I hate bitching about this, but I feel somebody needs to step forward and do it.
The overall quality of the majority of The Source's posts (I'm talking content here) appears to be decreasing.
Obviously I don't claim to be a truely skilled analyst and/or "super smart stuff poster". I'm not an old-schooler either, I joined this site some time in 2007. Nevertheless, I'm confident to be able to judge quality when it comes to posts concerning Legacy. And I feel TheSource has seen better times.
So one of the things I really miss is members posting results, ideas and insights based on thorough testing. Most of the time all you get is shallow shaz unfortunately.
- Is the development I'm witnessing based on a generation shift, meaning the smart oldies retiring slowly but surely?
- Is there anything we as a community can do about it?
- What are your thoughts on this topic?
Originally Posted by goobafish
Team SPOD - ...land of the brave...
GP: Chicago is coming up. I wouldn't expect any groundbreaking ideas until after then.
I feel I could contribute a lot but 90% of the time I'm either too lazy or doing something else. I'm sure that's true for more than just me.
Team NeverWin: We just top 8 a lot.
Too lazy to post.
Don't read the N/D forum. You'll notice an immediate increase in the quality of posts on The Source.
Just do what I do, ignore the crap out of everyone and make your own decks. Then ask for advice and sometimes, just sometimes you'll get a decent response that's worth exploring.
You're better off listening to yourself half the time.
Though I do admit I liked hearing how someone played a deck with "certain card" and decided it was crap for "whatever reason". That made deckbuilding so much easier when a person explained how it interacted with others.
For example, I know that I refuse to post in certain threads (the Team America thread, and the It's the Fear thread are prime candidates here, while the Solidarity thread is another one I'm unlikely to post in), so I know what you're talking about. The reason I refuse to post in the threads are because of the increase in retarded posts. I made my point clear in my other posts, and I argued the points they made. If they refuse to listen, then I can do nothing.
I genuinely want to help people get better, but I can do nothing until some of them ask for help. I've come to the conclusion that to truly help people, they need to want help.
I've felt that some other quality posters on the site feel the same way. Therefore, it makes sense that if the quality posters are posting less, and the fucking retarded ones are posting more, it would be harder to see the good posts because of the haystack of shit posts in the way.
For the foreseeable future, expect to see less of me. I've lost my internet connection, and so I'll only be able to get on by siphoning free Wi-Fi from the surrounding areas. Which isn't always consistent.
Plus, the guy that I used to leech off of has now instituted password protection. This means that I effectively do not have internet at home. :(
Says the guy that loses to Extirpate.
ZING!
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
*rimshot*
Stay out of N&D and make liberal use of the Ignore function. Works for me.
So, so true.
I find it kind of funny that all the veteran players posted in this forum (excluding me).
Ultimately, the nature of the internet is that there is a small number of donors, and a large number of consumers. Basically, it's hard to come up with original, useful stuff, but easy to put up fluff. (Because my interest is primarily recreational, you'll find that my posts tend to be untested suggestions and speculation.) As a consequence discussion forums are subject to a less intense form of John Gabriel's 'Greater Internet Dickwad' phenomenon with a bit less anonymity, and a smaller audience. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2004/20040319h.jpg)
Consider, for a moment what's inolved in putting up a, more or less, useless post: A few minutes on gatherer, or some other search site, and the ability to pay attention for a few moments. Compare this to the standard of posting that you're looking for:
"So one of the things I really miss is members posting results, ideas and insights based on thorough testing."
In practice, that works out to hours or more of offline work per post. And, realistically, a lot of testing requires a competent opponent, which makes things even harder.
I hate to agree with this but it's mostly true. Not to mention, when you're hard work and effort is ignored. I can't count how many times I get PM's or IM's asking dumb questions, then not have them listen to me. "I think I'm going to play manamorphose instead of Ponder. But Thankz!" or when people change cards in a list just to have their own touch on the list. This is a personal pet peeve. It's like removing the wheels from a car to put on a stop sign. Both are somewhat circular and will hold the object up, but one does a better job. Stuff like this is why I generally ignore the TES thread, that and people will ask questions without reading. Generally, everything has been covered.
No, I agree with most of your post, but you have to draw the line somewhere on how many of the 1139 posts in the TES thread you expect people to read. Out of all of the crap that has been posted in TES, I notice you have added mystical tutors to the deck after pages and pages of condemning the choice.
