Card list by Role/Function - What's your approach?

[lyonhaert]

I'm facing some indecision on how to approach breaking down decklists into roles/functions for Card Choice sections as I work on a thread. I figure a lot of us tend to use cards that actually fill multiple roles. Take for example Noxious Gearhulk (lifegain and removal) or Disciple of Bolas (lifegain and card draw). They also serve as one-shot sacrifice outlets, but that's more of a corner case.

Do you pick one primary function for each card for which section to talk about it in?

Do you pick multiple main functions if they're not too much of a corner case?

• Do you say the same thing for the card in each section it's listed?
• Do you say everything about the card in one section, but link to that description from where it's listed in other sections?
• Or do you have a different description for each section where you list it, describing its use in that role?

If you have reasoning for your particular choices about presentation, I would find that interesting, too.

[ISBPathfinder]

I always go by card type even though technically speaking cards do have multiple functions. My issue with sorting by role is that as someone reading someone else's list no two people will organize by function the same so I have a much harder time seeing what is and isn't there. I also hate that in a lot of cases the sorting by function has some sort of catch all section and that drives me crazy.

When I see a list organized by function, 90% of the time I will immediately walk away because as a reader, its more work on me to see what is and isn't there.

[pokken]

Yeah I stopped trying to sort by role in decklists.

I'll talk about what roles I think cards serve in the text but I see no reason to maintain multiple decklist structures, since I always want to see it by type too. It's quite tedious to do it multiple ways when I also maintain it in deckbox

[BaronCappuccino]

I just list by type as well, and if a card has multiple, I use the last, EG: Artifact Creature goes in Creatures. I consider prior supertypes adjectives. I'd love to sort by function, because I think and build by function, but many cards cover multiple functions. Take my Endrek Sahr deck: one card might fall under sac outlet, card draw and life gain. Too complicated.

[DirkGently]

I always go by card type even though technically speaking cards do have multiple functions. My issue with sorting by role is that as someone reading someone else's list no two people will organize by function the same so I have a much harder time seeing what is and isn't there. I also hate that in a lot of cases the sorting by function has some sort of catch all section and that drives me crazy.

When I see a list organized by function, 90% of the time I will immediately walk away because as a reader, its more work on me to see what is and isn't there.

Ew.

I am the exact opposite. If I see a list sorted by type, I have NO IDEA what the deck is trying to do. When a list is sorted by function I see what sorts of things you want to do, and what your priority is for each.

For example, my latest list is Gargos. Looking at my list for 5 seconds, you can see that I've got 38 lands and 21 ramp - so getting to a decent amount of mana quickly is obviously a big priority. Then you can see that I've got 29 targeted spells to trigger gargos. It's very clear from just a moment's glance what this deck is trying to do - ramp to gargos, then trigger the crap out of him. And then the list of gargos buffs makes it clear that buffing gargos via equipment is a present, but minor theme of the deck. Sure, there are a few spells that don't fit neatly into a major category that sometimes get their own, but now we're talking about a couple stray cards that clearly aren't a major function of the deck - much easier to process than an entire list.

Sorting by type is fine if all you want is superficial help like "are you running X" (although you could just control+F if the most you have to offer is suggesting a couple cards). But how in the bleeding hells are you supposed to offer any systematic critique of the deck when they're sorted by type? Say my gargos deck was the same, but instead of having 21 ramp, I had 4 ramp and then a bunch of equipment that I wanted to put on gargos instead, or something like that. You'd have to look through the ENTIRE LIST to figure that out, and spot the horrible flaw in my deck, that I'm dedicating the whole thing around gargos, but I haven't adequately focused on ramp to make that a viable strategy.

Occasionally I'll make a decklist with no coherent plan, where sorting by type is really the only logical way to do it. And if that's you, then that's fine. Goodstuff is sometimes fun too. But for any deck with a focused plan, sorting by function is EXTREMELY useful, and sorting by type...well, I'm almost certain to walk away unless I'm REALLY interested.

