The last time Football brought me this level of joy... Okay... that's probably enough gloating for now. Time to return to our regularly scheduled programming. (unless provoked again)
Your hex did nothing to affect the England VS France match, and you know it. You have no more ability to curse or charm the fates of others than I do, or anyone else on this forum for that matter. It was purely down to Kane's incompetence at that last penalty shot. I reckon they should dock the England team 10% of their ludicrous pay for every World Cup they lose, that would stop them passing the ball around in triangles as if it were a Saturday morning kickabout and get them to actually put some more effort into the game. And your beloved Messi and Argentina only won their game down to penalties. Complacency was the downfall of every Sith Lord, and almost shot you and them down in flames. Sounds like they're relying entirely on your magic Messi to win, a weakness that can be exploited. Morocco managed to defeat Ronaldo's Portugal recently, so anything is possible. I can feel your anger... it breaks your focus, makes you weaker. You want to win so badly, eh? You think winning will heal you? Fill some... crater in your soul? Well, here's your answer: Winning isn't everything, and you're simplistic desire to step on me for your personal amusement shows you've still got to man up a bit my friend. A man doesn't aggressively seek petty vengeance purely against a difference in opinion. A man tolerates the opinions of others even if they aren't to his liking, participates in a contest respectfully and with honour, and is magnanimous in both victory and defeat.
Provocation detected. Good! Let the fun commence. What does a lowly Beast Lord know of the inner workings of Tzeentch's mind? Just because such powers are beyond you, does not mean that they are beyond others. It's overwhelming pressure and the power of a potent hex. Even the best players in the world miss penalty shots from time to time... let alone when having to make a game tying penalty with only a few minutes left to play while being hexed. You think they weren't trying to win? You think they would do better if you docked their pay? I wasn't complacent. I said pretty much the exact same thing earlier... I've never once predicted that Argentina will win the whole thing. I would simply like to see it happen. Most definitely. Argentina are vulnerable. They can be beat. Croatia will be an extremely dicey game for them (and that's nothing to say of a potential matchup against France, who might very well be the tournament favorites at this point). I can see them losing to Croatia or France to be honest. Even Messi in his prime (which he no longer is) can't guarantee victory. The best team (usually) wins... not the best player (and even if it was, Mbappe is a more potent player at the moment than current day Messi... alas, father time is undefeated). Argentina have looked exposed at times throughout this tournament. Some Sith you are. I'm the one with the TK army and you are the one without. Do not try to impose onto others deficits which you yourself carry within. "Winning is not everything, but the effort to win is!" Let's not conflate things. You instigated the entire exchange: "That's a shame, I thought it was hilarious when Saudi Arabia beat the Argies. Pity Poland couldn't repeat the trick." That was your magnanimousness? Live by sword, die by the sword my friend. A man defends his ground. You poked the sleeping giant and your national football team paid the price. You're lucky that your fellow countrymen don't know that it was you who brought the hex down upon them. They might drag you out onto the streets and beat you in the rain. And no matter what happens now (even if Argentina gets blown away by Croatia), they did better than England. Be warned, if you should use a potential Argentina exit from the tournament against me, I have an unbeatable counter in my pocket. Just take the "L", there will be other battles in the future (knowing us, probably plenty of battles ). It's all fun and games until somebody gets hexed out of the tournament!
I'm speechless. I thought the Hex was due to the immense, dark power of Hashut. All that reasoning about burning sacrifices and hats height... Cannot believe these are your true colors.
