War of the Pothole

Toroidal/Season 8 was the postseason series Alewife Arsonists fans had craved for decades: the first postseason matchup against the Boylston Boogers since the ugly Cartographic Defamation and the psychological trauma of the Wellesley Heresy of the Hellmouth Cup.

The entire series was a brutal, ugly slog that was fought deep in the tunnels of the Red and Green Lines. In the deciding fifth game, the Boogers deployed a massive, elegant, and seemingly unstoppable pattern. But the Boogers' beautiful construct hit a tiny snag in the formation, with a single pixel out of place (the so-called "Pothole Pixel" in Alewife Station, well-known to all Arsonists as a glitchy cell to be avoided), and the entire Boogers formation instantly collapsed into an ash field. The Arsonists' resulting victory was not glorious, and it was nothing more than a lucky break, but it was righteous. It was a win for Alewife and for broken, unmaintained streets everywhere.

WINNER: Alewife Arsonists