All the debate about "net decking" vs. "rogue decking" is going to belong in this thread from now on. Any new threads in Magic General trying to start this debate (which has been going on for damn near 15 years now) are going to be locked and infracted.
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People play magic for a bunch of different reasons, some as a creative outlet, some play for the social contact, and some just play to win.
What happened to letting people play the way they want instead of forcing YOUR ideals on them? Just let people play the way they want to play. Everyone thinks they know what is best for the game, yet there are 20 different opinions on what that best thing is so it's impossible for everyone to agree.
Just let it be and find your own playgroup of "original" players instead of complaining about the ways other people are enjoying the game.
People play magic for a bunch of different reasons, some as a creative outlet, some play for the social contact, and some just play to win.
What happened to letting people play the way they want instead of forcing YOUR ideals on them? Just let people play the way they want to play. Everyone thinks they know what is best for the game, yet there are 20 different opinions on what that best thing is so it's impossible for everyone to agree.
Just let it be and find your own playgroup of "original" players instead of complaining about the ways other people are enjoying the game.
This, This, and this again...everyone has different "needs" when it comes to magic. Some people play only because they want to do dumb ☺☺☺☺. Some people play because they want to win. It is actually that simple. Many people who play at the competetive level aren't necessarily be good deck builders but some of the best deck builders are necessarily going to want to play ultra competetively.
Deckbuilding and playing are not requisites of eachother...if someone wants to play a deck that is good but that they had no part in designing, let them do it. And if you wanna take the time to design a deck that is good and be able to say this is all my own work, then the more power to you. *ooof*
Anyway the point is that you can't push the same set of expectations on everyone (especially with how large the magic community is now) and have it turn out well.
so now back to this...
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the user formerly known as isopsycho86
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net decking is bad. sucks out all the creativity in the game.
whats worse is when someone net decks and then wins and rubs it in your face, acting like they have skills and such, when all they did was copy someone elses deck
I'm not a big fan of just copy-pasting a deck straight off some website, but I do like the fact that the internet lets everyone share their latest super-secret tech. As much creativity as the internet has stifled, I think it has fostered at least that many new ideas. For example, I know I would have probably never thought up something like the Gifts Ungiven/Life from the Loam engine. I saw it in a feature match, thought it was cool, and built a deck that utilizes that engine. I've got no problem getting ideas from other people, but I still prefer to build my own decks.
As far as competitive Magic is concerned, then yeah, I guess you do what you have to in order to win. However, if you lack the innovation and deckbuilding skills to actually construct a good deck, I don't see you making it very far past your local FNM. What will you do when you have to play Limited at a PTQ? Or when you face the mirror match, but your opponent questioned the norm and actually understands the ins and outs of your deck? I'd say you're in trouble.
also, when new cards are released, netdeckers have to wait for the creative players to utilize them in some fashion, and then post their winning results before they can net deck.
My point of view on this issue has shifted a little bit since I started playing magic. In the beginning I thought all netdecking was lame and was for people who only wanted to win. I thought there was zero creativity involved. At the time I played a megrim discard deck and it did fairly poorly at FNM.
Later I was running a grixis chandra ablaze control deck. It had potential, but it needed something more. When I discovered the official topic for ablaze control in the standard discussion forums, I was pleased to find all sorts of opinions and strategies for my deck. As I made my deck better and better, it eventually turned into cruel control, and I started reading the topic for that deck in the developing competitive section. The thing is, my deck is missing the Jace 2.0s, so I have to take everyone's suggestions with a grain of salt. The game of reading suggestions and results and then deciding if they fit for my meta adds an extra dimension of fun to magic, and occasionnaly it pays off and I get some wins. The metagaming aspect of changing a few maindeck cards and a few sideboard cards each week is what I find exciting.
tldr; Copying a decklist card-for-card whithout questioning the choices is lame and you're missing out on the fun of tuning it to your meta. But discussing your deck with dozens of other players online is fun because it feels like you're on the same team.
