PSA: Please don't post random jumbles. Sorting is your friend.

[Zombie]

Back when I played German Highlander, people had the most irritating habit of posting their decks as long, one-chunk lists of cards arranged either alphabetically or in no coherent order whatsoever. I've been noticing that kind of thing happening here, too (to a lesser extent thankfully). That said, please don't do it. It's incredibly annoying to try to figure out what's even being played if the list is a pile of stuff.

A Highlander example:


Example 1: Random jumble
Control Magic
Mirran Crusader
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Aven Mindcensor
Leonin Arbiter
Back to Basics
Gush
Fathom Seer
Armageddon
Ravages of War
Mana Drain
Mana Leak
Disrupt
Black Vise
Chrome Mox
Counterspell
Memory Lapse
Cryptic Command
Dismember
Miscalculation
Stonecloaker


Example 2: Random jumble arranged:

Creatures:

Fathom Seer
Leonin Arbiter

Stonecloaker
Aven Mindcensor
Mirran Crusader
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner

Spells:

Chrome Mox

Black Vise
Disrupt

Counterspell
Mana Drain
Mana Leak
Memory Lapse

Dismember
Back to Basics

Control Magic
Cryptic Command
Armageddon
Ravages of War

Miscalculation
Gush

An offender from the Elves thread:


Creature (30)
2x Birchlore Rangers
2x Craterhoof Behemoth
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Elvish Visionary
3x Heritage Druid
3x Nettle Sentinel
4x Quirion Ranger
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1x Scavenging Ooze
4x Wirewood Symbiote
1x Wren's Run Packmaster

Land (20)
2x Bayou
2x Dryad Arbor
3x Forest
4x Gaea's Cradle
1x Taiga
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills

Sorcery (11)
4x Glimpse of Nature
4x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Natural Order

Ordered nicely, right? Nope, the lands and the creatures are a jumble, and can easily be grouped together by things like cost and functionality and/or being flex slots. Currently, the mana engine is scattered all over the place, untappers aren't anywhere near their related cards, the big bomby things are all over the place.

This:

//Creatures
2x Birchlore Rangers
2x Craterhoof Behemoth
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Elvish Visionary
3x Heritage Druid
3x Nettle Sentinel
4x Quirion Ranger
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1x Scavenging Ooze
4x Wirewood Symbiote
1x Wren's Run Packmaster

//Lands
2x Bayou
2x Dryad Arbor
3x Forest
4x Gaea's Cradle
1x Taiga
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills

Can become this:

//Creatures
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Quirion Ranger

4x Wirewood Symbiote
4x Elvish Visionary

2x Birchlore Rangers
3x Nettle Sentinel
3x Heritage Druid

2x Craterhoof Behemoth
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed

1x Wren's Run Packmaster
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Scavenging Ooze

//Lands
4x Gaea's Cradle
2x Dryad Arbor

2x Bayou
1x Taiga
3x Forest

4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills

Much easier to digest, no?

Even this short, pretty digestible BUG Delver listing can be improved:

4 Delver
4 DRS
4 Goyf
2 Stalker

4 Decay
4 Force
4 Daze
4 Ponder
4 Hymn
4 Brainstorm
2 Liliana

4 Delta
4 Catacomb
1 Misty
3 Sea
2 Trop
2 Bayou
4 Waste

We can turn the bolded into:


4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Force
4 Daze

4 Hymn

4 Decay
2 Liliana

So pay attention to your decklists people ^^

[Dice_Box]

I don't see an issue. I post my lists how I store them, divided by type, the types broken down into cost and then alphabetical order. So you would have your creatures that cost 1 mana first, listed by name followed by the 2 cost. Simple really.

Plus, any list I am looking at with an eye to critique I put in a program like Cockatrice first anyway so I can manipulate it and play around. Listing cards in blocks of Type is fine, after that it really doesn't matter.

[Higgs]

Oh man, this thread is so spot on.

[iamajellydonut]

So pay attention to your decklists people ^^

Like paying enough attention to notice that you turned a sixty-one card Elves deck into a fifty card pile?

So long as the information is clear, I see no reason why there's any reason to give a shit about how decklists are arranged. The most basic, and really the only necessary, guideline is that you need to sort your lands from your creatures from your other spells, but anything beyond that is personal taste. For example, I sort basics->nonbasics->creatures->spells by color and alphabetically, and I find your method(s) to be just a jumble of bullshit. Not only is it difficult to read, but it takes up way too much space and the arrangement of the subgroups leaves a bit to be desired. Like, why is Dismember ahead of Back to Basics when it doesn't come first alphabetically or by color? What's the significance of the first three subgroups of the Elves list?

[Technics]

My biggest issue is people not using the [.cards] tag. Please, please, PLEASE use that for all decklists people.

[TsumiBand]

So long as the information is clear, I see no reason why there's any reason to give a shit about how decklists are arranged.

There's nothing clear about a list that mixes up guys/spells/lands and uses shorthand that the already-missing card tags won't read correctly.

I have to agree with the OP's sentiment. Like honestly if you wanted to be a dick about it and post a list like

2 PiF
4 PtE
4 FTK
4 TFK
3 Bob
4 BoP
4 SFM
3 FoF
1 SoFoF
1 Jitte
1 SoFI
1 SoMB
4 UB Fetch
4 WR Fetch
4 Heath
etc etc... (no i won't count if it even approaches 60 cards)

...then why bother posting your lousy decklist at all? Nobody wants to parse this crap. Also how bloody lazy is it to fail to sit at a keyboard and type entire names of Magic cards. Seriously. It's one thing if you're just conversing and you say "oh man he plowed my bob, fml" but you're asking other people to try and read your decklist - it's rude to throw some shorthand horse-ass on the Internet. And besides, we all have brain farts and we go "the fuck does Sculpting Steel do again?" and if the card tag doesn't even work right because you were still too lazy to include it, it just adds up to a nasty pile of who-gives-a-damn and nobody will feel encouraged to help.