When is your deck UNIQUE enough so that you can start a new topic?

[TheIdioticIdiot]

(...)
also: another possible way to alter a deck:
changing the idea, not the strategy, they may sound the same, but they are in fact very different, changing the idea doesn't always alter the strategy that much
(...)

what would be the idea of this deck (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21984.msg301608#msg301608)?

heavily modified FG time bow...
again, I am not saying changing the idea is the ONLY way, I am saying that it's a way...
for example, I made a modded shakars once (not suitable for FGs, but better in PvP)
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,22038.0.html
original idea: voodoo+TU=epic damage
new idea: phoenix+cremation+voodoo for protection and added damage (this fairs much better in PvP due to stalls)

[teffy]

1.
You are using at least 2 cards that the original deck did not use (Original didn't have Photons or Novas, you have both)
OR
You are not using 2 or more cards that the original deck has (Original had Fire Bolts and Miracles, you have none)
OR
You are using at least 12 copies of a card that the original deck did not use (Original had 6 Pillars, 2 Novas. You have 14 Pillars, 6 Novas)

2.
You are using  at least 3 copies of a card (any card) that the original deck did not have.

Just brainstorming here, so I've probably missed something I'll add more stuff later.

You missed much.
1) With some small changes in card amount (one Hourglass more or less), 3 of the Rainbow decks in the FG-Deck Archive would be copies of each other, although they completely use different strategies.

2) If A is a copy of B , then B should be a copy of A . (Symmetry)
But what about these hypothetical decks :

A: 30 pillars
B: 30 pillars, 3* card A, 3 * card B.

If A is the original deck, B fulfills 1 and 2 so B is unique.
But if B is the original deck, A doesn´t fulfill 2,  because A doesn´t have a card which B doesn´t have. So A isn´t unique.

B is not a variation of A, but A is a variation of B.

q.e.d.

------------

I think, these rules you want to develop aren´t newbie - friendly and easy to manage. I know a lot of people who say: "Math ? Don´t come with THIS!."
When I want to post a deck, how shall I control, that nobody posted a similar deck ?
Do all users know what 20 % are ? We don´t have an age limit, here.
I know, decks in Rainbow and Duo section are hard to find, better look for good ways to sort them.

I also think it belongs to freedom of speech to post the deck you want. If you want credit for a deck ,other people copied, then reply in these topics with a link to your deck or ask the first poster for credit.

Also should be said, that there isn´t always exactly one creator of a deck. I probably had ideas of RoL-Hope, before this deck was posted somewhere.
Many people have a deck in their mind, one of them writes it down in the forum. Or nobody.

In real life, Leibniz and Newton developed the Infinitesimal calculus, independent from each other.

[YawnChainHow]

I'm going to assume that if and when a variant (not-unique deck) is posted in its own thread, it will be merged with the original topic.

I think, these rules you want to develop aren´t newbie - friendly and easy to manage. I know a lot of people who say: "Math ? Don´t come with THIS!."
When I want to post a deck, how shall I control, that nobody posted a similar deck ?
Do all users know what 20 % are ? We don´t have an age limit, here.
I know, decks in Rainbow and Duo section are hard to find, better look for good ways to sort them.

I also think it belongs to freedom of speech to post the deck you want. If you want credit for a deck ,other people copied, then reply in these topics with a link to your deck or ask the first poster for credit.

You've already solved the problem that you address in the first paragraph with your second one, then. The system would be something like this:

Innocent until proven guilty. Anyone is free to post a deck. That deck (Deck A) could be anything. If Deck A falls under the definition as a variant of another deck (Deck B), it is the duty of the creator of Deck B to ask a Deck Helper to merge the threads. If you were given credit in the thread of Deck B, you also may request a merge from a Deck Helper. If you are neither creator nor credited for Deck B, you cannot request a merge, but are free to reply to Deck A noting a similarity between the two decks (unless you're a Deck Helper or Moderator+, in which case you're free to do whatever). If nobody has any issues, the thread for Deck A wills stay the thread for Deck A, and not be merged. When a deck is submitted for the Archive, only then are the Deck Helpers required to check for uniqueness.

(I used the term "Deck Helpers", but I'm not sure if this sort of thing would be their job )

A system like the above puts the Uniqueness guidelines to use without being overly restrictive or working the Deck Helpers to death. I'm sure it's not even close to perfect, but it seems like it would work well enough to me. Newbies that accidentally break the rules will just get their thread merged and be notified through PM - any problems?
I think the combinations that SG's current proposed guidelines do well in covering most of what a percentage-based system would, but feel free to prove me wrong. Hard numbers mean less math and less hassle, so I'm against percentages for now. As for the idea of "strategy", I agree with RootRanger in >>>this post<<< (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21660.msg298002#msg298002), in which he lists the 10 deck strategies in the game. If someone can successfully tailor a system that account for them, I will have no complaints.

