The White-Blue deck in that game is just plain better than every other deck in the game.
Shari, I LOVE your posts where you respond with pictures or youtube links instead of words.
Magic for me isn’t about balance I guess… its about how I can break you with what I have at my disposal. My best friend in college (undergrad) was a hardcore magic player, always qualified for US nationals and his motto is very close to the No Honor Club - as long as you don’t actually cheat (i.e. drawing multiple cards when you’re not allowed, turning on lag on purpose, whatever it might be) winning is all that matters. And he would beat me down until I learned how to build better decks, he was just totally different competition from everything I had ever faced. It was like playing DGV the first time, I just wasn’t prepared for that level of excellence, but it forced me to get better. Ryu’s not broken, but he did abuse some tactics against me that I could force him out of now. Same thing… but XBLA magic might not be so bad, I’m sure I can pick it up cheap if someone would play with me… COUGH COUGH
That’s interesting on Korea’s protoss shenangians. I had not heard about that, but what can you say… I remember when Chronoboost was like 30 seconds long… that was just TOO good… for me Starcraft is the best RTS, I know Shari has his opinions (although I think he would even agree SC is at least a great game if not an all-time great game) and I have high hopes for SC2.
Cute kittens FTW
Is it a big deal in Sweeden that Princess Madeleine is cancelling her wedding to that lawyer is falling apart? Why do people cheat on their women with other women who are obviously inferior? I’d go to find that princess in whatever castle she’s in… my wife would kill me afterwards, but hey…Sweedish Princess… Shari, thoughts?
So I must admit I never beat Shenmue 1, though I’ve had it for years (I did beat 2). Anyway, I’m currently at the legendary forklift part. Magic the Gathering? I think that’s too nerdy… even for us!
Nobody here cares as far as i know besides old ladies with too much free time.
On the subject of PTW in Magic…
Be glad you were not around in the affinity days…
Dark times they were…
Shudder
Noriega… NOTHING is too nerdy for us… we’re HDR players… we believe we have the most ‘pure’ form of Street Fighter… we actually HAVE ARGUMENTS about what is the most pure form of SF, whether that’s SF2, HF, CE, ST, HDR, whatever. We actually have arguments about it… that’s nerdy. Magic doesn’t seem as nerdy when put into that context does it?
Shari, yeah, I didn’t think anyone would really care that much, but you Swedes do make some fine looking princesses… so good on you and those genetics! (Maybe Vega was secretly Sweedish this entire time… Sexually and Residentially Confused?)
Sooooo, in the interest of getting to know some of you better: what do you do in life? I’m a 4th year Law student, currently uenmployed. Working to get into grad/Law school.
Your turn.
I have it. 
Me 2 :x
The NFL Draft made money more like Hands over Balls.
28 MILLION people for that first day. And its funny because those rookies who are destined to be busts…everyone knows their name…
They can never be like other busts, and live out their lives in obscurity.
I cant even watch Pro ball anymore…wtf is a "touch foul"
Basketball is supposed to have contact!
Also Jokeim Noah and Verajao are long lost twins.
Fuckin flop masters.
We should all get into Starcraft 2.
That shit is hot from what i’ve seen in the Beta.
I like that the game has a serious cult following and Pros.
Its just like SF2
Well about me… I’m a 25 year old married white guy with a two year old daughter and another baby on the way. I have a Ph.D in Economics from George Mason University, and I am currently an associate professor of economics at a school in Central Indiana that I won’t name because I have said some mean things about my dean that I don’t need showing up one day.
