So whatever game you play, it has what we would call Netdeckers.
What are your feelings on them?
Do you see them as wise spenders?
People who only care about winning, not fun?
Are they good to have, bad to have?
Your thoughts?
It sounds like you're talking about netdecking as buying cards online, rather than taking lists and getting the cards however you want
>>43706930
Run of the mill dickweeds, it is inevitable. They will do moderately well, but as with all players or commanders that slavishly follow conventional wisdom and are incapable of original thought or deep understanding, will get their asses kicked by someone who does.
It makes me feel kinda old. Back in the day there wasn't really a way to do that shit. I mean, sure, there was the internet and maybe once in a blue moon you could get something reliably shipped, but for the most part you were buying booster packs, trading with people, and figuring everything out by yourself. Nowadays you would never buy a booster. Ever. It's just not worth it when you can get whatever singles you want to tailor to that exact strategy you read on message board #356. Netdecking just kills any wonder or magic the game would've had otherwise.
>>43706930
It is inevitable - all games are made to sell, them being fun is only incidental.
Honestly, the only way to avoid nd would be a card set that varies slightly every week or something similiar to the tavern brawl in heartstone where a temptorary rule is introduced for a week.
>>43707007
Netdeck = Deck from the net
It means using a deck that you didn't build.
>>43707007
I remember those days. I also remember piles of shit cards no one wanted, spending money from mowing lawns on boosters only to get nothing useful, getting screwed on trades because there weren't reliable prices, all sorts of shit we've left behind. It wasn't all childlike wonder.
>>43706930
I'm okay with people using decklists from pros, it makes complete sense. But what I'm irked about are two things. First are people who go to FNM with such decks to mock those who brew, and second are those who blindly pilot the deck without any thought. Like if I ask you why you have certain cards in your sideboard, and you just drool and say "I dunno lol", you're an idiot.
>>43706930
Netdecking is a tool at your disposal when playing the game. There are people who have played the game for much longer than you have or have dedicated much more time to it than you do, to completely ignore their findings is asinine. Only people who are either too consumed by their own ego to borrow other people's lists or are just plaine embarassed they didn't think of it have a problem with netdecking.
>>43707177
This sounds like all that matters is the win.
I understand your point of view, and am not denouncing it, but I feel that it comes at the cost of any wonder about the game.
That said, does anyone just buy boosters now?
It sounds like it would be fun to just buy packs and play with what you get, though admittedly wouldn't be too competitive.
>>43706930
It depends. If they took the deck and made it fit their style of play it implies understanding of the game and therefore I have no problem with it, but those that just take the deck and never do anything with it are merely leeching the creativity of their betters
>>43707256
Drafting is still a wildly popular format these days.
>>43707274
>those that just take the deck and never do anything with it are merely leeching the creativity of their betters
What an embarrassing opinion to have.
The best players aren't the best brewers, and the best brewers aren't the best players.
Are you anti-netdeckers talking about casual or competitive environments?
>>43707256
I exclusively buy packs. I'm aware that it's inefficient and gives a lot of trash but my reasoning is twofold.
1) sometimes trash becomes good later and now I already have it
2)my nostalgia goggles are thick and I like the feeling when I get a really good card at random
If you're playing anything that isn't casual and you don't netdeck to some extent, you're an idiot. That being said, if your deck is entirely copypasted, you're a drooling idiot.
>>43707256
If I'm going to play a competitive constructed format then I want to know what decks are good. I'm not going to waste my time brewing because I don't have that kind of time. Will I always play a tier 1 deck? Not necessarily, if it's not a deck I like then I'm not going to play it, for instance I didn't play omnitell in legacy before the bannings because I'm not a huge fan of those kind of combo decks.
It depends on the context. Let's use Magic as an example.
At major events like the Grand Prix or Pro Tour, using whatever setup you think will give you the best chances is to be expected. There's a lot on the line, after all, and these are high caliber tournaments. There's nothing objectionable about netdecking here.
As for the local FNM, especially one that gets anywhere from 8-16 players and has almost nonexistent prize support, I really can't see the purpose of spending hundreds of dollars every few weeks. I see it as missing the purpose of FNM.