[Daytripper]

Hrmmmm,

You made a few mistakes in your reasoning.

I checked the USEM deck and it has healer spells in it, as I suspected. So it is not a rush, but a type of pseudorush. I would call it a healed rush. It doesn't matter what ''clearly is a rush.'' I said the typical rush has creatures in it. A buffed rush, or an immo rush or a healed rush is a type of pseudo rush. So far, I don't have any problems classifying those concepts.

Another thing, the dazzling numbers are irrelevant. Even if every card can be a concept, which isn't true, fine. You do not HAVE to classify a concept unless someone has made a deck with it. For example, I could come up with the great concept of the abyss crawler/frog rush. That is not original or a meaningful combination. Life already has 2 midrange attackers, so why come up with that rush? I could argue it isn't even a new concept, since the crawler is also a midrange attacker.

I want to go back and look at my example where I said earth has a few key cards, maybe a bit more in a duo.

basilisk blood (freezing CC)
pulverizer (denial)
earthquake (denial)
creatures
granite skin

Duo:

buffed warden (destructive CC)
Buffed oty, heavy armour (destructive CC)
gemfinders on adrenaline (Quanta factory strategy) This is maybe not the best example, since adrenaline is the key card here.

I want to argue earth has maybe 8 key cards, which aren't all original. (Elements usually have CC and creatures) They are not even all concepts, merely they are the cards. Only once a meaningful combination is made, it becomes relevant. The duo's are a good example of real concepts.

I can only return to my old conclusion. If someone made a new meaningful concept, it is worth a deck. The possible combinations may be infinite, but that is not my problem. The alphabet gives a potentially inifinite amount of words also, and I have no problem classifying those words. 

[hrmmm]

I think, these rules you want to develop aren´t newbie - friendly and easy to manage. I know a lot of people who say: "Math ? Don´t come with THIS!."
When I want to post a deck, how shall I control, that nobody posted a similar deck ?
Do all users know what 20 % are ? We don´t have an age limit, here.
I know, decks in Rainbow and Duo section are hard to find, better look for good ways to sort them.

im aware of this, but can be easy fixed with a table:

decksize	20%=
30	6
31	6
33	7
...	...

I also think it belongs to freedom of speech to post the deck you want. If you want credit for a deck ,other people copied, then reply in these topics with a link to your deck or ask the first poster for credit.

it wont prevent the freedom of speech, if we ask ppl not post decks in the card idea section.
a rule like this will not ban any deckposts, it just regulates where a post belongs to.
i can agree to give a deckposter who cares about the credit, give the responsibility to claim a credit for beeing the first who posted a deck.
but still... this rule should have the goal to prevent unnessary double posts of a equal deck.

btw. it was deckposts like this (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,22373.0.html) and this (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,12931.0.html) who started this discussion again.

I want to argue earth has maybe 8 key cards, which aren't all original. (Elements usually have CC and creatures) They are not even all concepts, merely they are the cards. Only once a meaningful combination is made, it becomes relevant. The duo's are a good example of real concepts.

I can only return to my old conclusion. If someone made a new meaningful concept, it is worth a deck. The possible combinations may be infinite, but that is not my problem. The alphabet gives a potentially inifinite amount of words also, and I have no problem classifying those words. 

im not gonna decide what is original and what is not.
im not gonna judge what is meaningful and what is not.
such subjectiv therms would mean to prevent creativity.
if some one thinks a frog/gravity pull decks is cool stuff, i wont prohibit his deckpost, just because i (or a majority of the community) think its usless.
this would be a limitation of freedom speach.
^nuff said

although i dont say, it is impossible to structure the kind of decks in general.
i just think its not a good method to decide, if a deck equals another deck.

[Daytripper]

I think you're being a bit too rigid there. You could make a frog/gravity deck, if you really wanted. After all, life barely has any CC, so it is possible. The question is: have I made a ground breaking deck if I combine creatures and CC? Well, of course not. At most you have solved a problem for life. I would never play that deck, unless I absolutely had no other cards. People may all choose to design a deck that is ''Creature of one element + CC'' and they probably will. I'm just pointing out the only thing you accomplished there is switching elements. People soon get tired of those near mono's with some CC. Already I see some of the veterans get angry when another one of these gets posted.

If we take a proper example again, such as earthquakes + reverse time. This is a murder concept because it's a form of double denial. Quake and resend. The combination is also totally unique, it basically needs earth and time. Now, someone comes around and says: ''Look at me mummy, I added 5 BB's to the deck. It's a new concept.'' Of course, you have done nothing for the deck here. I would tell you to think of something else.

One person need not decide what is a meaningful combination. If the deck works, has a goal, and if people like it, you know it's a good deck.

