So, who's seen Avengers 2? My short review: I think it's on par with the first Avengers movie in that the pacing's a little better, but the writing's a little worse. I'll go into more detail below, with spoilers.
First of all, let's discuss what I think is the major flaw of the writing: the characters haven't really progressed, or worse, regressed since the last Avengers. The big example here is Bruce Banner (I'll get to him later,) but Tony's progressive attitude and Steve's conservative attitude pretty much get boiled down to "Tony's a dick, and Steve's also a dick but Steve being a dick won't possibly kill everyone." Thor is pretty much only present in the story during fight scenes, which I think is why Steve gets played up harder since Thor's whole take on the creation of Ultron is hamfistedly stated by Tony to leave things as they are. Not to mention, I don't really follow the comics, but how does Thor stepping into some magic water magically let him help create the Vision?
Hoo boy, let's get to Bruce. Before I get started, let me say that Hulk's always been my favorite Avenger and the 2007 Hulk movie still stands as my personal favorite MCU flick. Seriously, it's like they just took him from the beginning of THAT movie and slapped him in here. He's lost any ability to really control the monster (something he's pretty much able to do since the original Avengers movie) or to control turning back and forth (the Lullaby? Really, did we need to make Bruce look any more like a wuss?) and that's just power nerfs. Bruce as a character is literally just "Should I help Tony Stark create Skynet, or maybe it's not such a good--Okay Tony, I'll help you." and "I'm so afraid of the monster inside me! Help me Black Widow!" Not to mention that Mark Ruffalo looks like he just crawled out of his warm cardboard box this morning for most of the movie. And if Hulk's supposed to be the dumb muscle again, why the **** is he able to fly the goddamn plane at the end of the film?
This was clearly intended to be Hawkeye's "justification as a superhero" movie, the problem being that Hawkeye as a hero and a character kind of failed in the last movie (where he spent a good part of it possessed) and he doesn't really do a whole lot here either. The whole subplot about him and his girlfriend/wife/whatever's house to hideout in could've easily been replaced with one of the many hideouts established by Bruce (who was actually on the run from the law in his movie) and his only redeeming factor is the speech he gives to Scarlet Witch at the end. I feel like they could've just given all of Hawkeye's duties in this movie and split them up between Bruce and Natasha.
Black Widow also gets a lot of screentime, but besides the cheesy subplot of her relationship with Bruce, she's pretty good overall. They could've taken another pass at some of the scenes that she gets stunt doubled in though.
Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are pretty cool, although the accent starts to get a little grating after a while. Does Quicksilver having a different origin story/being dead prevent an XMen/Avengers crossover movie from happening in the current MCU?
Ultron, for being Skynet in an Iron Man suit, is written pretty awkwardly. When was the Ultron program being developed? How does killing all of humanity help humanity evolve? Why does Jarvis not immediately terminate the Ultron program once they find a combination that "works" so Tony can examine/debug it before actually running it? Why is what is intended to be a global defense program so sarcastic? If Ultron is backed up on the internet, why does he need to be physically connected to the Cocoon thing to upload into it?
The Vision, for only being in the last part in the movie, definitely stands out for being among the best performances in the film as a whole. Bettany did a hell of a job making the character seem, paradoxically naive and omniscient.
Where the movie shines though is in it's improved pacing. The slow moments of the film are compounded by enough tension to make them speed by and get back to the action. And in a movie that's about superheroes fighting supervillains, that's a definite plus. The action scenes are still plenty packed and well-choreographed, the humor is sharp and funny (The Hulk VS Hulkbuster Iron Man fight is the last Avengers Hulk VS Loki fight moment) and it definitely feels like a complete film by itself. What should be noted though, is that Whedon's original take on the movie clocked in at over three hours, and it's believed that the extended cut will find its way onto Blu-Ray (hopefully DVD as well,) so I'm pretty interested to see what got left on the cutting room floor.
