EDH Primers
TappedOut forum
Posted on June 28, 2016, 12:13 p.m. by Guerte
Is it possible to elect members of this site to a Primer Committee to maintain a special Primers section on the main page, like Latest, Top, Favs, etc.?
Having Primers could be a good thing, as it will allow members to look at a single deck list that tells you what to run or what not to run, synergies, how to pilot the deck, etc.
I've already written two primers (one is retired, however; RIP Kalemne), and I could consider expanding on the primered deck I'm actively using and/or writing a new one on a deck I've been using for a while.
June 28, 2016 1:08 p.m. Edited.
EDHrec is pretty much what you're looking for but doesn't explain WHY. It'll tell you what to run, but it doesn't explain it.
June 28, 2016 1:51 p.m.
ChiefBell: That's why I think having user-written Primers would be better. A well-written one will tell you everything you need to know about the deck (or at least it should).
June 28, 2016 1:58 p.m.
ChiefBell: Also, the deck the user is presenting has a personal touch that EDHREC cannot replicate. Nor does it embody the passion and care for the deck the user has for it. (I know that last sentence is a bit awkward but it illustrates my point).
June 28, 2016 2:26 p.m.
Phaetion: I don't think it's awkward at all. Some people can be very passionate about a deck and want to show the world. That's how I am with my Daretti deck. I spent a lot of time (and money) making it how it is today, and going the extra mile for a box, mat, and life counter.
Things like that cannot be replicated by any site.
June 28, 2016 2:34 p.m.
I know for sure myself and VexenX would love to see something like this come to fruition. And I'm sure there are many more.
June 28, 2016 2:35 p.m.
Guerte: I feel the same way about Chandra and the newly minted Ulrich (Confession: I wrote that primer without having played a werewolf deck before. I understood what the deck was trying to do at first glance.).
I definitely wouldn't mind seeing user-submitted primers being a thing but perhaps a pinned thread where all the primers can be added. That way, everything is there in one place.
June 28, 2016 2:41 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #10
Any primer committee that exists within another community (like how MTGS's committee works within their various format subforums) is basically just going to be a glorified quality control group. The primers themselves are probably going to be written by individual users who play those decks because the committee just isn't going to have the expertise on every deck to write its own material.
Of course, that does mean we need to review community submissions, which I'm apprehensive about because the various other community-driven initiatives (e.g., managing the card database, the combo database) have all had and continue to have noticeable quality issues as a result.
June 28, 2016 3:54 p.m.
I mean you can just make an EDH primer as a deck and then work on that. That's what I did for Modern and it's what I continue to do to this day.
June 28, 2016 3:59 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #12
I don't really think that's going to work the same way that it has for the Modern Primer, to be honest. With Modern and Standard and even Legacy, there's a reasonably defined meta and certain good cards, build strategies, and archetypes.
In Commander, things are much more open, and the players have a whole range of motives. Where a Modern or Standard player is generally playing to win an event of some kind (even just FNM), a Commander player could be playing to win, to achieve a certain crazy board state, or even just be indifferent to wins and losses. You can, if you're set on it, make almost any strategy or archetype "work" in Commander.
I think deck-level primers might be the way to go (if we go a way at all). For whatever variance might exist in how you can build around a certain commander, decks are usually fairly consistent when you're talking at the level of a single commander. The Mimeoplasm is typically built a certain way. Ghave, Guru of Spores is typically built a certain way. Etc. And even if there's variance, a commander-level primer can usually still provide a framework that's closely related to what the reader's interested in doing.
Of course, the tradeoff is that there's much more effort required in order to curate things at that level.
June 28, 2016 4:14 p.m.
Even if a committee isn't elected to control what primers are allowed, I feel like we could at least have an official post where users can link to their deck list/primer, and then have a front-page accessible tab where all the primers are stored.
Or maybe have a tag that can be searched so a person can search for all primers.
June 28, 2016 4:33 p.m.
I find this Primer idea very interesting, my question is, how will you make it work? Do you post an anouncement that anyone can try to make a primer about his/her favourite commander?
Or do you select a group of people who will look at commanders, search for decklists all around and write a Primer?
Also, some commanders are very popular, so what will you do when several people write a primer about the same commander?
June 28, 2016 5:11 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #17
Tagging yeaGO for a quick feature brainstorm.
Say we did establish a primer committee (maybe the group privs could be used as a model for a combo committee in the future). Say the committee approved user-submitted primers based on quality, detail, relevance, etc.
What if we had a special flag for decks with approved primers? For example, deck tiles (including the front page tiles, deck-large tiles, and the squares that appear in the deck builder) could be given a blue banner with the word "primer" in it (sort of like how featured decks have the "deck ad" banner) to denote that the deck and primer were approved by the primer committee? Could serve as a perk of sorts. "Wrote a good primer? Get this badge that increases your deck's visibility." Primers could then be automatically curated on a primer directory based on which decks have this flag set. Flags could expire annually to ensure that only decks and descriptions that are being updated are maintained in the primer listing (and it would help prevent old Standard primers from clogging the system).
We might also benefit from codifying description sections, sort of like how I have in Dominus - Dreamcrusher Edition or in the primer article. Maybe change the way deck descriptions work to allow for subsections like these? Or maybe we just have a universal primer template. That way, we can have a consistent format for all primers being reviewed and approved, and we can use the sections themselves to indicate what kinds of content are required/encouraged.
June 28, 2016 5:14 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #18
On the point Chandrian raised: I don't think it's necessary to have a single, definitive primer for a given commander. There are different ways to build different decks, and users (or even guests) can find value in reading differing opinions (or even just differing observations) about how a deck can/"should" be built.
June 28, 2016 5:15 p.m.
Epochalyptik: Your flag idea is kinda what I was talking about, although you made it more clear.
Your deck is a prime example of how they should be set up; kind of like my Daretti deck as well.
And yes, there should be more than one primer of the same general because as you said, there are multiple ways to build them.
I really like the idea of them expiring after a certain amount of inactivity.
June 28, 2016 6:39 p.m.
A while ago I had a similar kind of conversation to this with YeaGO and the result of that is that you can add a "Primer" hub to your deck. Then you can doa search by hubs to find all the decks that have been tagged for primer.
I should note though that we had the discussion at the time around the whole QC process on primers on T/O. The consensus was that anybody could publish a primer and it was the responsibility of the reader to interpret the information as useful or not.
June 28, 2016 7:12 p.m.
Epochalyptik: Do you think anything will come of this or is this just not an option right now?
rockleemyhero says... #2
Agree. I've been meaning to write a primer myself on a couple generals I've piloted for years.
I've noticed that Reddit edh is doing a similar movement. It would be cool to combine resources with them and mtgsalvation for a super primer library
June 28, 2016 12:32 p.m.