It also helps YOU think about the deck. It would be easy to build a gargos deck throwing random things in that are cool and sorting by type, but sorting by function forces you to think about what your decks priorities are. If it's just a goodstuff deck, maybe that's not important, but if it's a focused strategy where you have a plan in mind, it can be really eye-opening to realize "oh hey, that super important thing I absolutely need to do only has 5 slots dedicated to it...that's probably going to mean my deck often doesn't do what I want it to do". And you can correct accordingly. If you build the deck FROM a list of functions, well so much the better.

As far as the OT: pick the part of the card that's more important. In both of those cases, I'm almost certain it's the one that isn't lifegain. But maybe it could be, if you're a lifegain synergy deck, and that's your primary focus. Depends 100% on context.

Sometimes I'll have a card that perfectly hits two critical categories - for example, commit // memory is both a counterspell and targeted removal in Phelddagrif. In that case I usually just pick one. You might create a "does both" category, especially if you have a decent number that fit into both, but if you already have a lot of categories it can become harder to decipher. Usually just picking one suffices, I think, because it still preserves the overall structure of the deck the most clearly.

[TheGildedGoose]

If a card performs multiple important roles, it goes under the "Value" column for me. Otherwise, even if it has a secondary benefit, it goes under the primary role it fills.

[ISBPathfinder]

I always go by card type even though technically speaking cards do have multiple functions. My issue with sorting by role is that as someone reading someone else's list no two people will organize by function the same so I have a much harder time seeing what is and isn't there. I also hate that in a lot of cases the sorting by function has some sort of catch all section and that drives me crazy.

When I see a list organized by function, 90% of the time I will immediately walk away because as a reader, its more work on me to see what is and isn't there.

Ew.

I am the exact opposite. If I see a list sorted by type, I have NO IDEA what the deck is trying to do. When a list is sorted by function I see what sorts of things you want to do, and what your priority is for each.

For example, my latest list is Gargos. Looking at my list for 5 seconds, you can see that I've got 38 lands and 21 ramp - so getting to a decent amount of mana quickly is obviously a big priority. Then you can see that I've got 29 targeted spells to trigger gargos. It's very clear from just a moment's glance what this deck is trying to do - ramp to gargos, then trigger the crap out of him. And then the list of gargos buffs makes it clear that buffing gargos via equipment is a present, but minor theme of the deck. Sure, there are a few spells that don't fit neatly into a major category that sometimes get their own, but now we're talking about a couple stray cards that clearly aren't a major function of the deck - much easier to process than an entire list.

Sorting by type is fine if all you want is superficial help like "are you running X" (although you could just control+F if the most you have to offer is suggesting a couple cards). But how in the bleeding hells are you supposed to offer any systematic critique of the deck when they're sorted by type? Say my gargos deck was the same, but instead of having 21 ramp, I had 4 ramp and then a bunch of equipment that I wanted to put on gargos instead, or something like that. You'd have to look through the ENTIRE LIST to figure that out, and spot the horrible flaw in my deck, that I'm dedicating the whole thing around gargos, but I haven't adequately focused on ramp to make that a viable strategy.

Occasionally I'll make a decklist with no coherent plan, where sorting by type is really the only logical way to do it. And if that's you, then that's fine. Goodstuff is sometimes fun too. But for any deck with a focused plan, sorting by function is EXTREMELY useful, and sorting by type...well, I'm almost certain to walk away unless I'm REALLY interested.

It also helps YOU think about the deck. It would be easy to build a gargos deck throwing random things in that are cool and sorting by type, but sorting by function forces you to think about what your decks priorities are. If it's just a goodstuff deck, maybe that's not important, but if it's a focused strategy where you have a plan in mind, it can be really eye-opening to realize "oh hey, that super important thing I absolutely need to do only has 5 slots dedicated to it...that's probably going to mean my deck often doesn't do what I want it to do". And you can correct accordingly. If you build the deck FROM a list of functions, well so much the better.

