Hey kt, have you considered adding number of GP Day 2 appearances as a criterion? I think something like "at least 2 (or 3) Day 2 appearances at one GP" would be sufficient for a deck to go into Established. Going by GP T16s alone doesn't quite capture the paper metagame well enough.
In my honest opinion, Established and Proven are a huge mess right now.
Sorting the "Tier 1/1.5" section by actual archetypes would be far more benefecial than having single threads fly around. Something akin to the old system, with fixes (UW Tron being in the same section as RG Tron, for example, was kinda silly, as they differed from each other so much that the only thing they had in common was the UrzaTron and some number of colorless threats) would be vastly superior to the current system.
I hope that there is a revamp coming that will clean up these issues, or otherwise the threads will get clustered with different subjects, which will drown individual ideas and clutter the thread.
I hope we can breathe new life in the ultimate goal of a forum like this: Use the hivemind to advance and tune a deck.
I just don't understand why you think that popularity adds validity to a deck that does not perform well. I don't and I never said that. I said that popular decks should be showcased, regardless of their "validity" as determined by some arbitrary criteria. For example, I have been subscribed to threads such as Modern Ninjas and Knights which have a firm and dedicated following and regularly attract people new to the format. When I was subscribed to them I was getting email alerts every day, sometimes indicating multiple posts, and the thread were always looking at the newest cards to add to the archetype. They were very popular, sometimes more popular than D&T (which has periods where there might not be a new post for a week), but they have no results to speak of. If I am understanding your intention correctly you would place Ninjas in the same subforum and as prominently as D&T, and that is just absurd. Yes that is exactly my intention, but the forum would not be called Established, which is a pointless name anyways since we have Proven. The forum would be called MTGS Deck Showcase, a title that does not mislead anyone into thinking they are looking at tier 1.5 decks or whatever. These are just decks that are popular and being talked about. As threads in the SHowcase die, they are moved to Established Deck Archive for reference if they are deemed to be great decks or back to unstickied deck creation.Modern Ninjas is in no way established just because it is popular.
I think part of the root of your position can be traced to the fact that you give little weight to tournament and/or pro results, which you have expressed countless times on MTGS. The conflict is that most players do care about decks that have results, because they want to play a deck that has a chance of winning, not a deck people just talk about a lot on a message board. One thing has nothing to do with the other. All I am saying is that we have Proven for the tier 1 netdecks and an archive for dead threads. Why do we need an archive for 9-12 dead threads that were marginal tourney contenders? Dead threads are dead - retire them in a respectfully named archive and do something useful and fun with that forum
I think the Mods see the forum architecture as a tool for illustrating the current metagame as accurately as possible. Nothing Im suggesting interferes with that. I'm just being realistic. The established forum is currently well, just look at it. At some point the mods should cut their losses and try something else.
I was going to stay away from this since my ideas are falling on deaf ears but...mine is blue.
Hey kt, have you considered adding number of GP Day 2 appearances as a criterion? I think something like "at least 2 (or 3) Day 2 appearances at one GP" would be sufficient for a deck to go into Established. Going by GP T16s alone doesn't quite capture the paper metagame well enough.
Good idea. There are two ways that I envision this being implemented. Again, this is in regards to Established:
1) Any deck that makes up 2%+ (or 3%+) of Day 2 is considered Established
2) Any deck with 2+ (or 3-4+) appearances is considered Established
I'm not totally sure about the numbers yet, but those are good preliminary guesses based on data from three Grand Prix day 2 breakdowns. I'm leaning towards option 1 because it respects the size of events more than option 2. But then again, Established might not need such stringent requirements; perhaps just 3-4 appearances is a critical enough mass to warrant inclusion. Either is fine, but I definitely want to add one of them.
In my honest opinion, Established and Proven are a huge mess right now.
Sorting the "Tier 1/1.5" section by actual archetypes would be far more benefecial than having single threads fly around. Something akin to the old system, with fixes (UW Tron being in the same section as RG Tron, for example, was kinda silly, as they differed from each other so much that the only thing they had in common was the UrzaTron and some number of colorless threats) would be vastly superior to the current system.
I hope that there is a revamp coming that will clean up these issues, or otherwise the threads will get clustered with different subjects, which will drown individual ideas and clutter the thread.
I hope we can breathe new life in the ultimate goal of a forum like this: Use the hivemind to advance and tune a deck.
There are two worries that I have with the archetype division approach, and I am hoping that someone can address them.
For one, Modern has a lot of archetype bleed throughout the format. This makes it difficult, potentially contentious, and somewhat artificial to classify decks in archetype subforums. Let's just look at some example decks to see why this becomes risky. Obviously, some decks are easy fits. BG Rock and Jund can go in "Midrange", UWR Control can go in "Control", Storm and Twin can go in "Combo", etc. But there are a number of decks that are not so easily classified. RG Tron, for instance, is a ramp deck that combines elements (playstyle) of combo and aggro. Mono U Tron is a different sort of ramp deck that combines elements of combo and control. Delver is a tempo deck, which might exist somewhere between midrange and aggro. Both Kiki Pod and Melira Pod definitely have combo finishes, but otherwise are much more midrangey. Where would such threads go? Of course, we could put our foot down as mods and just define them however we want, but that still leads to the second problem.
This second issue is much more worrisome than the first, at least to me. How would new players know where to find a deck? In the current megathread system, or so the theory goes, a new player can quickly thumb through each of the decks to see what their deal is. They can also quickly find a deck if they are looking for one that they heard of ("Delver sounds cool! What does it do in Modern?"). But if I am a new player or a new site visitor, or even just a new entrant to Modern, the archetype system makes it much more complicated for me to find the deck I am looking for. Sure, if I know what archetype I like then I can browse within. But if I am looking for a deck itself, it makes it hard to find because I won't know what archetype it falls under. I may not even really know what the archetypes mean. This can make our site less attractive to new visitors and prospective Modern players.
