#from* seasons 1 and 2 bc I didn’t really see the point in watching non-Steve scenes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bylerly · 5 years

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alright everyone. after my rush of emotions after that season, i’ve had time to decompress, and make an actually cohesive list of my thoughts about the season. as you could probably guess - MAJOR SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!

first, let’s get the (much) shorter list out of the way. here’s what I enjoyed:

the acting. i want to mention how good millie was, because she was fantastic, but i almost feel like i shouldn’t, bc el took SO MUCH screen and plot time, that millie was given every opportunity to be good. she doesn’t really need any more special mention. otherwise - noah (with the little he was given) and sadie were particularly great. so were winona & david, but that goes without saying.

the elmax friendship. these two deserved it. and max bringing el out of her shell, showing her how to become her own person.... incredible. 10/10 i love them both

alexei. feels weird saying this, but he was probably the new addition I enjoyed watching the most. it would have been kind of cool to see him live past season 3.

an lgbt+ confirmed character. this one is a little.... tricky for me. as happy as I am that there is a queer woman written into the show... I feel like it’s a cop out to not have to confirm will’s sexuality. robin confirms her sexuality in less than a season, but after three with will, we still only get ~subtext~? still, this is a positive portion, so.... I guess that was something I was happy with

el moving in with the byers at the end. finally. this is one of the only things that is keeping me excited for s4. i guess i can only hope for there to FINALLY be some good willel interactions next season, but if this season has taught me anything, it’s not to get my hopes too high :-)

jancy ending s3 on a good note. parts of their storyline were fantastic, some were disappointing. but i really dug their dynamic, and the realistic struggle between the two of them, with nancy not really understanding jonathan’s class struggles, and jonathan not grasping the weight of the misogyny being thrown at nancy. their final moments at the empty byers house at the end were especially lovely.

el no longer being OP, and not being undefeatable. i love el. i really, genuinely do. i love her character, i love her traits, i lover her power. but the duffers were relying too heavily on her to constantly save the day with her powers, and it was happening too often. one of the faults of s2 was the constant thought of how easily el could’ve fought off all these threats if she was just there. i think it’s incredibly interesting to not only see her get completely worn out, but totally lose her powers. like mike said, i’m sure they’ll come back, but i want so badly for el to not just be defined by her powers.

a platonic m/f friendship. yes, one of them is confirmed queer, and they would’ve probably been romantically linked if she was straight. but i’ll take what i can get when it comes to this. platonic opposite sex relationships?? r i s e

now for the meat of my thoughts ~ what I didn’t like:

mike’s characterization. the writers completely made him into a dick this season. i get it, he’s a teenager, so he’s going to be an asshole sometimes. hell, in a recent post, I defended that, saying it’s good writing. but I underestimated just how awful he’d be, completely blowing off his friends for any chance for a second alone with el. I understand that he loves his girlfriend of course, but s1-2 mike loved his friends just as much. he was so utterly unlikable this season, that it seemed like he was a different character.

lucas as comic relief. this is so lazy, and i’m so angry for both the character and caleb, both of whom deserve so much better. he really had nothing to do if it wasn’t related to max, and the writers further reduced him down to a one-dimensional, kind of dumb, mediocre boyfriend, and that is not the highly intelligent, brave, kind lucas that i know and love.

will’s sidelining. god, this made absolutely no sense. noah fucking shined last season. he stole pretty much the entire thing. every critic, even those who disliked the season, had nothing but good things to say about his performance. furthermore, will has so much potential in so many different directions in so many aspects of his character. however, once he revealed to his friends that he was feeling the upside down/MF’s presence... they may as well have written out his character. he was sidelined almost to the point of background character. they gave him very little to do emotionally after that castle byers scene, and even fewer lines.