Ultimately, for all I've griped and groaned, Avengers 2: Age of Ultron is the summer popcorn flick everybody expected it to be and more. Hardcore fans may be turned off by some of the liberties and oversights with the narrative, but it's definitely worth at least one viewing.
Finally watched it tonight. I concur with your spoiler. Decent film all in all, but not good enough to feel like it should be an Avengers movie. I did like the Ant-Man preview though.
Read through all the nominations in the dream banlist thread. I can't help but think how boring the format would be if we banned every card that some group of people don't like.
Last time we had the banned list poll, I looked at my decks to see how many cards I'd lose if the RC decided to ban everything. It was only 4 cards at the time: Strip Mine, Metalworker, Sol Ring, and Crucible of Worlds.
Usually the cards not already on the banned list fall into a few categories: powerful tutors or mana rocks that the competitive crowd wants banned, a powerful commander, MassLD/lockdown cards, played in every deck that it is in color for tier goodstuff, and pieces of well known 2 card combos. I'd expect this time to be similar.
Read through all the nominations in the dream banlist thread. I can't help but think how boring the format would be if we banned every card that some group of people don't like.
I don't think that's a fair format. Why don't we ban bad players?
It's not cards that ruin the game play, it requires bad players who don't know the right timing for cards
A deck with Black Lotus isn't unfair if you have 2 spells and 57 lands.
I hope no one follow these rules because it just shows the lack of skill , innovation, and adaptation for the meta.
Do you know what happened when Sundering Titan got banned? I started playing Armageddon and Catayclsm.
Do you know what happened when Braids, Cabal Minion got banned entirely? I play more Sculpting Steel in conjunction with Phyrexian Metamorph for Smokestack. I also removed Imperial Recruiter from my R/B/x because she was the main target next to Dark Confidant.
I don't think that's a fair format. Why don't we ban bad players?
It's not cards that ruin the game play, it requires bad players who don't know the right timing for cards
A deck with Black Lotus isn't unfair if you have 2 spells and 57 lands.
I hope no one follow these rules because it just shows the lack of skill , innovation, and adaptation for the meta.
Do you know what happened when Sundering Titan got banned? I started playing Armageddon and Catayclsm.
Do you know what happened when Braids, Cabal Minion got banned entirely? I play more Sculpting Steel in conjunction with Phyrexian Metamorph for Smokestack. I also removed Imperial Recruiter from my R/B/x because she was the main target next to Dark Confidant.
So why does Wizards ban cards in their formats? Surely those tournament players aren't bad, right?
I'm learning to ride an unicycle. But no one knows. I sneaked out of the house at midnight and came back at 2, went to the local park. Thing is, I don't think I had it set up properly, so I couldn't sit on it. I has to flex my legs and center body to stay on it. now my legs lower core and arms hurt
Plus falling.
I did make progress. I cna notice I'm good at falling now.
Read through all the nominations in the dream banlist thread. I can't help but think how boring the format would be if we banned every card that some group of people don't like.
Definitely a good idea of Cryo and ISB's to keep posts strictly to suggestions. A couple of them have me grinding my teeth and I'm nowhere near the spikiest of players.
Read through all the nominations in the dream banlist thread. I can't help but think how boring the format would be if we banned every card that some group of people don't like.
Yes, exactly. And it hasn't even gotten into some of the more innocent cards that people don't like.
Meanwhile, I just heard that my university club lost their room for the summer due to renovations. Funny thing is that I'm the one of the two people in charge of activities. This is going to be great... >_>
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Also modgaming Bur setups is kind of treading down a dark path
I like how whenever you see a Modern Masters discussion thread, after a certain point the posts change from "this set is awesome, I can't wait to draft/crack it!" abruptly to "this sucks wtf wizards magic is dead".
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A mirror, a shield, a promise, a great distance, and a kind word-- five ways to avoid harm.
