Good Card Suggestions Vs Deck Dilution
General forum
Posted on April 24, 2014, 3:07 a.m. by Headers13
Good card suggestions are the lifeblood of any good deck. No one can know every good card and or combo, which is why tappedOut is so useful.
I stopped trying to make 'copes with everything' decks very early on after realising they are not possible, there'll always be some deck that can beat yours which is what makes magic so interesting.
This led me to making decks based around a certain theme, trying to make each deck do one or two things well, which leads me to the crux of this discussion.
Does anyone else find it annoying when people suggest cards not in keeping with the theme of your deck with the proviso that it will let you cope with one aspect of a possible opposition deck (aka deck dilution)?
Don't get me wrong, card suggestions that are in keeping with the theme of your deck that let you cope with more aspects of opposition decks are insanely useful.
Suggestions that ignore the theme of the deck and would dilute what it is trying to do indicate to me that the person suggesting them has fallen foul of a deck with a particular mechanic and thus suggests on every deck they come across how to cope with said mechanic after skim reading your deck.
The worst offenders normally centre around adding cards to cope with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn . No one I know or have ever played against has one, so what is the point of adding cards to a deck to cope with it.
A lot of it will depend on your particular interpretation of your own win con. A magic deck is a remarkably personal thing.
A good example was when I was working on my Critter Swapper deck. The entire idea of the deck was to use Young Pyromancer to create tokens, then use Switcheroo to trade them for big nasties.
One of the suggestions I got was Glitterfang . I can absolutely see that being the idea in another player's hands. It just wouldn't work for me because I was also running the Beguiler of Wills and I also needed the tokens to inflate my creature count.
It wasn't a bad suggestion. It just wasn't what I had in mind.
gufymike says... #2
A lot of suggestions I get sometimes aren't situational, but are usually the best cards in those colors. Regardless of the theme and/or ignore what the deck is trying to do. But I do ask them to look at the deck closer and find out how to fit it in. Sometimes they realize that it can't fit or find a way to make it fit that makes the deck better.
A simple example is I have a legacy deck that splash's a bit of green to maximize DRS's value. The green is from two sources (DRS being one and a single Tropical Island ).. The deck is esper stoneblade that's very controlling. Seeing the green someone suggested I add goyf... I mean it's not a bad card, but it wasn't part of the decks deal or plan. I suggested he/she look at the deck and decide what to change to add in goyf, without changing the deck's theme. Then they realized that it wouldn't fit.
Now, when people are suggesting cards based on a potential threat, they are thinking in terms of playing it in a major tournament or similar, where people will play Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or similar high level cards. Tournaments like GP's and PTQ's. FNM level tournaments can have this level of play also. Last night in casual free play, my friend played show and tell (the deck). I beat it with mindslaver and emrakul. So you can't really get mad at that because they don't play your in your meta or know your meta enough to not discount this.
I tend to just ignore the suggestion, or explain and/or add the explanation to the deck's description why certain cards won't work.
When they ignore the description, that's when it annoys me and I just either say 'read the description' or ignore the suggestion.
Also some suggestions, like those that target emmy are also very good suggestions against most other threats and can be useful outside of emmy. Got to be mindful about that.
April 24, 2014 9:41 a.m.