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Mono-Colored EDH 1 Ulamog 1 ◊ W Avacyn W ◊ U Memnarch U◊ B Endrek B◊ R Urabrask R ◊ G YevaG
"netdecking" is perfectly fine, finding the best cards and using them in a list together helps players learn how play the game better.
secondly, if all players are "allowed" to use are something they have created then you are inherently stifling creativity by having a bunch of "you can't play that" lists which can simply be a type of deck people like to use. players often like to use the best version of something because winning is fun, so a lot of the time there is large incentive entertainment-wise about "netdecking".
anybody who straight up copies a list (outside of maybe standard) probably won't be able to grasp the deck's intricacies, but regardless, they are learning about how the deck is played. additionally, since the deck was used successfully at a tournament, it is a good way to rate one's skills when facing other tournament decks; without, there is no way to tell if the deck is winning or if the player is.
fourthly, most people who "netdeck" and know about the game will usually make their own modifications. this not only lets them explore greater understanding of the game, but it helps them see how their own choices affect how the deck runs and it shows true creation: taking something that works and trying to make it better.
the real question is "why is netdecking bad?" to which the "anti-netdeckers" always respond with "it stifles creativity, they just copy-pasted!" without giving any input as to why copying is bad or why creativity has been majorly stifled by it?
as a player who netdecks to test and does tons of homebrew, i think most people who criticize netdecking tend to be those who dont' have much experience with the game or don't try to play competitively, so when they face somebody of a different experience level they can blame their losses on the fact that it was a netdeck and not because they're homebrew is just plain bad.
not everybody can always just go out and play something they made, netdecking has been a practically wholly positive change to magic in my opinion.
A lot of people, myself included, used to look down on netdecking but have since gained an appreciation for it. If you are wholly against netdecking, consider those who have gone before you.
One argument against netdecking is that the player's success is mostly, if not entirely, dependent on the deck itself, not the pilot. There is a lot that can be brought up to counter this, but to put it simply, there's a reason we're not all on the level of Finkel, LSV, et al.
Another major argument against netdecking is that it stifles creativity. This is a very 'feel good' line, but you must realize that creativity for its own sake isn't useful. At the very least you should have a justification for the change. Another thing you must realize is that damn near anything you'd think of has been thought of before. Some things others may have discounted that are worth trying but there's a limit to how divergent you can be from the popular lists without just being bad.
Yet another thing I see is people disparaging innovation within an archetype (i.e. Jund is Jund is Jund). What about that Vengevine build of Jund? The one with the single maindecked Hell's Thunder? Looks solid to me, did very well, and is certainly a significant change from the 'classic' Jund lists. Sure, it's still Jund, but it's still innovative. Still, you can't take NLBant, swap Vengevines for Baneslayers and call it innovation. That's just tuning your deck against red.
Being creative is fine. It is not an end unto itself. Make sure what you do isn't going to just be 'that one thing, only worse.'
A lot of people, myself included, used to look down on netdecking but have since gained an appreciation for it. If you are wholly against netdecking, consider those who have gone before you.
I tend to view things in a similar light. Netdecking has its place, but sometimes it is used as a crutch and is certainly not without its downsides. Consider a brand new LGS with a very fledgling FNM crowd -- everyone plays mediocre homebrew decks for a few weeks, then someone with money to spare goes online and copy-pastas the latest build of Jund or U/W, crushing the competition week after week. Of course the meta can (and should) adapt, but these consecutive victories were probably not due to the skill of that player and instead have more to do with the power of the deck and the depth of his wallet. This, I think, is one of the major objections many players have with netdecking.
It's really a mixed bag. However, I think most of us are in agreement that one must actually understand how a netdeck works and why it wins in order to really get anywhere in the game.
It's true that utilizing netdecks (or even just the internet) as a resource for information generally coincides with becoming more serious about the game (queue overlap with glass ceiling thread). Still, at that level of play ("fledgling FNM crowd") a skilled player with a worse deck would still take matches from him. A big problem I see with rogue decks is they're not even optimized within their own theme (i.e. when a guy asked for suggestions for his Eldrazi ramp deck, my first question wasn't, "Why the hell are you playing Eldrazi ramp?" it was, "Why the hell are you playing Ulamog's Crusher over Artisan of Kozilek?"). Even getting to an optimized version of a suboptimal concept is a worthy goal as far as I'm concerned. Find an idea, get the best 75 cards to support that idea that you can, and then evaluate if it's worth anything. If not, shred it and move on.
