Talk:List of Magic slang

Sections

Added sections to the card abbreviations.

Player Types

• Are there three or four general player types?

The article first says there are four, then says there are three, then lists three names. I'm guessing 'four' is just a typo, or is there a fourth type? If so, shouldn't it be listed? (A quick google for "mtg player types" seems to indicate confusion over this matter.) --80.216.222.64 07:38, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Good catch. This is why I absolutely loathe unsourced stuff on a wiki.. AlmaV (talk) 08:25, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Slang

• This doubles with Slang --Hunter61 (talk) 02:13, 17 October 2012 (EDT)

"Slang" shouldn't be a listing; but, "Slang" shouldn't be a stub of an article either. It's fairly clear that slang is a real-world term that doesn't have a different specific meaning in the context of MTG.

Man, why didn't whomever edited these pages/types of pages start a good thing ab initio or continue it?

Oh, and that's why I propose that we should merge slang into List of Magic slang. We can use the DISPLAYTITLE magic word to italicize the title of the page and retain the lede/lead section. --Magic Mage (talk!) 05:45, 17 October 2012 (EDT)

Merged. --Magic Mage (talk!) 06:01, 17 October 2012 (EDT)

New article

Can be found here: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/251 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by GeoMike (talk • contribs) June 10 2013.

Signed. —Magic Mage (talk!) 14:07, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Tabulating?

There's got to be a better way of presenting this info. Tables?

It's also a big mess that needs a total rewrite. Starting from scratch, but not necessarily scrapping the old, some ground rules for the article needs to be laid down (e.g., style, inclusion criteria [notability], references to substantiate what is notable and what is not). —Magic Mage (talk!) 14:07, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I've added alphabetical headings. Unfortunately the TOC is still a mess because this wiki doesn't have the styles needed to support {{TOCright|limit=3}}. See MediaWiki talk:Common.css. Thrawcheld (talk) 16:06, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I've done a fair amount of cleanup and moved (most?) obsolete terms into their own section. I also removed "caster", which seems to be totally wrong: several effects let you cast a card owned by an opponent, in which case "caster" is either confusing (not referring to the player who cast the card) or definitely not a synonym for "owner". Thrawcheld (talk) 21:36, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

One of the WoTC staff nicknamed Sarkhan

Is it still too early to call Sarkhan "super president" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bigbangbilly (talk • contribs) March 10 2015.

Yes. --Ten19 (talk) 05:20, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Can someone clarify this?

It says one of the definitions of "Beatdown" is "Noun: The player with less inevitability than their opponent and who therefore must attack as much as possible. Failure to recognize "Who's the Beatdown?" is a common, fatal mistake for new players." What exactly does it mean to have "less inevitability" and why does that mean you must attack? Zirconium88 (talk) 19:33, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

This is a strategic question more than a wiki question, but I suspect that the entry might need a rewrite anyway. "Must attack" is a simplified version of "must end the game on their terms", so if their deck's goal is to mill or combo then they need to do what's truer to their plan rather than attacking. "Low inevitability" decks tend to refer to decks that struggle to function when they draw three lands in a row after turn 8 or have difficulty ending the game from an empty board. Usually mana sinks, each-turn effects and raw card advantage are "inevitability" points. It can also be thought of as if each player trades a card for an opposing card wherever possible, which player will run out of actions first. Being written as a relative (less vs low) is the consequence of being zero-sum, as one will fall to the other, though being 6/10 on the inevitability scale against an 8/10 doesn't mean the 8 will always win, but it's all about odds. 114.76.200.191 19:57, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I forgot that this convo probably prompted me to try rewriting Beatdown a few months ago, appreciate the tip! It also sounds like someone could write an entry for inevitability - I get the idea but I haven't heard/used the term enough to use it, and I took that out of the explanation for beatdown. Also please edit beatdown if you feel like it, as it may still be a bit messy. - jerodast (talk) 04:05, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Notability / legitimacy

We have no real defined standards here, and that's probably fine, otherwise I would've never enjoyed the cleverness of "Splice Girls". But probably easy consensus that terms should've at some point have had use widespread in community, by notable players, or by Wizards staff. Otherwise this just fills up with random ideas.

With that preface, questions on two terms. Might eventually find more. Pre-splitting my post into threads if anyone wants to respond/post sources. Might remove if no comments after a while, but also open to the idea I'm just way out of the loop.

PORN? I dared search Masticore and its supposed nickname together and did not find any meaningful results on Google (and luckily almost none of the other kind of result). Did people really use this nickname? On the one hand, needlessly putting a random 4 letter term in all caps does seem like something early players would do. On the other, there are plenty of cards with a random phallic art detail here or there, and "Masticore" really does not sound much like the suggestive word. Just seems like a really big stretch.

