Monk's Marauders 1 - 1 My Mummie's Mummies
The humans didn't do a great job of defense in the first half, and overreacted when the Ogre Balkoth was killed (he got better, and played the second half,) clustering up and providing an excellent target for the enemy wizard to fireball. The dice bit back hard in the second half as several Marauders found their way to the CAS and KO box, and they only started the drive with 9 to begin with. Tonkai fumbled a pass and was promptly surrounded by Khemri while the Thro-Ra scrambled downfield with the ball. Tonkai made up for the fumble by being quite elusive and throwing a block at the fleeing Thro-Ra, but despite a reroll he failed to knock the ball loose. He was quickly knocked down by the mummy attending the ballcarrier, and though the remaining Marauders valiantly rallied to protect him, a foul sent him to the CAS box; thankfully, he suffered no long-term injury.
The game seemed over with Tonkai, Valdred, and several other key players off the field, but the AG4 NoS Catcher Omo Thunderjaw wasn't ready to quit. After being sprung from his prison by a timely chain push, he blitzed the isolated Thro-Ra standing at the goal line, managing a Defender Down and a Defender Stumbles on a 2d block against, and he also handled the pickup. After surviving the retaliatory blitz, he made a pair of dodges and GFIs to return to the thick of the pile, where his Nerves of Steel paid off, letting him hurl a long pass to a waiting Blitzer, who handled the catch well and took it upfield for the tying score. None of this required a reroll (though I had both a TRR and a dodge reroll available.)
While I'm happy to snatch a draw from the jaws of defeat, the underachieving Marauders have a tall order ahead of them if they want to capture the #2 seed. Fortunately, the next game will see the Marauders at full strength for once, and the final three weeks of the season include two critical matchups against both Kanil and ndkid, and a rematch with the Khemri in the middle. I'll have to play better than I did today, THE_SLAYA outblocked me all day.