Again, I am totally open to hearing responses on these points.
I was going to stay away from this since my ideas are falling on deaf ears but...mine is blue.
Responding to all of your blue text:
1) Established as it currently exists has too many dead threads. We know it. That is why we are implementing fixes that have not yet been implemented. Stop using the current state of Established as evidence that the unimplemented changes have failed. They haven't been implemented yet so they can't have failed.
2) We already have an MTG Deck Showcase for popular threads alone: Deck Creation stickies.
3) Just like "The Source", the preeminent forum for Legacy discussion, we need a subforum that allows discussion of tier 2 decks that are still tournament contenders. Also, those threads are always active for the decks that truly belong there. They are inactive for decks that don't belong there, and that is why I am tightening up the criteria: To ensure that Established decks have the right content.
4) The criteria is not arbitrary even if you don't agree with it. It uses commonly accepted statistical practices to estimate competitiveness of decks in a population. It is far more arbitrary to showcase decks based on popularity alone, especially when that popularity is a function of only 5-10 players posting repeatedly in one thread (as in Deck Creation).
I was going to stay away from this since my ideas are falling on deaf ears but...mine is blue.
I have some sympathy with what you are saying- but do I think the mods know that established can be/is a bit of a mess.
But if people skip to "proven" and ignore established its a pretty good way to make sure you are well placed in that top 8 of a grand prix, apart from the odd time when a deck breaks out. However, if they do so its a pretty good way to make sure you never will be anywhere near it as there are large numbers of established decks that you will be inexperienced about playing that will get played at those grand prix and will make high-ish day 2 placings.
Many people do skip to proven. Many people convince themselves they need to spend thousands of dollars to play mtg every year. Many people will sit there and forever talk about bad luck when in reality they made poor decisions. Many people like to have respectability of the "proven" mtgs label. many do exactly the opposite and won't play a deck because it is popular. You can't please everyone.
Its often their loss, and skipping established it will make them worse magic players than those who have the time to check out both.
One thing for everyone to consider- there are very few grand prixs compared to the number of people playing modern. They are bloody expensive to get to, unlike PTQs. Perspective- the median average wage in the UK is about £26K, about 15-1700 per month after tax, before bills. To fly to say, the US and stay in a hotel and play mtg for a weekend will set you back about half that, and thats before you have any bills. So realistically anyone looking for a competetive deck is unlikely to be going to play it specifically at a GP. More likely is they are looking to play it at a PTQ or win a box type event, where the results and decks are considerably more varied. We are not talking standard where there are 6 decks and homebrews. The established decks contain some real decks. Could established decks like death and taxes or a BW hatebears take a PTQ? Well yes, last year BW haterator did just that at a couple of events. Could they win a daily. Yes, for sure, they do. Could they win a 30 player LGS event, GPT or win a box. Of course. Could it win a GP? Perhaps not. Unless Mr Wescoe spends a month practicing it, and in which case it would presumably get bumped to proven. Either way you these decks, and many others in established deserve attention.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
Hey kt, have you considered adding number of GP Day 2 appearances as a criterion? I think something like "at least 2 (or 3) Day 2 appearances at one GP" would be sufficient for a deck to go into Established. Going by GP T16s alone doesn't quite capture the paper metagame well enough.
Definitely a good criterion.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
1) Established as it currently exists has too many dead threads. We know it. That is why we are implementing fixes that have not yet been implemented. Stop using the current state of Established as evidence that the unimplemented changes have failed. They haven't been implemented yet so they can't have failed.
2) We already have an MTG Deck Showcase for popular threads alone: Deck Creation stickies.
3) Just like "The Source", the preeminent forum for Legacy discussion, we need a subforum that allows discussion of tier 2 decks that are still tournament contenders. Also, those threads are always active for the decks that truly belong there. They are inactive for decks that don't belong there, and that is why I am tightening up the criteria: To ensure that Established decks have the right content.
4) The criteria is not arbitrary even if you don't agree with it. It uses commonly accepted statistical practices to estimate competitiveness of decks in a population. It is far more arbitrary to showcase decks based on popularity alone, especially when that popularity is a function of only 5-10 players posting repeatedly in one thread (as in Deck Creation).
See the beauty of this is I can just watch and wait and let the graveyard that is Established speak for itself over the next few weeks.
All of this wheel spinning you are doing to try and nail down some "perfect" set of criteria for what decks belong in established and what decks dont will not make established a popular forum. If your goal is to make the forum popular then you are utterly failing. If you do not care about creating popular forum and instead just want an archive / showcase of the decks that fit into your criteria (and yes it is completely arbitrary) then I guess carry on.
I thought the whole point of this was to rework the forums to make Established into something people actually care about looking at. According to KTK, this is not the goal at all.
Well we have GP Detroit coming up and that in my eyes would be a great place to establish the "Established" section. Why not for the time being move the threads that we know for sure don't belong?
I'm going to list the threads that need either archived or moved to creation.
Nivmiseit
Goblins - I don't think any of the Tribal decks are good enough to be up in established.
Ritual Gifts
Azorius Midrange
Domain Zoo
Modern Boros
Eternal Command
There seems to be too many decks in Established. In reality right now there are 10-12 truly 1.5-2 level decks.
I think Bant, BUG Midrange, and 4cc Gift's are all borderline. There are a few decks in Proven that could be brought down to fill some of the spots.
Whatever is decided, you need to stick with. There is a general "wishy washy" approach to this task and it is leading to a jumbled mess of ideas. I think the reason the Source is the place to be for Legacy is because it has defined criteria. I also think the leadership in that forum is a bit more "take charge".
