Welp.
Sorry for not posting a few days. Few things.
First, Battle For Zendikar Game Day yesterday - the result for me? A resounding loss. If there was a wooden spoon it would have been mine. First two games were just me being overwhelmed by four colour threat decks...just too many things for me to deal with, can't exile all the things.
The third game was a Bant Token deck zerging me...
And the fourth game I got screwed in the second and third games by too little mana or too much mana with none of my fetches showing up to help me cycle. I even won the first game of the fourth match with ease...
So, let's look at our deck objectively shall we?
Grixis Eldrazi - The Disappointment
Oh dear. Where to begin. First, let's look at our land base.
The Shrines of the Forsaken Gods...did nothing. Ultimately I felt there were times that a basic land would have done better. There simply wasn't anything 'big' and colorless that I could have used the ramp for. So, lesson learned...nice as these are in concept, they're going to be dropped. Even in a deck where I may want to ramp some fatties these things punish me elsewhere. When you have a shrine instead of a basic you cannot do anything really. The only way you could really avoid being too heavily punished is if you ran a true colourless deck...but in Standard? Nope. You can't survive off the handful of Colorless Eldrazi and artifacts alone.
The second thing is...a lack of direction. I had control elements, I had aggro elements. I didn't have true dedication to go one direction or the other. Ultimately I should have. I can't just half-ass it. This is something from my wargaming side that's affecting me...I try to make armies etc. that are all rounders...not so much extremes. With Magic? I need to prepare to go into an extreme.
So, yeah.
This Friday I can start to make amends. I've realised that I can splash to 4 colours like I wanted...mana fixing is so easy until Khans rotates out.
So I present my newer idea. It can still be refined before FNM this Friday, but I am thinking of more aggro, mixing in green and splashing some blue for minor control elements.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/jund-blue-eldrazi-reworked/
Yay learning.
Now in other business...
TV. That wonderful thing. Time to go straight with what I feel most comfortable and knowledgeable about.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
We're not going into episode reviews yet. Just a preliminary summary in preparation for Tuesday. Can I just say that I absolutely love this aspect of Marvel? This gigantic, universal continuity they decided to keep when they tentatively released Iron Man and have maintained ever since? Nothing against DC's own programming, but something about this maintained continuity just lends itself to loyalty from a viewer...it rewards you for sticking with them.
Not only did the movies start to link bit by bit from one to the other...but they then went and spawned a TV series. Which then started referencing the movies. And then started to fill in the gaps between some of the movies or portrayed what happened behind the scenes.
In the meantime DC have sort of never had this. The closest they get is the Arrow/Flashverse setting (now with added Vixen) but sadly they've already confirmed that Justice League and Suicide Squad are building around the Man of Steel movie setting rather than the much stronger, much more consistent TV series.
What makes this even worse...is the fact that Man of Steel's pedigree is 3 years old. And in that time they've effectively rebooted Batman twice (Gotham and Batman vs Superman) from the Nolan films and with Supergirl this is, what, the 4th or 5th Superman setting reboot we've had?
Iron Man came out in 2008. And has maintained, on the most part, the same actors in the same roles and what's better is that these movie-versions don't really stray that far from their comic counterparts. They really don't. The characters are very true to their base, whereas in Man of Steel Superman casually allowed half a damn city to be murdered through collateral damage. Ooops.
Back on track though - Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a pretty bold move for Marvel. A TV series based off the movies, connecting to the movies and maintaining the continuity. Very difficult to do and plan ahead for with filming schedules and the like. But they have done it. They have made it work. And Marvel have not only had yet another prime-time mainstream TV series on the same premise, exploring even more aspects (Agent Carter) but have also accepted that some of their characters would benefit even more from the opportunities presented by the unrated options of Netflix.
And even more appropriately, the characters appearing in the Netflix series are their street level characters - so the absence of S.H.I.E.L.D., the blissful ignorance of floating cities and alien invasions aren't that painful. Because they would never be a priority at street level, nor would street level vigilantes gather the attentions of the higher ups. Plus it's allowing Marvel to restore some of their tarnished, formerly licensed characters back to a semblance of belonging.
Daredevil season 2 will see Elektra and the Punisher (who was hinted as a sort of unofficial Easter Egg in Winter Soldier), as well as ties to Jessica Jones (who can potentially link in to Spider-Man if Sony let Marvel have more freedom with the character), Luke Cage and Iron Fist.
Another key thing to note - all these street level characters...along with Spider Man and Wolverine formed a 'new' Avengers team. If Marvel can get their rights back - and we've seen it start to happen, particularly with the rumours about the Fantastic Four then we could be in for a treat following their Infinity Gauntlet plans!
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