The Number Games: Gidge's Guide to Copious Comments and Vast Views
Challenges and Articles forum
Posted on July 26, 2014, 12:51 a.m. by Gidgetimer
This is the first in a series of How to Communicate on the Internet Articles I have envisioned for the future, but the title was long enough and I'm not sure the series thing will take off since I am just doing this in my free time. Before we get started a little back ground on me is in order. I was born in 1985 and as such went to school in a different time than a lot of people who will be reading this. When I learned the planets there were 9 of them (RIP Pluto). More importantly to this article, and maybe future ones in this series, is that there was a certain expectation to formal communication including requests for help and solicitations for attention. I'm not saying that the way I was taught was a better way to communicate, only that it has some advantages to a more casual style. I am not an expert on communication in any manner and am writing this based on some positive encouragement I got about a much smaller similar comment I wrote.
One last note before we begin, I am going to link a few decks in here. I haven't looked at many of them in depth at all. I clicked onto must just to get the slug since I feel it is the least I can do for using them as examples. In one section my own deck will get linked a lot. My attempt isn't to advertise, but to educate and my own was just easier to use in that section.
TappedOut has a standardized page layout so that is not the design I am talking about. I am talking about the parts that you the deck builder have control over. These include the title, deck picture, and description.
The first impression of a deck is going to be made by its title. This is how your deck will be listed in the hubs and in links. You want the name to be clever, related to the deck, and make use of literary devices. There are 3 tactics you can use for naming your deck. You can have a fun title, a descriptive title or both. I am a fan of the Fun Title: Informative Title form of naming if you hadn't noticed from the title of this article. This leads to long titles a lot, but the full title isn't always going to be necessary when referring to the deck. Since these deck lists are not for academic purposes even the descriptive title doesn't need to be dry, and if your fun title is closely enough linked you don't have to have a descriptive one.
Good fun titles will often evoke feelings or make a play on the title of a famous work. Such as I Shut my Eyes and All the World Drops Dead or That Lovin' Feeling(complete with music btw). Informative titles can be creative, but most of the time are only used to identify a deck that falls into a particular archetype and will often appeal to people interested in the format that deck is in or people interested in that particular deck. Examples of this include 48 Card Belcher and American Control. The both strategy of naming tries to play into both Vothos's love for creativity and Melvins love for accuracy. The title of this article plays on The Hunger Games by substituting in a word that rhymes and has the same syllable count for the second word. I then used alliteration in the descriptive part to make it more engaging to read.
Once you have used a good title to entice a viewer to your page the first thing they are going to notice is the picture or lack thereof. It is in the upper left and is going to be the first thing people see before the description or even the deck list itself. On EDH decks this is going to be the commander and you may not have a choice. On other formats however you get to pick a featured card. The featured card should have dynamic art. Now I know that the word dynamic gets thrown around a lot, and usually without any context for what is meant. When talking about the art of a card it must look as if something is happening. You want to give the idea that your deck is acting instead of being acted upon. Even enchantress!!!! the durdliest of the durdle archetype can benefit from having Runed Halo
as a picture to show some excitement. Some good examples of art for a deck picture would be Consuming Aberration
and Index
, both of these cards have something definitely happening in the art. Lands are usually bad choices for the picture because even the best landscape is usually a passive setting for things to happen instead of a participant. Other than lands most of the more passive arts are old such as Blue Mana Battery
and White Ward
.
Now that you have enticed the viewer to come to your deck page and continue on the next things they are going to interact with are the deck list and description. The deck list you aren't going to have much control over the presentation of because it is after all only a list of cards. The way the description is laid out is going to be largely based on if the deck is of an established archetype or a brew. Lists that are variations on established decks should include a brief synopsis of what the deck does and how. Then it should move on to what differences there are from the established deck and why. For a brew you are going to have the brief synopsis of what the deck does and how. But after that you should take the time to explain the interesting interactions in a bit more detail. Some people like to tell a story along with their deck and this is fine. But I would suggest that if your description takes up more than 1 1/2 screens that you learn to use expand tags to minimize the wall of text feeling.
There are three basic ways to solicit views and comments. The first is going to be through site mechanics. Secondly there is the Deck Help forum. Lastly there is in commenting in other places.
Site mechanics are the most basic and yet most effective way to run views to your deck. Deck cycling puts the deck back on the front page and at the top of its hubs, everyone gets at least one cycle per day, it is a great way to drive traffic to your well designed Deck Page. Since I already mentioned them there are also the Hubs. These are collections of decks by certain tags that you can add to them. From the point of view of someone browsing this allows easy viewing of only the decks that you are interested in. From our point of view as the builder this provides additional places for our decks to show up. You want to add as many tags as fit your deck, but you don't want to add tags that don't fit your deck or only partially fit your deck. Each deck should have one color designation, one format designation, and as many other designations as accurately describe it. The last site mechanic is feature tokens which you can purchase to get your deck plastered above the most recent decks on the home page and even occasionally show up in the advertising bar (at least I seem to remember seeing some there, I can't get it recreated).
