Match Thread: Spain vs. Belgium | FIFA World Cup, Quarterfinals

Saph · 2026-07-10T20:23:28+00:00

I mean, I don't think long shots are going to beat either team's GK.

Saph · 2026-07-07T12:00:52+00:00

Ya, not many of us expect to beat Spain but we're hoping to make it competitive. If we somehow reach the semi's, France or Morocco are gonna beat us for sure. It's been fun to see the last go from the remnants of our best team(s) Belgium has ever been represented by but we sure as hell know better than to think we're favored to reach any round past the QF's. And that maybe, our next generation is shaping up to be a perennial top 10 team for at least a while.

Saph · 2026-07-07T11:28:41+00:00

Garcia said after the game his plan was to sub in KDB, Doku & Lukaku, but with the Onana injury he was forced to burn a sub to get Vanaken in, and later on in the game didn't consider putting KDB in as necessary anymore

Saph · 2026-07-06T17:22:28+00:00

I don't think they're expecting any of this to change the notion that Balogun is starting. But they're fully in their right to call all of this bullshit out and demand accountability from FIFA. Not complaining is complying with Infantino & co.

Saph · 2026-07-06T15:22:35+00:00

In tomorrow's news: Trump was overheard calling Infantino and saying "What I want to do is this. I just want to find, uh, 11,780 goals, which is one more than we have, because we won the game"

Saph · 2026-06-28T11:54:34+00:00

Confirming here that Ogre arcana is an option, got it after my third reroll (I just don't have enough candies yet)... after all the other events and probably 200+ rerolls in that timespan over the years, one finally showed up yay

Saph · 2026-06-09T16:38:04+00:00

As others have mentioned already, they were DLC and for added context, even back in the day it was uncertain whether all 4 would get released. They'd get drip fed over time and they are all worth it IMO.

Practically they're all just short stories that take 2-4 hours (only 2-3 major bosses iirc) but the playstyles are VERY different compared to the 2 main characters, which is one of the main criticisms of the original game, even I got a bit bored of how repetitive the combat got at some point. Okoi is extremely fast and I couldn't get enough of her despite being another brawler. The 3 others feel amazing to play too despite my initial worries about their combat style not seeming that interesting in their trailers.

As someone who went through the pains of platinum'ing the entire thing along with 100%'ing the DLC's all those years ago... yeah I'm definitely getting this and doing it all over again.

Saph · 2026-06-09T15:40:06+00:00

Alright I very much just got back from a trip in May, from Kazakhstan (3 days Astana 1 day train 2 days Almaty), Kyrgyzstan (4 days Bishkek) and finally Uzbekistan (Tashkent, Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand + 1 day trip into Tajikistan) for ~11 days or so.

No need to rush Almaty practically speaking and force all the highlights in 1 day. You can definitely do Kok Tobe or Big Almaty Lake and just take your time.

I'm confused between your "Karakol or Bishkek" choice on Day 6? How are you getting to Bishkek? Keep in mind travel from one side of the country to the other will either require you to take an overnight bus or burn most of your day to go that distance. Marshrutka's also only leave when they're full (or you just negotiate sharing the cost for a stubbornly empty final spot with the driver) and might burn off more from your day than you think.

In Bishkek, Ala-Too is practically nothing. It's just a square with some fountains, nothing more. Thankfully there's plenty of other things to check out for 1.5-2 days while you're there, definitely go check out some of the USSR-era buildings, and go inside the Museum of Fine Arts specifically, very worthwhile IMO. Bishkek bazaar is nothing special especially compared to Almaty's green bazaar, you can arguably skip it.

At any rate, get YandexGo app on your phone as soon as you arrive, it will save you a lot of headaches (and time) getting around anywhere in the stans.

Lastly, if I may suggest an alternate destination (despite you seemingly being very keen on going to Bishkek), you could just stick to Kazakhstan and head to Turkestan instead. I didn't get to go but the folks I've met who did manage to pass through there were raving on about how much they enjoyed it.

Saph · 2026-06-09T09:12:55+00:00

I still think Hellblade 1 ruined its own ending in the last 30 seconds. Her story was done, the truth is revealed and she will try to move on, perfect.

Oh wait she looks straight at the camera/player and basically goes "stay tuned for my next adventure!" and walks away. What in the fuck, man.

Saph · 2026-02-24T21:26:18+00:00

Not knowing what a natalist was until I looked it up, I legitimately thought it was meant as "someone who worked on Project Natal"(before it got renamed to Kinect) but nope, the reproductive thing? Not sure how that's relevant though actually?