total lack of willel scenes. phew, if this wasn’t a bummer. will spoke a single line to el, and maybe one or two throwaway lines about her. if there is one thing most of the fans can agree on, it’s that will and el have the biggest connection to the upside down, the biggest unspoken connection, the most parallels, and the most intriguing potential relationship... and they really just said “fuck it” and didn’t have them interact at all. (that’s poor writing folks!) they better make up for this now that they’re living together.

amount of eleven scenes. i love her so dearly. i really do. and i’m so happy she grew into her own, not through mike or hopper. but the amount of el plot and screen time this season was actually difficult to watch. every other scene centered around her. so many characters and so much of the story went undeveloped, while she got way, way more than was necessary. additionally, take any kid’s plot (other than dustin), and guaranteed, it revolved around el. people were starting to catch on that the show was favoring her character more than even most shows’ mains.... and this season took it to a level i actual didn’t think it would.

the comedy. it was so awkwardly written. so much of it threw off the pace of the show. it seemed forced, and just... not very stranger things-esque, where the comedy was typically well-written and blended into dialogue.

the baddies. this was a huge letdown, too. i understand that the monster was large, but it was far less menacing to me than, say, the MF’s physical form. it had gore points, sure. it felt incredibly boring and predictable. in the same vein, i thought the ‘zombie’ style storyline of heather & co. would be deeper than that, but that was literally all it was. again... not interesting to me. billy was a rehash as well. the russians definitely had potential, but even that plot wound up being incredibly one-dimensional.

billy’s screentime. this was one of the things i was absolutely furious about. he got more screentime than the party (minus el) combined. they wanted for us so badly to empathize with him, to humanize him... i’m sorry, but you wrote a character that almost killed a boy for being black, that abuses his sister, and is a misogynistic asshole. abuse doesn’t excuse that, and it’s insulting to abuse survivors to say that billy inevitably became this way because of his dad, and that he deserves our uwus for it... and actually got el’s. he took screen time away from characters who desperately needed it, and that’s something i will never look at the duffers the same way for.

the scoops troop. I wanted to love erica... but i feel so indifferent to her. she was way too much this season. and robin. again, i love that she’s confirmed queer. and i dug her character more. but even then... i don’t know. i would have rather never had her introduced, and allowed established characters to have been better developed. and as a whole, the whole storyline of the troop was just what I feared: underwhelming and awkwardly placed.

high steve & robin. won’t elaborate on this too much, bc there’s not much to elaborate on. it just felt so wildly out of place and unnecessary.

that dustin/suzie number. what the hell was that? what could have been a 20 second joke was stretched out WAY too long and was bizarrely placed. just because you have an actor from broadway, doesn’t mean he needs to sing. and even if he does sing... you couldn’t have found a better time or situation? i literally was just staring at my screen in disbelief as that whole thing happened. entirely unneeded.

the amount of flashbacks. i understand most casual viewers wouldn’t remember certain things because of how long it’s been. but they literally put a recap at the beginning of the season. that’s what it’s for. and there were also plenty from like.... the episode before??? the amount they included took away so much time, that it almost just seemed like they didn’t have enough footage, and they had to fill their time stamp somehow. at some point, it just becomes insulting to the audience’s intelligence.

the overall tone. this season did not feel like stranger things in the slightest. off the top of my head, the castle byers scene and the byeler scene in mike’s garage were the exceptions. the first few episodes did have some moments. but overall... it kind of felt like some weird, high budget commercial or something. the charm, distinct aesthetic, and nuance of seasons 1 and 2 was non-existent.

the post-credit scene. there was some last-minute hype up in the reviews for this. was that supposed to be shocking in some way? i suppose this is more the fault of the reviewers who hyped it, but... really? a demodog? we’ve seen that before... i guess more the point was to show that the russians officially have some kind of technology for this. but still, an underwhelming reveal. more intriguing to me, was if hopper was the american in the cell he mentioned at the start of it. or maybe brenner?