Worse yet are the people who think that buying these decks and placing every week qualifies them as some kind of savant. But, then again, those are always the most satisfying people to play against in Sealed because they get super butthurt when they do poorly and blame it on their pool.
>>43707315
A bit of both. I've seen both ruined by almost everyone running the deck that just won some big tourney. It's not fun to play the same deck repeatedly with no variation whatsoever. Further i think you misunderstand what I mean by making a deck your own. Just customizing it to fit you as a player is infinitely better than blindly following some strat you found.
>>43707335
This
>>43706930
I laugh at them, feel bad for them, and am occasionally enraged by them. But mostly I just stay away from them.
>tfw your local meta was utterly destroyed and made completely boring by everyone running 2 decks: Abzan and B/W Warriors
>>43707538
If you're such an amazing deckbuilder that you don't need to netdeck to win then you should easily be able to make a homebrew that stomps such a narrow meta.
>>43706930
It's a shortcut. One that often results in mediocre players running decks that they don't understand, but that will give them wins just because they're the result of a lot of time and effort put in by people the netdecker doesn't know and will never meet.
It's a way of winning with the minimum amount of skill and understanding.
>>43706930
Competitive play, it's fine. Intentionally handicapping yourself out of a misguided sense of honor is for chumps.
At kitchen tables, go home you asshole.
>>43707572
I never said I was good, m80
I just started about a month ago and it was discouraging to see that 95% of the cards I have gotten since then have no place beyond my kitchen table.
>>43706930
I think it really depends. I play decks I find are fun, using modified decks I found online. I don't care how many tournaments it won the if there are cards in it I don't personally like, I swap them. If there are cards that don't do well in my meta, I swap them. Net decking still requires some knowledge about the game. But if you blindly build the exact deck that just made it to top 8 just because it's the best, and you don't change it for the meta or your own preferences, I think you're kind of a retarded asshole.
However I anyone who brews and brings it to FNM has my upmost respect.
>>43706930
The thought of spending tons of money on packs just doesn't appeal to me when i can spend less and get just the cards I need.
In many cases, though, you might vary a few cards, but there IS a optimal shell, like, you know Jund is going to ply 4 bolts, 4 goyfs, 7 discard spells, etc. There generally are 2-6 flex spots depending on the format/deck though. .
>>43707630
>I just started about a month ago
Oh, the discouragement has only just begun.
I think Netdecking is fine as a starting point for a deck, but once you know the list well enough, you can start tuning it for your local meta as you see fit. At least, that's how I do it.
>>43707538
If your meta is made of exactly two decks then you should easily be able to brew a rogue deck to beat them
>it was discouraging to see that 95% of the cards I have gotten since then have no place beyond my kitchen table
That's magic, dude. 95% of all cards never see play
>>43707256
Well, there is also the fact that some people (like myself) are just trash at deckbuilding. I can do pretty well at making something out of a pile of card that I happen to have, but given a format sized pool I got nothing. So if I want to play something on a vaguely competitive level it's netdeck or bust.
>>43707737
Yeah, I remember back when I thought that, too.
>>43707796
What part, exactly?
>>43706930
I play Magic to express my individuality through creative decks that put other players on tilt. Netdecking is anathema to me, and I feel like it's against the spirit of creativity that makes Magic such a fun game. I'll play against netdeckers but I can't respect them.
A hater of netdecks is like an incompetent engineer.
A competent engineer performs research and then, to the best of his abilities, develops a product. He investigates his options and chooses the best design. Often it will resemble other inherently efficient designs. Sometimes he will prove a better understanding by squeezing out additional performance with his own subtle innovations and methods.
The incompetent engineer doesn't perform research. He then misinterprets his inability to perform research with "being creative". He then confuses his inability to tell the difference between good and bad designs with "being open-minded". Finally, he confuses his ability to ignore reason and champion a terrible cause with "being a visionary". What the incompetent engineer doesn't know is that his design was probably conceived, evaluated, and rejected by the competent engineer; and that took very little time and effort due to his superior evaluation skills. Of course, the incompetent engineer never learns this because he will not perform research.