As far as the OT: pick the part of the card that's more important. In both of those cases, I'm almost certain it's the one that isn't lifegain. But maybe it could be, if you're a lifegain synergy deck, and that's your primary focus. Depends 100% on context.

Sometimes I'll have a card that perfectly hits two critical categories - for example, commit // memory is both a counterspell and targeted removal in Phelddagrif. In that case I usually just pick one. You might create a "does both" category, especially if you have a decent number that fit into both, but if you already have a lot of categories it can become harder to decipher. Usually just picking one suffices, I think, because it still preserves the overall structure of the deck the most clearly.

How do you not know where things are? There are only 7 types of cards in the game. I guess it can be confusing with ones that have multiple types but what about things that have multiple functions or are not easily classified? Things like Ashnod's Altar can be ramp, combo, and sac, so.... where is that card to be found? The answer is easy, in the artifact section which stays the same regardless of what my intent for the deck is.

It likely is easier for the OP user to sort based on function but given how many sections you theoretically could make and ways to name and sort them I find it difficult to argue that it is better for someone else.

[Mookie]

As someone once said, "All models are wrong, but some are useful". I don't believe that organizing things into perfect categories is possible (because some cards can fall into multiple categories) - instead, I usually just assign cards to one category that I consider to be the card's primary intent, and consider any other categories the card can slot into as upside. (for example, I would consider Disciple of Bolas to primarily be a card draw spell, and Noxious Gearhulk to be primarily removal.)

I would say that for me, organizing cards by function helps a lot when building or editing decks - it helps me make sure I have a reasonable amount of ramp / draw / removal. If I have way too much of a category, I'll trim a few cards, and if I find a category lacking, I'll try to add more. There have definitely been times when I play a deck, notice myself feeling I consistently don't have enough removal, then look at my removal suite and realize it is only four cards - that's when organizing by function helps the most. Alternatively, if I want to add a new card to a specific category, I'll usually do so by cutting the weakest card in that category.

Another upside of organizing by function is that it allows people to see the main themes of the deck - if you open a decklist and see 10 sacrifice outlets explicitly grouped, you can infer that is an important part of the deck. On the other hand, if you try to separate out category you think is a theme and can't find enough cards for it, then that category may not be an important theme of the deck at all.

Interesting to see so many people speaking in favor of organizing by type instead of by function though.

[darrenhabib]

It varies from deck list to deck list for me personally, but I ALWAYS try and group by function first and then what is a little more ambiguous or generic by type. The more specialized the deck, the more likely it is that you have specific functions for cards. I think on average the more tuned a deck is, the more likely you'll have functions for cards.

Interestingly if I see deck lists organized only by type, I'll pretty much ignore it as I just assume the poster is lazy or that the deck is unfocused. I mean you can copy and paste into any deck builder and a bot will do this for you, so organizing by function that only the thread poster can do means that they have put some thought into it, thus worth reviewing.

As far as cards crossing over different functions, I'll only list cards once. So I'll just make sure to list it in the most important aspect as far as I'm concerned for that deck. I've never had too many problems with this.

[Cyberium]

I go by functions, like mana, draw, removal, etc to start.

Then I categorize them by synergies, put the core wincons in the center and surround it with cards of high synergy, like a star, drawing yarn lines to connect the dots.

[toctheyounger]

I'm with ISB. I find function lists not all that useful or easy to read. It's obviously a personal thing, but in terms of readable content I very much prefer for someone to actually talk/write about their inclusions in a separate written section. It gives me a better idea of what each card contributes and a better analysis of the list as a whole and as a sum of its parts.

That being said not everyone wants to write a treatise on every list so I get that either a function list or card choices section would do. Pragmatism is a thing.

