Net deck or not to netdeck?
General forum
Posted on April 21, 2014, 5:02 p.m. by Ohthenoises
That is the question.
So, I am, and am not, a net decker and I was wondering who else out there is like me.
What I mean is I will look at established decks for ideas in my own brews and see what cards make waves. If they have synergy with the brew I will add them without a second thought. If my deck ends up looking like a net deck then so be it.
I've recently run into more and more people who are heavily anti net deck, to the point where they reject card suggestions that are powerful just because netdecks use some of those cards and I was wondering why this was?
What I mean is this: If you are running Mono B Devotion in standard, I suggest Gray Merchant of Asphodel and I get the response of "That's just net decking, I don't want to put that card in my deck because I don't want to be a net decker." (This was just an example.) This kind of response irks me. I mean, you aren't some special little snowflake for not including something that has been proven to work.
Now, this is putting budget completely aside, if you are playing on a budget that's COMPLETELY different. If you are playing MTG on a budget in a competitive environment kudos to you.
Does anyone else think like this or:
Net decking is what all the "it" players do in my meta. For me, I like thinking outside the box, finding my own combos and my own ideas, and making them work. Now am I opposed to looking at a net deck and getting an idea from it, no, but will I go card for card for a net deck? Hell no. And why not? Because those players make their deck to suit their play styles, and not your. You, in the same situation, will make different plays, different decisions, and do different things. Quite honestly, I do not how you can sleeve up a deck someone else builds and expect to win with it consistently.
April 21, 2014 5:10 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #4
And I'm in agreement DrLitebur. I'm not saying that we all need to go out and copy stuff, just not to close our minds to all of the good stuff.
April 21, 2014 5:16 p.m.
My meta is very split. A large amount of people play goodstuff. I play against people who play four color dragon tribal with Unexpected Results and Utvara Hellkite , as well as esper midrange (Blood Baron of Vizkopa and Master of Waves ) and janky combo. Others play monoblack and esper control. No one is mean and no one calls people out for net decking or playing fun decks. It's a pretty awesome environment.
April 21, 2014 5:17 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #6
cschiller it sounds great. Glad you are in a good place.
April 21, 2014 5:20 p.m.
One of the best aspects of Magic is that it can be a different game for a lot of folks. Whether you're a PTQ grinder with aspirations of going to the pro-tour who only plays with the best decks and cards or someone that just plays with what they pull out of their packs, neither of these is better or the more correct way to play. There's been more divisiveness brought to the community over net decking and rogue brewing and either side lording over the other. We just all need to get over ourselves and let everyone enjoy the game the way they want to.
April 21, 2014 5:25 p.m.
I don't care about netdecking.
As for myself, I have a range of decks across most any spectrum (outside of budget - which for me is consistently "cheap"). On the "netdecking" spectrum, I run commanders that range from extremely common with very consistent decklists and strategies - to - extremely obscure paired with actually unheard of strategies. What I play all depends on my mood. If I faced your meta, I would grab my way-out-there build, I think.
April 21, 2014 5:25 p.m.
I find the hate kind of weird. We recently had this thing among friends where we all made modern proxy decks to play against each other. I threw together this faerie thing as best as I could given my inexperience with the format. Then a friend approached me for help making naya zoo. I noticed he wasn't running Tarmogoyf so I suggested it. I ended up having a 40 minute discussion about how cheap the card was and how I was nothing more than a degenerate net decker. A weird experience, really, especially considering my friend runs a Gruul Devotion net deck. He started putting it together after Makihito Mihara showed Colossal Gruul off at Pro Tour Theros and has been adjusting it ever since.
I ran a budget Mono Black dev deck for a bit. It lacked things like demon and ran Liliana's Reaver instead. I got so much hate. Now I'm playing Rakdos aggro. Ravish the Meek. It as a lot of staples of the deck archetype but I essentially put it together. I consider it a brew even though there are a ton of decks like it. It generates less hate aside form the occasional 'aggro is braindead and just stupid'.
I don't care. I regularly make $400 placeholder decks based off net decks and homebrews. My two most recent creations have been Orzhov Midrange (net decked like crazy) and an offbeat Bant build meant to take advantage of Prophet of Kruphix . These decks are so far out of my price range that they're the only way I can play against the decks worth more than $300 I play against. I but heads with devotion in many formats, monsters, various U/W/x control, and so on.
April 21, 2014 5:26 p.m.
ChiefWannaHacka says... #10
I agree with you about taking my homebrew and mashing it with an established deck. As Born came out and there was the 5 color ramp deck, I took the core of it (Sylvan Caryatid and Axebane Guardian ) and reduced it to RUG. Similar to R/G monsters but with blue for Thassa, Jace, Prophet of Kruphix , Prime Speaker Zegana , and over the top creatures. Then I went even crazier and added Signal the Clans to tutor up functionally similar creature EoT and flash them in with Prophet. I took out the Guardians for Courser. It makes it smoother, and it's still hella fun to play. Also Signal the Clans gets by Lifebane Zombie , VALUE! lol.
April 21, 2014 5:28 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #11
ChiefWannaHacka It sounds like you build very similarly to me. Get a brew, or idea in your head, then set out modifying it. Then, when all is said and done, if it looks like a netdeck of close to one, who cares?
April 21, 2014 5:31 p.m.