the neutral:

that ending. on one hand, it was incredibly predictable. they literally placed an obvious shot of it in the trailer (easy to deduce that the byers had moved out, and that it was fall, so it was an epilogue scene). i was convinced that there would be a twist element they weren’t showing us, but nope. on the other hand, i thought some things were done beautifully (which wasn’t exactly a trend this season). as i mentioned, i loved the jancy moments. i really did like the hopper voiceover, although it was a little trope-y and heavy-handed... i still got a little emo, ngl. those goodbye hugs were somethin’. and, as i said before... el! moving in! with the byers! gimme

so uh... that’s it, i guess. no one really asked, but i needed to get my thoughts out. what did you guys think of the season?

#stranger things #st3 #spoilers #i very well might add onto this the more i continue to think about it

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sneakyhomunculous · 4 years

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RPT Phoenix Report: Back to Back!

Part 1: Preparation

“How should I begin this? I’m just so offended; how am I even mentioned by all these fucking beginners?”

Let’s back up a bit.

I’m coming into this half season fresh off a 5th place finish in the last MC, which means I’m qualified for RPT1/2 and PTFinal 1.

From what I could make of the shoddy convoluted details at the beginning of this year; I believed I had a serious upper hand in the Rivals race.

Only 4 tournaments count. The 3 I am qualified for and the 2nd PT final which I’ll have multiple chances to que for as well.

Almost everyone else has at most 1 RPT Q and a pipe dream.

With this info, I decide I am going to go for it. I know I am still an underdog, but I believe I am one of the few people in the world in this spot to somewhat reasonably set this goal of top 12 paper rivals for myself.

At the same time, the world we live in is an Arena dominated one.

I hate it of course.

Like most of you reading this; I play the game for mostly 1 big reason [the fierce competition]. Arena is severely lacking in this department.

Only standard, a mindless ladder with the only reward being a single lottery ticket into a ~15k USD 0.5% equity drawing. (that requires you to play standard for 8 hours on a saturday there will assuredly be a GP you want to play.)

A petty, infuriating chore.

Bc standard is so chalked and flooded with players anyway; You are forced to play casual [but ranked] drafts against the bots.

Slamming BO1 games with 15 land decks until your eyes bleed and the mythic achievement is reached!

Then you close the unbearable program down not to be touched again until the next time this chore is required; or the lottery drawing is happening.

Nice system!

All that being said, I’m still not going to handicap myself, and so I decide I will go for Arena as well.

Unfortunately I have no early advantage there, and the spots are obviously unbelievably high variance.

There are only 2 Invys and 2 Mythic point challenges, and if you miss the first invy you are almost drawing dead at a 1-12 spot. Especially with special invites and re-ques for top finishers all factored in.

So far I am failing on the Arena front.

I was too attached to my beautiful Urza Oko deck (I didn’t prepare enough for the first MCQW I would be double queing along side the modern GP in Austin. It cost me as I woke up and played poorly to a swift 2-2 exit with Jetski Fires before heading over to the GP)

I lost a win and in and got 17th there. Never have I played a tournament with a bigger edge over all non mirrors in the field! Unfortunately I played 7 mirrors and managed a lowly 4-2-1 in them.

I can’t make it through these gauntlets on autopilot anymore.

I’m only 27, but my seemingly rapid reduction in processing speed has made me feel like I’m somehow getting too old for this grind.

The way I have dealt with it?

Accepting it.

As much as I hate to admit it; I am not the same 17 year old wunderkind anymore and the young guns have a big edge on me.

I have to take all the necessary steps to take care of myself and do everything in my power to make sure when I’m in the trenches; inside the matches in the important tournaments; I can be as focused on the games as possible. This is just so I can make the playing field close to level.

Otherwise I am going to be reading cards, and playing slow unconfident magic.

This is a big one; I believe.

I think one thing a lot of players are lacking in pushing themselves to higher levels is the confidence in their decisions. I used to struggle with this a lot (still do sometimes) and I would constantly second guess things multiple times every turn.

