[Article] A Rose by Any Other Name - by Nightmare

[Koby]

Article by Adam Barnello aka Nightmare

Apparently Pros hate this forum's deck names. Some of them suck. So does Quick'n'Toast, Boat Brew, Caw Go, and "The Sunny Delight: Black Cherry".

So why are Pros (or maybe even just Stone Blade Entertainment designers) hating on gimmicky deck names? Read more and discuss.

[Julian23]

"Any press is good press."

That's how I see it with regards to the Legacy format itself. There's a reason nobody cared about that stuff only some years ago.

[UnderwaterGuy]

I'm surprised that anyone could care that strongly about deck names.

[Aggro_zombies]

I'm surprised that anyone could care that strongly about deck names.

For the same reason people nerd out about anything else, really.

If you're managing or watching coverage, the ideal deck name gives you the following information:

1) What color or colors the deck is;

2) Something about the archetype (control, midrange, combo, etc.);

3) Any other relevant defining feature of the deck

A name like "Death and Taxes" tells you absolutely nothing about what the deck is - it's just one of those names you have to memorize. Unfortunately, for people just casually watching coverage, or for people trying to do coverage with minimal Legacy background, some of these names are completely impenetrable. RUG Delver? Okay, easy. TES? A little harder, but probably something that's killing people with Tendrils. Four Horsemen, Nic Fit, or Solidarity? What the everloving fuck?

Of course, deck designers want to give decks unique or interesting names to add flair, but it really doesn't add anything.

[HammafistRoob]

People who get no booty tend to reach for things to gripe about. It's a fact.

[(nameless one)]

In pretty sure Death and Taxes was the name of the deck given by its creator when it was the laughing stock of MTG Salvation back in 2005 or something. I remember the argument on why waste $2 on a Plains that can be Wastelanded. Go ahead, ask Finn.

And no matter what year it is or what cards got added to it, it's still Canadian Thresh. Goobafish named it that and it stays like that.

[bjholmes3]

This reminds me when there was an uprising on Shoryuken.com forums about the ridiculous tradition of naming every single thread something absurd. Some people just hate cute little nicknames, I suppose.

[Greenpoe]

He doesn't even mention how ridiculous the "Stompy" archetypes sound.

[(nameless one)]

He doesn't even mention how ridiculous the "Stompy" archetypes sound.

This. Berserk/Infect Stompy = beatdown with minimal lands.

Dragonstompy = Blood Moon + Sol Lands.dec

Faerie Stompy = where's the faerie?

I seriously still don't get what makes Stompy a Stompy.

Also from what I remember from my Magic history, UWR tempo was SSS (Star Spangled Slaughter)

[from Cairo]

Nic Fit – From Tao, on mtgTheSource.com, on 5-27-11:

“Because many people asked and speculated: Its name comes from a Sonic Youth song that I was listening to when I named the deck. If you were a smoker you also might get the desire to smoke while playing a tournament because you will often play long rounds but mostly I just found "Nic Fit" to be a good name for this deck.”

The song is by The Untouchables, but who's counting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCOZ13g0o6Y

[davelin]

I think the diverse names is one of the reasons that makes Legacy such a unique and fun format. The top standard decks are known by their color wheel designations and tactics i.e. mono blue devotion or Boros mid-range, who gives a crap about those names?

[TheMightyQuinn]

You rang?

I registered on this site, contributed nothing to the community, and a deck was named after me. Boom.

[(nameless one)]

You rang?

I registered on this site, contributed nothing to the community, and a deck was named after me. Boom.

Actually the deck was named after this song.

[TheMightyQuinn]

Which my name is a reference to.

I actually build a metric fuckton of decks that never see the light of day. I'll proxy them up on MWS, maybe play a few games on MWS, then get bored and scrap them. Any number of things can inspire a deck. Sometimes it's actually cards, or any given one card I feel like playing at the moment. Sometimes the deck is actually top-down; say, for instance, that someone makes an account on the Source with a handle referencing a damnably catchy Bob Dylan song I hadn't even thought about in years. I might get said tune stuck in my head for a week, and decide that I'd like to build a deck with that name. Quinn's an eskimo, so obviously it needs to be a Snow deck.

Usually these decks get scrapped, but every one in a hundred actually turns out to actually be really fucking impressive. This is one of those.

[Finn]

In pretty sure Death and Taxes was the name of the deck given by its creator when it was the laughing stock of MTG Salvation back in 2005 or something. I remember the argument on why waste $2 on a Plains that can be Wastelanded. Go ahead, ask Finn.

And no matter what year it is or what cards got added to it, it's still Canadian Thresh. Goobafish named it that and it stays like that.

