wickeddarkman

14 cards in the sideboard?
Remember lurrus prevents ensnaring bridge in the maindeck.

I vaguely remember that.
Give him the link :)

So, how did the tests go ?
I do have a 2018 version of whir-lantern where I've always believed a fix to the mana would make it great again.
It seemed less vulnerable to the loss of mox opal than many other variants.

It's my goal to post all my 64 testdecks from 2018, but I can post them in an order that lets people learn something from it.

Currently I'm planning to post the monoblack devotion.
Would you like me to post the whir lantern as a second ?

I took this in an entirely other direction.
How do yo abuse a bunch of aggressive disciples ?
By going rakdos of course.
I rebuilt the deck from scratch with a focus on surging flame and stomping slabs.

Read up on those two cards, then get inspired, build your own versions and after that, compare your results with mine, by searching for the decktag: stomping slabs

You learn how to add more deck description so you will never again forget what you are doing.
Then you break the game before it breaks you!

Theres an elemental close to being like the Griffin.

It's really has a good feel to it :)
When I finish experimenting with my own outlooks I might give you a heads up on what works.
One thing that is paying of at the moment is having my "frontpage"
Some of my decks refer to it, and I can see from the likes that I get, that people are using it to see what else I got.
It's been a long time since I've updated it, so older posts are being brought to the light at a higher rate.
(At the moment I get about 5 extra messages a day than I've gotten for years)

The way you found to link all of your budget sort of has the same effect I think.
You could have a link reference to each of your major tag-types.

I might also take a closer look at your older "formals"
I'll let you know what I discover.

Oh, yeah, that deck :)
Any success with hostility ?
Have you beaten any millers yet ?

Looks good :)
I also like how your deck description has evolved.
Short intro, short "trademark" and short selfrefference.
It's become sleek and elegant :)

I'm experimenting a lot with my own setup, which may end up confusing people.
I have had thoughts about putting the selfrefferences at the bottom of the descriptions, because if they look at it to start with and then read through the how to play, they might forget about the link.

If they read through the gameplay they like it enough to continue reading, and then a link would maybe get them curious enough to go for the link. At least that's my theory :)

And the headline BD: is also nice and adds to the odds of being searched for.

What format ?
If you can find a way to generate a creature each turn you can use thoughtpicker witch to lock down the opponent like lantern mill can.

I didn't promise to stop talking about the troll.
I promissed not to hunt him. Theres a difference, and I sort of have to put things in context, how else am I going to explain things to you? You ask why people no longer dig in the past, how can I give you an answer if I can't use the past to give that answer ?

And don't forget, they ARE my trolls because I choose to paint a large red "target this guy" on myself. I'm taking a beating for a community, with this -1200 reputation. What are you doing ? Berating me for resisting.

You've changed...

All things aside, if you want your decks to be seen, go with the self referential method.
I've never been more visible since I started to link my past posts into a web.

Go through your old stuff, think about how you would group some of them together and then let each of them refer to each other by links or tags. I've seen some of the older guys link the same tag, so that anyone can see all the tags at the same link.
It was either muktol or northern warlord grouping their budget links, which is quite a neat way to do it.

It may take a while before enough people have seen your tag/link, but once that happens it simply gains it's own momentum.

I'd recommend that you make a tag/link that covers your best pieces of work.

Once enough people have started to put up these kind of links it will be easy to start referring to each other and strengthen the effect of those links.

A community rebooted :)

If I were to build around the merchant, I'd gamble on leyline of the void and creatures with the undying mechanic.
I actually have a 2018 mono black devotion where I've always wondered if the deck wouldn't be better without the nyxthos devotion lands. It's decently aggressive but overall kills with about two greys and early beats.

Does phyrexian mana add to devotion ?
If so, there are some interesting phyrexian creatures available to speed up the concept. You don't have to worry about losing the life if you can play merchants later.

Daru spiritualist is the first.

Task force is the second.

Yeah, likes and comments do create an attention economy in here, but not everybody goes that way. And I'd say a majority of the artistic builders aren't in it for the competitive game, more for the view competition. I've asked a couple of the art builders what they get out of it, and it's more or less for themselves that their deck follows the theme more than competitiveness.

One of my "rebuild the community" schemes were to let some people track down users with a very unique take on the game, and then act as tour guides showing newcomers throught both new and old.

