Tagging decks? Or subforums?

This may have come up before, but from a newer perspective:

Would it be worthwhile to set up either subforums in Decklists, or create an unofficial “Tag” for decks?

It seems like there are four types of lists posted here:

  1. “This deck won a tourney or did very well, and I’m sharing it with people”

  2. “I have a deck that I’m mostly happy with, but I need a few tweaks.”

  3. “I built this deck last week, and I want help with a good portion of it.”

  4. “I want to focus a deck on X, and need ideas, builds, etc.”

Those decks cross a wide spectrum of types. And it seems like there are people who enjoy all four, people who want to focus on just 1, or just 1 and 2, or even people who prefer to jump in to 3 and 4 more often. And some people in the 1&2 only category seem to be unhappy with 3&4.

If decks were tagged with [WIN] or [Opt] (Optimize) or [NEW] or [THEORY] it would help people avoid the types of decks they don’t like to see, would help people looking for a new deck to play go to WIN or OPT, and would prevent new deck threads from spiraling in to discussions of whether the deck was ready for testing or the like (and I’ve been part of those spirals already in my couple months here).

Alternatively, simply creating sub-forums of a similar type would also serve the same purpose.

On the third hand, it’s possible that people don’t mind, and everything is fine as it is, or that this has been discussed and rejected, because Stimhack wants to focus on the “top tier” decks or the like. But even then, from a newer perspective, that’s intimidating/unwelcoming. I’m happy to read other lists, but I’d like to put up some decks I’m working through without basically being told “Go to BGG or NRDB.” But again, it may be that Stimhack is happy in that role.

Seemed worthwhile to put it out there for thoughts, in any case.

This topic actually got brought up recently in a chat among several of the frequent users/mods. I believe the solution was: Read before posting sticky that asks not to post deck type #3, Stickied threads for the popular deck archetypes in regards to tweaking and metagaming (#2) and I can only assume #1 + #4 would remain as is. Would help clean everything up a lot.

You forgot #5 - “I clicked 49 times in a deckbuilder and posted the result without any introduction or explanation”. I think people being unhappy with #5 sometimes looks like unhappiness with #3 or #4.

I don’t think we want to be intimidating or unwelcoming, because a community lives and dies by its flow of newbies. In both directions - too many low-quality newbies equals death just as surely as too few newbies dries everything up. Look up Eternal September or the Great Digg -> Reddit Migration.

I think #2, #3 and #4 are the most interesting for discussion. Type #1 decks there isn’t so much to say because they’re already good (and often just archived in the tournament winning decklists thread). Type #5 decks aren’t going in any particular direction so providing meaningful feedback is difficult. I don’t expect a type #4 discussion to generate decklists until a few posts in, but discussions of engines and shells is definitely important. Which leaves #3 and #2, and the line between them is pretty blurry. It seems to me that as long as you bring evidence of thought and testing you get useful responses. I’d lump them both under [OPT] if we were tagging.

@SamRS: I didn’t get that vibe regarding #3. I feel like my decklists are often type-#3 but because I write in where I’m going with the deck and what problems I’m trying to solve, people can still post useful advice.

I was counting #3 as what you are calling #5, usually the “I just built this, help” threads have very little explanation of what they’re trying to do, and are usually just very generic decks. Writing where you’re trying to go with it seems to be solidly #4

Not yet convinced. Example: I’d call my Cache/Pawnshop Kate thread a #3. It has a decklist, it has a list of problems and while it has some idea about where it’s going, it definitely wasn’t a #2 in the OP. What would you call it?

#4 seems like discussions about new combos or engines to me.

Glad to hear it already came up!

To me, #3 is a deck I put together, I have a plan, but I haven’t played it 10 times against 7 different archetypes. It’s a deck I’ve thought about of course, but it’s not tested much.

I think this is a great idea, and the categories might shoehorn people into smarter discussions. I love theorycrafting about “shells” in certain archetypes, be it econ, card draw, multi-access, and having a dedicated category for that would help people analyze what works more clearly.

Of course this would also help with the dreaded deck spam. The hard part is expressing the categories in two or less words so that the category sticky (I think that’s what it’s called) guides people to post. A detailed description that isn’t in the category title is likely to be ignored.

“Deck Tweaks” for decks in established archetypes that need tweaked, but sounds like a deck on meth. Definitely needs some word smithery.

“New Meta Decks” or “New Deck Innovation” may urge people to shake up the meta and post exciting new ideas as cards are released. It will also be a catch all for untested decks.

Not sure what to name the decks that are in between brand new and tested but not refined. Maybe that’s a category that could be skipped.