Field Game: Tips & Strategies

As any true student of Field Game knows, there are many schools of thought about winning strategies. Debates among scholars have at times been heated, rivaling the action on the field. But even as the once-bucolic school sport outgrew the classroom and morphed into the modern Field Game we now see on national TV, fundamental questions of strategy remained.

An essential question confronting any team is how to assign positions. There are three rings each with two spots, and each player has two Kingdo monsters. Do you give each player both positions in the same ring or do you mix them up? Some argue that having a player with positions in two adjacent rings means they can execute passes between their own monsters without coordinating with any other players, but critics say this kind of tactical isolationism reflects a bankrupt philosophy of play.

When you have players with a mix of experience (a practical inevitability) do you assign your stronger players farther rings, where they can probably still control their critters, and leave the inner rings for weaker players so they can stand right next to their Kingdo and bark orders?

On the other hand, is it more essential to have a strong middle ring or anchor the inside or outside? After all, the nug has to pass through the middle ring twice on every run, but depending on the direction of the run the inner or outer ring will only see the nug once.

And then there’s the eternal debate over whether an outward nug run (inner ring to outer and back to inner) is easier than an inward run. With an outward run the action is closer to the players at the center twice, at the beginning and end, making it easier to command your monsters… but that’s true for the defenders too.

No matter how dominant one approach has seemed, over time new strategies have emerged to usurp it.

Much like the Kingdo monsters themselves, the sport continues to evolve, sometimes in unexpected ways. And also much like the Kingdo monsters, it can be surprisingly difficult to master.