Over time, I’ve learned that if you put in the work...

You practice;

Play actual games and learn the interactions;

You can really lean on your instincts and exude confidence in yourself that goes a long way in winning matches of Magic the Gathering.

(Look at almost all of the best players. They are confident in their decisions in the games, even when they end up making mistakes.)

But enough with the nonsense; let’s get to the tournament prep so we can blaze through that boring shit and get to the sweet 16 PT rounds

(spoilers: there may be more than 16)

Collin Rountree is torn between testing with Me Ty Will and the Houston Slack, and testing with team 5% captained by Allen “The Process” Wu.

Of course the choice is obvious, but Collin doesn’t want to leave all the local bangers in the dust.

He lobbies on our behalf, and Me Ty Will and Eddie all join team 5%.

I am not a stranger to large testing teams.

I spent four PTs testing with team TCG/SCG and we averaged around 15 people. The difference was that we always met up in person a week or more ahead of time for an intense testing period, and also I guess we had more dueling personalities.

Shoutout to everyone on those squads those were great times.

But when you have Steve Rubin Seth Manfield Corey Burkhart Andrea Mengucii mixed with Brad BBD Martell Kibler mixed with Me Fennell GerryT Josh Cho mixed with Ari Lax trying to organize everything for everyone.....

Anyone who knows these people can see how this led to some logistics issues and some heated arguments about who is not pulling their weight, or who is just showing up late and mooching, or who keeps brewing decks with no mana bases and sideboards and bringing them to Brad telling them they are great and we have to play games with them (another shoutout to Fennell, hope he reads this and fires up a modo draft tonight. And shoutout to Brad for creating the no 75, no games rule. You can’t fucking say you made a deck if you don’t have a manabase or a sideboard, and some brewers out there may need to hear that again.)

Team 5% (7.1673746%) is all online testing.

We use a discord with dedicated channels to all the constructed decks, all the limited topics, logistics, and chalkdiesel/washed bad beat/rant rooms/RIP Rimrock Knight etc. etc. so you can see how it stays pretty clean, organized, and simple.

But no really, having so many people gives us an edge on many fronts.

There is usually always someone available to battle. We can cover a lot of ground really quickly. Multiple people are brewing and many people are tuning the known decks. Lots of different opinions and we end up covering all the limited archetypes quickly as the drafts pile in.

All of this being said, my best two PT results from the past are when I worked alone.

I usually draft infinite (75-100) times (when I lose I drop and draft again. And sometimes I drop when winning just to draft again) and I just try to play the best deck in constructed.

This I have learned is a recipe for success for me.

But I was happy to join this team. My intention was to just do the same thing, but have some people to talk to while I drafted 75-100 times and tuned the best deck.

I worked with a few of these players back in the TCG days (shoutout to Ari and Corey, and again to Corey for winning the PT let’s gooooooo) and everyone that I heard was currently on this 5% team; I liked.

So for my testing I did almost purely magic online.

I did around 60 drafts after all was said and done. In constructed, I played a ton of UW control and small amounts of all the other stock decks, and watched a lot of streams.

I wanted to be familiar with the format but not go too hard until the days leading up to; during; and right after the first 2 RPTs.

What a weird dynamic, having 2 pro tours 5 days before deck submission for your pro tour.

It really worked out in our favor because our team is so big and we were able to quickly attack the new and perceived future metagame.

Nothing at those two tournaments made me waiver from wanting to register UW control.

I was still beating everything, and I predicted the metagame would be 20%ish UB invertor and then spirits, red, black, and sultai delerium/invertor uro decks would be all around 10%.

When I say I was beating everything, I was beating everything.

Granted these were in leagues, but it was mostly all against real decks and my constructed rating was skyrocketing above my limited.

Not a thing I am accustomed to.

I had a 17-1 record against mono red, and no cap. I had a 12-2 record against mono black. I had a 8-1 record against UB invertor.

