MTG Salvation

Hey, so I heard that you are considering writing a primer.

That’s awesome! Primers are helpful instructionals about a deck or archetype for people just getting into the format. Primers help players decide whether or not a deck or archetype is for them or even if your deck is one they need to consider in their gauntlet of test decks. Primers are a wealth of information where users can visit to pull all sorts of ideas and general theories from.

And you might be making one!

The staff at MTGS really appreciate the time and effort that users put into making primers and try to help users cultivate their work. We want you to have awesome primers and will help you out if you have any questions. Never hesitate to ask anyone of us if you need help with a primer or have any questions about making one.

Anyway, this is a helpful guide for making primers. This guide lets you know about what we expect from primers, what users want from primers, and how to make your primer look professional and appealing.

Before you start making the primer with all the content complete these steps first:

Test

Is your deck just a pile of cards that you own and you haven’t tested your deck outside of… y’know… that one friend… y’know… that may or may not exist…

You should test your deck before you write a primer. This way you’ll have some idea what you’re talking about before you go write a small novel on your deck. Making statements about Magic, purporting to be based on fact but actually just based on figments of your belief of how the Magic works, doesn’t help anyone. Actually, it just harms people since they may or may not be taking your word for it. Know what you’re talking about! All it takes are some games. Don’t make up stuff! Everyone gets butthurt and, when people accuse you of not knowing what you’re talking about because you made up a fiction, you will too.

Don't make a dupe

Log into MTGS. Go to the Proven, Established, and Standard Deck Creation forums. Does the deck you're writing about already have a primer in one of these sections?

If it does, stop. Quit your word processor and save yourself time. Drink a soda and talk about your deck in the previously created primer. If you make a duplicate, one of the mods will have to shut it down since duplicates are not allowed.

Save everyone the weeping and gnashing of teeth and check to make sure you're not making a dupe.

Card Tags

Do you know how to use deck tags? Card tags? Card image tags? Are you lying? You should’ve answered “yes” to all these questions but the last one. If you didn’t, you need to learn how to use all of the tags. Are they useful? Absolutely. Even if you don’t end up making a primer, you need to know how to use these tags to be a respected and contributing member of the community. All it took was 15 minutes of reading and 10 minutes of fiddling around on a post.

Don’t be that guy. Learn how to use these tags.

Ok, so you’ve tested your deck, there’s no primer for your deck, and you know how to use all the tags.

Let’s create that content.

Title

You need to name your deck something. The more boring the better. Why? If your deck is Mardu Control and you call your deck, “HOLY BANANAS BATMAN IT’S SEGA DEGA MEGA CONTROL!”, no one is going to have a clue as to what your deck is. They’ll know that you’re a bit odd but that’s not really what we’re going for here.

Be boring. Everyone will thank you later even if they don’t actually say it.

You can also use cool graphics when creating your title. I’m fairly useless when it comes to these but if you know how to use image tags, then you know how to put a cool graphic in your primer. Be wary of our image leeching rules but if you're hosting on photobucket or the like, you should be fine.

Introduction

Write an introduction. Explain what this deck is. Is it control, mid-range, aggro, or combo? Something more specific? Tell people what colors your deck is and why it’s in those colors. Then tell people why they should play the deck for that standard season. Should they play it because it has fun cards, because it’s easy to play, because it’s mentally rewarding, or because it will win you all the FNMs?

Decklists

Decklists are great. They let people know what sort of skeleton they should be working with when they build the deck. Now, everyone’s numbers will change, but deck lists can convey general ideas, which is what you want to be discussing in your primer. If people aren’t copying your exact 75 that’s fine. Don’t freak out. People are prone to experiment and it’s likely that your 75 isn’t perfect anyway.

If other Magic gamers have played the deck you’re writing about, you should include their deck lists as well. The more deck lists that people have, the less likely that people will be off experimenting with cards that don’t matter. They’ll be a bit more inclined to accept that 4x Scalding Tarn is correct in a Splinter Twin deck, since they’ll know that lots of people have played 4x Scalding Tarns in their Splinter Twin decks and it’s common practice.

