:
⚾️🩸 We’ve received a lot of inquiries regarding making + selling original #blaseball art + merch 🩸⚾️The Front Office’s official position is as follows: pic.twitter.com/FKUBZWl5TyAugust 14, 2020
"Create what you're inspired to create. Sell it if you'd like. You have our blessing. If you're feeling generous, donating some proceeds to Blaseball—or to a good cause—is always appreciated. Feel free to contact us here or on Discord with any specific questions."
Wayfinder and the Game Band are planning to launch a crowdfunding campaign in the spring, which I have no doubt will be immediately and wildly successful. The companies are still evaluating which crowdfunding platforms to go for, but Wayfinder made it clear that NFTs are not part of the plan: "Screw the blockchain and everything on it."