@Lapse: You need to be less hostile with this. I get that you have passion and that this forum seems to be where you want to be. However you need to actively work with these guys. I know from the 8Rack thread that it takes you a bit to agree with others. Give these guys some time to work this out. Creation is as popular as it is right now because people are trying to see what to play next summer in their PTQ's. Proven is busy due to GP Detroit. Established is going to see heavy traffic flow once the Modern PTQ's start hitting. In my eyes Established needs to be sorted after Detroit. That removes any back and forth among posters. Established has to be thriving by next spring or people will go elsewhere.
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In case I didn't tell you, I don't care about your opinion I just want your facts. And not the facts that make you seem smart. I want the ones that are actual facts.
All of this wheel spinning you are doing to try and nail down some "perfect" set of criteria for what decks belong in established and what decks dont will not make established a popular forum. If your goal is to make the forum popular then you are utterly failing. If you do not care about creating popular forum and instead just want an archive / showcase of the decks that fit into your criteria (and yes it is completely arbitrary) then I guess carry on.
Some threads in Established have lots of activity. Others do not. Clearly, there is nothing inherently wrong with the subforum. Rather, there is something wrong with the threads in the forum. Criteria will help us change what threads are in that forum and thus increase traffic. More threads like D&T, Merfolk, and Elves, and less threads like Boros and Ritual Gifts.
I thought the whole point of this was to rework the forums to make Established into something people actually care about looking at. According to KTK, this is not the goal at all.
Again, you need to calm down, take a breather, and not make silly accusations like this. It is patently obvious that the goal is for users to care about our forum and subforums. It is clear that you have strong opinions and I respect that, but you need to take a step back and think about your responses before you type them. "According to KTK, this is not the goal at all" is the sort of response that makes me doubt you are reading anything other than your own posts.
Well we have GP Detroit coming up and that in my eyes would be a great place to establish the "Established" section. Why not for the time being move the threads that we know for sure don't belong?
I'm going to list the threads that need either archived or moved to creation.
Nivmiseit
Goblins - I don't think any of the Tribal decks are good enough to be up in established.
Ritual Gifts
Azorius Midrange
Domain Zoo
Modern Boros
Eternal Command
There seems to be too many decks in Established. In reality right now there are 10-12 truly 1.5-2 level decks.
It is no coincidence that we are trying to sort out criteria in advance of GP Detroit. Once that event is done, come next Monday, a bunch of threads are going to get moved around and the new organization will basically be in place. We will also have August and September MTGO data completed to further inform the reorganization. Probably every deck that you mentioned will be moved out of Established (probably). Some decks might get promoted to Proven or demoted as necessary. And in all cases, there will be clear criteria to justify the moves so visitors can have faith in the quality of information on our website.
There are two worries that I have with the archetype division approach, and I am hoping that someone can address them.
For one, Modern has a lot of archetype bleed throughout the format. This makes it difficult, potentially contentious, and somewhat artificial to classify decks in archetype subforums. Let's just look at some example decks to see why this becomes risky. Obviously, some decks are easy fits. BG Rock and Jund can go in "Midrange", UWR Control can go in "Control", Storm and Twin can go in "Combo", etc. But there are a number of decks that are not so easily classified. RG Tron, for instance, is a ramp deck that combines elements (playstyle) of combo and aggro. Mono U Tron is a different sort of ramp deck that combines elements of combo and control. Delver is a tempo deck, which might exist somewhere between midrange and aggro. Both Kiki Pod and Melira Pod definitely have combo finishes, but otherwise are much more midrangey. Where would such threads go? Of course, we could put our foot down as mods and just define them however we want, but that still leads to the second problem.
This second issue is much more worrisome than the first, at least to me. How would new players know where to find a deck? In the current megathread system, or so the theory goes, a new player can quickly thumb through each of the decks to see what their deal is. They can also quickly find a deck if they are looking for one that they heard of ("Delver sounds cool! What does it do in Modern?"). But if I am a new player or a new site visitor, or even just a new entrant to Modern, the archetype system makes it much more complicated for me to find the deck I am looking for. Sure, if I know what archetype I like then I can browse within. But if I am looking for a deck itself, it makes it hard to find because I won't know what archetype it falls under. I may not even really know what the archetypes mean. This can make our site less attractive to new visitors and prospective Modern players.
For issue #1, I'd look for distinct elements in the decks' construction-processes themselves to pin them down in a certain subforum. Something like general philosophy of the deck, for example, makes it quite easy to classify decks.
UW Tron is, at heart, a control deck, which uses the Tron engine to spit out gigantic threats and end the game with them. Until then, it seeks to control the board, stay alife and grind out advantages. U-based Control section.
RG Tron wants to assemble the full Tron ASAP, then cast gigantic stuff and end the game. Emrakul is an ensurance for the lategame and not the wincondition they usually aim for. Tron subsection.
U Tron, at heart, plays a bunch of big guys and wants to put them on the table to crush the opponent with it's mana advantage. In the end, it's more like RG than UW, IMO, as it tends to pack a lot of big plays instead of a lot of control mechanisms. Tron subsection.
Pod decks are constructed with the idea being that you create a midrange deck that can use Pod to grind out advantages. Including game-ending combos in them doesn't make them pure combo decks, they still are creature-based grindy decks that can win out of thin air. In a way, they resemble Elves. They would all go to the same section: Birthing Pod Decks.
I tried to make justifications for where some of the cases you touched would go, I hope you get my line of thinking.
As for where new players could turn to find the decks they heard about: Create a Sticky. Include Links in it to each and every Archetype subsection and the Primers themselves. Is it possible for the forum to use some sort of Tag system? At "The Source" we use a tag system to tag a thread so you can search these tags and don't have to navigate through the whole forum. Entering "Delver" in the search should then yield results like "UW Delver", "RUG Delver", "Grixis Delver", etc, you catch the drift.
I hope this helps you understand where I am going with my ideas.
For issue #1, I'd look for distinct elements in the decks' construction-processes themselves to pin them down in a certain subforum. Something like general philosophy of the deck, for example, makes it quite easy to classify decks.
