Hubs
TappedOut forum
Posted on Jan. 12, 2014, 3:56 p.m. by Epochalyptik
At the request of Jp3ngu1nb0y, this will be our hub discussion thread. Feel free to comment on existing hubs, request new hubs, or suggest that irrelevant hubs be deleted.
BEFORE YOU POST:
Please note that I will not add pointless hubs. I don't want a hub for every decklist in every format ever. Hubs should allow you to categorize your deck in general terms so it is easier to find and easier to understand at a glance.
For example, "combo" and "control" are fine hubs. They broadly categorize what a deck is about, and they're easy to understand. "Triskelion combo" is a bad hub because it's too narrow. If a hub is so specific that it would only usable by a very small subset of decks, then it won't be added because it won't be practical.
No more than they would understand other legacy names, really. It would be useful to those who need it.
January 12, 2014 11:16 p.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #6
I think the Undying hub could be changed to Undying/Persist.
I'm having ambivalent thoughts about the blink hub. An "EtB Triggers" hub could be useful for undying, flickering and bouncing decks.
Does anybody else have trouble finding fitting hubs for ninja decks? Maybe a "Combat Surprise" hub that serves to mark decks with heavy focus on instant speed effects taking place in combat phase could include ninjutsu, p/t switching, weenie buffs etcetera.
January 12, 2014 11:42 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #7
@Triforce-Finder: Undying was deleted. As was blink.
@everyone: Devotion was added.
January 12, 2014 11:45 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #8
I think that "Combat trick" would be a bit more fitting than "Combat Surprise". Surprise sounds more like a deck name than a general title.
January 12, 2014 11:47 p.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #9
True, but trick doesn't imply the sudden change in the situation as good as surprise does. The hub would get flooded with every deck that is so innovative that it combines trample and deathtouch or other common combat abilities.
I see. Probably for the better. Is the etb hub a thing? I'm really missing something like that.
January 13, 2014 midnight
Gidgetimer says... #10
@Epochalyptik: Great job cleaning up the hub list it looks a lot more uniform, thanks for taking the time to fix it up.
You seem to have reversed the order of color and monicker on junk though :( I hate to be that guy that points out the one flaw but it looks like I am.
January 13, 2014 12:02 a.m.
Both of those seem really vague. 90% of decks have ETBs and 70% have combat shenanigans of some description.
January 13, 2014 12:02 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #12
@Gidgetimer: Fixed.
As for the ETB and Combat Trick/Surprise hubs, I agree with Jp3ngu1nb0y. Those kinds of effects are so commonplace in Magic that they don't really serve a purpose as hubs. You can probably also identify the relevant decks more easily using some other descriptor.
January 13, 2014 12:06 a.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #13
Stay fair. Just having an effect doesn't qualify for a hub. 99 % of the decks have creatures, but there's still good use for an aggro hub. It's the heavy focus and using resources on a certain aspect that makes the archetype.
The EtB archetype for example seeks to let permanents enter the battlefield multiple times by flickering or bouncing etc to profit from the effect as much as possibe and/or combines effects on the entering card with etb triggers from other permanents. An example from the top of my head would be a deck combining cards like Master Transmuter , Intruder Alarm , Baleful Strix and Cathars' Crusade .
If there is a better descriptor, show me. I can't find any hub that would fit nicely around this, for example: Bouncing Birds (feedback welcome). And no, tribal is neither specific nor accurate enough. I could build the deck with different creature types just as well.
The combat trick/surprise hub would probably be abused half the time anyway, so it's fine by me if there is none. It would have a big overlap with aggro too.
January 13, 2014 12:34 a.m.
I would consider deleting the majority of the tribe hubs and just let the "Tribal" hub serve for them. The exceptions would be goblins (legacy), elves (legacy/modern), merfolk (legacy/modern), and faeries (modern). Things like "Spirits", "Angels, and "Dragons" are far to narrow to be included. I would also consider deleting "12-Post" as it is banned in pauper and modern, and unplayably bad in legacy.
January 13, 2014 12:38 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #15
@Triforce-Finder: I am staying fair, but I don't see the need for that hub. You have to think about how most people will interpret and implement the hub, and I see "ETB" being used for every deck that has a few good ETB triggers in it. The hub becomes useless at that point because it doesn't actually help differentiate the decks it's meant to describe from the decks that it isn't meant to describe.
