I feel your pain, man. Every FNM I go to, one clown show has a never ending line of commentary about one of my decks. Useful hints? Sure, all day long. Endless chatter about how HIS deck is so much better, and how much better HE is at building decks? Dude, go get hit by a bunch of cars.
I don't use expensive cards as a rule, I have 62 decks and I want to keep my money, so I rule out from my decks anything worth more than 20$.
What bothers me is when I go in a Legacy event and I see someone slaps a Tarmogoyf, dual land or other expensive card down on the table with a superior glee as if his deck is superior than mine because it contains more expensive cards. I've beaten guys like that a couple time and most of them are sore losers.
One time I beat a guy who had 3 Tarmogoyfs, a Mind sculptor and a bunch of expensive lands out with a goblin deck that used Ib Halfheart as the finisher with a Goblin Chieftain used to give haste to everything. The most expensive cards of my deck were 4 Goblin Guides, which means that a single Tarmogoyf is more expensive than my whole deck.
When the guy lost he was super pissed and was like: ''How he hell could I lose to YOU! I have all kind of great cards and your deck is crap! i should have beaten you easily!''
I responded in a neutral tone: ''It's not because you own a Mercedes that you automatically know how to drive and even possess a driver's license.''
He was super pissed and didn't talk to anyone for the rest of the night.
Peole like that annoy me to no end.
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If there is such a thing as too much power, I have not discovered it!
I don't use expensive cards as a rule, I have 62 decks and I want to keep my money, so I rule out from my decks anything worth more than 20$.
What bothers me is when I go in a Legacy event and I see someone slaps a Tarmogoyf, dual land or other expensive card down on the table with a superior glee as if his deck is superior than mine because it contains more expensive cards. I've beaten guys like that a couple time and most of them are sore losers.
One time I beat a guy who had 3 Tarmogoyfs, a Mind sculptor and a bunch of expensive lands out with a goblin deck that used Ib Halfheart as the finisher with a Goblin Chieftain used to give haste to everything. The most expensive cards of my deck were 4 Goblin Guides, which means that a single Tarmogoyf is more expensive than my whole deck.
When the guy lost he was super pissed and was like: ''How he hell could I lose to YOU! I have all kind of great cards and your deck is crap! i should have beaten you easily!''
I responded in a neutral tone: ''It's not because you own a Mercedes that you automatically know how to drive and even possess a driver's license.''
He was super pissed and didn't talk to anyone for the rest of the night.
Peole like that annoy me to no end.
I agree. I have proven that you can win with a deck with all commons and uncommons. My BU infect deck during the Zendikar/Scars blocks had no rares other than the dual lands. Everything else was a common or uncommon. I essentially won games with Blighted Agent enchanted with Unholy Strength which pissed people off to no end. That and some nice control with mana leak and deprive and it was enough to bring me in 2nd for the evening.
I don't think the deck cost more than $30, if that.
Caw-Blade was a very special case, that has been handled with the ban hammer, which tells well enough about how much a problem it was. WRR decks on the other hand have nothing to do with Caw-Blade and there are a lot of metagame solutions.
1) On "netdecking is killing the game".
You are "guy claiming something will kill the game" n°8984754. The fact is the game has never be going so well. Except for the Caw-Blade episode, non-professional tournament play is thriving.
Netdecking has been around for years and years. Successful tournament lists have been available on the Internet prior 2002 and have been spreading with the increase Internet access across the world. If netdecking was killing the game, it would have done so a long time ago.
There's no reason to believe this is going to happen now or in a near future when it has not happened during the last 10 years.
I suspect the Caw-Blade episode is why you are believing this, but evidence doesn't go your way.
2) Misconception about deckbuilding and netdecking
Like I said before, FNM are meant to be friendly competitve tournaments. The friendly atmosphere comes with the Regular REL and a prize structure that's nice with less good players.
But it's still a tournament where people are playing to win. You can't expect from people that they don't try their best to win the tournament. The level of effort put into that goal is up to each player : some are practicing, others are asking for help with their deck lists... and some people netdeck.
Deckbuilding is hard
The basic misconception here is to believe you have to be good at deckbuilding to play this game. While deckbuilding is a whole part of Magic the Gathering and is indeed a very funny activity, not everyone is good at it.
In fact, most players are very bad at deckbuilding. There are only a handful of players in the world that are truly able to engineer good decks out of the blue : they are the ones writing articles and the ones behind most successes in major tournaments, especially Pro Tours where the format is usually fresh.
But we're not on the Pro Tour here, so back to the FNM. The fact is most people can't build a tier 1 or a tier 2 deck. So if you are not able to come up with a competitive deck, what do you do ? You do what most people looking for advice do in the 21st century, you summon the Great Internets and you search for a successful deck.
Finding a deck on the Internet is easy but...
However, finding the deck and the list is only the beginning of it. It takes time to learn how to properly play a deck, how to make correct mulligans, how to sideboard, how to play against the field. Copy-pasting a list doesn't tell you anything about the philosophy of a deck and the purpose of each card.
