“First game for the Graceful Ballers and also a round 1 match of 2513's FUMBB[L] Cup: Massive Edition. Poachers Pocket brought a huge crowd of elf fans with them, while the Ballers had been slipped a couple of magic items into their pockets by some admirer.

First half

The Ballers receive. They start pummeling the elves, but armor holds pretty well. The balling does not go as intended and suddenly the wood elves are all over the place, stealing the ball. Then a lightning bolt is cast from the upper ranks of the stadium, knocking out the thieving wardancer. The dwarves steal the ball and advance. It's along walk across almost the whole pitch, but they manage to fend off all their opponents' attacks score (after some last-minute drama when ball-carrying Nicholas Dirtyorc gets knocked over by the Pocket's thrower in a desperate attempt to prevent the touchdown).

Second half

The Ballers set up aggressively close to the LOS and kicked deep. Little impressed the Pockets simply run around them, soon having several receivers in scoring range. The dwarves mark those, but the elvish passing game is flawless and so the equalizer comes in turn 2 of the second half.
Plenty of time for the Ballers to score again it seems, but then a throng of hardcore wood elf fans, insulted by the dwarves' success in the first half, storms the pitch right at the kickoff and brings 2/3 of the Ballers down. The ref doesn't intervene, only adding some extra time due to the riots later on. With so many players prone, the Ballers fail at securing the ball and can't stop the elves from coming in.
As the Ballers still don't get neither their bash nor their balling game started, the elves are able to steal two more touchdowns - very much to their opponents' disappointment, who seemed rather optimistic after that particularly good first half.
A final scoring attempt along the sidelines goes wrong as well, and so the last minutes (again extended by the referee in consequence of the disastrous pitch invasion) are all about teaching the elves a painful lesson and do some consolidation balling. Both doesn't really work out except for a completion in the very last second of the game, thrown by team captain Evander Vilefire. In the end it were the Ballers who really got taught a lesson in this match.

Aftermath

Evander Vilefire was awarded MVP and made his lucky charm permanent, turning Pro. The team hired an apothecary and is now looking forward to further challenges, probably bringing some magic items again.

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Fun game and well played! I never gave up and had some hopes after the good first half, but the all-blocker team turns out to be quite a tough nut to crack (from the team coach's perspective, not the opponent one's).

Congratulations, MagicDave, and good luck in the next round! :-)”