A lifetime of pursuing bad designs horribly stifles his ability to learn and improve, and his evaluation skills suffer so badly that he loses his ability to recognize good designs. This results in a mentality where creating superior designs without copying them in inconceivable, even if that is completely illogical due to designs needing to be created before they can be copied.
Finally, the incompetent engineer transitions away from valuing his own competence and sets trivial and asinine goals for himself that have nothing to do with showing, learning, or employing useful skills. He then confuses his ability to meet these goals with superiority over the competent engineer.
>>43708114
same desu senpai
>>43708148
>A hater of netdecks is like an incompetent engineer.
Someone who netdecks isn't an engineer so I don't know what you're on about.
>>43708148
>random kid picks up abzan midrange deck
>sweeps local standard game
>he is the genius this world needs
fuck off, kid.
Engineering =! trading card GAME
>>43708148
I love this pasta and the rage it causes.
Depends on the format, does notgo universal for all games.
>for mtg
its inevitable. It is a game that is drawn by a clear winner/loser. Eventually, with all your fine tuning and playtesting, your going to have a deck that is 90% match to a netdeck. Not because the person who made it is super cool, but because it WORKS.
>for games like DnD and any pnp game really
Fucking shit ass cancer bitches. Go to fucking hell. You are not defined by a win/lose situation in roleplay games. You create a story. Theres a reason no one likes one dimensional heros. Your mary sue over powered shit has no flaws, nothing interesting, and it effects everyone elses game as well.
>>43708253
>You are not defined by a win/lose situation in roleplay games. You create a story
There's a massive gray area between freeform storytelling and a game/movie/book, you know?
>>43708040
The part about it being easy to come up with something to beat only two decks.
But then again, when I experienced that the two decks were Caw Blade and Valakut, so maybe times have changed.
>>43707256
Drafting and EDH are the only ways I can have fun with Magic right now. Modern's beyond my budget and standard is just as bad, but even less fun.
I have barely touched the game since Theros rotated which is ironic because I hated Theros.
>>43706930
If you want to win, do research to figure out what works, what doesn't, and why certain things work and others don't. Someone somewhere has figured out how to use the cards to make a deck that's very good, so there's no reason not to use that information if it's available. If a scrub manages to "copy" a deck from some tournament, and said scrub beats you with it, either you're playing Standard or you need to re-examine the viability of your strategy. Netdecking is no guarantee that a person can win: I've been working with AnT for some time now, and I still lose a lot of games with it because it's a hard deck to pilot well. I like the challenge and I see no problem with running as good a deck as I can, even if it was designed by someone else.
The only arguments against netdecking are a) one prefers to build the best deck possible with the cards one pulls out of packs, and b) it's not a very creative way to build a deck. The first argument is based on personal preference (I used to feel that way and I know a lot of people who do), and the second is based on the assumption that viable strategies and useful cards are plentiful enough that a person of skill can put something together that can beat decks with long track records of performing well. That's true sometimes, but it's rare to see an entirely new deck show up and start taking down tournaments because of the fact that established decks are established because they work and because people are more likely to try incorporating a few new cards into a tried-and-true strategy than they are to try building something completely different when there are proven strategies that work.
I suppose I wish that netdecking weren't as ubiquitous as it is, but I don't blame people for wanting to research strategies to settle on workable decklists. I do it, too.
>>43707177
>Only people who are either too consumed by their own ego to borrow other people's lists or are just plaine embarassed they didn't think of it have a problem with netdecking.
I have a problem with netdecking and it's not related to either of those. My problem with it is that I prefer games where the local meta can evolve organically and separate from the global meta, it feels more organic and it's far more exciting for me than every FNM just being the last GP/protour in miniature.
>>43707630
> it was discouraging to see that 95% of the cards I have gotten since then have no place beyond my kitchen table.
Sorry to hear that I'm not the only one. That's why I quit Standard; too many cards are too dominant for a short time, then become useless post-rotation.
You might try picking up individual cards that would bolster your decks and stop buying packs unless there's a really good reason to gamble on them (Tarmogoyf, full-art fetch, etc.). The reason netdecking is so popular is that decks with proven results are good decks, and it's extremely difficult to build something from scratch that can compete.
