Forum Battles: A Strategy Guide

One of my favorite things about 2old2play is the good-natured forum “fights” that you can get into with your friends.  I’m not talking about when folks get nasty over some serious political or religious issue, I’m referring to a good old fashioned “yo mama” type throwdown which can be initiated at any time and for any reason (perhaps for no reason at all).  A game of “dozens” if you are familiar with that term.  Insulting posts fly back and forth with increasingly graphic, profane, and savage imagery until one contender is forced to retire and the victor claims ultimate pwnage. 

In a way, participating in such forum battles is very much like a 1v1 Halo deathmatch.  Each encounter between the combatants plays out in a series of attacks and retreats.  Different weapons are employed depending on the situation at hand, and at the end of the match the most skilled and most strategic player will come out on top.  Now, I’m a rotten Halo player.  I can’t BXB or AXR or whatever the hell kind of controller voodoo the more skillful players are doing.  I don’t have the spawn points memorized and I haven’t got a CLUE what people mean when they say stuff like “the bomb is down near the covie sniper “.  But, I’m a decent forum battler because I’ve got a filthy mind, am cleverer than most, and I never, ever, ever, ever, give up.

Very recently I had a chance to “duke it out” with my long time buddy Raste/Irion. (On the site he is “Irion”, but on XBL it’s “Raste”, so for the sake of simplicity, I’ll just call him Raste throughout the rest of this blog.)   Raste and I have known each other for 13 years, so there is really nothing that is off limits between us.  If you read my blog post about attending his successful doctoral defense you will remember that he “pwned” me with the “mother of all cockpunches” and that I feared I would never recover from that slight.  Well, I found an opening while posting in the A-Team forums last week and decided to exploit it to the fullest.  I have decided to go back over our “match” here and provide some commentary to serve as a kind of strategy guide for people who want to improve their forum fight skillz.  Read, learn, and (hopefully) laugh.

The Challenge

In order to begin a proper forum battle, one must deliver a formal challenge to the desired opponent.  Usually this challenge will take the form of a minor insult.  There is no need to come out guns-a-blazing on the opening salvo, there will be plenty of time for that later.  You just want to throw out something that demands the attention of your intended target, something that will bait them into a response, and THEN you get down to brass tacks.  Think of this like the old Bugs Bunny cartoons where Bugs would slap Elmer Fudd in the face with a glove and challenge him to a duel.

Issuing such a challenge can be fairly straightforward, and doesn’t necessarily need a context to be effective. Consider the following example:

Hey Wally, you are a complete douche-tard.

This statement might result in a forum battle, but because it lacks a larger context and just comes out of the blue it might get lost in the shuffle and be ignored.  It could also just result in a weak response like: “Suck it”, “Go screw” or “Eat a dick”.  None of these really constitutes a battle.  If you really have an urge to draw somebody into a forum rumble you need to do so in a way that tweaks their pride a bit and goads them into firing back a true insult.  Observe:

RatBastard is another “real life” friend of mine and Raste’s (for 11 years now) and is also a member of the A-Team clan.  Last week in the middle of a forum post he and Raste started going back and forth about making plans to meet up:

RatBastard: Raste, when is your punk bitch ass coming to visit?

Raste: End of next week. I'll call ya soon

RatBastard: Sweet!

I spotted an opportunity to draw at least one, and perhaps both, of my friends into a forum battle.  Here is my “challenge post”:

Cranefolder: Use the phone you two retards! Jesus, this forum is not your private message area.

Note that my challenge is directly related to the context of what they were posting.  There can be no doubt that this is a purposeful confrontation and not just a casual insult.  This type of post DEMANDS a response.  I mean, who among you would just let this slide?  I have poked at their pride, and what forum poster worth his salt wouldn’t make at least some attempt to recapture some of that pride through an insult of their own.

Round 1: FIGHT!

You don’t have a forum battle until your challenge has been accepted, and Raste lost no time in delivering his response.  In fact he nearly delivered a knockout blow with his first shot.  Let’s take a look:

Raste: afdlks;hwioehfkoahhd;lkkhdaklfheoqiihgergkldanvdkjknbdiufhewrohdask
ah;sdk;lfhsdaklhsdaoihfowenedsnfkjhs
Sorry that's how I type with your mom on my face!

