UPDATE #1: The Rams won the toss, so even though they deferred possession until the start of the second half, I’ll stick with my model and predict a win for Los Angeles.

UPDATE #2: The anemic scoring envisioned for the first half proved to be prophetic, and the half-time score was even lower than predicted. Both defensive teams lived up to the projection, and it will be interesting to see whether either offense can break the game open in the second half.

Update #3: Looks like I should have quit after the first half. It turned out to be a defensive battle all the way to the wire, with the Patriots holding the Rams to only three points. As a New Englander I don’t mind the win, but as a diviner I’m less than thrilled with my prediction. The Rams threw me a curve by refusing first possession after winning the coin-toss. If I had used actual “first possession” as the predictive benchmark, the more favorable “Team A” row would have gone to the Patriots. But the second-half scoring was still far below what the cards suggested.

Original Post:

Here is my predictive reading for the championship game of the National Football League’s 2018-19 season. This reading applies my “Enemy At The Gates” head-to-head confrontation spread, which has been demonstrating increased precision in its last few outings. As is customary, I used the Chariot as the “Opportunity Card” (Significator), representing “Victory.” I chose it from Ciro Marchetti’s Tarot of Dreams, and then used his Gilded Tarot for the body of the reading. However, because the Chariot came up twice more, both in the pull and as one of the sub-quints, I had to bring in a third deck and picked Ciro’s Legacy of the Divine. I was fortunate to have three compatible decks by the same artist.

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Because the  Super Bowl is played on neutral ground, there is no home field advantage to assign when determining which team to place in the top row of the spread, so I tried something different. I have designated the team that wins the opening coin toss, bestowing first possession of the football,  as “Team A” and placed that team in the top row, with “Team B” in the bottom row. I will sort out which team is which after the toss.

A preliminary overview of the spread shows that “Team A” enjoys a distinct competitive advantage throughout most of the game, with a majority of upright Fire cards and only one reversal to no Fire cards and three reversals for “Team B.” This suggests that having the first shot at scoring will light a fire under “Team A” that will be unquenchable, although they could conceivably stall defensively in the 4th Quarter. “Team A’s” sub-quint (“Chance to Win”) card is also upright, while “Team B’s” is reversed.

Because the cards for the first and second quarters are very low-numbered for both teams – totaling 7 points each if I don’t subtract reversals – it doesn’t seem reasonable to use a straight sum in the quarterly scoring model given the demonstrated horsepower of both teams. So I figured it is safer to simply project a tied score by half-time. Things break open in the second half, looking like two touchdowns in each of the last two quarters for “Team A” (a total of 28 points), and a touchdown in the 3rd Quarter for “Team B” followed by a touchdown and a field goal in the 4th Quarter (a total of 17 points). Staying with the anemic raw numbers for the first half, I’m comfortable giving “Team A” a 35-24 edge in the final accounting, since so many games in the past season reached the 30-point threshold. As I normally do, I gave the court cards numbers and subtracted reversed values when calculating the quintessence cards. On to the blow-by-blow analysis:

In the “Strength” position (nominally the 1st Quarter), “Team A” received the 3 of Wands, while “Team B” had the 5 of Cups. In the Thoth system, the 3 of Wands is titled “Virtue” and is related to Sun in Aries, an indomitable influence, while the 5 of Cups (Mars in Scorpio) is “Disappointment,” which pretty much tells the tale. Advantage: +1 to “Team A.” The teams may exchange a field goal or two but both defenses could be cranked up at the start.

In the “Weakness” position (aka “2nd Quarter” for scoring purposes) “Team A” got the 4 of Wands and “Team B” the 2 of Swords reversed. The Thoth title for the 4 of Wands is “Completion” (possibly signifying numerous pass completions and third-down conversions) and it is associated with acquisitive Venus in “hot-shot” Aries (astrologer Isabel Hickey used to say “Mars goes out and gets what Venus wants”); the 2 of Swords is “Peace” (passive Moon in mild Libra). As an expression of weakness, neither card is especially remarkable, although “Team A” stands to resist the adverse impact of potential over-confidence better than the inability to “put 2-and-2 together” that could plague “Team B’.” Advantage: +1 to “Team A.” As far as scoring, I’m thinking a field goal or two on both sides, or maybe a touchdown for “Team A.” With these cards I would be sticking my neck out to offer a cumulative half-time score, but I’ll just say that it will land somewhere between 7-7 and 14-14.

The “Edge” position (3rd Quarter) brings the Knight of Wands to “Team A;” in her book Untold Tarot, Caitlin Matthews uses the term “sliding” to describe the action of the Knights, but in this case I could see “Team A” skating to a commanding lead. Normalizing its number (12) to agree with NFL scoring conventions, it looks like two touchdowns for “Team A in the period.  On the other side of the coin, “Team B” has the Chariot reversed; the “wheels could come off” and they may have trouble eking out a single TD. Advantage: +1 to “Team A.” The scoring range could run from 21-14 to 28-21 in favor of “Team A.”

In the “Allies Power” position (4th Quarter), which I take to mean the effectiveness of the coaching staff, “Team A” got the Knight of Pentacles reversed; if “Team A” exhibits “feet of clay” in any sense, it could be in the area of defensive play-calling late in the game. But they may have built up such a big lead that “Team B” (with indecisive Justice reversed) will be unable to capitalize on any stumbles. Advantage: +1 to “Team A” by a whisker. I’m thinking one or possibly two more touchdowns for “Team A” and a hard-won single TD for “Team B.” Throwing a field goal into the mix could bring the final score to around 35-24 (42-28 tops in a blowout) with “Team A” winning.

The “Chance to Win” cards favor “Team A,” with the Chariot fulfilling the prophecy and bringing home the trophy. With the Devil reversed, all “Team B” can do is mumble “Wait until next year.” No advantage is scored for this position.

The “Decision Card” (Grand Quintessence) was Strength reversed. As a Fire card, it is most supportive of the three Fire cards in the “Team A” series and unsympathetic to the pair of Water cards in “Team B’s” line. The reversal could simply be showing the state of exhaustion that prevails at the end of such a grueling contest. Advantage: +2 to “Team A.”

The internal scoring for the reading (not the on-field score) gives “Team A” an insurmountable  6-0 bulge that doesn’t appear to offer much hope to “Team B.” Recognize that my method for assigning spread rows to the two teams is highly experimental, and it is conceivable that the two could swap rows if it doesn’t pan out as designed. If that happens, “Team B” will win by the margins indicated and it will be back to the drawing-board for next year.