I've always had a generally negative view of netdecking. My feelings on this hit their worst at a Standard tourney while Mirrodin/Champions of Kamigawa were current. I wasn't able to enter since I wasn't able to round up the last few pieces I needed for my deck in time, only to check the results of the event afterward and find out that of the top 8 finalists, 7 were playing practically the exact same thing, with the only differences I can remember offhand being to the sideboards.
Since then, I've lightened up quite a bit. While I can't be happy about being smacked around by a deck whose development was in no way aided by the guy piloting it against me, I regularly use the internet (and especially the forums hereabouts) to help develop what I'm doing, often taking inspiration from decks that dominate their respective formats and adding my own flavor before incorporating pieces into my own decks.
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There's one at the door, at the gate to damnation...
Is it thief, thug or whore? There's one at the door...
And there's room for one more till the end of creation. Neil Gaiman, Sandman #4 - A Hope in Hell
As many good players has said "one wins tournaments". Though for you that thing you only go rogue deck builders, don't you think at least one other person playing magic has already tried your idea? making it not rogue. And most of the time a lot of the "rogue" deck builders just use it as an excuse. I have heard things like "I'm playing battlegrace angel over baneslayer becasue she works better with my theme of exalted", let me inform you that this was at a 5k ;).
Edit: Binary your gonna regret this thread real fast...
My point of view of this is probably similar to many here. For anything not tournament related I will not net deck or even get an idea from the internet. So in the case of playing table top games with my friends and anyone that wants to play a pickup game at FNM I build decks that are fun to play with and generally are built pretty well.
Now for decks that I take to tournaments such as FNM, Game Days, and other local events I look at all of the decks that are in the competitive section and then start with that idea as my base and build of that with most of the same cards with my own twists added to it for play styles and budget reasons and that has seemed to work for me.
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Currently Playing: WHoly Crap that's a lot o' MyrW WSoul SistersW Match Record: 2-2-0 Game Record: 6-4-0
I believe that the concept of "Net Decking" vs. not is in the player's aspect of competitiveness. I started out playing magic in Onslaught. My FLGS was all home-brew decks until some dude showed up with Astral-Slide.dek. Our meta changed quickly to compete with it, I believe for the better. Magic is an ever-changing meta where even if you do "Net Deck" you still are not guaranteed to win. Pilot skill vs. card quality usually determines a top 8 or an 0-2 drop. Rogue decks aren't called such due to no deck list available online, they are aptly named by crushing into the tourney scene where the meta can't deal with them effectively. Example: Amsterdam PTQ: SLC. About 70% U/W control, 20% Jund. I saw 1 (only 1) Time sieve player there. He effectively rolled into top 8 as the only undefeated. Net decked? Who cares. Pilot skill? AWESOME. Taking a tier 1.5-2 deck and stomping all tier 1 decks that challenged him was a sight to see. Sorry for the rant.
Like I was saying, THIS IS A GAME. People play magic to have fun. Regardless if they net deck to win or not, people will play magic for their own reasons (mine is to impress women with my incredible top-decking skills :cool:) which believe it or not may include fun. If you don't have fun playing with a person who net decks, tell them so. Hating on net deck users is just as bad as hating on noobs. Nothing creative is going to happen if you discourage people from playing OUR GAME. Unless you are perfectly ok playing magic against yourself (you know who i'm talking about) then you are going to need others to play with you. If you play competitively... well deal with it.
Thank you for your time and patience.
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"Failing to Find" Since March 2010.
Current Capt. of Team "Ju"
I play this:
Standard:
Rotation is coming...
Modern: GGGSTOMPY
ZOO (Goyf-less)
Legacy:
Brewing
EDH:
Too many to name.
I stop at nothing to build what I need to build to have the highest chance of winning. Winning is what I find fun.
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Anthony Lowry, Article Writer for Manashift.
Your #1 source for New York City Magic!
Twitter: @Aufam
Complaining about card prices accomplishes nothing. Read some Medina articles, learn to trade better, don’t act like the only way to do ANYTHING in this game is to price out decks and buy every single you ever need.
I'm surprised this is getting an official thread. It'll be interesting to see if it turns into a flame war.
"Net Decking" - When you copy a list of 75, you're basically saying "I am not going to throw out this guy's research and testing and tournament results." This is totally valid. I personally think that this should be something you do in play testing, rather than just grabbing a list and running it. People who claim to netdeck to be competitive and then don't test are kind of kidding themselves.