Wow, that is just a STUNNING display of technique.  Quick, witty, and gross as all hell, Raste knows how to get down to business in a hurry.  Some might say that going for the “your mom” angle was too much too soon because it aims so high that there will be very little headroom left to escalate later attacks, but I disagree.  If you can pull a Mike Tyson and knock your opponent out in the first round, then go for it, but you better make sure you catch them flush.  If you don’t, you may wind up getting “rope-a-doped” just like Muhammad Ali did to George Forman in Zaire.

I won’t lie to you, Raste got me pretty good on that first round.  There was even another member of the clan who tried to count me out.  His name has been changed in the following quote to protect his identity:

CockJockeyKM: SNAP!!!!!!!!!! BBWAAAAAHHHH!!! OMG Crane you got PWND!!!!!!!

If you find yourself in a similar situation during a forum battle, remember this, it’s not over until YOU give up.  Nobody else can say you are pwned.  In the world of forum battling you are only pwned when you stop fighting back.  Nobody thought Ali could beat Foreman, but he used his HEAD instead of his brawn and delivered one of the greatest upsets of all time.  When you get hit hard in the first round you have two choices, throw in the towel, or dig deep and fight back with everything you’ve got.

I chose to fight back.

The Counter-Attack

So now you have delivered a challenge and it has been accepted.  Where do you go from here?  My personal favorite tactic is to use the “judo” approach.  Use your opponents own energy against him.  Redirect every attack he makes back at him (or her if you like to fight women, you sicko), and add just a little bit more effort to really toss him around.  And don’t be a pussy about it.  This is war and you need to pull out all the stops.  No subject is taboo and no image is too extreme.  Your forum reputation is at stake and must be defended with all possible vigor.  Here is my counter-attack:

I can't type when your mom is on my face because that old bitch is so loose that I have to get waist deep in there just so she can feel it. I suppose I could get a wireless keyboard to take on my "Journey to the Center of the Girth". Then I could send out instant messages directly from her cavernous birth canal.

cranefolder: Jesus Christ it stinks like Raste's "special" sock in here!

Here we see the judo philosophy in full force.  I have taken the sting out of Raste’s “I’m doing your mom” overture by simply accepting it.  I take the sting out of his supposed pwnage by essentially saying: “Sure, fine, whatever, so you’re doing my mom while you’re posting in the forums.  I’m doing yours the same way.  So what.”  But then I take it one step farther, adding my own spin to his “on my face” comment.  I take it to a much farther (and “deeper”) extreme, and journey beyond images that are simply disturbing and well into the realm of the surreal.  The idea that his mom is such a used up old hosebag that I actually have to put my entire upper body inside of her for her to feel it is of course ludicrous.  The only human body cavity that could possibly accept such a large foreign mass is WallyBR’s rectum, and that is only because he is constantly stretching it out with ever larger woodland creatures.  (Seriously Wally, you should have stopped with the squirrels.  Nobody would miss them.  But you are over the line with the endangered black bear cubs.  People are starting to talk.)

All of the talk about his mom though is really just the “counter” portion of the “counter-attack”.  The “attack” comes at the very end when I imply something Oedipal might be going on between Raste and his mom.  This sends the ball quite firmly back into his court and there is nothing else I can do but await his return volley.

The Fight Proper

Once you have officially completed a complete “lap” of attack:counter-attack, you can finally consider yourself in the midst of a true forum battle.  Once the battle has been joined you must maintain a laser-like intensity of focus, looking for any weakness in your opponent’s attack.  You may trade many blows back and forth before you see an opening, but when you do you must strike, and strike hard.  Here is Raste’s next jab:

Raste: WTF are you doing going through my fun drawer sniffing my spankerchief? Sniffing my mom's panties or wading hip-deep in her hoo-ha, that's ok...but you don't go messing with another man's spooge rag. That's just nasty!

Oh, now that is just WEAK.  Raste has made no attempt whatsoever to address the devastating attack on his mother’s honor.  He is basically conceding the point that she is a loose woman of ill repute.  For shame.  If you’re going to box you have to know how to block, but Raste just takes this one right on the chin and tries to forge ahead while reeling from an absolutely crushing combination.  As a result, his follow up lacks any sort of power.  What is his point here, that perhaps I seek out his spooge socks and smell them?  Even if I were to concede that, it doesn’t come near to the level of depravity of getting hip deep inside of his mom.  Let’s analyze a bit further where Raste went wrong so that you don’t fall into the same trap.