>>43708515
>every FNM just being the last GP/protour in miniature.
Holy shit, THIS
>>43708515
>My problem with it is that I prefer games where the local meta can evolve organically and separate from the global meta, it feels more organic and it's far more exciting for me than every FNM just being the last GP/protour in miniature.
That's a fair point, but it's quite likely that, given enough time and good players, a given meta will eventually come to resemble the global one.
>>43708148
But m8, much as I know this is pasta it does bear pointing out the netdecker is a purchasing consumer, not an engineer. The engineer analogue is the pro player that thought the deck up in the first place.
>>43708575
>given enough time and good players, a given meta will eventually come to resemble the global one.
Yeah there's an element of convergent evolution involved, Magic selects for efficiency. I just like being able to go to another FNM and see weird-ass new decks, it's exciting. Hopefully the new faster Standard will help prevent it settling too much.
>>43707630
Welcome to magic. It has been like that since the dawn of time. You should quit now. Although the game is addictive it's a completely shitty cash grab.
Also all these people against net decking... why? In competitive magic you have two options quit your job abandon your family and endlessly play test with a group of other pros and constantly travel to tournaments to get an idea of the meta game or see what those types are playing and play that. It's the way the game is designed just deal with it.
Typical case of hating the player for playing the game right.
>>43708192
>loses to a random kid
>still thinks he's a genius
People play magic for different reasons. Not having an autistic devotion to a format such that you can come up with brand new decks every week is hardly a crime. Netdecking is for people who have lives but still want to play magic
>>43706930
Anyone who complains about "netdecking", or even uses the term seriously, is likely a 14 year old or a manchild.
Playing brews is fine, but there's plenty of room to play established decks and even tweak them if you want, and there's nothing wrong with it.
If you can't handle people playing real decks, don't play in tournaments.
Go ahead and bring your shitty tribal vampires to the shop. I honestly hope you do well. I like brewing myself at times. Just don't get salty when you get stomped by proven decks.
>>43708764
>>43708982
It just boils down to people whining about badwrongfun.
As players who have figured out step one but need to figure out step two. Of course you look for decks online, that gets you a big headstart in your making the best deck possible. You look for ways to improve that deck from there.
>>43706930
They are simply not creative. Not everybody can be, and I feel no reason why they should be excluded from a game for lacking that. They can still be tactically minded, after all.
>>43708982
>If you can't handle people playing real decks, don't play in tournaments.
Part of what I dislike about netdecks is that they stifle creative and logical deckbuilding.
That UB Aristocrats deck that did OK recently was very much an obvious 1.0 of the deck, frankly there are better colours to go into for Aristocrats in this meta and this is reflected by the top 8s and my local events where it was beaten by every other deck. It loses to Mardu Aristocrats, it loses to the Tier 1 crowd naturally, it loses to the friggin' event deck with the money cards swapped out. It's cute but it's not combotastic enough to win and doesn't gear-switch to beatdown effectively enough to pull the game once people get wise to you.
Nevertheless loads of people bought in to it without even really stopping and looking at the deck. It was ridiculous; there's borrowing features from a good deck, there's building the good deck 100% the same because it suits your needs and then there's going full retard and buying a whole deck because it did OK once.
>>43707630
You are well on your way to realizing the true best way to play magic.
Limited and Commander.
Netdecking happens because doing the math on optimal chance of card draw chances turns out to be very complex.
"Whats a good deck" in a game like Hearthstone is the least obvious thing IE
Also if the game is something like Magic The Gathering, you end up with maybe 5-6% of viable cards. Whats actually worth to use is even less.
Netdecking in Magic happens because trading for a viable deck is cheaper than building one from packs.
>>43709024
I definitely get the desire to have one's creation validated by winning. I like making my own decks sometimes, and is really fun to see them perform well if I've managed to do it right.
However many casual players and brewers are god-awful at card evaluation and have no grasp of the basic concepts like mana curve and efficiency/card advantage. These are the people I have 0 sympathy for (assuming they've been introduced to the concepts and continue to ignore them).