I'm not sure where I'd put myself on this subject, because what direction does everyone think these threads should be going in? I don't follow the DTB thread for the specific reason that, excluding new set releases, there is really not much to be done with the deck. Established decks is more fun, but they are also established, so the discussion there probably will be a bunch of shitty comments mixed with 1 or 2 good ones.
The way I see it, even if one decent addition/change to the deck happens out of all of the garbage that is posted, it will be worth it. Just like civilization, we progress so slowly as a species, with only 1 or 2 individuals actually contributing a large amount, while the rest of the species just slowly progress towards a better or more advanced place.
The key to all of this is to make sure that explanations are backed up with reasons, and that the general population that argues well are going to be the people who know what they are talking about. While there are 100s of people arguing poor choices, in almost every case tournament reports and playtesting will show who is right. And if playtesting and tournament reports show that the "correct" person or progenitor of the deck is wrong, then chances are that they are wrong.
There exists an amazing piece of technology that we broadly term "search." As I understand it, even fine respectable establishments such as our own implement this technology in order to allow us to find out information about posts containing certain words.
The next time someone wants to know about Manamorphose (just taking this one because it's easy, replace it with any card you wish), instead they should search the thread for "Manamorphose" and read those posts. Perhaps an even better solution would be to suggest simply think about the cards in question and their interactions in the deck yourself, but we probably don't want to unleash that can of worms on our fine readers. Either of these might change the question
"What do you guys think about Manamorphose/Ponder in Matchup X?"
to (in the event that no discussion was found, or the discussion was incomplete (maybe something changed, looked suspicious, etc. otherwise, don't waste the space repeating shit)
"I haven't found any discussion regarding Manamorphose vs Ponder in the Thunderbluff and Chubstill matchups. After testing X games against Thunderbluff and Chubstill, I've found Manamorphose to be an undesirable card in my hand. Every time I drew Manamorphose, I considered if Ponder would be better than Manamorphose in this situation an I came to RANDOM_CONCLUSION_ABOUT_MANAMORPHOSE_VS_PONDER."
Even better would be statistics backed by game logs and an analysis of + decision tree involving the test games, but I'd expect that most players aren't nearly as fanatical about testing as I am. I'm probably way off base in suggesting that a model be designed to explain/test/discuss the functionality of certain cards, with analysis given on what the deck is trying to do and how it wants the game to work.
That said, most interesting and thought-provoking discussions on the format tend to happen in IM/PM/Voice Chat/IRL/my inner dialogue. This is largely because Message Boards are a fairly slow way of communicating ideas, especially fluid ideas pertaining to theoretical discussion of something as complex and interconnected as a deck of magic cards. After the ideas are generated, crafted, and have undergone some review, they trickle down to boards such as this one. At least in my mind, this board functions as more of a dropping off point for a mostly finished product or data from some testing rather than a place for serious discussion.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
From what I understand, Bryant put Mystical Tutor in TES to act as Ad Nauseam 3-4. Actually running 4 AdN, as well as the maindeck IGG and Tendrils, probably causes too much lifeloss when you're revealing cards to Ad Nauseam. Mystical serves as a happy medium here because it allows you consistent access to the most powerful card draw in the deck, while only dinging you for 1 instead of 5 when revealed to it. Put simply, Bryant runs Mystical Tutor now because Ad Nauseam was printed, whereas before I agree wholeheartedly that it didn't belong in the deck. You can't fault him for changing the deck as a response to a change in the card pool. Mystical wasn't good TES, and now it is. That's why he runs it.
As for the quality of posting, I agree that the signal:noise ratio is incredibly unbalanced, but it's always been that way and always will be for the foreseeable future because the number of people posting noise is always going to be so much higher. Take it from someone who has roughly half his posts in Mish-Mash, it is much much easier to post one- or two-line fluff posts than it is to type something thoughtful up with actual merit. But really, what can you do? Ban all the people who we think are being stupid? But who makes that call? The Admins? Some independent "post quality enforcement committee"? The point is that people here are allowed to post just about anything they want (within reason), and it's always going to be on the reader to seperate the wheat from the chaff.
Team Info-Ninjas: Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
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If only it were this easy. Obviously most people lack the extensive playing experience that only a few people per deck have to answer in depth questions that you could seemingly "think about cards in question and their interactions in the deck yourself." If I wanted to look up why duress was only used as a 2 of and orim's chant a 4 of when counterbalance is so incredibly prevalent in today's metagame, should I then search "Duress"?
