I notice that this section of the commander forums is actually very active with a lot of regularly posting members... Most of whom seem very knowledgeable and experienced with the format. Differing opinions and philosophies for sure... I think you know where I am going with this.
![Grin :grin:](./images/smilies/2-grin-fb.png)
I crave meaningful discussion because I know there are hidden gems I'm missing or maybe certain cards in my lists aren't ideal... synergies I'm unaware of. I am very open to informed feedback. Even if that feedback doesn't result in any changes, I would still like to hear what people think of the deck. Even something like "I hate your commander for X reason" would be better than nothing honestly.
I know my choices of commanders may not interest some people and people might get tired of always seeing the same edh staple cards. In some cases, these commanders are already solved and not much further discussion is possible. However, new cards are constantly being released into the wild and I have a hard time keeping up with everything.
I'm on a new budget deckbuilding kick where there is probably a lot more room for discussion since I have to omit the high $ staples in favor of other things. I'm excited for it, because it's unknown territory for me and I could also use some help building them. Not feeling like I have to drop $500 + on a new commander deck is a good feeling.
If I felt like people cared about my decklists I would likely put more energy into write-ups and even start a new Primer for some of my lists. It seemed like in the old days, Primers got a lot more discussion and interest especially from people actually looking to build the deck for themselves. As it stands, I just feel like it's not worth the effort.
So my question to you is two-fold. What keeps you from posting on other people's decklists threads? And what if anything would encourage you to do so?
Also, on a side tangent: How do you feel about deckbuilding resource write ups? An example would be my anti-control list. If there's more interest I would keep it updated and flesh out the different philosophies based on discussion in the thread and see if I can get it linked to in the official resource sticky thread. I'm talking about this one: viewtopic.php?t=13
I'll try to answer my own questions first...
Maybe I don't have first hand experience with that commander, or I just don't feel like I have anything to contribute to the discussion. In some cases I feel like the owner of that decklist won't be open to hearing any of my critiques and I'll have wasted my time. Sometimes I want to avoid arguments or unnecessary conflict with the deck owners.
As to what would encourage me to comment,.. maybe some time of agreed upon format for discourse. A conversation starter if you will. As far as time invested, if I knew I would get a comment on one of my decklists in return, I would feel more inclined to put together a thorough critique. Maybe even if you could frame a "review" for a given deck. How likely are you to play the deck, why or why not? What cards would you swap out? I don't know.
Resource write-ups seems like a good avenue for meaningful discussion since they apply to a wide range of decks. I'm curious why are there no new resources added to the sticky thread? If I'm looking for a list of graveyard hate cards I have to go outside the forums, and those lists are usually out of date and incomplete. All I'm saying is it would be nice to see more regularly maintained resource threads.
Maybe others have some good ideas or thoughts about this?