[Rumpy5897]

Early on in a deck's life, I wing it a bit. I put stuff in while adhering to basic curve/proportion sensibilities, I play games, I swap stuff around to get around observed clunkiness. Eventually a list reaches a point of sensible performance, and this is where it'll typically get a forum post, and said post will be split on function, with multi-purpose cards living in their main area of relevance. This makes it easier to monitor and alter the fractions if needed. For primer write-ups, I include a deckstats link as not everyone's partial to the functionality layout. Plus actually getting to see/explore the curve is helpful.

[Sanity_Eclipse]

Generally I go by the type of card. Creatures, spells, enchants, etc. It does my head right in sometimes when I see 4 different card types in the same (potentially vaguely) named Function section. For whatever reason.

I also do what just makes sense for particular lists. Kaalia's deck is literally like 25% instants and sorceries, so I split up that group of cards into Removal, Discard, and Card Advantage. Other lists I might split off any non-Commander legends into their own section, or separate the ramp spells / artifacts from other spells or from equipment. The smaller a section is, the easier it is sometimes for me to process it.

Not every deck needs primer-level descriptions and strategies, but (in my opinion) at least throw down a few sentences about the deck. I can piece things together. Or I'll just ask questions, get the discussion rolling at least a little bit.

In my opinion.

[Stapler]

As others have stated, I think it's better to pick one primary function of the card to define it under, whichever function you think is more likely to be relevant the majority of the time. Disciple and Gearhulk, as others have stated, are less for lifegain and more for their respective other uses, but something like Mystic Confluence can be a bit trickier to pigeonhole. The suggestion of "value" or "goodstuff" seems like a decent descriptor for these types of cards, and you can always outlines their more specific functions in the writeup if you're doing that.

As for putting them in multiple sections, I personally think it's cleaner to just mention their additional uses in their writeups if it feels pertinent. i.e. If you have a Combo section with Ashnod's Altar, mentioning it's synergies with your cards that interact with sac outlets does the job of explaining its roles just fine (alternatively if Altar is less for combo and more for sac synergy, listing it under the "Sac Outlet" section and mentioning the obscure, rarely used 4+ card combo it's a part of saves space and keeps things neat while still getting the relevant information to the reader).

In respect to type vs. function:


I pretty much always include both a decklist sorted by type and a decklist sorted by function when I make a decklist thread. Function is definitely the important one IMO for the reasons Dirk outlined, but organizing by type (as well as by CMC within the types) is relevant a lot of the time as well. It can help you (or a reader) notice whether a card can be good or bad in your deck based on having an abundance or a dearth of a certain type (i.e. "I'm barely playing any artifacts ... may as well play Stony Silence"), it can help you spot holes in your CMC especially in respect to creature and mana ramp curves (i.e. "I don't have enough 1/2/3 drops creatures, I should run more to support the equipment I'm running") and as ISB mentioned, it's a lot easier for a reader to see if a card they want to suggest (or perhaps even a card they think is bad) is in the deck by looking through a list that's sorted objectively rather than subjectively.

[DirkGently]

How do you not know where things are? There are only 7 types of cards in the game. I guess it can be confusing with ones that have multiple types but what about things that have multiple functions or are not easily classified? Things like Ashnod's Altar can be ramp, combo, and sac, so.... where is that card to be found? The answer is easy, in the artifact section which stays the same regardless of what my intent for the deck is.

It likely is easier for the OP user to sort based on function but given how many sections you theoretically could make and ways to name and sort them I find it difficult to argue that it is better for someone else.

There's an art to having a useful number of categories. If you have 50 categories then obviously that's not going to be helpful to anyone. That doesn't mean that having a list organized by function is a bad idea. It just means that - much like constructing the decklist in the first place - it requires careful thought and a clarity of purpose.