Since I aired that idea, I've been through three personal posts that were about uncovering the pasts.
All three of them were covered up by one of the trolls who does not want anyone to dig into the past.
One of my theories are that it might be a pedophile trying to avoid that his flirts get uncovered.

Search for the decktag: wdm 2018
The deck "why I still test against 2018" lists that one of my reasons is to have a wider range of cards to think about.
By keeping in touch with past designs I'm having a lot more info about how a meta is woven together.

My decktag system is designed to compensate for the trolling.

When you searched for past decks on your own, didn't it stump you why so many decks were tagged as one thing, but were clearly another ?

This place has a very old troll that blends random decks into the tags in use to make it harder to search the past.

Try searching for death and taxes and count the decks there that are tagged as d&t but are not.
The troll has even done this with some of my earliest tags.

There is a clear intent to keep people looking into the past.

Then there are all the fake accounts.
You reach out to say something and never get a response. That kills the newcomers. They have a very hard time tracking down who takes an interest in them, and soon gives up.

The reason why this place has fallen appart is simply because noone gives a damn about the place anymore.

If the troll isn't a pedo, then he's likely on a payroll to take out this site.

There's an old combo with starlit sanctum and en-kor creatures that involves another card to generate infinite life.
Two creatures are capeable of setting up the combo with any number of en-kor.

The combo can be kept monowhite.

Would you be interested in knowing the creatures ?
(Can't remember their names but know how to find them)

There are not that many competitive players in here.
A majority is more or less deckbuilding as a sort of artistic hobby, and I frequently see people staring that they are more casual/kitchen when competitive cards are suggested.

There are studies that reveal that positive communities become creative, while negative communities stops growing. Large numbers of newcomers may change the direction of a community, but few people choose to move into a negative community. That's why the overall solution by most governments is to tear down slums and rebuild the area.
The "problem" is then that a negative group of people is forced to move on, and they will bring a bad mood with them, which is sort of understandable when their already troubled lives are complicated by being without a home.

Well, we all deal with sorrow differently, and I'm not good at comforting people.

I'll stop chasing the troll, too few people seem attached to this site anyways.

I'd like to think I brought phyrexia with me, maybe not the users, but at least the idea of a thriving community building on each others discoveries.

But maybe I'm just dragging a corpse around.

Over the years I've become less "ranty" than I've used to be.
I make sure that my content is much more versatile and try to rein myself in.

I've also called for changes to the site that would diminish the effect of someone being overly active, by asking people if it wouldn't be preferable that posting a comment on someone's deck didn't put them on the top of the stack of decks. Instead letting likes do that, but overall, the troll would probably just increase his number of likes to compensate.

I think of myself as the lesser evil here, to rephrase a sentence used, "all it takes for evil to triumph is letting good men do nothing" and I certainly ain't in the nothing category.

You are right that this is becoming just another hobby. It's been a while since I've had anything to do with my mind, because of the Corona, and I develope my strategies and tools better during pressure, so I have been using the event as a means to fine tune my tools.

I'll lower it down, some nudges.
I expect the number of deck pages to got down to three, for a while when the chatting sort of subsides, then it will return to four when the troll begins his old habits again.

Splinter: the disagreements between you and me are known widely. If you think the troll is a fantasy, then how do you explain my reputation switching from a 1.000 to a minus thousand within a month ?
I sort of hope the troll targets you next...

Then how come he was trolling when noone knew he was here ?
Anyways, do you think he can even follow my pace ?
Just search for the decktag: wdm prison
Each of those were designed both to increase my own gaming, but also to cause awareness of the troll.
Each time I released one, he quickly upvoted random decks to cover it (I kept track of the "normal" pace at which we upvote) then I would post another, and another, and frankly I was just getting my gears warmed up.
He retaliated by downvoting even more of my comments, and in return I have increased my rate of discussion.
I doubt that he can compete with me because at some point he will lose track of which posts he's randomly upvoted. I've seen him have his first cool downs, and he will only increase my activities by resisting.
I'm basically giving him more attention than he can absorb. He will be frustrated by not being in control anymore.
I fought plenty of trolls in bdominia and in my Danish forums as well. I've been battling several trolls at the same time in the past, and I'm inventing new weaponry by the day.

Yeah, if you didn't notice it before posting, it's no longer possible to know.
I think I've answered a lot of these old upvoted posts before I checked the date.
I've begun to look at the username to take a look at other comments to see if the owner is alive and kicking.

Alfred might be able to pinpoint some testdecks for you, then you could proxy them and play against yourself