Before we compare Starcraft to SF2… lets be fair… Starcraft is in a whole different league. I mean Korea has two full time 24/7 channels dedicated to broadcasting Starcraft matches… there’s just nothing else like it in the world. I can’t watch the NBA but its because the Pacers are terrible. If the Pacers were good I’d be at Conseco every night, its the most beautiful arena (definitely for basketball) anywhere. It’s a shrine to everything Indiana Basketball has ever stood for, and its absolutly beautiful… its a shame the team in it plays like trash… then of course they coudln’t even lose right at the end of the season and took themselves out of the John Wall sweepstakes… idiots…
I do personally prefer college ball though, growing up in Indiana, playing High School basketball here, going to undergraduate here, before doing Ph.D. work in Virginia then coming back… basketball is just a part of Hoosier DNA. Everyone grows up with a hoop in their driveway, we all know how to shoot free throws, I mean if you have ever seen the movie Hoosiers, I mean 50 years have passed, we have electronics and skyscrapers and more people, but the spirit of the poeple here is the exact same, and hence, I love living in Indiana and never want to leave (which is why I still teach at this school I’m at, and haven’t taken an offer to join a different department…
Humm.
21 years old.
Studied to become an English and History teacher but did not feel it was anything for me.
Got a sales job and earned quite a bit of money i was ranked the fourth best salesman in Sweden which was pretty spiffy.
Been living of that money and being lazy for more than a year now. The money is starting to dry up though so i am currently looking around for some new form of education the most interesting one to me at the moment is a Vocational towards Accounting.
I’m far too bored of selling things even though the money is quite good.
Silver, that is very impressive given your age! I’m 24.5 and I won’t even be done Law school 'til I’m 28. Shari - I always thought you were closer to 30, you just have a mature sound.
Well, what’s more impressive is that my wife stayed with me when I told her after we’d been married 18 months that "Hey, GMU offered me a TA position and accepted my application to the Ph.D. program in Economics (where I could then do my specializations in Public Choice Theory and Political Economy) and she said “Okay, its your dream let’s go.” Then she stayed with me while I did it… it’s hard to be a good husband / new father / Ph.D. student! Although somehow I still managed to sleep more than Shari…
So the real impressive one is my wife, but thank you for the compliment. It also helps when you go to college at 16.
I get the impression that the education system in the US is mostly day care for large children, and that there should be more 16 year olds doing that sort of thing.
Well, I went to both high school and then drove for night classes 3 days a week. I would do all my homework on weekends. I didn’t live much of a life outside of Speech / Debate / School work. I can say though, I went to a pretty good high school, my high school education had its uses, but for many, it could be considered teenage day care with special exercizes in social clustering.
I got my education in New York City public schools! Me am very smart thanks to dis!
Hah. I was! I’ve dipped in and out of competitive magic a few times, this was actually when I was most into it. I actually quite loved those times, because I could meta-game so well against Affinity, and the decks at the time were so powerful that it made them predictable. I had a full-bore Ravager Affinity deck myself, and yet I only used it ONCE, because my customised Elf deck (or Elf-Clamp later on) absolutely destroyed it (& everyone else’s Affinity). The funny thing was that the best card in the deck vs Affinity wasn’t even Skullclamp, but Wellwisher. One Wellwisher down and it was pretty much GG vs Affinity. Unfortunately the deck was an auto-loss to Goblins… but it could actually also beat UW control through tricks and surprises - it really helped that I was playing a completely original deck though I doubt it could beat UW control “on paper” without the surprise factor.
Oh and yeh I play XBLA Magic. It’s actually in my top played games since last August according to my raptr. However I’ve not played it much lately as it’s not that great thanks to the lack of balance. Buckets of potential ‘wasted’ IMO, but then, it’s sold well enough so they are probably happy to let it die. sigh Short-term games design 
Both Magic and Starcraft are technically geeky, not nerdy btw. 
And that’s probably a slightly dorky thing for me to say. 
(Take the geek nerd or dork test btw, it’s fun & pretty accurate in my experience. I’m Pure Geek).
As for more about me, hah, all you kiddies I’m 33 and have a degree in Accountancy & Financial Management (started with Economics and switched… huh… odd we are all so financially inclined) when I was 21, but left it behind totally to work in IT. I got my foot in with ISPs at first, now I work full time as a test analyst for HP (was EDS originally). You’ll see my ‘testing’ mind coming to the fore in almost any videogame I play though. It can be pretty dull but I can usually find a few minutes to browse SRK during worktime at least. So it’s not all bad!