“This was a game of firsts for me.

- First loss for the Gothick Crusaders, coming fresh off their win of the 145 Rookie Cup XL championship game.

- First time I ever killed 2 opposing players in the same game (I was only able to raise Jenna). Sadly, Necros and Undead can only raise 1 player per game.

- First time I've ever seen the same player on both teams score the MVP. Sadly, I only get credit for my own.

- First time I've ever had an opponent drop connection on 2 consecutive turns, which led to a frustrating series of reloads to duplicate the results as best we could. Although I don't doubt his sincerity, it was frustrating for us both that he never lost connection throughout the 15 reloads we both had to endure to duplicate the results of the lost turn.

- First time I've ever seen the ref ignore 5 consecutive fouls (for my opponent of course), but throws the flag on me first time I foul. I argued the call and got tossed from the game. This leads into another first...

- First time I've had every single foul I commit get called by the ref. With no coach to argue, every player was tossed.

That was the funny stuff. Now I'm going to whine about my misfortune here, in spite of what the luck meter said, so if that offends you stop reading :)

I was failing rerolled blocks and pick ups all through the 1st half and the beginning of the 2nd half. These resulted in my opponent scoring twice. Not that it was easy, oh no! He made numerous dodges, pick ups, throws, catches and GFIs. It was actually quite spectacular, watching him succeed roll after roll after roll while I was scared to even touch the dice. Then there is the whole ref situation (see above in the '1sts' section).

On top of that, I lost to this same team just last month in another OCCS tourney after listening to him complain in OCCS chat about his miserable luck. I've already informed him I never want to hear him complain about luck again and if he does I will call him on it. But it's all in good fun (though both of us were losing our temper after 15 reloads). Kudo's to him for sticking it out since I was the one getting hosed 'pun intended' if we didn't dupicate the results from the dropped connection. <whining over>

He is now the 3rd coach that I can not win against no matter what I do. You'd think I'd learn to stop playing these guys, but I like them. And besides I can't duck a tournament game (unlike ranked cherrypickers), so maybe I'll bribe the tournament organizers not to seed me in these guys' brackets anymore. I'm kidding! Unless it would work...”