A Request

I second everything LootPinata just said.

I think I can speak for the noobs here, as I've only been part of this community about a year.  When I first came in, I saw lots of people asking for deck advice.  Even though I had been playing for nearly 10 years, I didn't feel like I had a solid grasp of deck building, so I lurked.  Eventually I asked for opinions on some of my decks, but I still lurked when others needed help.

Fast forward to today.  I now am pretty comfortable with my general deck-building, but still have limited experience with many of the cards in many blocks.  I was a coffee table player who started with 8th edition and a hodge-podge of cards I picked up from people leaving the game over the years. I picked up a few newer packs along the way, but nothing like I have in the past year.  So, in reality, I can't name a bunch of cards that fit every scenario.  Remember, it wasn't too long ago that one of you commented that it made you "sad" to think I wasn't running Lightning Bolt (I was running some other burn spell that did only two damage). Some of us just don't know all those details about all those cards (it well could be my age, too ). It can be quite intimidating.

Even now, there are some decks I feel comfortable commenting on, and others that I look at and say, "I have no idea whether or not this works." It most often comes down to whether or not I have played something similar (or against something similar), or if I know most of the cards in the deck, or know a specific card that just might fit. It has been a learning process.

One of the best players in Minnesota frequents our LGS--I'll cal him Hal.  There are some other good players, too (including one who had his deck featured on YouTube as one of the features at a major pro tour event).  Most are helpful, if asked, but much is learned just by watching and playing.  Just last month, as Hal was helping out another player, he paid me a great compliment that spoke to how much my deck building skills have improved during the past 12 months.  He said, "have you seen his Goblin Deck" (referring to one of my Krenko's Dance Party variants)? "Every card he has impacts the board somehow. Every card is designed to pump up his goblins, or to run over and smack your face." He had no idea what it meant to hear that from him.  It let me know I was becoming a better player, but it took time, and my confidence in my skills still lags behind..

So, as long you you and I--and other active members--keep helping out when people post, making this a welcoming, friendly place, I'm sure more and more of them will eventually start to share their opinions. Let's just give them some time.

HikingStick - I agree completely that it can be intimidating, but I think ANY discussion, good or bad is useful.  So to that end, I'm not expecting everyone to be contributing bullet pointed lists full of comments like I do or pro-level advice by any means.  Sometimes even just a suggestion of a card that comes to mind can be just the spur of imagination/perspective to help someone along on their deck.

I'm fine with people taking things slowly when it comes to participating in the forums, but this forum has more than 1,500 posts on more than 250 separate decks - surely this means there are more than 5-6 of us to offer input on deck ideas.  Further, the deck listings are easily searchable through the site.  So to that end, just a few thoughts here or there or, as LootPinata and imsully2 have already stated, even a bit of direction or added commentary on your own deck so that we know HOW to help goes a long way.  After all, I could sit here and tell you all day how I would build your deck, but that might not fit your play style and you might not enjoy it nearly as much as I would (I fall into the Timmy/Johnny player types).

I'll openly admit, I played back during Revised and then took 15 years away from the game.  I started back around the release of AVR last year and had a LOT of catching up to do ranging from how a planeswalker even works to the more detailed stack resolution and other rules.  It's a LOT to learn and I'm not expecting all the new players to know exactly what's up at all times, but every little bit helps. 

I look at this forum as a more friendly version of what you can find on Tappedout - but just like on that forum, if you want feedback on a deck, you should operate with the understanding that you need to participate and offer as much info as possible both when asking for help and when helping others.  I'm happy to offer as much input as I can, but a little more backup from the community would definitely be welcome (and you'll note those of us even commenting here are all at more than 100 posts so it's not like any of us are holding our opinions back).

I believe there already is one, but nobody reads/follows it.

I'm game if everyone else is.

If I've learned anything from my years of experience with various message boards, it's this:

1. The existence of sticky threads does not mean that everyone will read them. No doubt, they are generally helpful to those that do bother to take the time, but don't expect a magic fix.

2. The larger an individual thread gets, the less likely people will read back from the start. So, I'm not sure that grouping all similar decks together in one large thread is going to be overly useful as intended or not.

Maybe an idea is breaking up the deck building forum into sub-forums along some of the general types..? You could have some level of organization this way, without newer users feeling overwhelmed by or put out with having to read through large existing threads?

Last edited by MMJuno (2013-02-07 09:57:28)

I have to admit, I'm totally against sub-forums, mostly because they have rendered MTGSalvation nearly unreadable and will put a huge amount of pressure on moderators/administrators to be constantly moving topics from one to the other. I think it's better to keep the single forum and use the thread title (or possibly meta-tags on the thread itself?) to differentiate between formats.

I'm totally in agreement that there shouldn't be subforums for different deck styles.  So far I have seen people asking for advice on more casual decks and personal brews than looking at tweaking a dominant deck.  The people who are looking for top-tier competitive decks are already going to the sites that offer a strong community around a specific format (e.g. http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/forum.php for Legacy).  If the decks are geared toward FNM or casual play then keeping everything visible in one spot is the most useful.  Otherwise you're going to get people that only read the Legacy section and won't help out with other formats.

I'll help pull something together as soon as I can snag the time.  I'm prepping to teach a new class on Monday, and am WAY behind thanks to all the wonderful GTC evnets recently.

As I learn more I plan on using this resource to both give advice and get it, unfortunately in my case I just started playing a week and a half ago and don't have the experience yet to share knowledge.  You do bring up a good point though, Ty, as there should be some sort of guideline for someone's time.  Then again, this site is all voluntary, so that would be hard to implement.