I'm learning to ride an unicycle. But no one knows. I sneaked out of the house at midnight and came back at 2, went to the local park. Thing is, I don't think I had it set up properly, so I couldn't sit on it. I has to flex my legs and center body to stay on it. now my legs lower core and arms hurt
Plus falling.
I did make progress. I cna notice I'm good at falling now.
I have to ask why you're sneaking out in the middle of the night to learn to ride a unicycle. Is that a euphemism for something entirely different?
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
I am litterally leaving in the middle of the night to go ride a unicycle in the park.
It's still a perfect innuendo for nothing in particular. Reminds me of the Whose Line sketch where every line ended with "if you know what I mean."
The middle of the night question was semi-serious, though. I'm not quite sure why you're hiding your unicycle riding. I went to school with someone who was a mountain unicyclist. It was pretty impressive, from what I saw.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
It's a spectrum, but for simplicity, you can just group them.
People almost always play to win but some go by:
Anything legal goes.
I want it fun.
And the other side would be:
I don't care what others think.
I care what people think.
I'm leaning "I care what people think" and "Anything legal goes".
Here's how I imagine the four combinations:
I want it fun.
I care what people think.
These people don't play "douchey" decks, and they try to understand how the other players feel about the game. Don't have much to say about this. They might express disinterest in certain decks, but might try to talk people out of playing douchey things.
Anything legal goes.
I care what people think.
People here (like me) try to be ready for anything. I don't have a problem with anything (I do, however, like to be warned of what to expect) and I tend to build decks that match those who I play with. They go from very casual to BUG Doomsday Storm Combo.
I want it fun.
I don't care what others think.
These people I see advocating kicking players out of groups and ignoring people who play "douchey" decks. Play like me or you're playing wrong.
Anything legal goes.
I don't care what others think.
These are the players that bring their highly tuned decks with Mass LD, Stax, Combo, locks to the casual table and complain about the scrubs being bad players and being butthurt. And I'll do it again, cause it's unbanned. I'm not here to please anyone, I'm here to win.
Now this is obviously HEAVILY biased. I wrote it. People of different categories probably think as weirdly about my category as I think of the others.
I think that people are also not strictly split across either of the two axes. I've met a lot of players who are in the middle on caring what others think, but have a particular mindset as to what should be legal, or others who want to remove a few things that they feel shouldn't be legal but not necessarily just because those cards aren't fun.
I'm of the mind that anything legal goes and I want it fun. I play games to have fun. I like playing games with folks who follow the rules and are having fun, too.
As for the other two categories, I personally find them problematic in practice. Too often for my liking, folks have expectations that they have not expressed beforehand. Because I like playing with whatever cards are in my deck and because I like playing EDH without house rules, I don't intentionally choose to play with folks who have banned strategies or cards not on the Ruling Committee's banlist. Really, I'd rather lose repeatedly to someone with a multi-thousand dollar deck than play cardboard Candyland. I have no patience for arguments against combo or mass land removal since many of those arguments are presented as objective fact rather than personal preference.
I care about respecting the people I'm playing with and being respected by them.
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There are no divisions: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. -Galatians 3:28
Finally watched it tonight. I concur with your spoiler. Decent film all in all, but not good enough to feel like it should be an Avengers movie. I did like the Ant-Man preview though.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
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GUB [Retired Primer] The Mimeoplasm BUG
Modern: UR Storm RU
Cube: WUBRG Pauper Cube GRBUW
Credit for the banner goes to DarkNightCavalier at Heroes of the Plane Studios
Usually the cards not already on the banned list fall into a few categories: powerful tutors or mana rocks that the competitive crowd wants banned, a powerful commander, MassLD/lockdown cards, played in every deck that it is in color for tier goodstuff, and pieces of well known 2 card combos. I'd expect this time to be similar.
I don't think that's a fair format. Why don't we ban bad players?
It's not cards that ruin the game play, it requires bad players who don't know the right timing for cards
A deck with Black Lotus isn't unfair if you have 2 spells and 57 lands.