The Deck Help Forum is much like your description in that it needs to hold some specific information about your deck in order to drive people to interact. If the list is a brew you should include the synopsis of how it works from your description. If the deck is an established archetype you need to mention the archetype. All deck help posts need to contain the format the deck is. In addition 2-4 sentences should be included describing the nature of your problem. The final thing that posts in the deck help forum must include is a link to your deck. Not the url of your deck or just the phrase "my _ deck". An actual link, if you don't know how to link there is a formatting guide at the bottom of each page you can enter text in that will tell you how to link.
The third place you can solicit views is on other places that you can comment. This includes people's walls and deck lists. My only comment on posting on walls, since it is the most informal way to do it, is only post on the walls of people you have an established relationship with. This means that either you know them in person or you have corresponded with them to the degree that you are fairly certain they will care about your project.
Other people's deck lists are going to be the second best place to solicit views, after site mechanics. Site mechanics go for the broad but shallow approach of getting many people to see it and some will click, some will comment. Soliciting from deck lists is a more narrow, but deep approach. You are only going to comment on decks that are similar to the deck you are trying to get views and comments for. So the people looking at this deck have a proven interest in this type of deck. A greater percentage will click and comment. There is however a proper way to go about advertising on other peoples decks and a wrong way.
You need to leave a comment or compliment and then ask for a view. "Cool deck look at mine LINK" isn't a compliment. It is a blatant plug of your deck in another's comment section. I found a deck I commented on a few days ago and rewrote the comment multiple ways for what would be acceptable for trying to solicit views to your own deck, which I wasn't trying to do at the time (but will inevitably end up doing here, by virtue of an example). I will be comparing my Xenagos, God of Revels
deck to Xenagod, Fatty Extraordinaire.
Some unacceptable ways to solicit views would be:
Cool Idea check out my Xenagos, God of "You're Swinging with a HOW BIG?"
This is like my deck Xenagos, God of "You're Swinging with a HOW BIG?"
Yer doing it wrong, it needs to be a cookie cutter of Xenagos, God of "You're Swinging with a HOW BIG?"
Some acceptable ways to solicit views:
Great deck, I love to see aggressive commander decks that just decimate the opponents' life total and don't give them the breathing room necessary to set up combos. Malingus is a great creature that I had never thought of putting into my deck. Please check it out and tell me if you see anything else I can improve Xenagos, God of "You're Swinging with a HOW BIG?"
I have both Primal Rage and Gruul War Plow in my Xenagos, God of "You're Swinging with a HOW BIG?" deck in addition to Nylea and the archetype. I feel they would be good additions to your deck as well, even though you have considerably more evasion than I do. I can only find one card that I would recommend taking out for one of them, and that is Swiftfoot Boots with an indestructible commander I feel that the boots are a little less good than they normally are.
I like your deck list a lot and I will probably be adding a few of the creatures you have into mine. Please check it out and tell me if you have any suggested improvements.I feel as if your creature count may be a little high for a commander deck. I agree that all of your creatures have great abilities, but this looks as if it is a little too all in on the creature front. There are a good number of synergies in the enchantment and artifact front that can help you be just as aggressive without loosing ALL of your work to Wrath of God . Check out my Xenagos, God of "You're Swinging with a HOW BIG?" for ideas.
Both sets of examples have a complimentary, neutral, and aggressive comment. But the second set all show that you took the time to look at their deck and understand it before commenting, and people will often return the gesture. It may take a minute or two to leave a comment with some substance instead of 10 seconds to leave spam, but a comment with substance will give back way more than 12 times the results.
Plus if people start making good comments on decks similar to their own then eventually we will get to a point where looking at one deck will lead you TV Tropes style to a deck that you didn't even know you were interested in. (Feel free to blame me for the hours subsequently wasted on TV Tropes)
That last part is blatantly plagiarized from myself, I sure hope I don't sue. Please don't point out that very few of my own decks follow these tips. I am not seeking too much feedback, I build in a more organic process of playing and refining as well as getting advice from people I know in person. This is purely based on my experiences and training in interpersonal communication. A special thanks to thispersonisagenius for making me completely vocalize what I meant about posting on similar decks; and to OcelotProblems for giving me the confidence to expand upon the idea. Also a special thanks to the creators of all the decks I used for examples. Check them all out, I'm sure they are great (don't let me down guys).