January 13, 2014 1:38 a.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #16
I could use that argument and say that the aggro hub will be used by every deck that has a few good attackers, the combo hub by every deck that has a few good synergies, and so on.
Anyway, that problem can be easily beavoided by calling the hub ETB-centered or etb-abusal.
Also, every archetype that fits into no hub will be labeled under other, way less fitting hubs. For example, the deck i linked to above is listed as weenie because the creatures are relatively cheap to cast and weak, and as aggro because it can win by attacking with the boosted creatures. It's stealing the space from a real aggro deck and from a real weenie deck.
Finally, I think very low of building a system around people's misconceptions. A system defines the conditions, and that will work if it also manages to communicate those conditions.
January 13, 2014 2:30 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #17
@Triforce-Finder: I have to disagree with your last point. An ideal system would set forth its own definitions and work flawlessly from there. A realistic system must account for the users. Even if we put up a guide detailing the different hubs, people will still misuse the hubs. We have plenty of people posting in the Q&A without looking at Gatherer rulings, and users demonstrate that they are even less likely to look at site-based resources (how many people even know we have a help desk?). Even definitions are a sticking point. We had a 14-page debate over what qualifies as a combo and what qualifies as a synergy or interaction.
Therefore, it is wise to design the hub system such that it accounts for what choices and assumptions people are likely to make. There will inevitably be crossover between some hubs, but the idea is not to design all hubs to be exclusive in comparison to one another. It's to design all hubs to be exclusive in terms of what decks do and don't fit into them. You should be able to choose any hub and define the set of decks that does fit that hub, and the set of decks that doesn't fit that hub.
January 13, 2014 2:44 a.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #18
Hm. When creating a system, you have to build an ideal system and then figure out how to make as much as possible of it work in reality. Not the other way around.
I see a pattern there. You have the power to influence the assumptions and interpretations that people make through your design, so just use that power instead of giving in to ignorance.
- Calling the Q+A section Rules Q+A would save you hundreds of moved threads. All you have to do is make it happen.
- Put a link to gatherer in the Q+A post preview and tell people to click it. Maybe even a gatherer search field if you're feeling fancy.
- Put the link to the help desk in the header, not microscopically small at the bottom of the page. People will see it. And then they will also click it.
- Make hub names clear as day instead of leaving decks out in the rain and forcing people to use unfitting hubs. Take misconceptions into account, but not by accepting them, no, by preventing them.
You have the power. Is there a reason not to use it?
January 13, 2014 3:06 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #19
@Triforce-Finder: Although it may seem otherwise, I have actually considered and pitched the first three of those ideas before. However, I'm not good enough with web design to be of any use implementing them, and I don't have the privs to edit site features anyway. I mentioned the first three ideas to yeaGO! over the past year or two (depending on when the problems were most noticeable), but he's incredibly busy, and I don't begrudge him his own schedule.
Notably, I suggested users be taken to a page like this when the click the "ask a question" button in the Q&A. That would sort most of the potentially-misplaced questions right away. I just don't have the ability to edit the link references myself, so I can't change anything.
As for the hubs, the idea is to do exactly that. This thread was created to help rename vague or misleading hubs, delete superfluous hubs, and add necessary, basic hubs. The problem is that education only goes so far, and it doesn't really help everyone the way we want it to. Therefore, a practical system should aim to be as user-friendly and straightforward as possible, but it cannot dismiss user inclinations.
January 13, 2014 3:16 a.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #20
Also (goddamn lack of an edit function), Your last point isn't accurate. You'll end up with three groups: Decks that do, decks that dont, and decks that do a little bit. That is true for all and any hub definitions you could think of. There is a way out of that: people will pick the hubs that suit their decks best. The better the hub sytem can adapt to give every archetype a suitable hub where it's a do and not a dolittle, the do's will be a lot more than the dolittle's. That doesn't mean that every archetype need its own hub, the more archetypes you can fit into one hub, the better.
However, if there is no hub where an existing archetype is a do, the system has failed. Both by idealistic and realistic standards.
As a side note, I read about tribute in the spoilers today...