It is by the way not really relevant IF the new deck is any good. As long as it is a new concept. Even IF rubbish, it's a new concept. I was just adding that, because, well, there is no point in considering everything that is merely possible. You know how quickly people dismiss a deck if it's rubbish, so it's not a problem. But if the community thought a deck was good and new, I would like it if it was added to the archive.



 

[hrmmm]

I think you're being a bit too rigid there. You could make a frog/gravity deck, if you really wanted. After all, life barely has any CC, so it is possible. The question is: have I made a ground breaking deck if I combine creatures and CC? Well, of course not. At most you have solved a problem for life. I would never play that deck, unless I absolutely had no other cards. People may all choose to design a deck that is ''Creature of one element + CC'' and they probably will. I'm just pointing out the only thing you accomplished there is switching elements. People soon get tired of those near mono's with some CC. Already I see some of the veterans get angry when another one of these gets posted.

If we take a proper example again, such as earthquakes + reverse time. This is a murder concept because it's a form of double denial. Quake and resend. The combination is also totally unique, it basically needs earth and time. Now, someone comes around and says: ''Look at me mummy, I added 5 BB's to the deck. It's a new concept.'' Of course, you have done nothing for the deck here. I would tell you to think of something else.

One person need not decide what is a meaningful combination. If the deck works, has a goal, and if people like it, you know it's a good deck.

It is by the way not really relevant IF the new deck is any good. As long as it is a new concept. Even IF rubbish, it's a new concept. I was just adding that, because, well, there is no point in considering everything that is merely possible. You know how quickly people dismiss a deck if it's rubbish, so it's not a problem. But if the community thought a deck was good and new, I would like it if it was added to the archive.

you are actually saying, we should not allow any new decktopic, besides its a new concept or original.
wont gonna happen.

[Daytripper]

No, you haven't understood it at all. I never mentioned anything about allowing topics.

I think the people will pretty much post what they want. It's a big community, you don't stop it. But the qualified decks would have a chance to get promoted to the archive. Now, if later someone posts a similar deck, that will not go to the archive, since it already is in there.

But I wasn't even thinking about such a procedure before you brought this up. The question was: What defines a unique deck? i said 1) the concept and 2) somewhat, the element. Similar decks of different elements cannot be prevented, but we wouldn't want a bucket load of them. After all there's usually an element that does something best.

[hrmmm]

yep, i might didnt get you idea in your posts, daytripper.

i will give your idea another chance, if you can reduce it to a simple rule like:
"your deck is unique, if you are using at least 3 copies of a card (any card) that the original deck did not have."

if we dont find any easy rule, we will get more confusion/not nessesary posts in the deckboards.

actually im tending to a guideline, instead of a rule.
a recommendation/"over the thumbs rule" might be enough, to help posters to decide, if a new post is required.

[Daytripper]

Good, good. Maybe we get ahead, if we keep talking.

Unfortunately it doesn't quite work like that. I could cram 3 BB's in any deck and say I changed it. But it doesn't change the deck at all, even if I added 6. On the other hand, I could fundamentally change the deck if i added 2 oty's and 2 heavy armour. Or maybe it was just the heavy armour. With only 2 cards I introduced an entirely new concept to an existing deck: ''the oty could eat, but now it can eat more.'' That is the key of a fortifying combination.

Put in the most simple way:

You must introduce a fortifying combination to the deck (oty + armour)
Or you must introduce a card that creates said combination, if one element was already there.

That's all I can say, and it has nothing to do with numbers, but with judgment and dynamics. Sorry.

[Jangoo]

I have played the game before these forums went online, visited the old forums from time to time
and thus have seen A LOT of deck-posting  (while not posting decks all that much myself).

Recently, a member contacted me and asked whether there are any promising FG-decks using
the new cards out yet. I told him "by far not, because we are way in the gold-rush phase":

Phase1: Gold-rush
First off (=starting right now), everybody and their grandmother will create tons of "new" decks and even more
tons of variations of known decks ... most of that will just be adding a couple new cards to a wellknown deck
and posting it under a grand name in a new topic.

If you ask me, the lion's share of those decks is always just taking shots in the dark.
imho, there is a large difference between
fiddling around and making a serious deck-suggestion in the form of a post.
I guess the reason why all of that try and error is often posted before a possible error has even had a chance
to show is that weird urge to have "invented" a great deck.
There will be no stats to back up the deck-ideas at all, just "seems to work fine", "prolly around 65% winrate"
etc. ... Everybody wants everybody else to ACTUALLY TEST their deck-idea and having
opened the thread first will then be enought to call dibs on the deck and be a great deckbuilder.