UW Tron is, at heart, a control deck, which uses the Tron engine to spit out gigantic threats and end the game with them. Until then, it seeks to control the board, stay alife and grind out advantages. U-based Control section.
RG Tron wants to assemble the full Tron ASAP, then cast gigantic stuff and end the game. Emrakul is an ensurance for the lategame and not the wincondition they usually aim for. Tron subsection.
U Tron, at heart, plays a bunch of big guys and wants to put them on the table to crush the opponent with it's mana advantage. In the end, it's more like RG than UW, IMO, as it tends to pack a lot of big plays instead of a lot of control mechanisms. Tron subsection.
Pod decks are constructed with the idea being that you create a midrange deck that can use Pod to grind out advantages. Including game-ending combos in them doesn't make them pure combo decks, they still are creature-based grindy decks that can win out of thin air. In a way, they resemble Elves. They would all go to the same section: Birthing Pod Decks.
I think I might have misinterpreted you. I thought you wanted the decks in subforums under general strategies, like "combo", "control", "midrange", and "aggro". You seem to mean archetypes such as "Tron", "Pod", "Jund", etc. We already tried that latter approach by giving general deck archetypes their own subforum, and it didn't work out well at all. In practice, the subforums were full small threads with minimal activity, with most of it belonging in the main thread. It also led to misleading information because UW Tron does not belong in the same Proven section as RG Tron. It was also much harder for mods to update forums because we had to change the entire sub's name and all the threads in it, not just moving threads around between sections.
I'm totally willing to hear arguments about separating decks by strategies, e.g. aggro, combo, midrange, etc. There hasn't been a lot of talk about that. But we will not be separating them by archetypes (e.g. Pod, Tron, UWx Control, etc.). We tried it, it didn't work, it was messy, it was misleading, and the new design is working a lot better.
As an update on criteria, here is what I am currently tinkering with:
Proven Competitive Decks Representing the Current Metagame
A deck is considered "Proven" if it fulfills one or more of the following criteria:
Has above average prevalence on MTGO (Average deck prevalence = 1.5% of the metagame) OR have prevalence greater than one standard deviation over the average (3.5%+ of the metagame)
Has 1+ Grand Prix Top 8 appearance in the last 6 months
Has above average prevalence in the Top 8 of paper events with 100+ players, all in the last 3 months (Average Top 8 prevalence = 2.5%)
Established Tournament Decks with Results
A deck is considered "Established" if it does not meet the requirements of "Proven" but still fulfills one or more of the following criteria:
Has finished 4-0/3-1 at 4+ dailies in the past 3 months
Has 1+ Grand Prix Top 16 appearance in the last 6 months
Has placed in the Top 8 of 1+ paper event with 50+ players in the past 3 months
I would suggest slightly modifying the Proven criteria to meet at least TWO of those requirements. Established should stay lenient enough to let most Tier 1.5/2 decks that have occasional results get on the list, but for Proven I think the list needs to reflect the current best of the best in the field.
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You can't always win, and just because you lose doesn't mean you played badly.
Even if you lose, it is important to remain confident in your ability to make good plays and decisions. Lose that and you are truly lost.
Testing is great, and the better the testing is, the better off you'll be.
It is impossible to tilt and play well.
It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose.
Thinking of how to incorporate GP Day 2 metagame stats into the organization.
I'm thinking for Proven, it's this:
Any deck making up 7%+ of the Day 2 metagame (i.e. any deck with day 2prevalence > one standard deviation over the average day 2 prevalence for all Modern GPs in the last year)
And for Established, it would be:
Any deck making up 3.5%+ of the Day 2 metagame (i.e. any deck with above average day 2 prevalence for all day 2 decks at Modern GPs in the last year)
The way the sections are displayed is still bugging me. I understand what it is you're doing but I feel the way it's being done is incorrect. The MTGO metagame and the Paper metagame are very different from each other; linking them together in each section is terribly confusing, not just for the newer players whom you are attempting to simplify things for but also those of us who follow a particular meta. My suggestion is to separate the MTGO and Paper results from each other. The sections are fine but the information is corrupted if taken at its current face value.
There is both accuracy and inaccuracy to this statement. At Detroit day 2, the top 10 most played decks were as follows, given in order of most to least prevalent:
Twin
Affinity
GB Rock
RG Tron
Melira Pod
Jund
UWR Control
Splinter Bant (?)
Junk
Ajundi
In the 2-3 weeks leading up to GP Detroit, here is what the MTGO metagame looked like, also given in order of most to least prevalent:
Affinity
RG Tron
Twin
UWR Control
Delver
Ajundi
Melira Pod
Burn
BG Rock
Jund
Those metagame pictures have considerable overlap. The numbers are different because of the sample sizes (Twin at GP Detroit made up 18% of the day 2 field, but online it's on average only about 7%). But the decks being represented are roughly similar. Chief differences between the lists include Delver and Burn for MTGO, and Splinter Bant and Junk for the paper day 2 metagame. But at least in the case of both Delver and Burn, those decks did appear on day 2 in some quantity. So by including those decks on a "Proven" list, we still aren't totally off base.
Personally, I am comfortable with including a few lists that are Proven in Paper but not online, just as I am comfortable with the reverse. The metagames just look a lot more similar than most people probably realize.
Alright, so here is the semi-final criteria for Proven. Criteria would be stickied in each subforum. I am open to suggestions on all of the criteria, especially because they might be too exhaustive and not give enough room for flexibility (but then again, the specificity helps with information quality).
Proven Competitive Decks Representing the Current Metagame
A deck is considered "Proven" if it fulfills TWO or more of the following criteria:
Makes up 3.5%+ of the MTGO metagame for the last 3 months (i.e. has prevalence greater than one standard deviation over average MTGO deck prevalence)
Has 1+ Grand Prix/Worlds/PT Top 8 appearance in the last 6 months
Has 3+ Grand Prix/Worlds/PT Top 16 appearances in the last 6 months
Makes up 7%+ of the Day 2 metagame at all GPs in the last 6 months (i.e. has prevalence greater than one standard deviation over average day 2 prevalence at GPs)
Makes up 5%+ of the Paper Top 8 metagame for events with 100+ players (i.e. has prevalence greater than one standard deviation over average deck prevalence at large paper events)
Under these criteria, here is what the Proven forum would look like.