Rasta_Viking29 says... #3
Good article! A lot of good info for the community.
Remember there's two sides to every coin. I hate deck name trying to be funny and rarely pay attention to them. I played a lot of team sports growing up and name my decks in a similar manner. Decks like Afflicted Monsters are the best to me. Short phrases are okay too.
I don't mind when strangers post on my wall and it's my prefered method of being asked. People just have to read my intro to figure out that I'm going to give advice on how to make their deck more competitive, if that's not their idea of better then I won't be of much help or even care. I dislike being asked in my decks as I use them as a sort of journal and it's annoying to have those posts.
I march to the beat of a different drum than most but I figured throw that out there. Better is always subjective. Again good article, I enjoyed it.
July 26, 2014 1:55 a.m.
This is a fantastic read. I wish more people followed the same flight pattern in the mental aspect that you do. I actually just ran into this issue tonight with my deck Esperkul, the Aeons Polymorphed, in which someone posted "Check out my deck, Esper Tokens . I use the same Emrakul, the Aeons Torn + Polymorph package but with a b/w tokens shell instead of an esper control shell." After attempting to have a 1v1 discussion about how neither deck are really all that similar, the other person seemed to just chalk up all talking to being "a different kind of player" in a "different Meta".
I take hours across weeks revamping my deck names, descriptions, and looking through the art to see which picture best fits my decks while being as 'dynamic' as possible. Taking the Esperkul deck for example, I feel that not only is Polymorph a very exciting art in general, but its the decks theme! But other decks like On Stranger Tides I've had difficulty with. Merfolk in general should be an easy choice, sure. But which art fits the theme the best?
Anywho. I could talk on this for days. Sorry for the long post, and I hope everyone reads this.
July 26, 2014 2:28 a.m.
Damnit it's been years since I've been Rick Rolled. Good read though.
July 26, 2014 12:21 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #9
Gidgetimer, I have a question related to this, but it requires some background information.
Over the past two or three years, I have built commander decks for fun, I literally have hundreds of lists of commander decks, but I'm not saying that to brag. Many of my friends have been amazed with cards that are crazy powerful with their respective commander, and have even copied my entire decklist with the exception of 1 card to call it their own. Online, I have done the same thing, and it has been rare that someone has said, "Ew I don't like your deck". Consequently, whenever I see a deck needing help, I want to give suggestions for their decklist, but all my suggestions are in the deck I have already build for their commander. This is the form I have been using recently to do that (the wording is completely different, but the ideas are always the same):
"I think you would like cards like BLANK. To see more cards like it, click this link: BLANK" (Not using the "deck-large:" link).
I notice this seems rather similar to some of the examples you gave in the section titled "Some unacceptable ways to solicit views". My question is this:
Since I am not looking for views, but rather, looking to help people with deck help requests via showing them a list of what I have found to be the most entertaining combos and synergistic cards with their respective commander, how can I efficiently and succinctly link to my deck for those suggestions without looking like a total dweeb begging for +1's, comments, views, etc.? (Would leaving a complement with a reason right before my question that I already have be enough?)
(TL;DR I want to post links of my deck with the same commander simply to assist others with finding cool combo cards, but how can I link to those decks without being rude and appearing to be fishing for +1's and the like?)
July 26, 2014 12:37 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #10
I guess that the example I called "Aggressive" for each of the example lists is not really a solicitation for views but a way to use a deck list as a large suggestion list as MagicalHacker said. The objective with making suggestions for a deck is to help the user improve. So while the reason behind the comment is different, the objective is the same. You want to drive traffic to your list. To get anyone to follow any link you are going to have to make them feel that you took the time to understand their deck.
My example of what I called "aggressive" uses a modified version of a coaching and management technique called "The Feedback Sandwich". The premise of this technique is that to get people to accept feedback you give praise-feedback-praise. This opens the recipient up, gives them the feedback you wanted them to have, and then ends on a positive note. There have been many article written both ways about if the technique is useful. It has become such a prevalent thing in conjunction with "Praise in public, correct in private", that often when praised 1-on-1 they will expect the feedback and the initial praise has the opposite effect of making them dread the feedback instead of opening them up to it. It also has the tendency to undermine the feedback because the interaction was two positives and one negative so they must be doing pretty good.
My modified version is Identify the problem- Complement- Criticism- Solution to criticism- Resource to help with solution. Identifying the problem puts you in a slightly adversarial position right off the bat which isn't good, but it sets the tone that this isn't praise. You then use a complement to put yourself on their side instead of an adversary (most of the time an empathetic statement such as "I agree..." or "I understand how you feel..." as they put you more firmly in their good graces). You then deliver the criticism because they are open to you as a critic. And then you provide a solution to the problem (at least one suggestion) and a resource (link) to help them find more solutions to the problem you raised. This is a net negative so they feel that they can definitely improve, but it is formatted in a way that they will be more receptive and have a higher sense of agency that they can fix the problems.
