Check me out.

[Notepad]

With that, then I guess its anybody's guess as to why replies would be low, as well as forum joining. Maybe its because we don't have the "decks to beat" listings like SCG and BB have.

By the way, have you noticed that all the sites are slowing down with articles? BB and SCG have fewer than they did back in January. PoD used to have at least three articles per day. Now they have one.

Odd...very, very odd.

Hopefully that background thing I mentioned does some good for CPA, eh Spidey?

 

[Spiderman]

I would guess that it's a combination of not a lot of people coming here in the first place and lack of articles that provoke a response (the latter could be good or bad, depending on what the intent of the article was).

I don't check other sites so don't know how their article situation is going.

 

[Oversoul]

We could have a "decks to beat" type thingy...

 

[Spiderman]

What do you mean, like a twist on the tourney "decks to beat" but casual decks instead? Or both? Or just tourney?

 

[Killer Joe]

"Decks to Beat" would imply 'established' decks. Pfffft! Not in the casual world! I do not know of ANY established decks in the casual environment. In my PLAY GROUP, yes, but that's different for YOUR play group.

How about having deck lists of GREAT Casual decks as either voted on by CPA members or measured against a set of criteria made by CPA members.

The basic question would have to be, "What IS a great casual deck?"

It's creative (not a net-deck in any way, shape, or form)
It's looks "F-U-N" to play.
Maybe even have three different categories:
1.) It's 'Combo-licious'
2.) It's 'Beat-Down from Hell'
3.) It's 'More controlling than your parents'

Otherwise we'd have to have nearly the same list as web-sites for the tourney players.

 

[TomB]

er, KJ...

I like the idea of tying the reply to articles to the forums too. I know the reason for not doing so was to encourage replies from everyone, and not just established CPA members, but by making people who wish to reply to the articles more aware of our forums we'll be doing a better job of showcasing what is arguably the heart and soul of the site, which might just add to our number of active posters.

And I have been a proponent of the idea of making this place a more general gaming site for a long time now. Magic might be what brought us all together in the first place, but a love for games of ALL kinds is to me what being a casual player is all about.

A mind is a terrible thing to close...

 

[Spiderman]

I know Tomb, and I'm with ya. Since we're still here and our opponents aren't, maybe we can push it through this time

KJ, I think that's a great idea, but I think we're going to stumble over the age-old definition of "what is casual". I mean, you can play an Affinity deck in a casual matchup as well as in a tourney.

 

[Oversoul]

I'm still toying with the idea of making something along the lines of a "decks to beat" for casual though...

I wouldn't call it that, of course, since that's not exactly what it would be (the casual "metagame" isn't the same as the tournament scene, obviously). But I do like the idea...

It would be something that showcases examples of popular (and some unpopular) casual decks at their (budget) best.

 

[Notepad]

An excellent idea, Oversoul! However, implementing it will be difficult. Rather than calling it "decks to beat" you'd be better of calling it something like "popular archetypes"

 

[Oversoul]

Yes, that's one thing that could work...

I think "archetypes" is a good term for it at least, since it would be tried and true methods to making certain decks, but not concrete models...

Some of them might not be popular though, so I'm more hesitant on that one...

It really shouldn't matter that much though. Stupid semantics; making me all anal and stuff...

 

[Rando]

Greetings, folks.

I would define a casual deck as a deck with cards chosen for fun, not for quality. That does not mean a "fun" card cannot be one of quality, but the quality aspect was not the overall factor in why the card ended up in the deck.

At any rate, I've been peaking in now and again, and frankly am amazed that the CPA has survived this long. One of the reasons I left active membership was because I had convinced myself that it could not last much longer, and would soon be done for. That was what, 2 years ago? And yet here you all still are. that makes me quite happy.

I still play competative and casual Magic, and since that competative side is strictly Type I, that makes me much more casual then your average Magic tournamnet goer. Type I and casual magic go hand in hand, regardless of what some may wish to think. Sure, it can be quite cut throat and serious, but not in nearly the same way as the Pro tour.

I was perhaps the biggist advocte of the switch from a strictly Magic site to a general gaming site. The fact that my ideas were so utterly and nearly unanimously shot-down with out much of a debate are the other reason I stopped posting. I felt as if the site no longer had anything to offer me, and I had nothig to offer it, aside from sophmoric Internet antics and drama that we shall not go into here.

At any rate, I ramain devoted to Magic in my way, and am still the biggest overall gaming geek I know.

Should a switch ever be made to convert this site to a general gaming site, I will be ready to offer what I have and what I can.

jp

 

[Spiderman]

Hey Rando, good to hear from you.

I don't think your ideas got "shot down utterly and almost unanimously", both TomB and I at the very least supported your ideas and wanted to see them come to fruition. And like I said before, I think most of the dissenters who wanted to keep this site strictly Magic have left and we might be able to make the change should we actually decide to do it.

 

[Rando]

OK, "utterly and unanimously" was a poor choice of words. I retract that.

If the debate is to be reopened, should a new thread be created?

 

[Spiderman]

Probably.

However, despite all of this. I don't see a lot of people chiming in their thoughts (unless they're actually waiting for a new thread).

Well, I guess I can ask it anyway.

 

[Killer Joe]

Though Magic is just about the only game I play and would post about, I think we should open it up to other gaming forums. I hear Marvel vs. is picking up. Whatever anyone else here plays or what would attract others to come. I dunno.

Don't we already have a forum called General Gaming?

How about a Texas Hold'em forum. I might post there semi-frequently

 

[Spiderman]

We do, but no one posts there

I believe the last idea was to condense the Magic forums into just a couple and create other forums for different genres like roleplaying, computer, tabletop, etc.

 

[Oversoul]

I'm still ambivalent, but it depends on what the plan is. What did we have in mind exactly?

 

[Spiderman]

Ignore any further discussion about that in here and use the thread in CPA/Magic Issues so it's all in one thread.

 

[TomB]

Originally posted by Spiderman
We do, but no one posts there

I believe the last idea was to condense the Magic forums into just a couple and create other forums for different genres like roleplaying, computer, tabletop, etc.

Actually, my thought at the time was to keep the forums the same, but to open up the front page and article sections to submissions about other games. There was a dearth of article submissions for the front page at the time, so we were thinking about opening things up that way.

Once that happened we could modify the forums as needed, but to be honest, aside from perhaps expanding General Gaming into a couple of more specialized forums I doubt we'd need to change much of anything else.

At least, that was my impression...

 

[Spiderman]

We'd probably have to dig up some old threads, but I thought the plan back then was to condense some of the Magic forums, like fold in Story and Voting and maybe Single-Card Strategy (the least used). Keep Decks, General, Issues, and maybe Homemade Cards and move New Members to the more site-specific forums, like Suggestions and Testing.