Format Association

[Drunk Cynic]

Through the search feature, when attempting to limit it to the Standard format, there is a propensity for the results to include Decks that are not currently Standard.

Example: Standard, Blue and Black, Undercity Informer, and Balustrade Spy.

[Nils]

Hi drunkcynic -

I see what you mean, that is indeed very confusing. The problem stems from the fact that this the format is set by the author when the deck is saved and not automatically updated afterwards. So if the deck was standard at the time it was saved it will show up as standard a year later, even if the cards have already rotated out by then.

I will see if we can make this a bit more clear or maybe improve the process in the future. For example it might be an option to update this automatically each time a set rotates out. However I am also not entirely sure if this is that any clearer, because a deck that was designed for Standard in 2012 probably won't make a good Extended deck in 2014, even if it is technically no longer Standard legal.

[Drunk Cynic]

It likely will come down to how the data for the deck is saved. I'll assume there is a property associated within each deck that delineates the format as it is saved, limited to the options of the pull down menu (10 states), which is separate from the legality checker shown in the Deck Analysis display.

Options:
A server wide state based evaluation of decks saved as Standard or Extended, comparing against the currently legal sets. Best applied by looking at the Blocks that cards are in, evaluated as an Array. After the Next Set is released, any deck with an array showing cards from Theros Block or Magic 14 would could be modified out of Standard.
Downside: Server processing demand.

Changing how Standard is evaluated by the Search Function. Retaining the Array that tracks the Blocks that are represented in a deck, when a search is limited to Standard, it would reject any deck that whose array reflected the Blocks outside of standard.
Downside: Longer Search times.

[Nils]

Thank you for your ideas! Re-evaluating every deck after every block rotation would definitely be an option, but I think the main problems are UI problems.

In particular, the issue that I mentioned in my last sentence would still not be solved. I don't think a deck that used to be Standard but rotated out into Modern (or something else) would actually be a good Modern deck. It would still be a Standard deck, just for the previous season.

Maybe it would be better to combine the legality together with the "last updated" date of the deck to improve the search directly? I could add a "only show decks that have been updated since the last rotation" setting to the search for example.

[cc.jmk!]

Maybe you could make different format tags hereafter? Say, when I save a deck as Standard now, backend it saves as "standard-ths", when Khans of Tarkir goes out, all Standard decks on the database are updated to "Standard-Theros" (which comprises all cards available in standard until the last day, this is M14-RTR-THS-M15), and the new Standard is only the new current cardsets. (M15+KTK).

Whenever ktk2 and ktk3 are out, they are simply added to current standard. When the next block starts and rotates out Theros Block & M15, you update all standard decks to "Standard-Khans" and so on and so forth.

PROs:
-Standard searches will look only for current standard, preventing year-old, non-representative "Standard" decks.
-Previous Standard formats are adequately represented and not just moved to Extended or Modern, where they are probably not representative nor playable on the metagame.

CONs:
-Needs some database-side processing whenever Standard rotates on all Standard decks. This might be quite resource-consuming depending on the hardware currently available, and would probably need to manual action from @error unless he somehow automates this.
-With time, it creates a never-ending number of "formats" with old standards. Though at a rate of 1 per year, so it shouldn't be much of a problem performance-wise.