January 13, 2014 3:28 a.m.
RussischerZar says... #21
The question is: what warrants a hub?
Heroic is a thing, but it's not (really) used competitively. But I see many people building decks around this mechaning.
Devotion is also a thing and it's heavily used in pretty much all colors all over Sandard and apparently also some 'older' formats (I'm not really up to date about non-Standard).
I feel like Devotion could definitely be a hub since it's so prevalent, but Heroic does probably not warrant a hub since it's Standard-only. Then again, for devotion there are already the "Mono-X" hubs, which kind of already suggest the devotion theme. But not all mono-decks are built around devotion. Also, there's the GR devotion deck, that is actually not mono-G.
But if you implement a hub for something like Heroic (that you pretty much have to build around for it to work), you would likely need other hubs for other abilities that you can build around. Some of the Ravnica guild-abilities come to mind like batallion, cipher, populate, etc.
I'm rather unsure where the line should be drawn.
January 13, 2014 7:30 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #22
I don't want hubs for every mechanic. The list would grow impossibly long. I can agree with hubs for the most deck-defining and unique mechanics (e.g. devotion, storm, infect), but not for things like heroic or evergreen keywords.
January 13, 2014 7:37 a.m.
RussischerZar says... #24
TBH heroic is also a pretty deck-defining mechanic, since you usually have to put in a lot of targeted things to make it work.
A weenie deck with heroic looks a lot different than a weenie deck without. In the latter there are usually very low to no combat tricks (maybe with an exception for stuff like Brave the Elements ). I think it is a lot more deck defining than populate or some such, since you can have stuff like Rootborn Defenses populating as a side-effect, but if you build a (proper) heroic deck, it will usually be completely dedicated to that mechanic, same as with devotion.
January 13, 2014 11:39 a.m.
Servo_Token says... #25
I see that 'Competitive', 'netdeck', and 'casual' are hubs, so that eliminates one of my three suggestions, but why not add a "timmy" and "Johnny" hub? (Or in lieu of that, an 'Original list' hub, or something to that fashion)
I notice that a lot of decks on here are either Johnny spike this-jank-got-first-at-fnm decks, or netdecks with funny names that make you think that it is something else. I would think that a hub to tell these two apart would be useful so I'm not wasting my time looking through a bunch of net decks that I know exist already.
Just a thought.
January 13, 2014 11:50 a.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #26
Isn't that where the theme/gadget hub is supposed to be used?
By the way, that are two weird things to throw together... And that hub is what I would call misinterpretable (is that a word?).
January 13, 2014 12:01 p.m.
Hey Epoch, are any of the archetype hubs I suggested going in? At the very least I think Death & Taxes, Goodstuff, and Hatebears should go in. They're very common.
January 13, 2014 1:41 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #28
IMO "goodstuff" is unnecessary. It's so common that it's almost redundant. I understand the difference between "goodstuff.dec" and a deck that could be said to have good stuff in it...does everyone though?
January 13, 2014 1:45 p.m.
I mean, a hub being used commonly is no reason not to make it. It's not to say that a deck is Goodstuff just because it uses good cards, but a collection of cards that are all individually powerful. I can see the misconception, but I think it would be a useful hub because it exists in every format, really.
January 13, 2014 1:47 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #30
Yeah, I argued for a Casual hub for awhile and eventually we got it. A little redundancy doesn't hurt anyone. Really, it's just another way to label a deck that allows people to get more views. Fair enough Penguins fan...
January 13, 2014 1:50 p.m.
Actually, the sports team and my city of residence happens to be pure coincidence. I can't stand sports. When I was a little kid I just really like penguins, so the username has stuck. Originally it was jay.penguinboy, but I changed it to be a little more interesting.
January 13, 2014 1:52 p.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #33
It's unclear. does goodstuff refer to the deck or the cards? is it a goodstuff deck when only the best infect cards are used? If it has the biggest bomb? Perfectly clear to you and me, but can we expect the broad masses to actually know what they're doing?
The hub would also be flooded by decks whose builders think its a term expressing overall deck quality.