All of that is just the theory behind what my suggestion is. You still need to make the recipient of the comment feel as if you took the time to understand their deck. So take the time to understand why they chose what they chose. If they have provided a good deck description then you should be able to do this without much issue. If they don't have a good deck description then the quality of your feedback is going to suffer, but it is not your fault. Then you go into the cycle I recommend for feedback. I'll write another comment using one of my decks as the target this time. On my Twisted Image Combo deck a feedback that would follow this formula would be:
- I feel that you're weak against people simply blocking. I appreciate how awesome it feels to swing in with a creature and have your opponent never suspect that they are about to die, or be super concerned about what you may be able to do. It looks like Serendib Sorcerer is only in there for 2 card unsurprising removal with one of the P/T swap effects. You could replace him with Swords to Plowshares as 1 card same turn removal. For more ideas check out my LINK deck.
You can still use the techniques for a title that stands out to increase the likelihood that they will follow the link as well.
July 26, 2014 2:16 p.m.
OcelotProblems says... #11
Holy heck! I got mentioned in an article... and it took me this long to notice! Very nicely written article Gidgetimer, and well formatted to boot. I probably spend far too much time formulating responses on decks, but I like to come across clear and well spoken. I especially like the examples showing how a single phrase can come across. Those of us who have been deckbuilding for a long time sometimes forget what it was like starting out. (I had a 100 card g/b Sengir Vampire
deck ... before EDH was a thing) and we may start sounding condescending or elitist. While that may not be our intention, our written word is what others on this site will judge us by, and just taking a moment to convey a more casual tone can make a difference in how the information exchange goes.
I'd also recommend if a commenter is leaving "suggestions", that they elaborate a bit on why they suggested the card, as well as what they would replace to make room for said suggestion. I personally reject any suggestions that don't offer feedback as well. Its amazing what a bit of old fashioned conversation can accomplish.
One question I often find myself asking about Deck Page Design is how much is too much? I use a very similar format for each deck description, altering colors, images, and other misc syntax - my current favorite bit of flair is using gifs in place of static images, as well as a bit of marquee to catch attention. I want the description to be brief and eye catching, but not Seizure inducing. Just curious about other's opinions on the matter. Pick anything in my Deck Archive to see what I mean.
August 7, 2014 1:51 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #12
Thanks! That's a really good strategy to commenting on decks, and I'll definitely be using the feedback sandwich from now on.
With the other approach, I feel like it's not very well suited to my intentions. When I post my decklist, I don't often have the idea of seeing a particular problem with their deck. For me, my suggestions will instead be cards that have nice combos or interactions that they haven't talked about yet (and therefore may have not yet seen). I like to think of this as showing people more options with the hope that they will see a "brand new" card that they need for their deck ASAP.
Like I said though, the feedback sandwich is more than good enough for my intentions, and I hope you happen to see me using this form in many of my comments! (Like this one lol)
Thanks again Gidgetimer!
August 7, 2014 2:15 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #13
Don't feel bad about not noticing lol. This didn't go into the article feed because I am not one of the site's article authors.
I wrote this because I felt that it would be a good resource to put out there for people who haven't had any training in interpersonal communications, or who think that communicating on the internet allows extremely short communications. When communicating directly to a person who you don't know, you want to be brief but you also need to give them a reason to value your communication. The entire article (and the subsequent mini-article on using deck lists as suggestion lists) is based on teaching people how to effectively communicate.
Feel free to link this anywhere you think it will do good. I personally haven't linked it anywhere because I am still evaluating if that would be too narcissistic; but If anyone else likes it enough to link it be my guest.
August 7, 2014 2:35 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #14
Damn it MagicalHacker you used the feedback sandwich on me, to great effect I might add, without me noticing until you mentioned it.
It works a bit better unaltered in a peer based setting than a managerial setting because there are no assumptions being made going into the interaction. Going into the boss/teacher/coach's office there are always assumption that can lead to the feedback sandwich being less effective.
August 7, 2014 2:43 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #16
Lol I thought you'd get a kick out of that xD
Yeah, I think the altered version isn't going to work well for me because rather than the idea being "do these changes to improve", I'm going more for "consider these options as well", so the feedback sandwich is perfect for me.
Thanks again!
VampireArmy says... #2
Good reads man. I skimmed it for now but i can tell you get what you're talking about. I put hours into most of my deck descriptions and i feel that's the only reason people give them a passing glance. Hopefully soon people will stop randomly commenting with a single card. Nothing but a card name.
July 26, 2014 1:29 a.m.