On going rogue - Sometimes none of the known decks are as good as your own brew. You should still at least build your current meta so you have a testing gauntlet. I'm fine with people doing this as long as they do a ton of testing and don't try to use their 3-0 split at FNM as an argument that they've broken the format or invented a tier 1 deck.
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
"Netdecking", its not a bad thing. I don't have a team of great players that I can bounce ideas off of, play, and test deck ideas. This is what profession players do, they have groups in which all they do is play the game trying to figure out the perfect number of cards and/or the next deck to break the meta.
Honestly I love to build decks, its on the reasons that I enjoy the game, but I don't have the time or resources to test them to the levels I would want to try and focus in their potential. So when it comes down to a serious tournament I will more than likely pick a deck that can accommodate my play style and tweak the deck/side a few cards so it feels more comfortable.
To the na-sayers of netdecking, even if you copy paste a deck it doesn't mean you know how to play it.
The game of magic requires many types of skill. Someone who can build a tourny level deck doesnt mean that same person can pilot said deck to victory. On the other hand, there are some great pilots that couldnt build a 60 card competitive deck to save their lives. Then there are those who can do both. We call it netdecking now but the copying of a build has been around since the beginning of magic. It was just a little harder to find different builds because you had to go to an FNM or local tourny.
The thing that bothers me about netdecking are those who couldnt tell you if a card was good or bad on its own. They just know what the card does in a certain deck. Also the fact of how some wont give credit to a rogue build just because a pro had not published it somewhere yet.
Netdecking is not something to be done with blind abandon. If you are just pulling decklists from WoTC's PTQs and blindly assembling them, you're running into a few problems.
1) Lack of experience piloting said deck
2) There is a reason that Chapin or whoever selected exactly those 60 cards. Those 60 cards were based partially on testing, partially on results, and partially on the selections of a bunch of other high level decks. Chapin, or whoever, selected exactly this deck for exactly this tournament with exactly this meta-game.
Blindly copying the deck is not advisable for this reason. Would you take a Jund netdeck to a local scene packing only Tapout or UW control?
There's nothing wrong with netdecking, partially because someone who blindly copies a deck will stand no chance against someone who looks at the same deck, and actually understands why it's as good as it is. The players who do this are often intelligent enough to know exactly how to tweak the deck to their local meta, at which point it's no longer a netdeck, it's merely inspired by one.
Scrubs build janky decks and lose to netdeckers.
Netdeckers build tournament decks and lose to good players.
Good players build tournament decks, tweak them, and lose to Chuck Norris, who taught Richard Garfield how to play Magic.
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Netdecking is not something to be done with blind abandon. If you are just pulling decklists from WoTC's PTQs and blindly assembling them, you're running into a few problems.
1) Lack of experience piloting said deck
2) There is a reason that Chapin or whoever selected exactly those 60 cards. Those 60 cards were based partially on testing, partially on results, and partially on the selections of a bunch of other high level decks. Chapin, or whoever, selected exactly this deck for exactly this tournament with exactly this meta-game.
Blindly copying the deck is not advisable for this reason. Would you take a Jund netdeck to a local scene packing only Tapout or UW control?
There's nothing wrong with netdecking, partially because someone who blindly copies a deck will stand no chance against someone who looks at the same deck, and actually understands why it's as good as it is. The players who do this are often intelligent enough to know exactly how to tweak the deck to their local meta, at which point it's no longer a netdeck, it's merely inspired by one.
Scrubs build janky decks and lose to netdeckers.
Netdeckers build tournament decks and lose to good players.
Good players build tournament decks, tweak them, and lose to Chuck Norris, who taught Richard Garfield how to play Magic.
chuck also inspired every bad @$$ card printed in Magic.
but on topic, I dont really see Netdecking as bad, sometimes you just dont know what to play and have to have the guidance of popular decks to so see which one tickles your fancy, then play play play tweak accordingly and try your best.
only so many decks ever were autopilot decks, now a days picking up UW control and thinking "Oh man i got this for sure" is stupid. you end up in a field of BANT and wonder, "well what the hell went wrong?!!!" want went wrong is that you were not prepared for the field.