I crushed Collin so badly with our teams current front running mono white devotion that he decided to add 4 Gideon Ally of Zendikar to the maindeck and try again.

A 4-0 for me later in which he resolved 5 Gideons led to him telling the discord he is off it. “Bursavich just beat me every single game and I resolved gideon in all of them.”

The only deck I ever lost matches to was spirits but I still won more than I lost against it.

Around Monday our team was all piling on to the breach deck realizing how good it was, and I joined in to.

I played a prelim and a league and immediately bought all of the cards from cardkingdom. But after my next few matches I was feeling very conflicted.

I was very worried how bad UW was against breach, but I didn’t think breach would break 7-8% or the metagame anyway. And I can tweak UW some to have a shot I tell myself.

The breach deck is obviously busted, but it’s a combo deck with a weird puzzle-like 3 step combo.

First you have to get 2 lands into play and then play lotus field, then u have to play a thespians stage and copy it, and then u have to kill your opponent with ur huge amounts of mana.

But the deck is so consistent and sort of resilient that I found myself trying to play it like a midrange deck.

I have these faes and grazers and pores and viziers, I can block! And Fae for planeswalkers and grind people out or take all these weird dynamic lines... and then I realized I was fucking up a lot.

The games are not always intuitive to me, and I won’t be able to live with myself if I register this and play horribly to lose games I should win, considering there will likely be some number of games my deck fails and I can’t win (or my opponent is prepared with damping sphere or one of the other 1-2 cards that do anything at all to stop this abomination of a deck)

So a few hours after ordering the breach cards I am going to bed Monday night and I know I’m going to play UW control...

Shoutout to the squad though!

They really crushed it over these few days and perfected the breach list and had all the matchups figured out down to the T.

Our limited meetings were great and I believe they really helped everyone a lot and we had an overall great showing in limited.

I spend all day Tuesday and Wednesday with magic online open and the discord on my other monitor.

I occasionally jam some games with teammates but for many many hours I just stare at my UW decklist while catching up on the latest breach tech.

I just stare at the deck.....

For hours

I went to get lunch and came back and stared some more.

It was perfect and there was just nothing to cut.

I wanted another hard counter in my deck but could not find the space.

I have been moving 1 card around here and there, swapping 3rd field of ruin for the 4th Glacial, swapping back, then swapping back again. going down to 1 absorb and back to the 2/2 split back to 1. Moving around seal away D sphere narset lantern thassas intervention Mystical Dispute elspeth etc. etc. but mostly keeping the same core 73-75 cards the same.

With a few hours left in submission and all the data pouring in, we realize that LSV Huey and a large swath of great players have all been spotted in leagues today playing breach.

I am suddenly panicked bc the matchup is still quite bad.

I have a few good cards, but nothing to swing it past like a 33% matchup at best.

I know damping sphere is my only real option if I want to respect it, and I’m of the mindset that doing so is normally a bit silly.

While the deck is obviously busted, it’s been 5 days and many players are uncomfortable playing decks of this style.

My general guess is that it breaking 6-7% of the field will still be unlikely, and I think it pushing above 10% would be crazy.

So I can expect to play vs it once on average??

Not so fast.

This is a new RPT with a wide open field, but still a lot of goats at the top.

Turns out you almost always have to defeat multiple goats to get the trophy in PT’s...

And I didn’t fly to Phoenix just to have a good ole time and settle for 6th place, so I man up and delete 2 Monastery Mentor for 2 Damping Sphere.

This will hurt me in mirrors and vs Invertor, but I am confident I will be fine anyway.

With 10 minutes left in submission I consider adding a 3rd sphere but am too lazy to open back up my laptop and know I won’t be able to cut any of the beautiful cards in my sideboard for it anyway.

Enough with the boring shit; let’s get to the tournament!!!

Part2 coming tomorrow!

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