Give people a common practice and they’ll be able to innovate from your original lists.

Card Choices

Take every single card in your deck list and write an explanation as to why it’s in your deck (including basic lands). Then take every single card that you considering putting in your deck and explain why it might fit into your shell. Then take every single card that others might consider putting into your deck and explain why people might want to try them.

You need to do this so that people are able to see the thought process you put behind building the deck. This will give them a way to either 1. fix your thought process or 2. come to the conclusion that your process was correct and just play the damn cards.

Make sure you card tag or card image tag.

Strategy, Matchups, and Sideboarding

This is the sort of thing people want to know the most about. How do you beat UW Control? How do you beat Mono-Red? How do you beat The Rock? Answer these questions and explain the role that the deck has to take in each matchup.

Are there bad match ups? Explain them. Your deck is going to have bad match ups. Make sure that you identify them so that people can figure out the correct sideboard or main deck in order to hedge against those match ups.

How do you sideboard? This requires a lot of thinking and skill. Sometimes you’re not going to have a completely fleshed out sideboard plan. Be honest and willing to admit that you’re unsure of how to sideboard in certain match ups. This goes back to my point about honesty and fictions in Magic discussion on the internet. Making things up only harms your audience and yourself.

History and Tournament Reports

Some primer creators like to create a space for old deck lists that have done well and tournament reports from users. They’ll take these updates and edit their original post, including the new information. It's not necessary but it's something you might want to think about if you're the type that likes to keep their primers well-groomed.

Ok, now you’ve created the content. Now what?

Format it!

Make sure that everything looks clean and is appealing. We don’t want primers with a bunch of typos and uncompleted card tags. Make sure that things look professional. Your primer is a reflection of you. Don’t create a crap primer because you couldn’t be bothered. Put some time into making sure that everything look dandy.

Post it

Click "Preview". Double check everything.

Click "Create Thread". Do Ric Flair impression.

So you’ve posted your work, now what?

Discuss!

There are lots of things to talk about. People will have all sorts of zany ideas and you’ll want to talk about them.

Well, now it's been a few months since you've created your primer...

A new set is getting released?

Ok, as soon as the set is completely spoiled, you’ll have to update your primer. There will be new cards for your archetype and you’ll have to change the Card Choices section and the Strategy, Matchups, and Sideboarding section. You also might want to update the Decklists section.

Well, that’s all I have. Remember to follow these tips if you want to make an awesome primer.

If you have any questions about creating primers, just message myself or rujasu. We’d be happy to help you.

Thanks!

-- Lugger

Quote from Falafell »

Is there a way to have multiple people editing one Primer?

As of right now, no.

We're limited by our technology, unfortunately.

I don't know if alternate accounts are allowed, but an obvious solution might be to have a shared primers-only account

Quote from scasseden »

I don't know if alternate accounts are allowed, but an obvious solution might be to have a shared primers-only account

Unfortunately, many of our primer creators are newer members (<25 posts) and having a confusing system to start writing primers seems unhelpful for everyone involved.

That, and having a shared account creates a huge possibility of abuse.

So, it could work, but I'd rather not see the fall-out if it fails.

An indirect possibility for shared editing of the content of a primer post: Use a collaborative editing tool or source control tool for making changes, and once in a while the author of the post copies the text of the latest solid version and pastes it into the body of the primer post.

Simple collaborative tools like Google Docs might be sufficient.

Or if more permission control is required, source control tools like git or Mercurial (with the help of bitbucket.org or github.com) would allow others to submit changes that have to be approved and merged by those with that level of access to the main repository.

This would probably only be feasible for a smallish team of people, though, rather than doing so for all the primers.

I actually have a question. So far this has been the best place where people actually discuss a primer and why the archetype is called that to an extent. I am trying to learn about what makes each archetype that archetype (e.g. Delver deck or dredge deck). I noticed in the pauper section there were quite a few primers but what about things like Modern, Standard or Legacy?