It's all under the Chaos umbrella. Chaos is fickle. Seemed like more of a Tzeentch thing. Hashut would be better represented by casting Flames of Azgorh on @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl 's house... but we don't want to hurt our friend @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl
I doubt that the Raven God, the Changer of Ways, would reveal his true self to a meagre C'Tan Shard I'll accept the non-hex reasoning. That's fair enough. With England it's half and half at this point in time. Sometimes it does look as if they are giving it their all, at other times they just look as though they can't be bothered and just muck about as though they were a 10-year-olds' Saturday morning coaching group. I will say that the current team is a big improvement over the dreadful early 2010s team commanded by the Ogre Bruiser Wayne Rooney (which never put in any effort and was humiliated many times in those painful years), but they still don't put 100% effort in. Bearing this in mind, specifically only pay-cuts in instances where they lose the match through their own silliness (such as when they lost to Croatia in the previous World Cup) would send the message across that they need to attack far more and stop mucking about if they're ever to have a chance at winning the Cup, without being unnecessarily harsh. I've never proclaimed to be a Sith, you know that I've always been the Jedi conscience around here I hardly have these deficits when I have two equally-underpowered Warhammer Fantasy armies at my command - Beastmen and Greenskins - and would have collected Tomb Kings and Bretonnia as well if I had the money and the space. I have always built my armies around what feels thematic and fun, not to mention that I've always advocated for balance over competitiveness in army book design, as you very well know. You're definitely the more competitive one of us two with your threads on Warriors of Chaos and Chaos Dwarf cheese lists. I would agree with that to a point - I would never throw a match and would always do my best to play the game by the rules, though as you've seen I'm always against being over-competitive to the point of gamesmanship. You think I said that specifically to taunt you? At the time I didn't know you were supporting Messi and Argentina (as I didn't pay much attention to your GOAT football player thread and never heard anything about your love of Messi otherwise). That was honestly never intended to wind you up, I was just stating my opinion. Now it's all clear to me, that's why you were getting so worked up about all this - you thought I was trying to troll you and were paying me back for that. That explains a lot.
Shard?! That's your sad Necron world, not mine. I don't see no "Shard of..." precursor in my name. Besides, I predate Matt Ward's shard business... Whatever helps you sleep better at night. They are working their best to win. You've often claimed that you are not an overly-competitive guy... well, these guys are. You can't get to their level if you aren't. They want to win more than you want them to win. The thing is, the French team wants to win just as much. It is exceedingly hard to win the World Cup. 32 teams start (which is not even considering the qualifying rounds just to get into the World Cup tourney) and only 1 team wins. England made it into the final 8. That's not bad, and if you had not forced me to hex them, they might have done even better. What would happen is that none of the top tier players would play under your heavy-handed system. You'd have to settle for third or fourth string players and you would be hard pressed to even make it into the World Cup. You'd also be fired quickly from such a decision-making position. That would explain our constant opposition to one another. You can't fill the void of not having a Tomb Kings army with the likes of Greenskins or Beastmen. It isn't about the power level, its about the grandeur and beauty of a TK army. We do not serve... Of that there is no doubt! As I've said before, when my best buddy and I used to play, it was always about him bringing his best against my best. Nothing short of the strongest lists we could muster. While I can see the rationale of people who want to field fluffy or weak lists, that's not what I find most engaging or interesting. I love ultra competition as long as it is kept fair and in the spirit of the game. The way I see it, play your heart out and give it 100%. Don't cheat and don't engage in underhanded tactics. I didn't think you were taunting me personally, but rather taunting the team that I was supporting. So I took it upon myself to destroy (via hex) the team you were supporting. @Imrahil and myself recently found ourselves on opposite sides in the Argentina versus Netherlands game. But as you can see over the last few thread pages, it never turned into a battle as it did with you and I. He wanted his team to win and I wanted my team to win, but that was it. No taunting... just cheering. We all know that it doesn't take much to get me engaged! I'm always up for some competitive forum fun! You are also quick to engage, I've seen you locked in debate with many other forumites other than myself. We both have similar traits in that regards. It probably came down to the wording. You and I both use strong and sometimes aggressive (not in a rude or attacking way) language. It's direct and more importantly it's passionate... and it can quickly elicit the same in the other. Also, we have a long standing tradition of vehemently disagreeing with one another, so it doesn't take much of a spark to set the fireworks off. In this case it was probably the word 'hilarious'. At the end of the day though, its all just a bit of fun. Plus it gave me a chance to flex my hexing muscles. Shame that a whole nation had to suffer as a result, but there are always casualties in "war". Such considerations are beneath a Star God.
An insight on how the game was perceived by some other Dutch people. Before the game: (These are our King and Queen, she was born in Argentina ) And after the game: Grrr, !mrahil
More Messi magic! On to the finals. France or Morocco... not going to lie, I'd rather Argentina face Morocoo in the finals, but I doubt it. We will see.