NEW PROVEN
Affinity
UWR Control
UWR Midrange
Bogles
Melira Pod
RG Tron
Twin
BG Rock
Scapeshift
Burn
Jund
And here are the current Proven decks that would be getting demoted to Established:
DEMOTED FROM PROVEN
UR Delver
Kiki Pod
GW Hatebears
Wx Tokens
Soul Sisters
Gruul Zoo
Mono U Tron
UR Storm
Living End
Naya Zoo
Next, here are the working criteria for Established.
Established Tournament Decks with Results
A deck is considered "Established" if it does not meet the requirements of "Proven" but still fulfills ONE or more of the following criteria:
Has finished 4-0/3-1 at 4+ dailies in the past 3 months
Has 1+ Grand Prix/Worlds/Pro Tour Top 16 appearance in the last 6 months
Makes up 3.5%+ of the Day 2 metagame at all GPs in the last 6 months (i.e. any deck with above average day 2 prevalence for all day 2 decks at Modern GPs)
Has placed in the Top 8 of 1+ paper event with 50+ players in the past 6 months
Under those definitions, which are much more inclusive, here is what the Established would look like (And I might have missed some decks, given the wider inclusivity!):
NEW ESTABLISHED
UR Delver
Kiki Pod
GW Hatebears
Wx Tokens
Soul Sisters
Gruul Zoo
Mono U Tron
UR Storm
Living End
Naya Zoo
Domain Zoo
Modern Merfolk
Reanimator
Junk
U(x) Faeries
Death and Taxes
Eternal Command
Infect
4CC Gifts
Dredgevine
Assault Loam
Finally, here are the Established decks that would get moved down to Deck Creation:
DEMOTED TO CREATION
Combo Elves
BUG Midrange
Ritual Gifts
Azorius Midrange
Goblins
Bant
Modern Boros
UW Tron
Again, I cannot emphasize this enough: This is just a PRELIMINARY ORGANIZATION SCHEME. It has not been implemented and will not be implemented without input from the community. Feel free to suggest that a deck be moved to a different part of the forum. For example, Restore Balance has at least a handful of Daily 4-0/3-1 finishes, so it might get to go to Established. Or perhaps, in the instance of a deck like UW Tron, there are some finishes I have missed. I went through a ton of data to get to this point, so it's very possible that something got neglected in the process. So please speak up and offer your input.
EDIT: I am also temporarily moving this thread to MODERN GENERAL to guarantee that everyone sees it.
-ktkenshinx
As another important note, we would move threads around either A) once every 6 months or B) once every 3 months. 6 months would keep the forums more consistent and would make it easier to find threads. 3 months would make the forum more up-to-date at the expense of forum consistency; threads might lose/gain traffic in a move. Both are on the table, so feel free to weigh in.
Sadface on Boros getting docked to Creation.
I'm kinda concerned it might get lost alongside the RW lockdown deck that floats around there as well amongst other RW deck threads, though.
Sadface on Boros getting docked to Creation.
I'm kinda concerned it might get lost alongside the RW lockdown deck that floats around there as well amongst other RW deck threads, though.
Looking good! UW Tron in deck creation feels a bit wrong to me but I'm sure you've got the data right.
Another note, specifically in regards to these points:
We can theoretically divide Established into two categories, even without making a new subforum. We can sticky all of the threads that actually meet the criteria for Established (UR Delver, Living End, etc.) and then leave unstickied all the threads that were once in Established but have since fallen out of favor (Boros, Goblins, UW Tron, etc.).
The advantage of this is that the decks would not get lost in the Creation shuffle. It would also honor decks that were once contenders without moving them fully to the Archives. The disadvantage is that it might be too complicated and unclear, and that we might not need an additional level of organization.
I think it'd be easier to give Creation a subforum for the top contender archetypes, since it's not like Established is designed for traffic that'd necessitate thread sticks.
Though that's just more stratification that I feel undermines the intent behind the organization.
Is Archives supposed to be treated as a graveyard zone or is traffic permitted there? I'd like to think that's the most appropriate area, name notwithstanding.
I think it'd be easier to give Creation a subforum for the top contender archetypes, since it's not like Established is designed for traffic that'd necessitate thread sticks.
Though that's just more stratification that I feel undermines the intent behind the organization.
Is Archives supposed to be treated as a graveyard zone or is traffic permitted there? I'd like to think that's the most appropriate area, name notwithstanding.
Currently, Archives is basically a graveyard. The Modern Forum Rules explain its intent, and the "No Posting" part is pretty clear:
Modern Archives - No Posting, but you can find old threads or deck ideas.
We could definitely move stuff to the archives, rename it (MemoryLapse suggested that a page or so back), and open it up for posting. But that might be a needlessly complicated mess. It would need some serious reorganization to be functional as a place for posting. It's definitely an option. I'm not sure if it's better or worse than moving a deck to Creation.
Depends on how the userbase perceives the intent of the organization.
I should probably try to work around the massive scale of MDC rather than try and pressure for a traffic-permitting retirement home for cemented archetypes that only lack the event results needed to qualify for Proven/Established.
DEMOTED TO CREATION
Combo Elves
BUG Midrange
Ritual Gifts
Azorius Midrange
Goblins
Bant
Modern Boros
UW Tron
Some of these would absolutely be qualified for sticky status in Creation. Elves, for example, is definitely getting stickied; it has more traffic than any of the current stickies by hundreds of views and dozens of posts per day. UW Tron is another clear addition to the stickies.
