BUG: Opponent has no players, game doesn't end and he wins

The opponent had no players left on the pitch and it was past turn 16 so he couldn't warp any in, but the game didn't end. He even made sure there was no one in reserves he could magic sponge - just in case that was the bug.

At turn 24 it started randomly pulling my players off the pitch. He still had no one on the field, so just kept ending his turn. When it could not pull any more of my players off the pitch, it declared him the winner.

In addition, at turn 26 the ball ended up in the water and couldn't be picked up.

Please see attached replay file.

Yeah, this bug has been in the game since the beginning. It's listed here: The Secret Rules of DB or You Can Win More

"Warp out:
- At the end of turn 24 and every turn after that, one random player from the opposing team is warped out. The coach who runs out of players first loses -- and both MVPs and all gold winnings go to the winner. If one of the coaches has no players in the dungeon at the end of turn 24, they can do nothing on their turns but will win if the other coach runs out of players before scoring."

It would be nice if the bug was fixed.

That is a horrible bug, and really does need to be fixed. But shouldn't the game end if one player has no players left and can't field any more players?

Also, what about the ball landing in the water - making it impossible to pick it up?

Sure, the game should end. It seems the game checks only after turn 24 and only when a player is removed from the dungeon if a coach has any players left. If you run out before turn 24 so no player of yours can be removed, nothing happens.

The ball ending up out of play has been reported a couple of times but it's very rare, luckily it's not a frequent problem. Of course it's still very bad when it happens. As a workaround you can win in this situation by removing more opposing players than they remove yours. (Except in this case as the other bug had struck preventing that solution ...)

I viewed the replay and the ball situation didn't show for some reason. The match ended at turn 29 with "Golden Eclipse has no more players in the dungeon." The ball stayed in the end for a few turns on a Black Orc who wasn't moving. So not only was the match bugged, the replay also ended up bugged.

As I recall, the black orc with the ball was pulled off the pitch by "the random", and that's when the ball went into the water. Strange that in the replay, he remains on the pitch with the ball. Perhaps this is a clue to what causes the "ball in the water" bug.