Even though the discussions happen elsewhere, you really can't communicate them to such a large playerbase. The great thing about forums is the amount of people who can respond to something that you post, bringing a seemingly endless number of new ideas to a deck. The worst part is the exact same thing.That said, most interesting and thought-provoking discussions on the format tend to happen in IM/PM/Voice Chat/IRL/my inner dialogue. This is largely because Message Boards are a fairly slow way of communicating ideas, especially fluid ideas pertaining to theoretical discussion of something as complex and interconnected as a deck of magic cards. After the ideas are generated, crafted, and have undergone some review, they trickle down to boards such as this one. At least in my mind, this board functions as more of a dropping off point for a mostly finished product or data from some testing rather than a place for serious discussion.
Like I said, no matter how many bad posts there are, there are likely to be some new suggestions. I know the best changes I've made to particular decks come from bad suggestions that make me think about similar but different cards.
Perhaps you should search for both and determine why they are played. After that, you should evaluate what TES's gameplan is against Counterbalance decks. (Hint: it's not to win a war of attrition over a long period.) Next, you'll probably want to gather some statistics on just what percentage of top8s and total decks played in Bryant's area that CB decks account for. Now, the big part of playing magic comes where you have to draw conclusions from data. You might just obsolete your question. Failing that, you could search for "duress chant comparison/analysis" (pick one of comparison or analysis). If all that fails, then, as I implied, ask a question.
I don't want to or need to do such a thing. Examining decks/strategies/card choices doesn't actually require a lot of mental capacity, just careful adherence to what essentially boils down to a scientific/engineering methodology of testing, examining what the needs of a deck are, searching for cards that fill the needs, and then doing more testing (strategies and card choices are just different ways to look at deck design but the approach is easily generalized). I can do this with a relatively small group of people, likely much faster than large discussion boards due to a lack of line noise and constant harras^W^W intelligent, skilled, and dedicated playtest partners/teammates/people unfortunate enough to be on my buddy list. This leaves us developing core strategies and then presenting them to a larger audience (which is what a message board is good for in my mind).Even though the discussions happen elsewhere, you really can't communicate them to such a large playerbase.
I call this the fantasma blanca effect (j/k Will) and it can be simulated almost completely by surrounding yourself with people who can think differently than you do. Magic is a game with finite card choices after all, and while there are an infinite number of combinations to be made during the course of a game, it is relatively easy to limit your analysis to cards that can consistently perform required functions without the aid or benefit of other cards using statistical considerations. It does help if the people who are presenting your new suggestions have already gone through the same steps that you would have gone through yourself as far as research, theory, and testing.Like I said, no matter how many bad posts there are, there are likely to be some new suggestions. I know the best changes I've made to particular decks come from bad suggestions that make me think about similar but different cards.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
The reds voted me down on this one ;[Ban all the people who we think are being stupid?
When in doubt, mumble.
When in trouble, delegate.
1. Questions that would be easy to answer by just playtesting the deck/reading the thread are obnoxious, yes. But what is even worse for me is pages of people posting their decklists which are no more than 3-5 cards off the standard decklists. This isn't limited to new or inexperienced players, even those who have a lot of knowledge about a deck often feel the need to inform others whenever they made some small changes by posting their list. A solution to that could be stricter moderation - if someone posts a decklist without any changes to previous decklists, or doesn't include any comment about why he made changes, report the post and get it deleted by a mod.
2. However, some comments here seem to imply that one person knows everything about a certain deck, and thus his opinion concerning it is always right. I think even "inventing" a deck and/or spending many hours on playing and improving it doesn't mean that one can't be wrong. If that were the case, we wouldn't need threads but just primers, regularly updated by the person who knows everything about the deck. Take threads like UGw Thresh or 4c Landstill, for example. There are some people in it who obviously know a lot about the deck, and have had success with it, yet there are enough issues where they don't agree on a common position.
3. You know what would be great ? If the primer of a thread would be updated to include links to relevant discussions in the thread when they appear. For example, if people argue for a page whether Chalice deserves a maindeck spot in Aggro Loam, using relevant arguments, that page could be linked to in the primer, making it easy to find. Searching for "Chalice" in that thread will turn up a lot of results, most of them just being decklists which include Chalice. Of course, that wouldn't solve the problem that people that are new to a thread don't seem to read the primer anyway.
Ignore lists work fine ; ). They're like a ban that still allows people to "express themselves" on the forums, they just don't know that no-one reads it anymore.Ban all the people who we think are being stupid?
georgjorgeGeistreich sind schon die anderen.
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