I hope no one follow these rules because it just shows the lack of skill , innovation, and adaptation for the meta.
Do you know what happened when Sundering Titan got banned? I started playing Armageddon and Catayclsm.
Do you know what happened when Braids, Cabal Minion got banned entirely? I play more Sculpting Steel in conjunction with Phyrexian Metamorph for Smokestack. I also removed Imperial Recruiter from my R/B/x because she was the main target next to Dark Confidant.
So why does Wizards ban cards in their formats? Surely those tournament players aren't bad, right?
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Plus falling.
I did make progress. I cna notice I'm good at falling now.
Definitely a good idea of Cryo and ISB's to keep posts strictly to suggestions. A couple of them have me grinding my teeth and I'm nowhere near the spikiest of players.
You kids nowadays and your unicycles and skateboards and marijuana and death metal music. I'm frightened to leave the house these days.
Playtesting | Karador, Ghost Chieftain | Narset, Enlightened Master | Ephara, God of the Polis
Established | Gahiji, Honored One | Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker | Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo | Rubinia Soulsinger
Retired | Medomai the Ageless | Diaochan, Artful Beauty
Yes, exactly. And it hasn't even gotten into some of the more innocent cards that people don't like.
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Non-Staff Quasi-ModMeanwhile, I just heard that my university club lost their room for the summer due to renovations. Funny thing is that I'm the one of the two people in charge of activities. This is going to be great... >_>
The middle of the night question was semi-serious, though. I'm not quite sure why you're hiding your unicycle riding. I went to school with someone who was a mountain unicyclist. It was pretty impressive, from what I saw.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Current Decks
GTitania midrange
RGThromok tokens/goodstuff | UB Grimgrin zombie tribal
GW Sigarda enchantress | R Godo voltron
U Braids aggro | WR Kalemne punisher
RU Mizzix storm | BUG Mimeoplasm competitive reanimator | UG Ezuri infect
Unfortunatly, like most, I prefer the group that I am a part of.
What would you say those types are?
It's a spectrum, but for simplicity, you can just group them.
People almost always play to win but some go by:
Anything legal goes.
I want it fun.
And the other side would be:
I don't care what others think.
I care what people think.
I'm leaning "I care what people think" and "Anything legal goes".
Here's how I imagine the four combinations:
I want it fun.
I care what people think.
These people don't play "douchey" decks, and they try to understand how the other players feel about the game. Don't have much to say about this. They might express disinterest in certain decks, but might try to talk people out of playing douchey things.
Anything legal goes.
I care what people think.
People here (like me) try to be ready for anything. I don't have a problem with anything (I do, however, like to be warned of what to expect) and I tend to build decks that match those who I play with. They go from very casual to BUG Doomsday Storm Combo.
I want it fun.
I don't care what others think.
These people I see advocating kicking players out of groups and ignoring people who play "douchey" decks. Play like me or you're playing wrong.
Anything legal goes.
I don't care what others think.
These are the players that bring their highly tuned decks with Mass LD, Stax, Combo, locks to the casual table and complain about the scrubs being bad players and being butthurt. And I'll do it again, cause it's unbanned. I'm not here to please anyone, I'm here to win.
Now this is obviously HEAVILY biased. I wrote it. People of different categories probably think as weirdly about my category as I think of the others.
As for the other two categories, I personally find them problematic in practice. Too often for my liking, folks have expectations that they have not expressed beforehand. Because I like playing with whatever cards are in my deck and because I like playing EDH without house rules, I don't intentionally choose to play with folks who have banned strategies or cards not on the Ruling Committee's banlist. Really, I'd rather lose repeatedly to someone with a multi-thousand dollar deck than play cardboard Candyland. I have no patience for arguments against combo or mass land removal since many of those arguments are presented as objective fact rather than personal preference.
I care about respecting the people I'm playing with and being respected by them.
I want to have fun = Hugs
Everything Goes = Hardball
----
I care what people think = Friendly
I don't care what people think = Spiteful