(That's what she said.)- jerodast (talk) 04:29, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Multi-culti. Recently added. The entry has two very subjective justifications, "chic" and "less ridiculous than WUBRG", neither of which I agree with. Is this really a thing? If it is, wouldn't it just be slang for "multicolored" not WUBRG? When I Google "multi-culti mtg", "multi-cultural" seems to be the more common meaning, including one brilliant thread full of absolute winners on mtgsalvation, which I'll try not to let bias me against the slang... Anyway, the first MTGGoldfish hit I get is a Naya deck, not WUBRG. Basically I see it as one of those improvised alternate words you make up on the fly when you're tired of saying the same thing repeatedly, but I don't see widespread use. Any sources? - jerodast (talk) 04:29, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

cmc/cc/mana value

ok so Normally this is something I would just edit myself, but I haven't played magic in ages so im looking for confirmation

Under Obsolete terms, CMC is there "Converted Mana Cost". it says it "replaced CC, and was changed to Mana Value" ok.... fair enough I guess. Why is CC still in the current terms then? In the description it even says "and later mana value" acknowledging that it got replaced. should that not be moved to obsolete terms then? or is "cc" still used. and in that case is "cmc" not used anymore? I still refer to it as cmc but maybe no-one else does.

next question: Terms like "Curve" and "Tax" still mention "cmc". Should this not also be changed? to either "cc" or "mana value" depending on what the answer to the previous question was. just for consistencies sake?

idk Backup247823 (talk) 23:42, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

As an observer throughout the tribal-to-typal restructuring, the change is only ever done when someone finds enough material worth changing or is on the page already. This particular page is poorly kept and managed likely due to length and various outdated or regional "slang" term making it hard to remember when something should be edited out (see some of the other talk notes). So yes, the CMC and CC should be replaced if they're used in the definition, while slang terms derived from them could stay - yet another distinction making it hard to correct. Not a policy maker, so take this with however much salt you need. 114.76.198.69 04:28, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree that this page is subpar. It looks like it was originally a collab between the oldest admins—VestDan, MORT, and GeoMike—15 years ago. Setting forth relevance criteria might be a good start. I recommend:

• Discussing whether to retain terms that are more general gaming concepts and not specific to Magic ("group hug" is specific to Magic and perhaps other co-optional games, but "jank" and "lethal" and "misplay" are more widespread and more facially obvious).

• Renaming this page from "slang" to "game vocabulary", because it includes several entries with formal meanings.

• Anything that's become an actual game term (e.g. mill) be removed; we have good coverage of keywords and ability words elsewhere, and including them here is a duplicate maintenance burden and makes the list unwieldy in size.

• Any term used internally by WotC needs a single citation to demonstrate its use.

• Any term in use among the community needs two citations to demonstrate its currency. --Corveroth (talk) 07:55, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I would prose to delete the list all together and moving the relevant text passages to pages. A lot of it doubles anyway. We could keep the the lis of nicknames, though. --Hunterofsalvation (talk) 10:17, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

(Forgive the essay...I'm passionate about preserving work on wikis!)

I like this list despite the inconsistent update process. It's okay for a fan wiki to have some pages that are more subjective, that are bound to have information of varying notability and age, as long as it's reasonably organized and not outright confusing to read. I feel this page meets those standards. As a wiki reader who came back to Magic after a long absence in the late '10s, it was informative and interesting and not painful to read through this list. I liked the mix of older slang with newer terms I didn't know. I understood, and I think most readers do, that slang is subjective and some of it is bound to become outdated. There is also no reason to say we cannot keep information of historical interest, which we do in many other places on the wiki.

I would not delete this list by any means. It is interesting to some readers, and many of the terms are not actually duplicated in articles. Even the ones that are, are not easily browsed in the way this list is.

I don't mind giving guidelines for notability like having 2 sources for community terms, but I would caution frequent editors not to use such a rule as a cudgel to immediately delete terms they don't personally see a lot. It's just not necessary on a page like this one, and that excuse is used too often to deny inexperienced editors' good faith contributions. (I'm not saying leave randomness in either, just saying use your judgement.)

Regarding a few side points:

• I think general gaming terms are fine as long as they are directly relevant to some Magic context. For instance "jank" is very common in Magic and brewing is an acknowledged interest area for some players; lethal is incredibly common in gameplay discussion and is helpful to have on the list to differentiate from the official concept of lethal damage to creatures. They are relevant and not blatantly obvious. "Misplay" is more borderline for me since the definition is the same as the dictionary definition, but I also don't mind it as an acknowledgement it's commonly heard in conversation about the game.
• I agree terms that have become official can be removed from the main list (mill), although actually, it'd be worth noting "ascended" terms at the top of the page or in another section. And generally, it's good to ensure that the relevant official page does mention its former status as slang before removing. (I'm an emphatic proponent of leaving "messy" information in place until it can be turned into a more "correct" form, rather than deleting it outright because it makes an article "imperfect".)

Perhaps a subpage for obsolete terms would be appropriate, if we feel that the page length itself makes editing unwieldy? It does mean 2 pages instead of 1 if someone wants to move a term to obsolete though.

Regarding the OP, CC can certainly be made obsolete. The use of CMC in "Curve" is actually a great example of why I like this page. There are numerous descriptions of things on this wiki, some very formal and some less so. We cannot expect all of them to be updated quickly when terminology changes. It is a big positive that if someone sees a slang term they don't know in a description, they can find it here! And yes, they can certainly replace it if it's out of date and they have the time. I will make some of those changes now.

One last thought: Wikipedia has some pages with banners like "This list cannot be reasonably expected to be comprehensive. Keep in mind that some information may be missing or out of date." That seems a perfectly fine element to have on a page like this.

- jerodast (talk) 19:59, 28 April 2024 (UTC)