If you didn't qualify for sticky status immediately, the thread could still get there eventually (or even bumped back up to Established/Proven depending on performance). This is just to affirm that threads which are moved out of Established won't just be buried in Creation, especially those that are well-trafficked.
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Big Johnny.
Sorting the "Tier 1/1.5" section by actual archetypes would be far more benefecial than having single threads fly around. Something akin to the old system, with fixes (UW Tron being in the same section as RG Tron, for example, was kinda silly, as they differed from each other so much that the only thing they had in common was the UrzaTron and some number of colorless threats) would be vastly superior to the current system.
I hope that there is a revamp coming that will clean up these issues, or otherwise the threads will get clustered with different subjects, which will drown individual ideas and clutter the thread.
I hope we can breathe new life in the ultimate goal of a forum like this: Use the hivemind to advance and tune a deck.
I was going to stay away from this since my ideas are falling on deaf ears but...mine is blue.
Good idea. There are two ways that I envision this being implemented. Again, this is in regards to Established:
1) Any deck that makes up 2%+ (or 3%+) of Day 2 is considered Established
2) Any deck with 2+ (or 3-4+) appearances is considered Established
I'm not totally sure about the numbers yet, but those are good preliminary guesses based on data from three Grand Prix day 2 breakdowns. I'm leaning towards option 1 because it respects the size of events more than option 2. But then again, Established might not need such stringent requirements; perhaps just 3-4 appearances is a critical enough mass to warrant inclusion. Either is fine, but I definitely want to add one of them.
There are two worries that I have with the archetype division approach, and I am hoping that someone can address them.
For one, Modern has a lot of archetype bleed throughout the format. This makes it difficult, potentially contentious, and somewhat artificial to classify decks in archetype subforums. Let's just look at some example decks to see why this becomes risky. Obviously, some decks are easy fits. BG Rock and Jund can go in "Midrange", UWR Control can go in "Control", Storm and Twin can go in "Combo", etc. But there are a number of decks that are not so easily classified. RG Tron, for instance, is a ramp deck that combines elements (playstyle) of combo and aggro. Mono U Tron is a different sort of ramp deck that combines elements of combo and control. Delver is a tempo deck, which might exist somewhere between midrange and aggro. Both Kiki Pod and Melira Pod definitely have combo finishes, but otherwise are much more midrangey. Where would such threads go? Of course, we could put our foot down as mods and just define them however we want, but that still leads to the second problem.
This second issue is much more worrisome than the first, at least to me. How would new players know where to find a deck? In the current megathread system, or so the theory goes, a new player can quickly thumb through each of the decks to see what their deal is. They can also quickly find a deck if they are looking for one that they heard of ("Delver sounds cool! What does it do in Modern?"). But if I am a new player or a new site visitor, or even just a new entrant to Modern, the archetype system makes it much more complicated for me to find the deck I am looking for. Sure, if I know what archetype I like then I can browse within. But if I am looking for a deck itself, it makes it hard to find because I won't know what archetype it falls under. I may not even really know what the archetypes mean. This can make our site less attractive to new visitors and prospective Modern players.
Again, I am totally open to hearing responses on these points.
Responding to all of your blue text:
1) Established as it currently exists has too many dead threads. We know it. That is why we are implementing fixes that have not yet been implemented. Stop using the current state of Established as evidence that the unimplemented changes have failed. They haven't been implemented yet so they can't have failed.
2) We already have an MTG Deck Showcase for popular threads alone: Deck Creation stickies.
3) Just like "The Source", the preeminent forum for Legacy discussion, we need a subforum that allows discussion of tier 2 decks that are still tournament contenders. Also, those threads are always active for the decks that truly belong there. They are inactive for decks that don't belong there, and that is why I am tightening up the criteria: To ensure that Established decks have the right content.
4) The criteria is not arbitrary even if you don't agree with it. It uses commonly accepted statistical practices to estimate competitiveness of decks in a population. It is far more arbitrary to showcase decks based on popularity alone, especially when that popularity is a function of only 5-10 players posting repeatedly in one thread (as in Deck Creation).
I have some sympathy with what you are saying- but do I think the mods know that established can be/is a bit of a mess.
But if people skip to "proven" and ignore established its a pretty good way to make sure you are well placed in that top 8 of a grand prix, apart from the odd time when a deck breaks out. However, if they do so its a pretty good way to make sure you never will be anywhere near it as there are large numbers of established decks that you will be inexperienced about playing that will get played at those grand prix and will make high-ish day 2 placings.
Many people do skip to proven. Many people convince themselves they need to spend thousands of dollars to play mtg every year. Many people will sit there and forever talk about bad luck when in reality they made poor decisions. Many people like to have respectability of the "proven" mtgs label. many do exactly the opposite and won't play a deck because it is popular. You can't please everyone.
Its often their loss, and skipping established it will make them worse magic players than those who have the time to check out both.
One thing for everyone to consider- there are very few grand prixs compared to the number of people playing modern. They are bloody expensive to get to, unlike PTQs. Perspective- the median average wage in the UK is about £26K, about 15-1700 per month after tax, before bills. To fly to say, the US and stay in a hotel and play mtg for a weekend will set you back about half that, and thats before you have any bills. So realistically anyone looking for a competetive deck is unlikely to be going to play it specifically at a GP. More likely is they are looking to play it at a PTQ or win a box type event, where the results and decks are considerably more varied. We are not talking standard where there are 6 decks and homebrews. The established decks contain some real decks. Could established decks like death and taxes or a BW hatebears take a PTQ? Well yes, last year BW haterator did just that at a couple of events. Could they win a daily. Yes, for sure, they do. Could they win a 30 player LGS event, GPT or win a box. Of course. Could it win a GP? Perhaps not. Unless Mr Wescoe spends a month practicing it, and in which case it would presumably get bumped to proven. Either way you these decks, and many others in established deserve attention.