For me, I almost always start my decks with an idea - for gargos, since I keep using that, the idea was to build gargos as a control deck with no other hydras, using gargos to punch creatures to keep control of the board. Then I look at cards for ideas, and eventually have a list of functions important to the deck. Then I group cards by their primary function, then I decide how many I want for each function, then I cut those groups down until they fit the numbers I want. Oftentimes I abbreviate the process because of laziness, but when I'm being serious about a decklist that's how I go about it.

Ashnods specifically - well, that's going to depend on the list. That is a feature, not a bug. in ghave, it's probably a combo piece. In endrek sahr, maybe it's ramp. For Zirilan, it's sac. Its function is different in each of those decks, why wouldn't it be in a different category?

I don't think it's important to focus on where a specific card ends up. If someone is looking at the list and wants to figure out "do you run X"...the answer is as simple as control + F in the worst case scenario, no matter how badly organized the list is. Much more important, imo, is understanding the deck HOLISTICALLY (trademark DirkGently). Ashnod's altar is usually a sac outlet but sometimes it's ramp? That's fine, a card here or there in any given category won't drastically change the shape of the deck.

The question you're not answering, and the one I find most frustrating when looking at a type-sorted decklist, is "How can you tell what a deck does?" Sure, the deck creator can write a description, but unless they've been running this deck for a long time, that's only a description of what they WANT the deck to do, or what they THINK it does, not what it actually does. How do you know if they have sufficient ramp to execute their strategy in a timely manner? I've had decklists I was very interested in, then realized the most important question was going to be "how many of X effect do they have" and that it was a type-sorted list and...hell no. I'm out. I've got better things to do than count up ramp cards when they could be in any card type across the whole decklist.

[pokken]

I just know what all the cards are so it's pretty easy to figure it out for myself If i don't I can a) read the text accompanying, or b) read the cards until I know.

[lyonhaert]

Whoa, lots of good thoughts around this. I have quite a bit to mull over.

I was planning on doing both by type and by function, but may end up changing my mind about which gets put forward (the other in a spoiler), or if they're both in spoilers. But it also has a lot to do with how I implement the card choice sections, and your perspectives have helped.

Thank you, everyone.

[Rumpy5897]

If you choose to go for function with a type supplement, an upside of deferring the typed list to a deck site is that it becomes a smidgen easier to edit in changes. I always found the concept of maintaining two differently ordered plaintext dumps of a deck unnecessarily annoying for whatever reason.

[gilrad]

Whichever way the author used was probably the most useful for the author to organize the deck in his mind, and is therefore the most useful for us to understand how it's constructed. If the author put cards into piles by function or color or type, it's because the function, color, or type ratios were the highest priority during deck construction, so I'd prefer to see that. Changing the sorting to appease some social standard is wasteful in my eyes, as that's information lost.

E.g. if an author made a deck with the personal goal of only including five mythic rares in his deck, I'd be way more interested in seeing what those mythic rares are than how the permanent:nonpermanent spell ratio looks.

[tarotplz]

Personally I try to sort things by function. Which functions those are depends on the deck of course. There might be very generic categories like "Card Draw" or "Ramp" but also very specific ones like "Reanimation Targets" or "Razakats-Pile".

Ultimately I think that this approach shows what the deck is about the easiest. As some people have stated, there's absolutely nothing wrong with including the list twice, once sorted by function and once sorted by type.

To solve the problem of "multi-function" cards, I tend to count them towards the category with the least amount of cards they could fit into. For example in a deck with 9 ramp spells and 13 pieces of card draw, I would count a Solemn Simulacrum as "Ramp" and not as "Card Draw". There are alos cards that fulfil multipe roles, but are mostly in the deck to fulfill only one of them. For example I would tend to count something like Archmage's Charm as a counterspell and not necesarily as card draw.

[Yatsufusa]

I've not worked on a decklist thread myself, but I maintain Excel Spreadsheets in both sorts for all my 8 decks and let's put it this way:

Lists by functions become vastly more useful when you understand how a deck works and the prioritizing list of each function, because when I try to weed out specific issues to improve my decks, it often boils down to "lack-of-quantity-of-some-function" and function-lists provide a much more convenient backdrop to modify the list from.

