With the not-so-subtle changes to the Matchmaking Playlists this week (hallo Big Team Training, bai-bai Team Training), we rounded up some of local toughs to school the Internetz on the new playlist. Since there are no custom games available in the Halo 3 Public Beta we put on our Rigma jackets, played some random dudes and beat them straight out of Beta and back onto Xbox Live Arcade. With your lunch money lining our pockets, here’s who stuffed 18 unlucky jerks into the same locker:
Joseph Staten: Chaingun Mania
Robt McLees: Keymaster to the Storybible’s Gatekeeper
Frank O’Connor: Scottish Treat
Joseph Tung: The Mouth
KP: Long Coattails
Luke Smith: Jerk, Junior Grade
Game 1

Team Slayer High Ground
Tone of Game: A cool African Savannah
On the Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth mini-series, there’s a sequence where an elephant straggles from the herd and is consumed by a pride of lions. On this night, we are that pride of lions – that made these soon-to-be-sad pandas the elephant.
KP patrolled the map precisely with an assault rifle and Frankie did all of the damage he could muster with the ‘Splazer (you know what that is, right?). There wasn’t much drama once we hit 30 kills and they were still in the mid-teens.
In the post-game lobby, one of the kindred spirits took a break from licking his wounds to lazily and earnestly drawl, “Hey, I won that game, too.” The ever-mouthy tiger lily Joe Tung retorted, “I think you have a different understanding of that word.” If that was his idea of victory, the Internet was about to be crowned champion in this epic and poorly-scheduled brawl.
Final Score: 50-31, Us win total
Game 2

Team Slayer Valhalla
Tone of Game: Dragonforce Song
Consider it the equivalent of a water spout – an aquatic tornado , a rare natural phenomenon occured in this game. A Perfection medal. This rare confection's description reads: "Win a Slayer game with 15 kills or more without dying." When KP puts together 19 kills and 0 deaths it would take an unfathomable level of incompetence to somehow lose the round. Try as we did, we failed.
Standing beneath their mancannon with a turret, Staten ripped a gaping hole in their morale. Frankie and Joe Tung took turns shuttling Rob around in a Warthog while we used every single tool to our advantage. They were Jurassic Park's Muldoon to our pack of Toaster Strudel-starved Velociraptors. Clever girl.
Final Score: 50-13, Newbz fail complete
Game 3

Team Slayer Valhalla
Tone of Game: Apologetic
In Big Team Battle, each base on Valhalla has two Mongooses, a Warthog and a Banshee. Sometimes that’s enough for a team, sometimes it isn’t. In this game, it wasn’t enough. It’s one thing to use your own vehicles but another level of jerkdom altogether to take their Warthog and use it against them as opposed to the more kid tested, mother approved "blow it up so they have a chance at fun when it respawns" technique.
With wheelmen Frankie and Joe Tung in leather gloves, Joe Staten and Rob McClees riding the .50, Blue team's spawns were met with either death or frantic, fleeing desperation. When they did manage to escape the jaws of two Warthogs, the Blue team vaulted out of the mancannon and into the center of the map where KP and I waited patiently, like baby birds waiting for Momma Halo to regurgitate victims into our gaping beaks.
This Tour de Struction lasted too long, because when all hope was lost, instead of mancannoning to certain death a couple of whinerbabies ejected themselves back to the lobby and proceeded to microwave hot pockets and sponge their salty tears with snot-caked sweatshirts.
Final Score: 50-25, Quitters never win