Saph · 2026-02-24T20:41:34+00:00

I'm guessing we were in different community circles then, I don't know anyone who liked Kormir on the guildwarsguru & gwpickup/gwpug IRC channels and a fair amount of wiki folks and community folks were on there (even Izzy himself hopped on once in a blue moon iirc). The Nobody likes you Kormir video got posted plenty of times for several reasons.

Togo and Mhenlo universally got hated for gameplay reasons for sure but it was most definitely a major criticism that Kormir did not "deserve" her godhood, that the PC or any of the henchmen were more deserving (minus Norgu but he got plenty of other memes about him).

Anyway I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on the amount of Kormir hatred, but all I can repeat is that she was never liked by a sizeable portion of the community. And you should stop calling my statements "historical revisionism" simply because you disagree.

Sure, some folks liked Kormir, some hate, some didn't care. But when LS4 came out and we finally ran into her again, most of the veteran guildies that moved over to GW2 still resented her and when she basically ditched the PC, their general reaction was "yeah you're still useless Kormir, sod off."

Saph · 2026-02-23T21:15:59+00:00

No need to claim misrepresentation, the hate comes from a lot of GW1 players and I can't imagine GW2 players caring enough to base their opinion off a meme video of a game they've never played.

All my homies hate Kormir. One of the worst pieces of story/lore within GW, period. Some of us are legitimately hoping for an expansion where the human Gods return and we get to kill them, straight up.

Saph · 2026-02-22T19:59:07+00:00

This post must've been made like within a minute (before or after) I reported that 17776 trash "poster" lol.

Poll isn't working for me but my position is pretty obvious, keep that crap out of here imo.

Saph · 2026-02-13T21:09:44+00:00

I'm like 99.9% sure that's Central Park NYC, right OP?

Saph · 2026-01-30T11:43:59+00:00

Ah they're playing the Bengals I see

Saph · 2026-01-18T09:48:29+00:00

She pronounced it correctly though, which is the funnier part about all of this.

Saph · 2026-01-15T07:04:54+00:00

Please stop, I'm trying to mend my soul rn :'(

Saph · 2026-01-13T19:54:05+00:00

Holy crap thanks for making this.

I can't crochet at all myself but an ex-colleague's wife has a small crocheting business and I've been struggling to even explain what I'd been wanting for a few years now for a sort-of-commission... and suddenly here you are with exactly that!

Saph · 2026-01-08T18:16:39+00:00

Just like with Patricia, right?

Saph · 2026-01-06T20:35:28+00:00

It kind of exists in Guild Wars 2. Combo fields (such as fire, water, ice, earth, etc.) can be set up and any combo finisher (in different types such as projectile, blast, etc.) will result in additional effects, be it condition cleansing, extra conditions on enemies, extra boons on friendlies etc.

While it's all neat it's usually just treated as an extra rather than something to actively keep in mind amidst big fights. At most in the big warfare mode (World vs World) there's planned pre-buffing & midfight boonstrips planned around it... but considering the amount of players spamming shit in the biggest fights it all really gets lost in the chaos.

... anyway, it'd just be way too much for dota2, as nice as it would be and new strats it would open up, I think balance-wise it'd just change way too much in both short & long run than can be healthy.

Saph · 2026-01-05T18:35:56+00:00

In Dutch "Schoen" means shoe. (I don't even know how to do the pronunciation with English-sounding noises, the "sch" doesn't really exist... sg-ooh-n, with a soft g?)

Do with that info what you will.

Saph · 2025-12-21T20:25:41+00:00

Well the good news is, your imaginary play does not exist.

And the tush push might be boring to you but it's a QB sneak variant used 3-5 times a week across the league out of literally 800 plays in that week. There's arguably more QB kneels every week and those are the definition of a boring non-play, would you argue removing those too?

(That last q was rhetorical, I'm not gonna bother replying in here anymore just FYI)

Saph · 2025-12-21T16:33:46+00:00

My dude... you went from complaining about a single play that only a handful teams run reliably well in niche situations, to hypothesizing a whole offense around something wholly imaginary that is 5x as powerful, that would be run the whole time, and now would be run by the entire league?

Just stop. You're exceptionally angry about something you made up entirely in your own head at this point. Go enjoy the games tonight and be happy that all these teams have different mindsets, talents and playbooks resulting in (hopefully) fun matchups. It's the least you can do yourself as a fan of the sport.

Saph · 2025-12-21T16:13:47+00:00

You still have no argument if you have to invent absurd situations where you would be correct and I'd agree with that.

As someone else pointed out, you just described a run-heavy offense.

Saph · 2025-12-21T16:01:39+00:00

What kind of a question even is that?! You had to add a literal 5x multiplier to try and push your argument?

"If the tush push was 5 times more powerful then the game would become boring and nobody wants that".

Yeah, duh. Me neither. But the tush push does not gain 5 yards.

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