When you build your own deck, those things are pretty obvious but as soon as you are using an unknown deck they are not.
Besides, it's very difficult to adapt or tweak a deck properly without knowing it first. If you have no experience with a deck you can't make good choices about card options. The only thing you are going to do by changing cards in such circumstances is to make the deck worse.
3) Bad ethics ?
People netdeck because they want to play a powerful deck. Is it bad ethics to play a powerful deck in a sanctionned tournament ? No. This is competitive play (even if FNM is soft competitive play) and this is fully expected.
People netdeck because they are not good at building. Should people not good at building be penalized in constructed play ? No. This is the very nature of constructed play to make a clear difference between building the deck and playing the deck (compared to limited play where deck building is a key).
People don't tweak lists because they don't know how to do it. Is it bad ethics not to know enough about your deck to dare change things ? No.
I can't see where the bad ethics are. Casual formats are where you will try to power yourself down to keep the fun up (Multiplayer Commander is a good example), not sanctionned tournaments.
Oddly, I agree with everything you've said except one...how good this is for the game.
If you survey 50% of the people who play at our FNM, they'll tell you that they hate net deckers and not because they can't afford to go out and buy cards. You should see their collections.
If 50% of the people I know hate the practice, how is this good for the game?
Ummmm...LBS? 50% of 'your' LGS is a hilariously small Population Sample to base an assumption that encompasses a population the size of the MTG Community; that wouldn't even be worth a statistical measurement. That would be like saying 50% of the population of Earth eat only fish, because that's what they sell the most in my local grocery store, located in a coastal town, where the local economy is derived from fisheries.
Look, I get what you're saying; Net-decking T1 copycats with zero creativity or critical thinking can be a pain, but that is their problem. I think it would be a better assumption, that the copycats eventually get bored of their "victories" or become too delicate to handle their handy ass-kickings from 'good' players and drop out more than folks who've "earned their spurs", grasp the multiple game dimensions, and enjoy MTG for what it is.
If you're too sensitive to handle a disingenuous n00b, I'd hate to see you lose to a decent player...
Question, does anyone else hate "stacked" cards in binders. By that, I mean multiples of the same card in the same pocket? Because I do.
Can´t stand it, although I have to say i did it too.
I did it for a long time, so that all my rares would fit into one binder.
When this wasn´t possible any longer + I bought a 200 rare collection from a guy on some tabletop gaming board, I totally reordered everything.
Also its much easier to damage cards with your fingernail when they are stacked.
A guy also told me that he never stacks the cards because its so much easier to steal stacked cards.
If they are alone, not stacked, you notice a missing card immediately
Surprised no one mentioned that stacked cards also stretch the pocket out so when/if you do trade any number short of the last away, they leftovers have a tendency to slide out at the worst times.
What bothers me is when I go in a Legacy event and I see someone slaps a Tarmogoyf, dual land or other expensive card down on the table with a superior glee as if his deck is superior than mine because it contains more expensive cards. I've beaten guys like that a couple time and most of them are sore losers.
One time I beat a guy who had 3 Tarmogoyfs, a Mind sculptor and a bunch of expensive lands out with a goblin deck that used Ib Halfheart as the finisher with a Goblin Chieftain used to give haste to everything. The most expensive cards of my deck were 4 Goblin Guides, which means that a single Tarmogoyf is more expensive than my whole deck.
When the guy lost he was super pissed and was like: ''How he hell could I lose to YOU! I have all kind of great cards and your deck is crap! i should have beaten you easily!''
I responded in a neutral tone: ''It's not because you own a Mercedes that you automatically know how to drive and even possess a driver's license.''
He was super pissed and didn't talk to anyone for the rest of the night.
Peole like that annoy me to no end.
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
I agree. I have proven that you can win with a deck with all commons and uncommons. My BU infect deck during the Zendikar/Scars blocks had no rares other than the dual lands. Everything else was a common or uncommon. I essentially won games with Blighted Agent enchanted with Unholy Strength which pissed people off to no end. That and some nice control with mana leak and deprive and it was enough to bring me in 2nd for the evening.
I don't think the deck cost more than $30, if that.
Ummmm...LBS? 50% of 'your' LGS is a hilariously small Population Sample to base an assumption that encompasses a population the size of the MTG Community; that wouldn't even be worth a statistical measurement. That would be like saying 50% of the population of Earth eat only fish, because that's what they sell the most in my local grocery store, located in a coastal town, where the local economy is derived from fisheries.
Look, I get what you're saying; Net-decking T1 copycats with zero creativity or critical thinking can be a pain, but that is their problem. I think it would be a better assumption, that the copycats eventually get bored of their "victories" or become too delicate to handle their handy ass-kickings from 'good' players and drop out more than folks who've "earned their spurs", grasp the multiple game dimensions, and enjoy MTG for what it is.
If you're too sensitive to handle a disingenuous n00b, I'd hate to see you lose to a decent player...
Surprised no one mentioned that stacked cards also stretch the pocket out so when/if you do trade any number short of the last away, they leftovers have a tendency to slide out at the worst times.