So, thread-wise basically it boils down to how well the thread can convey its functions to the reader in order to expand the usefulness of the a list-by-function to the reader. A thread that fails to convey that to the majority of its readers is technically worse (as a thread) than one that uses only a list-by-card-type, while a thread that succeeds is often much better than both.

Then again, reader-variety is so widespread there's bound to be someone who still don't get it even if over 90% of other readers do, so there's never harm in putting in a list-by-card-type, in my opinion (in fact that's why I also maintain a Excel Spreadsheet for myself in that sort, because it makes for quicker viewing when I'm not scrutinizing for improvements). Also, for themes that favor a card-type over another, it keeps a general check on card types without cluttering the often-already-cluttered function list.

[xeroxedfool]

I prefer decklist by function. I think both is probably best to include all readers.

The strangest thing about this discussion is people unable to interpret both styles. I would never disregard a deck that wasn't sorted the way I like. That seems ... negative or inflexible in way I don't like. I always seek to learn about decks and different types of learning are good as well.

[lyonhaert]

If you choose to go for function with a type supplement, an upside of deferring the typed list to a deck site is that it becomes a smidgen easier to edit in changes. I always found the concept of maintaining two differently ordered plaintext dumps of a deck unnecessarily annoying for whatever reason.

I have some scripts and such behind the scenes that help me with that. Still working on it since there are other sections to add, but even now I can update the card list in one file and generate the OP content for both Nexus and Sally.

I prefer decklist by function. I think both is probably best to include all readers.

The strangest thing about this discussion is people unable to interpret both styles. I would never disregard a deck that wasn't sorted the way I like. That seems ... negative or inflexible in way I don't like. I always seek to learn about decks and different types of learning are good as well.

I figured it had to do with time management to some degree and there's more overhead cost to look through all the cards in the list to construct your own mental model based on the deck's primary functions, as opposed to that model being presented.

[Guerte]

So, over on Sally, my main list was sorted by type, with a second list by function. I made a note that cards may serve multiple functions, so they may be in multiple sections.

However, I found it really tedious to update two lists per deck, so when I transitioned here, I opted to leave the function list out.

In my opinion, someone who is familiar with the cards and the game can look at a card, and see what they can function as.

[DirkGently]

In my opinion, someone who is familiar with the cards and the game can look at a card, and see what they can function as.

1) The same card can have different functions in different decks.

2) Are you honestly telling me that you find it easy to look at a list of 100 cards, look at each of them while keeping all of the rest of them in mind for context, and figure out what the deck is doing at the end? Sure, any individual card, 99% of the time I know what it does from the name and can usually infer its use in the deck, but I don't want to read 100 different names just to understand what the deck is doing.

It's like saying "What do you mean you want a plot summary, all you have to do is read the whole book and then you'll know what it's about!"

I do think function sorting is less important for, say, a primer, where people are reading it mostly for their own information and are going to need to look at every card individually, presumably a detailed description of the deck function based on many games with the deck. Once you're familiar with the deck, sorting becomes a lot less important. I'd still prefer function - but it's a lot less important if you aren't asking for advice.

But if you're asking me to look at your deck real quick and give you my opinions on how to improve it, I don't want to have to look at every single card before I have even an inkling about what your deck is doing. I want to see where your priorities are and how many cards you're putting into those priorities, so I can first think about the overall structure of the deck, and then I can zoom in on particular sections if I want to pick out weaker cards to narrow them down, or suggest additions if I think it needs to be added to.

Knowledge is hierarchical - understanding from a higher level makes it easier to put the lower level into context. That's why having an easy to grok high-level template for the deck, using function instead of a nearly-meaningless signifier like type, makes it much much easier and faster to understand a deck. Which is just common courtesy if you're asking strangers on the internet for help. Don't waste my time, man.