10 percent inspiration,
90 percent perspiration, and for the love of anything you hold dear, please please shower...
chuck also inspired every bad @$$ card printed in Magic.
but on topic, I dont really see Netdecking as bad, sometimes you just dont know what to play and have to have the guidance of popular decks to so see which one tickles your fancy, then play play play tweak accordingly and try your best.
only so many decks ever were autopilot decks, now a days picking up UW control and thinking "Oh man i got this for sure" is stupid. you end up in a field of BANT and wonder, "well what the hell went wrong?!!!" want went wrong is that you were not prepared for the field.
10 percent inspiration,
90 percent perspiration, and for the love of anything you hold dear, please please shower...
The problem is that too many people view netdecking only "taking a deck card by card and playing it", there's no such thing as tweaking, you netdecked, therefore, you're a bad player.
Huge misconception, unfortunately.
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Anthony Lowry, Article Writer for Manashift.
Your #1 source for New York City Magic!
Twitter: @Aufam
Complaining about card prices accomplishes nothing. Read some Medina articles, learn to trade better, don’t act like the only way to do ANYTHING in this game is to price out decks and buy every single you ever need.
net decking is bad. sucks out all the creativity in the game.
whats worse is when someone net decks and then wins and rubs it in your face, acting like they have skills and such, when all they did was copy someone elses deck
So, how does a player creating it in the first place take creativity out of the game? Are you under the assumption that net decks magically spawn from the depths of hell to ruin Magic?
*If they beat you, that kind of PROVES that they have skill. It would be like calling a basketball player "bad" for not wearing his own shoes when he beats you in a game.
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"If you don't wear your seatbelt, the police will shoot you in the head."
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
Everyone knows that good luck and good game are such insincere terms that any man who does not connect his right hook with the offender's jaw on the very utterance of such a phrase is no man I would consider as such.
All the debate about "net decking" vs. "rogue decking" is going to belong in this thread from now on. Any new threads in Magic General trying to start this debate (which has been going on for damn near 15 years now) are going to be locked and infracted.
What happened to letting people play the way they want instead of forcing YOUR ideals on them? Just let people play the way they want to play. Everyone thinks they know what is best for the game, yet there are 20 different opinions on what that best thing is so it's impossible for everyone to agree.
Just let it be and find your own playgroup of "original" players instead of complaining about the ways other people are enjoying the game.
This, This, and this again...everyone has different "needs" when it comes to magic. Some people play only because they want to do dumb ☺☺☺☺. Some people play because they want to win. It is actually that simple. Many people who play at the competetive level aren't necessarily be good deck builders but some of the best deck builders are necessarily going to want to play ultra competetively.
Deckbuilding and playing are not requisites of eachother...if someone wants to play a deck that is good but that they had no part in designing, let them do it. And if you wanna take the time to design a deck that is good and be able to say this is all my own work, then the more power to you. *ooof*
Anyway the point is that you can't push the same set of expectations on everyone (especially with how large the magic community is now) and have it turn out well.
so now back to this...
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whats worse is when someone net decks and then wins and rubs it in your face, acting like they have skills and such, when all they did was copy someone elses deck
As far as competitive Magic is concerned, then yeah, I guess you do what you have to in order to win. However, if you lack the innovation and deckbuilding skills to actually construct a good deck, I don't see you making it very far past your local FNM. What will you do when you have to play Limited at a PTQ? Or when you face the mirror match, but your opponent questioned the norm and actually understands the ins and outs of your deck? I'd say you're in trouble.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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Later I was running a grixis chandra ablaze control deck. It had potential, but it needed something more. When I discovered the official topic for ablaze control in the standard discussion forums, I was pleased to find all sorts of opinions and strategies for my deck. As I made my deck better and better, it eventually turned into cruel control, and I started reading the topic for that deck in the developing competitive section. The thing is, my deck is missing the Jace 2.0s, so I have to take everyone's suggestions with a grain of salt. The game of reading suggestions and results and then deciding if they fit for my meta adds an extra dimension of fun to magic, and occasionnaly it pays off and I get some wins. The metagaming aspect of changing a few maindeck cards and a few sideboard cards each week is what I find exciting.
tldr; Copying a decklist card-for-card whithout questioning the choices is lame and you're missing out on the fun of tuning it to your meta. But discussing your deck with dozens of other players online is fun because it feels like you're on the same team.