January 13, 2014 2 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #34
I see goodstuff as a collection of format staples packed into one multicolored deck. One could make the argument that Modern Jund could fit this with Goyfs, Bobs, Lilis, Thoughtseize, etc...I've seen it splash blue for Snapcaster and white for Path to Exile as well.
January 13, 2014 2:44 p.m.
The thing is, the name is generic enough that it's misused the point will still be clear.
And generally it's a deck comprised just of... Well, good cards. Not always synergistic, not always a clear strategy, but lots of colors and lots of dough.
January 13, 2014 3:02 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #36
Just want to let you all know I haven't forgotten about this. I've been pressed for time, but I might be able to implement/debate some stuff tomorrow.
January 15, 2014 8:31 p.m.
@ Epochalyptik: I was just about to ask on your page where should I make such a suggestion. Then I felt totally dumb as I read under the forum titles each little description, with a little search of the pages I found this topic again.
I would like for a hub to be dedicated to just a "singleton" (if thats the right word for it) deck of 60 cards. The decks are similar to EDH except for two things, there is no general (hence no color restriction) and there is only 60 cards vs 100.
Your only allowed to put one copy of each card into your 60 card deck. Technically you could have more than 60 cards with no general, but then you might as well just make it an EDH deck. The advantage of such a deck like this is really the no color restriction.
Some might argue that is pointless or stupid, but I have read in blogs and forums that it can be fun to play. Mind you, this is not a stairwell deck. Its a causal deck that focuses on more flexibility I imagine.
Anyway, just food for thought.
January 25, 2014 7:10 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #38
Is there a reasonable demand for such a hub? I haven't ever come across such a deck, so I have no firsthand experience with it. I can certainly add it if it will be used, but I don't want to create a hub that's only used by a handful of decks.
January 25, 2014 7:14 p.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #39
Wouldn't that be a format rather than a hub? I just did a quick google search for "mtg singleton 60", and the amount of hits indicates that it is not exactly mainstream, but definitely a thing, and might be used on tappedout.
Anyways, it sounds interesting. It has the singleton nature of edh without the restrictions and the huge deck size messing up the draws. Could be great for all those players that end up with more than 60 cards all the time and have a hard time deciding what to drop. And it can serve as a bridge between the 60-card formats and edh.
There might be use for a "2 for 1" hub, marking decks that use triggered effects like heroic or additional costs like splicing etc. to get more value out of each played card. It could apply to newer decks that run Young Pyromancer , Purphoros, God of the Forge and/or Guttersnipe as well as to older decks that use excessive triggering, discard/madness, splicing, replicate or similarly suitable mechanics. The name is kinda self-explaining, too.
January 25, 2014 8:03 p.m.
I can not in good faith tell you there is such a high demand for the format. I can however give you links to the format and let you draw your own conclusions. Either this hub will work, or it will not.
Here is a link describing the format:
Here are some local events for such formats:Event 1; Event 2
Here are some decks lists:deck 1;deck 2;deck 3 Sorry for the weird spacing, I don't know that much about this websites syntax.
So there is support for it, but I do not have enough experience with this website to claim it will be hugely supported. I hope this helps and I truly hope people on tappedout will support such a format as well.
January 25, 2014 8:07 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #41
@Triforce-Finder: "2-for-1" seems unnecessary as a hub because, without some specific qualifier or clarifier, it basically just describes any efficient deck.
@obitus: Since it's described and characterized as a format, it makes more sense to add it as a format rather than a hub.
January 25, 2014 8:09 p.m.
Triforce-Finder said it better than I could, great idea about it being a format.
January 25, 2014 8:10 p.m.
One question, don't formats also show up on the hub list? I know casual shows up on the hub list, this could just be a default setting though.
January 25, 2014 8:12 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #44
Casual is a hub and a format because there's this roundabout argument about the merits of having casual as a descriptor rather than a format, and competitive being a hub. I don't personally agree with the duality, but the community wants it, and I don't have a good enough reason to deny it to them.
January 25, 2014 8:15 p.m.
Oh, I see. That makes sense when you put it that way. Can't really say more on the matter, time will tell I suppose. Thanks for the responses.
Jay says... #1
Dead Guy Ale is another Legacy Archetype. It's similar to Stoneblade, but it's WB and focuses on hand disruption and often token creation.
January 12, 2014 10:49 p.m.