This is it. The match that determines the outcome of the league. A win clinches victory for me. A loss gives Mantiis an opportunity to take the tournament. A tie... would probably give me a win too (Team value), unless we decided on custom tie-breaker rules.
Grunker, no longer in the running for first place thanks to a tie with the Orcs, was fueled by Mantiis' greed (I'm sure he was "encouraging" him to win). Our last match ended in a 2-0 victory for me, with my High Elves scoring a second touchdown slowly grinding up the pitch against only a handful of standing Amazons.
Knowing Grunker's tendency to play to play rather bashy with his team, I spent 50k of my own cash to purchase Bloodweiser Babes. With his inducements, Grunker purchased a Wizard and an extra reroll bringing him up to a total of 5.
I won the coin toss, and chose to kick. Brilliant Coaching gave both of us an extra reroll, bringing Grunker up to 6! The ball landed deep in a corner of the pitch.
First action of the match, Grunker fails a 2D block on the line of scrimmage and burns his first reroll, and later fails the pickup of the ball. I mark Prosper with my blodging tackler, and blitz my way into his backfield, marking the ball with a player. On his next turn, Grunker blitzes off the player near the ball and successfully picks it up. He proceeds to move the player into a cage in the center of the pitch.
This first half then turns into a repeat of the first half when we last played. I aggressively mark and attack his cage, leaving his ball carrier motionless for the next several turns. Despite my higher AV, we both end up with 2 casualties each, though I get a slight player advantage with a KO. Grunker makes tons of blocks, eventually eating through all 6 of his rerolls for the half, but his cage doesn't budge. The Elves just stand themselves back up and continue making surgical strikes against the cage, despite all of the annoying Guard blodgers. Eventually the Elves work their way into the cage and knock the ball free. The ball is picked up by one of my Blitzers who runs it towards the endzone. Normally, I would have stalled here a turn, but with that Wizard on the sidelines, I knew Grunker would use it here. Instead, with a reroll handy, I make the two GFIs and score a touchdown on turn 7.
1-0, High Elves lead.
I kick off, but there isn't enough time left in the half for anything to happen.
Halftime.
Grunker kicks, and it's a short, but high kick. I place my thrower under to receive, but he fails the catch. Short kicks always make me uneasy as High Elves. I place a couple players in front of the ball in case of a failed pick up, and make a blitz on the other side of the field opening up a hole where I pass through a catcher and three defenders. I attempted the pick up and failed. The ball rolled away from my defenders, so I decided to burn a reroll to pick it up. It's successful. I dodge a catcher through into the middle of the pitch, and move another player before realizing I didn't create a proper pocket around my thrower. With no one left to safely move, I hit next turn and hope Grunker hasn't seen my mistake.
Of course he didn't miss it. It was completely obvious. He jumped on the opportunity and blitzed down my thrower, retrieving the ball. On my turn, I mark his ballcarrier with a couple players and blitz with my strip ball catcher, knocking the ball to the ground. I immediately retrieve it. Grunker ends his next turn prematurely with either a failed dodge or block. I have one player standing in my way from being able to hand my ball off to a catcher within scoring range. I foolishly made a 2D block on that player which only resulted in a push, a push that moved the player right next to my ball carrier. With that opportunity lost, I dodge my ball carrier away to the other side of the pitch into a poor 3-player cage.
Grunker swarms the cage, but is unable to get my blodging ball carrier down. So he resorts to his Wizard, who knocks him down with a bolt of lightning. Both sides surround the ball, spending the next several turns pushing each other around unable to pick up the ball. Eventually Prosper picks it up. With one turn left for the both of us, I see that Grunker only has one player within scoring range after some GFIs and bypassing two players defending her. Not wanting to be screwed over by some miraculous play, I triple cover the player and attempt to blitz her down, but I only get a push. On Grunker's final turn, he attempts to blitz away my blodging tackler marking his ball carrier, but can only get a both down which leave my player standing. Despite this, Grunker still makes a couple dodges and a successful pass; however, the catch is dropped and the game ends. High Elves - 1, Amazon - 0.
WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!
Suck it, Mantits.
