The Longest Game

During Season 1, end of Week 3 and well on the road to the finish, there was a fascinating game at the bottom table between rookie Chaos Dwarves and Orcs.  17(!) players lined up on the line, and all that strength and Block promised a bloodbath.  Game-long pouring rain guaranteed it.  And yet with a first half closing out 0-0 with zero casualties, and a second half closing out 0-0 with one casualty (crowdsurf), the coaches went into the first (and only) regular-season overtime hoping for, well, just about anything, really.  

Unbelievably, overtime ended still 0-0.  And zero casualties.  And the coaches finally called a draw in disgust, declining the roll-off.  It’s interesting how things panned out: this would be the only points of the season for the brutally unlucky Orc coach.  The CDwarves, however, would go on to win the next week at Table 3 and only this draw (as opposed to a win) kept them from Table 2 in the final week and a outside shot at the bronze.  Also, because they did NOT advance to Table 2, the Week 4 coaches there stayed there for the final week and all-in-all made for an especially anti-climatic setup for the finish.

I often look at games between rookie coaches as being wildly unpredictable, here’s a zero-casualty overtime game to follow two back-to-back games that retired the Orc coach’s dwarf team.  I chalk this up to the arbitrary decision-making of new coaches, and I’d expect these wild extremes to fade away as everyone gets games under their belt.  That would have to wait, of course, till after the Season 1 Championship.