These people zone in on corner cases and magical Christmas land where they happen to always draw their 1-of which is the only card in their deck that can deal with a format staple that they *know* their opponents will be playing 4 of. These are the autists that I associate with using the term "netdecking".
They get massive tunnel vision and never accept advice on how or why they are ill-prepared to deal with a commonly used card like Jace or batterskull.
>>43706930
If you're competitive you'll eventually reach the same conclusion as the teams of pros who test throughly before each event and arrive at the same deck/army.
If you're casual you have to understand that the only thing required for a game to be casual isfun, so everything about being casual is subjective and individual because some people really do have a blast clashing tier 1 vs tier 1.
Playing rogue specifically is meant to be a handicap mode, trying to beat the tier 1s with your "creativity". If you complain about other people playing tier 1s and want them all to play rogues like you, you're doing it wrong.
The cancer was you all along.
>>43709126
Even within the pro community there are builders and regular players.
Not everyone can or should be expected to come up with a competitive list. It's fine to copy top level builds.
Of course, it sucks for the people who are casual-competitive or wannabe spikes when they go out and buy a cheeky list with a single good result and expect to win with it.
Hopefully you and I can avoid being that guy.
>>43709152
>Commander
you mean that filth of a format where you can guess what cards are (our should be) played based only on the deck colors?
You're spot on about limited though.
>>43707256
> sounds like all that matters is the win
> comes at the cost of any wonder about the game
This is true for me. I began the game with that sense of wonder. Everything was new an exciting. After a while, I became frustrated with my decided lack of mastery as my deck builds continuously seemed to flounder and fizzle. I just wasn't very good at the game. So I began to read up. My sense of wonder rapidly diminished as I became more familiar with the mechanics that had been previously obscured. It was a trade. Childlike fascination for engrossing strategy. It was a good trade.I still imagine I'm a wizard while playing the game...
ITT: We are angry at proven concepts that work
ITT: we are angry that not all special snowflake ideas are viable
ITT: we rage at people being more successful
>>43709348
Agreed. Commander is cancerous. For a format that is supposed to be a bastion of creativity and casualness, it sure is a repetitive, unoriginal, shitstain format. Doesn't help that games are ridiculously slow too.
I'm fine with people netdecking if they know how to play. If they've studied the build, know why every card is there, then by all means let them play a deck they didn't build. It does bother me somewhat when people play tier 1s they bought off the internet because they think it'll carry their dumb ass, though.
>>43709463
Right but in a sufficiently large tournament, those scrubs who think the deck carries the player will get trashed by good players with good decks so who cares
Dealing with their saltiness can be annoying, but I try to find entertainment in their frustration.
I just started playing magic and I don't think it's that bad. It makes it easy for new players to start because they can pick a pre-made deck and try to learn how to play with it. Making a deck that you can play with people at an LGS seems pretty hard, especially for a new player.
>>43709429
I think the cancer stated creeping in with the commander specific cats and sets.
>>43709348
I always thought the biggest problem with Commander was that everyone would spend an hour building up a mediocre board-state and missing triggers only for someone to just spontaneously win the game.
>>43706930
If you're upset at netdeckers you're admitting that whatever game you play has a skill component that is far less important than deck/force building.
You're essentially saying that the player doesn't matter.
You're also asking for special treatment for playing the game longer.
>Waaah, it took me ages to figure this out, but since it's completely separate from actual skill anyone can copy it and win.
That's what you guys sound like.
The only net-deckers I don't like are those who refuse to play against anything but established decks.
I take pride in my brews and love the fact that standard isn't a solved format. People who can only pilot T1 decks against other well-known decks don't strike me as good players.
I'm of the opinion that no matter what your base deck idea is, through thorough tuning you'll be able to reach something competitive either by accidentally reinventing the wheel or coming across some real synergy.
>>43708343
fuck Caw Blade, dude
"Hey yea I get my combo ready to go at T3 on a good hand, and you basically have to kill 8 things. Not hard, right? Well I also pack the best stall-package in [that block], so get rekt m8"Everyone at my LGS insisted I was just a bad player for hating such a cheesy deck.
>>43711611
>I always though the biggest problem with games was bad players
FTFY