This gold-rush does not only apply to FG-decks ... The most ridiculous incident of gold-rush I have seen
was when fractal came out and literally EVERY friggin possible combination was posted, for the very most
part indeed using the same 24 cards + some 6 cards to fractal.
Apparantly there was the assumption that you would become the "great inventor" of the deck and could
"call dibs" on it for all eternity to come and that is exactly what happened numerous times:
"Been done before.", "You just copied XYZs deck ...", "YXZ had the idea first."
Ridiculous! As if it wasn't obvious that you can fractal anything that doesn't cost all too much as a single card.

The next phases are "The sobering" where everything has been called dibs upon and "A new age of
farming" where just a few people finally work out working decks while working hard to do so, and by
"working hard" I mean actually testing and perfecting the decks, taking stats etc.

First, I really think that deck-crafting is about that work-part and totally not about having the idea.
If anybody ever "invented" a deck that would be Zanz, because honestly, unless you do find a unique
exploit (which will soon be patched away), it really isn't rocket-science to have a "deck-idea" ... the idea
is rooted in the cards as such, possible synergies are taken into consideration by the developer already.

Second, decks are hardly ever really invented but promoted or made (in an entrepreneural sense).
I couldn't count how many good "deck-ideas" I have seen being treated as "deck-help" and consecutively
sinking to the bottom of the deck-section just because it was an unknown member.
And how many completely unoriginal (but perhaps semi-original ;-) ) decks I have seen being treated
as the philosophers stone just because they were posted by a wellknown member.
Decks are made popular for the most part: Who is known, who gets posts, who spams the link in chat ...
he will "get" the deck.


Relating to 1., I would hate to see any kind of rule that makes tons of blitz-posting after a new patch
possible and forbids any further posting of decks that are similar or use roughly the same cards.
I don't think that overactive users users should benefit from any kind of rule that prohibits deck-posting.
(Duh, of course there will be gravity mono- and duo- and trio- and rainbow- and gravbow-decks with acceleration
and of course they will have a certain number of towers to pay for all those dragons, destroyers, golems etc.)
E.g., for a FG-deck, it really isn't about posting a Rainbow that features accelerated Destroyers
and be "the inventor" of that "deck-idea" forever. It is about running the deck for a while and stat-wise proving
that it works very well, it is exactly about making those few card-changes that perfect the deck.
The absolute worst case would be if it even were about having the deck-post removed because
"It's been done before -> CCYB by Amilir; reason: you only added acceleration and used a different shield."

Yes, many people will blitzpost everything the second new cards are added to the trainer
and yes, some people come out with a "deck-idea" weeks or months after a certain card came out
and still refine an existing deck-idea to a level that it finally really works
and yes, some people will further go through all the trouble to actually work with their deck, change
cards back and forth and take stats before posting
and yes, some people will go through the trouble to make an extensive post featuring strategy guides,
to update their OP regularly, to give feedback to players who post in their thread etc

and yes, all that work is worth much more than being the blitzpost-dude who "had the idea"
... but did nothing with it.


Relating to 2., I have a feeling that any kind of rule like this would only be to the benefit of
so called "veterans".

Decks are promoted, made. Some deck-thread have a very high profile, most don't.
Personally, I wouldn't trust anybody with the job of keeping track of any and every idea
posted to keep a record of "who had it first" no matter how detailed the "math" behind
categorizing decks may be ... even if such a supervisor suceeds, imho, it ends up being
another popularity/community issue and I have all the drama right before my eyes:

Frustrated intermed-player: "But but ... I had the deck-idea first!"
Deck-idea-supervisor: "Really? ... let's see the postings ..."
Vet1: "Actually 24/7-dude had it first when he told us about the deck in chat."
Vet2: "His deck leans on THIS DECK posted a while ago but is different enough to be new.
24/7-dude really knows the rules here whereas your deck is too similar to THAT DECK."
Deck-idea-supervisor: "Well, I must say that intermed-player indeed posted first and he
has a legit claim. You all know the rule: post in forum = you got tha skillz for all eternity ..."
Frustrated intermed-player: "Thank you."
Vet1: "Yeah .. whatever."
Vet3: "Nice job ninjaing the deck intermed."
Vet2: "Probably stole it in chat ... actually saw him there that day."

... and intermeds deck-thread dies a silent death.


The main-reason why the inventor of ice-machines puts a legal claim on it,
is because he wants to sell them under a monopoly.
The second reason is that he wants to be the big-mac with cheese.
If he is self-absorbed enough, he even advertises himself as the inventor
of ice as such ... a bunch of blasphemic and capitalistic horse-dump ...

Elements deck-sections should be art instead ... or at least handicraft.

Imho, "calling dibs" on decks is the logical consequence AND reason for any rule like this
and not the more honorable sounding "getting credit".
You shouldn't get credit for winning a race and being "the one guy who got it first".
You should get credit for putting in work, for working on decks together,
for making the best of what is already there since release and cannot be re-invented:
The cards and the decks.

[Pineapple]

*dibs