Definitely a good criterion.
See the beauty of this is I can just watch and wait and let the graveyard that is Established speak for itself over the next few weeks.
All of this wheel spinning you are doing to try and nail down some "perfect" set of criteria for what decks belong in established and what decks dont will not make established a popular forum. If your goal is to make the forum popular then you are utterly failing. If you do not care about creating popular forum and instead just want an archive / showcase of the decks that fit into your criteria (and yes it is completely arbitrary) then I guess carry on.
I thought the whole point of this was to rework the forums to make Established into something people actually care about looking at. According to KTK, this is not the goal at all.
I'm going to list the threads that need either archived or moved to creation.
Nivmiseit
Goblins - I don't think any of the Tribal decks are good enough to be up in established.
Ritual Gifts
Azorius Midrange
Domain Zoo
Modern Boros
Eternal Command
There seems to be too many decks in Established. In reality right now there are 10-12 truly 1.5-2 level decks.
I think Bant, BUG Midrange, and 4cc Gift's are all borderline. There are a few decks in Proven that could be brought down to fill some of the spots.
Whatever is decided, you need to stick with. There is a general "wishy washy" approach to this task and it is leading to a jumbled mess of ideas. I think the reason the Source is the place to be for Legacy is because it has defined criteria. I also think the leadership in that forum is a bit more "take charge".
@Lapse: You need to be less hostile with this. I get that you have passion and that this forum seems to be where you want to be. However you need to actively work with these guys. I know from the 8Rack thread that it takes you a bit to agree with others. Give these guys some time to work this out. Creation is as popular as it is right now because people are trying to see what to play next summer in their PTQ's. Proven is busy due to GP Detroit. Established is going to see heavy traffic flow once the Modern PTQ's start hitting. In my eyes Established needs to be sorted after Detroit. That removes any back and forth among posters. Established has to be thriving by next spring or people will go elsewhere.
Cockatrice username: Blackcat77
Some threads in Established have lots of activity. Others do not. Clearly, there is nothing inherently wrong with the subforum. Rather, there is something wrong with the threads in the forum. Criteria will help us change what threads are in that forum and thus increase traffic. More threads like D&T, Merfolk, and Elves, and less threads like Boros and Ritual Gifts.
Again, you need to calm down, take a breather, and not make silly accusations like this. It is patently obvious that the goal is for users to care about our forum and subforums. It is clear that you have strong opinions and I respect that, but you need to take a step back and think about your responses before you type them. "According to KTK, this is not the goal at all" is the sort of response that makes me doubt you are reading anything other than your own posts.
It is no coincidence that we are trying to sort out criteria in advance of GP Detroit. Once that event is done, come next Monday, a bunch of threads are going to get moved around and the new organization will basically be in place. We will also have August and September MTGO data completed to further inform the reorganization. Probably every deck that you mentioned will be moved out of Established (probably). Some decks might get promoted to Proven or demoted as necessary. And in all cases, there will be clear criteria to justify the moves so visitors can have faith in the quality of information on our website.
For issue #1, I'd look for distinct elements in the decks' construction-processes themselves to pin them down in a certain subforum. Something like general philosophy of the deck, for example, makes it quite easy to classify decks.
UW Tron is, at heart, a control deck, which uses the Tron engine to spit out gigantic threats and end the game with them. Until then, it seeks to control the board, stay alife and grind out advantages. U-based Control section.
RG Tron wants to assemble the full Tron ASAP, then cast gigantic stuff and end the game. Emrakul is an ensurance for the lategame and not the wincondition they usually aim for. Tron subsection.
U Tron, at heart, plays a bunch of big guys and wants to put them on the table to crush the opponent with it's mana advantage. In the end, it's more like RG than UW, IMO, as it tends to pack a lot of big plays instead of a lot of control mechanisms. Tron subsection.
Pod decks are constructed with the idea being that you create a midrange deck that can use Pod to grind out advantages. Including game-ending combos in them doesn't make them pure combo decks, they still are creature-based grindy decks that can win out of thin air. In a way, they resemble Elves. They would all go to the same section: Birthing Pod Decks.
I tried to make justifications for where some of the cases you touched would go, I hope you get my line of thinking.
As for where new players could turn to find the decks they heard about: Create a Sticky. Include Links in it to each and every Archetype subsection and the Primers themselves. Is it possible for the forum to use some sort of Tag system? At "The Source" we use a tag system to tag a thread so you can search these tags and don't have to navigate through the whole forum. Entering "Delver" in the search should then yield results like "UW Delver", "RUG Delver", "Grixis Delver", etc, you catch the drift.
I hope this helps you understand where I am going with my ideas.
I think I might have misinterpreted you. I thought you wanted the decks in subforums under general strategies, like "combo", "control", "midrange", and "aggro". You seem to mean archetypes such as "Tron", "Pod", "Jund", etc. We already tried that latter approach by giving general deck archetypes their own subforum, and it didn't work out well at all. In practice, the subforums were full small threads with minimal activity, with most of it belonging in the main thread. It also led to misleading information because UW Tron does not belong in the same Proven section as RG Tron. It was also much harder for mods to update forums because we had to change the entire sub's name and all the threads in it, not just moving threads around between sections.
I'm totally willing to hear arguments about separating decks by strategies, e.g. aggro, combo, midrange, etc. There hasn't been a lot of talk about that. But we will not be separating them by archetypes (e.g. Pod, Tron, UWx Control, etc.). We tried it, it didn't work, it was messy, it was misleading, and the new design is working a lot better.
Proven
Competitive Decks Representing the Current Metagame
A deck is considered "Proven" if it fulfills one or more of the following criteria:
Established
Tournament Decks with Results
A deck is considered "Established" if it does not meet the requirements of "Proven" but still fulfills one or more of the following criteria:
~ Brian DeMars
I'm thinking for Proven, it's this:
Any deck making up 7%+ of the Day 2 metagame (i.e. any deck with day 2prevalence > one standard deviation over the average day 2 prevalence for all Modern GPs in the last year)
And for Established, it would be:
Any deck making up 3.5%+ of the Day 2 metagame (i.e. any deck with above average day 2 prevalence for all day 2 decks at Modern GPs in the last year)
Thoughts?