1 Ulamog 1 ◊ W Avacyn W ◊ U Memnarch U ◊ B Endrek B ◊ R Urabrask R ◊ G Yeva G
secondly, if all players are "allowed" to use are something they have created then you are inherently stifling creativity by having a bunch of "you can't play that" lists which can simply be a type of deck people like to use. players often like to use the best version of something because winning is fun, so a lot of the time there is large incentive entertainment-wise about "netdecking".
anybody who straight up copies a list (outside of maybe standard) probably won't be able to grasp the deck's intricacies, but regardless, they are learning about how the deck is played. additionally, since the deck was used successfully at a tournament, it is a good way to rate one's skills when facing other tournament decks; without, there is no way to tell if the deck is winning or if the player is.
fourthly, most people who "netdeck" and know about the game will usually make their own modifications. this not only lets them explore greater understanding of the game, but it helps them see how their own choices affect how the deck runs and it shows true creation: taking something that works and trying to make it better.
the real question is "why is netdecking bad?" to which the "anti-netdeckers" always respond with "it stifles creativity, they just copy-pasted!" without giving any input as to why copying is bad or why creativity has been majorly stifled by it?
as a player who netdecks to test and does tons of homebrew, i think most people who criticize netdecking tend to be those who dont' have much experience with the game or don't try to play competitively, so when they face somebody of a different experience level they can blame their losses on the fact that it was a netdeck and not because they're homebrew is just plain bad.
not everybody can always just go out and play something they made, netdecking has been a practically wholly positive change to magic in my opinion.
A lot of people, myself included, used to look down on netdecking but have since gained an appreciation for it. If you are wholly against netdecking, consider those who have gone before you.
One argument against netdecking is that the player's success is mostly, if not entirely, dependent on the deck itself, not the pilot. There is a lot that can be brought up to counter this, but to put it simply, there's a reason we're not all on the level of Finkel, LSV, et al.
Another major argument against netdecking is that it stifles creativity. This is a very 'feel good' line, but you must realize that creativity for its own sake isn't useful. At the very least you should have a justification for the change. Another thing you must realize is that damn near anything you'd think of has been thought of before. Some things others may have discounted that are worth trying but there's a limit to how divergent you can be from the popular lists without just being bad.
Yet another thing I see is people disparaging innovation within an archetype (i.e. Jund is Jund is Jund). What about that Vengevine build of Jund? The one with the single maindecked Hell's Thunder? Looks solid to me, did very well, and is certainly a significant change from the 'classic' Jund lists. Sure, it's still Jund, but it's still innovative. Still, you can't take NLBant, swap Vengevines for Baneslayers and call it innovation. That's just tuning your deck against red.
Being creative is fine. It is not an end unto itself. Make sure what you do isn't going to just be 'that one thing, only worse.'
However, I have done this several times, and as I test it out I gradually improve upon it and make subtle changes.
I tend to view things in a similar light. Netdecking has its place, but sometimes it is used as a crutch and is certainly not without its downsides. Consider a brand new LGS with a very fledgling FNM crowd -- everyone plays mediocre homebrew decks for a few weeks, then someone with money to spare goes online and copy-pastas the latest build of Jund or U/W, crushing the competition week after week. Of course the meta can (and should) adapt, but these consecutive victories were probably not due to the skill of that player and instead have more to do with the power of the deck and the depth of his wallet. This, I think, is one of the major objections many players have with netdecking.
It's really a mixed bag. However, I think most of us are in agreement that one must actually understand how a netdeck works and why it wins in order to really get anywhere in the game.
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Since then, I've lightened up quite a bit. While I can't be happy about being smacked around by a deck whose development was in no way aided by the guy piloting it against me, I regularly use the internet (and especially the forums hereabouts) to help develop what I'm doing, often taking inspiration from decks that dominate their respective formats and adding my own flavor before incorporating pieces into my own decks.
Is it thief, thug or whore? There's one at the door...
And there's room for one more till the end of creation.
Neil Gaiman, Sandman #4 - A Hope in Hell
Edit: Binary your gonna regret this thread real fast...
oh and I'm expecting real soon
Now for decks that I take to tournaments such as FNM, Game Days, and other local events I look at all of the decks that are in the competitive section and then start with that idea as my base and build of that with most of the same cards with my own twists added to it for play styles and budget reasons and that has seemed to work for me.