This whole topic is kinda funny to me. I distinctly recall feeling the opposite of Kibler. I see value in seeing pop culture reflected in the deck names of the day. "Ghost Dad", "Teen Titans", "The Rock and his...", "Soul Sisters", etc. If there was ever a compendium of deck names, it could double as an almanac of some sort. Magic has history and history has value. I spent a couple days thinking up an appropriate name for what I wanted D+T to do, but I was not sure what color(s) it would end up being. I tried Tangle Wire, Glowrider, pirates, Windborn Muse, Meddling Mage, Hokori, etc. Nobody really knew what worked best back then, so I tried lots and lots of angles, but yeah...always taxes. I felt happy to be contributing to the rich legacy of names this game has. Unlike these other guys there was no inside joke. It was conscious.

Tin Fins is a much funnier name when you include the "...Return of the Onion Burst" part. But then you can stop speculating on whether or not it is silly on purpose.

I don't recall D+T ever catching ridicule though. I mean, I guess it did in the very beginning when I was trying to figure out how to balance the taxing with board positioning and speed. But I don't think Adam has ever had any respect for my contributions to this game. So through his prism, I am sure the deck seemed bad just minutes before the Danish invented it this spring. Of course, Thomas Enevoldsen was actually piloting a deck that had been imagined and improved gradually for years before he and his buddies had ever heard of it. Thomas knows that, and it is a non-issue. He is just the first talented tournament grinder who "got it". He got it so well that he kept winning until everyone else did.

Lemme just set this straight for a moment. For a long time, guys like Ben Nash, Jeff "Amoebasinger", David Winsauer, and a few others knew that capable pilots with D+T won over and over against decks nobody else believed. What, you never heard of these guys? Right! We don't frequent tournaments. This is not to mention the guys like Barbed Blightning, Swords to Timeshares, and Monovfox who have championed it recently. Then you get stuff like this:

You had situations like Death and Taxes - a deck that was garbage from day one (so no one cared what the creator - also the inventor of a deck named "Dirt" - called it). Years later, Wizards has printed a slew of new cards that make the deck good, and the only parts that look the same are the Mother of Runes, Karakas, and Aether Vials - and yet someone said "This is just D&T with better cards," and so it goes.

...which is simply false. Adam is just being a dick to me here. And I don't know that it changes his point or not, but he either knows or should know if he is going to state it as a correction, that this is not at all accurate.

It's true about the $2 Plains though. When Karakas was $20, Bardo said to snap them up. He was right.

[GoblinSettler]

If decks went by bland color+strategy names it would be easier for folks with higher profiles to coin cleverer options that catch on after the fact.

If it weren't for those meddling kids Maverick could be called BK Knights.

[HammafistRoob]

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck_s...r=Brian+Kibler

Some of these deck names are quite hypocritical. But to be fair, I'm not sure if he even named these, just sayin'.

[Barook]

A name like "Death and Taxes" tells you absolutely nothing about what the deck is - it's just one of those names you have to memorize. Unfortunately, for people just casually watching coverage, or for people trying to do coverage with minimal Legacy background, some of these names are completely impenetrable. RUG Delver? Okay, easy. TES? A little harder, but probably something that's killing people with Tendrils. Four Horsemen, Nic Fit, or Solidarity? What the everloving fuck?

I'm eagerly waiting for the day of a playable RUG deck with Devour, so people can call it "RUG Muncher" in the coverage.

[[SLAYER]chaos]

I love funny/interesting names to decks. It's part of what makes them unique.

[damionblackgear]

Why are the old names a problem?

It's the same in sports. We don't call local teams by where they're from. We gave them nicknames to be remembered by. If we didn't, we'd end up with X number of teams called The *Your Location Here*s.

The names weren't hard. Yes, you had to learn them but you'd have to do that with any competitive event (team names, important players, positions, piece names, etc). Using Football (American) as an example, you have to understand what a nickle defense package is and the difference to a prevent defense. What it means to have a run up the 2 opposed to the 9. Wishbone opposed to a I formation. a Slant instead of a Post.

The names give a way to separate decks that were similar (ex: AnT and TES). Some newer deck names are vague and don't really explain what's actually happening. A perfect example would be Enchantress. Are they UG? Are they GW? It may sound weird to want to know this but these two decks work very differently. that's not a problem if you allow for the names to be unique and different.

Let's be honest though. Would you want to play: Green Creatures or ELVES!!! , UB Combo or THE EPIC STORM!!!
Granted there are some that who's name isn't all that exciting (Solitare).

The problem was that the soap boxes (broadcasters and writers) didn't know and/or respect the names while some players either didn't care to learn and/or got lazy while others failed to do enough to require the correction.

Now this unimaginative naming convention has become the standard... like paying $100+ on a single non-reserved listed card... I mean... Jace ain't no Shivan Dragon or nothing!