Remove slow / dead threads from both forums.
Will write it up later today and post it here.
There is both accuracy and inaccuracy to this statement. At Detroit day 2, the top 10 most played decks were as follows, given in order of most to least prevalent:
Twin
Affinity
GB Rock
RG Tron
Melira Pod
Jund
UWR Control
Splinter Bant (?)
Junk
Ajundi
In the 2-3 weeks leading up to GP Detroit, here is what the MTGO metagame looked like, also given in order of most to least prevalent:
Affinity
RG Tron
Twin
UWR Control
Delver
Ajundi
Melira Pod
Burn
BG Rock
Jund
Those metagame pictures have considerable overlap. The numbers are different because of the sample sizes (Twin at GP Detroit made up 18% of the day 2 field, but online it's on average only about 7%). But the decks being represented are roughly similar. Chief differences between the lists include Delver and Burn for MTGO, and Splinter Bant and Junk for the paper day 2 metagame. But at least in the case of both Delver and Burn, those decks did appear on day 2 in some quantity. So by including those decks on a "Proven" list, we still aren't totally off base.
Personally, I am comfortable with including a few lists that are Proven in Paper but not online, just as I am comfortable with the reverse. The metagames just look a lot more similar than most people probably realize.
Proven
Competitive Decks Representing the Current Metagame
A deck is considered "Proven" if it fulfills TWO or more of the following criteria:
Under these criteria, here is what the Proven forum would look like.
NEW PROVEN
Affinity
UWR Control
UWR Midrange
Bogles
Melira Pod
RG Tron
Twin
BG Rock
Scapeshift
Burn
Jund
And here are the current Proven decks that would be getting demoted to Established:
DEMOTED FROM PROVEN
UR Delver
Kiki Pod
GW Hatebears
Wx Tokens
Soul Sisters
Gruul Zoo
Mono U Tron
UR Storm
Living End
Naya Zoo
Next, here are the working criteria for Established.
Established
Tournament Decks with Results
A deck is considered "Established" if it does not meet the requirements of "Proven" but still fulfills ONE or more of the following criteria:
Under those definitions, which are much more inclusive, here is what the Established would look like (And I might have missed some decks, given the wider inclusivity!):
NEW ESTABLISHED
UR Delver
Kiki Pod
GW Hatebears
Wx Tokens
Soul Sisters
Gruul Zoo
Mono U Tron
UR Storm
Living End
Naya Zoo
Domain Zoo
Modern Merfolk
Reanimator
Junk
U(x) Faeries
Death and Taxes
Eternal Command
Infect
4CC Gifts
Dredgevine
Assault Loam
Finally, here are the Established decks that would get moved down to Deck Creation:
DEMOTED TO CREATION
Combo Elves
BUG Midrange
Ritual Gifts
Azorius Midrange
Goblins
Bant
Modern Boros
UW Tron
Again, I cannot emphasize this enough: This is just a PRELIMINARY ORGANIZATION SCHEME. It has not been implemented and will not be implemented without input from the community. Feel free to suggest that a deck be moved to a different part of the forum. For example, Restore Balance has at least a handful of Daily 4-0/3-1 finishes, so it might get to go to Established. Or perhaps, in the instance of a deck like UW Tron, there are some finishes I have missed. I went through a ton of data to get to this point, so it's very possible that something got neglected in the process. So please speak up and offer your input.
EDIT: I am also temporarily moving this thread to MODERN GENERAL to guarantee that everyone sees it.
-ktkenshinx
I'm kinda concerned it might get lost alongside the RW lockdown deck that floats around there as well amongst other RW deck threads, though.
Another note, specifically in regards to these points:
We can theoretically divide Established into two categories, even without making a new subforum. We can sticky all of the threads that actually meet the criteria for Established (UR Delver, Living End, etc.) and then leave unstickied all the threads that were once in Established but have since fallen out of favor (Boros, Goblins, UW Tron, etc.).
The advantage of this is that the decks would not get lost in the Creation shuffle. It would also honor decks that were once contenders without moving them fully to the Archives. The disadvantage is that it might be too complicated and unclear, and that we might not need an additional level of organization.
Any thoughts on this would also be welcome!
Though that's just more stratification that I feel undermines the intent behind the organization.
Is Archives supposed to be treated as a graveyard zone or is traffic permitted there? I'd like to think that's the most appropriate area, name notwithstanding.
Currently, Archives is basically a graveyard. The Modern Forum Rules explain its intent, and the "No Posting" part is pretty clear:
We could definitely move stuff to the archives, rename it (MemoryLapse suggested that a page or so back), and open it up for posting. But that might be a needlessly complicated mess. It would need some serious reorganization to be functional as a place for posting. It's definitely an option. I'm not sure if it's better or worse than moving a deck to Creation.
I should probably try to work around the massive scale of MDC rather than try and pressure for a traffic-permitting retirement home for cemented archetypes that only lack the event results needed to qualify for Proven/Established.
DEMOTED TO CREATION
Combo Elves
BUG Midrange
Ritual Gifts
Azorius Midrange
Goblins
Bant
Modern Boros
UW Tron
Some of these would absolutely be qualified for sticky status in Creation. Elves, for example, is definitely getting stickied; it has more traffic than any of the current stickies by hundreds of views and dozens of posts per day. UW Tron is another clear addition to the stickies.
If you didn't qualify for sticky status immediately, the thread could still get there eventually (or even bumped back up to Established/Proven depending on performance). This is just to affirm that threads which are moved out of Established won't just be buried in Creation, especially those that are well-trafficked.