WHoly Crap that's a lot o' MyrW
WSoul SistersW Match Record: 2-2-0 Game Record: 6-4-0
Like I was saying, THIS IS A GAME. People play magic to have fun. Regardless if they net deck to win or not, people will play magic for their own reasons (mine is to impress women with my incredible top-decking skills :cool:) which believe it or not may include fun. If you don't have fun playing with a person who net decks, tell them so. Hating on net deck users is just as bad as hating on noobs. Nothing creative is going to happen if you discourage people from playing OUR GAME. Unless you are perfectly ok playing magic against yourself (you know who i'm talking about) then you are going to need others to play with you. If you play competitively... well deal with it.
Thank you for your time and patience.
Current Capt. of Team "Ju"
I play this:
Rotation is coming...
Modern: GGGSTOMPY
ZOO (Goyf-less)
Legacy:
Brewing
EDH:
Too many to name.
Anthony Lowry, Article Writer for Manashift.
Your #1 source for New York City Magic!
Twitter: @Aufam
"Net Decking" - When you copy a list of 75, you're basically saying "I am not going to throw out this guy's research and testing and tournament results." This is totally valid. I personally think that this should be something you do in play testing, rather than just grabbing a list and running it. People who claim to netdeck to be competitive and then don't test are kind of kidding themselves.
On going rogue - Sometimes none of the known decks are as good as your own brew. You should still at least build your current meta so you have a testing gauntlet. I'm fine with people doing this as long as they do a ton of testing and don't try to use their 3-0 split at FNM as an argument that they've broken the format or invented a tier 1 deck.
Honestly I love to build decks, its on the reasons that I enjoy the game, but I don't have the time or resources to test them to the levels I would want to try and focus in their potential. So when it comes down to a serious tournament I will more than likely pick a deck that can accommodate my play style and tweak the deck/side a few cards so it feels more comfortable.
To the na-sayers of netdecking, even if you copy paste a deck it doesn't mean you know how to play it.
Sig and Avvy by SGT_Chubbz at Kracked Graphics
The thing that bothers me about netdecking are those who couldnt tell you if a card was good or bad on its own. They just know what the card does in a certain deck. Also the fact of how some wont give credit to a rogue build just because a pro had not published it somewhere yet.
1) Lack of experience piloting said deck
2) There is a reason that Chapin or whoever selected exactly those 60 cards. Those 60 cards were based partially on testing, partially on results, and partially on the selections of a bunch of other high level decks. Chapin, or whoever, selected exactly this deck for exactly this tournament with exactly this meta-game.
Blindly copying the deck is not advisable for this reason. Would you take a Jund netdeck to a local scene packing only Tapout or UW control?
There's nothing wrong with netdecking, partially because someone who blindly copies a deck will stand no chance against someone who looks at the same deck, and actually understands why it's as good as it is. The players who do this are often intelligent enough to know exactly how to tweak the deck to their local meta, at which point it's no longer a netdeck, it's merely inspired by one.
Scrubs build janky decks and lose to netdeckers.
Netdeckers build tournament decks and lose to good players.
Good players build tournament decks, tweak them, and lose to Chuck Norris, who taught Richard Garfield how to play Magic.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
chuck also inspired every bad @$$ card printed in Magic.
but on topic, I dont really see Netdecking as bad, sometimes you just dont know what to play and have to have the guidance of popular decks to so see which one tickles your fancy, then play play play tweak accordingly and try your best.
only so many decks ever were autopilot decks, now a days picking up UW control and thinking "Oh man i got this for sure" is stupid. you end up in a field of BANT and wonder, "well what the hell went wrong?!!!" want went wrong is that you were not prepared for the field.
10 percent inspiration,
90 percent perspiration, and for the love of anything you hold dear, please please shower...
The problem is that too many people view netdecking only "taking a deck card by card and playing it", there's no such thing as tweaking, you netdecked, therefore, you're a bad player.
Huge misconception, unfortunately.
Anthony Lowry, Article Writer for Manashift.
Your #1 source for New York City Magic!
Twitter: @Aufam
So, how does a player creating it in the first place take creativity out of the game? Are you under the assumption that net decks magically spawn from the depths of hell to ruin Magic?
*If they beat you, that kind of PROVES that they have skill. It would be like calling a basketball player "bad" for not wearing his own shoes when he beats you in a game.
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.