I know Raste can come up with much better than this, but the first place he went wrong was that he fell into one of the classic blunders of forum battling: posting too quickly.  It is a common mistake and there is no need for it.  You should take your time and carefully weigh each and every post you make as part of a forum battle.  Every word counts and you need to carefully hone each phrase for maximum effect.  Of course, you don’t want to wait too long either, lest your opponent assume you have accepted defeat, but as long as you are making one post a day you should be fine.  Forum battles are much too important to rush.  Just remember that anything worth doing is worth doing right.

The other place where Raste fell short with this post is that he failed to comply with the “law of escalation”. If you look back at the first three posts of the fight you will notice that each one is longer and nastier than its predecessor.  This is natural and you shouldn’t try to fight it.  As the forum battle continues each post should be more profane, more grotesque and more over-the-top.  If you make a post that goes against this natural escalation then you have left yourself wide open.  A savvy opponent (such as myself) will take no pause before gutting you like a fish.

The Finishing Blow

Once your opponent has shown you their weak spot it is time to flip them over and strike for “maximum damage”.  Don’t wuss out now, put that knife in their belly and go for the messy kill.  Here is my “coup-de-grace” which ended the fight and secured my victory:

Cranefolder: Don't get all up tight at me man. I FOUND that rag in there, I didn't take it in with me. If anybody is nasty, it's your mom. You should be asking her what's up before you get all up in my grill. It's like they say: "People in snatch houses shouldn't blow chodes" ... or something like that.

Once again you can see the judo method in full effect.  I make reference to his attack (weak though it may be) and then turn it back against him in the worst possible way.  I also am able to make reference to my previous attack and build upon it’s strength because Raste made no attempt to refute it.  All of my metaphors and insults form together like Voltron to deliver an epic smack-down.  This final bombshell is so disgusting, so raunchy, so mother-fucking (literally) foul, that the mind recoils just contemplating its manifold horrors.  Game, set, match: Cranefolder.

Losing Gracefully

There is one last thing to keep in mind when you decide to enter the world of forum battling, and that is sportsmanship.  Doubtless, you will encounter defeat at some point. (I never have, but you will, I’m sure of it.  Especially if you are foolish enough to call me to the mat.)  How you handle that defeat says as much, or more, about you as how you handle victory.  Raste’s final post is highly instructive in this matter:

Raste: Thanks a lot man. I let Mike read this thread and he laughed so hard he died...now I'm out a bowling partner!

Here we see the epitome of a true gentleman forum brawler.  Raste concedes defeat with grace and gives up some props.  This shows that there are no hard feelings and that he is accepting his fate without whining.  No excuses are given, just a head nod and a “touché”, showing respect for his opponent and for the game.  If you find yourself in Raste’s position someday, struck down by an unstoppable barrage of expert attacks, don’t just abandon the thread like some teenage douchebag.  Instead, hold your head up high and acknowledge your defeat, because it is the only way you will be able to retain any amount of respect.

Conclusion

I hope you have found the information in this forum battling strategy guide to be helpful.  Knowing how to properly challenge, counter-attack and finish a forum battle is essential to success and if you study the wisdom of these paragraphs carefully I think you will find that such battles can be intensely rewarding.  So have fun out there, and be safe.

And lastly, remember this: don’t fuck with me in the forums unless you can take the pain.  I am a serious wordsmith with a filthy mind on overdrive and nothing but time.  I will bring your world to ruin without breaking a sweat.

Have a nice day.

**Last minute edit**

Before I had a chance to post this, yet another member of my clan made a serious error in judgment by posting a comment about me in our A-Team forums.  He had posted a photo of himself chugging a bottle of Mountain Dew Game Fuel and then unwisely added this comment:

CockJockeyKM: Crane I know that pic probably looks real familiar to you, but then it wouldn't be a bottle of Game Fuel but some douche's penis right? Why do I have this feeling that I just pressed the button on world war 3 for myself.

(Sigh) I guess some guys just have to learn the hard way.  I’ll probably post an update later with the full carnage report.