ChiefWannaHacka says... #12
@Ohthenoises Exactly! That and I'm super Timmy.
April 21, 2014 5:45 p.m.
Most people in my shop play either straight top tier netdecks or powered down versions of Blue and Black Devotion (Thoughtseize and Mutavault are expensive, ya know). I don't mind them, some people wanna win and that's fine. But would rather have people netdecking me.
Then there are a few people like me, trying to tweek an existing idea into something competitive. By that I mean stuff like Humans, Burn, Dredge, Maze's End and that kind of stuff. Not quite rogue decks, but nothing that's on peoples radar.
And lastly, there is a surprisingly large amouth of Budget funstuff, like Minotaur Beatdown, Battalion swarms or even Agent of Fates Heroic. These decks mostly don't do really well, but seeing them play is warming my heart. And seeing them win is an absolut blast.
April 21, 2014 5:46 p.m.
Rasta_Viking29 says... #14
I really only run into the netdecking issue on this site and with newer players at FNM. Every deck on this site is a net deck technically regardless of who brewed them, they're on the internet. I actually think it's funny that my janky American Burn deck is my highest scoring deck on this site and is well received by the community while my competitive decks are hated on and ignored presumably because they're netdecks.
I used to be one of those tools that thought netdecking was the devil as I consider being original and independent an important part of who I am. The I realized I was being a fool and likened it to this analogy:
Once I started playing competitively I realized no one played the same 75 cards in their deck. You could have the same 74 as the guy who took 1st but that 1 card made the difference in a certain matchup.
In the end I believe netdecking is just a part of the process of becoming a better player and deck builder. I still brew janky decks to have fun with at FNM and home while not being oppressive to newer players. I like to have my cake and eat it too.
April 21, 2014 6:01 p.m.
theinfernumflame says... #16
I generally build my own decks, but like you, I'll sometimes look to the internet and see what ideas are going around. For instance, my most recent build is just a "bant good stuff" deck. I designed it, tested it, refined it myself, but it's loaded with staples in those colors - Brimaz, King of Oreskos , Polukranos, World Eater , Elspeth, Sun's Champion , Kiora, the Crashing Wave , and so on. I've met people who claim that using good cards like that is clearly netdecking, but that's ridiculous.
To me, netdecking is taking an established deck, maybe changing a card or two, and running that. I like building my own decks, but I also like winning. Naturally, that means I need to be building decks with good cards.
April 21, 2014 6:16 p.m.
"netdecking" is stupid. the best decks will rise to the top, without the internet, people would still be playing mono U devotion or MBD, esper, etc. I built a junk reanimator list very similar (minus the BNG cards) to the one that was featured on SCG recently, except i built it before theros release. I built almost a card for card copy of shaheen sorranis UWR list, before i read about it (his invitational list). my brother was playing R/W burn while everyone was still on mono red aggro. ive seen mono U lists that were similar to PT lists but they didnt have frostburn weirds bc its a common and they never thought to look through their commons.
the internet just cuts down on research and build time.
April 21, 2014 6:23 p.m.
im still on UWR even if everyone left for esper, still taking down FNMs at 4-0, 4-0-1, 3-1 etc, and sittin at top tables in standard tournaments
April 21, 2014 6:24 p.m.
I don't like to net deck, but I will sometimes when I get tired of losing. Then I get pissed because the net deck doesn't perform like I expect, and I revert back to my own brew.
April 21, 2014 6:49 p.m.
A couple guys run Simic at my LGS and have done particularly well against the wave of control and monsters.
My experience with deckbuilding/discussing deckbuilding outside of T/O mostly consists of a less hostile environment towards net decking and it's a little upsetting that it's an issue outside of the interwebs.
April 21, 2014 6:52 p.m.
miracleHat says... #21
I play decks that have been used a long time ago, but then forgotten. Does anybody remember Dragonstorm and winning turn 1 with 4 Bogardan Hellkite ? How about Psychatog ? My current deck is a mono black control deck (legacy). NOTE: this isn't any of this mono black devotion turd that somebody came up with. This is a deck with Hymn to Tourach , Thoughtseize , Chainer's Edict and Braids, Cabal Minion . The people at my lgs who play legacy are super rich (at least in my eyes) and have cards like Show and Tell , playsets of Underground Sea signed, and what seem to be mint condition. The worst part is that the person who has the Underground Sea bought them!!! Also, i like taking a really good multicolor deck, and then changing one color but with the same theme. With eternal rug control, I came up with a deck on here (there is no way that i will ever be able to get this deck), that instead of rug is bant. Just simple stuff like that... i love tappedout.
April 21, 2014 7:40 p.m.
I love this thread.
Anyway, today, I wanted to find out what it was like playing control, so what did I do. Did I build my own? No. I went and found Sean McLaren's deck from PTBNG and fired it up on Cockatrice. As somebody who would never play a PT-winning deck, did I do the wrong thing? I don't think so.
I'm not sure that's related, but I want to talk about something else that is. I took Storm and Eggs to a tourney, and everybody accused me of "taking my deck off the Internet." At the time I thought "So?" I now know differently and the deck still isn't my own. It also isn't the stock 60 of the original. But my favorite thing is the SB. I made it myself and I'm proud of it. Sure, I like my Weirdstorm, but I pretty much only dust it off at tourneys. I'll play my other, more fun decks (SLIVERS!!!!! SLIVERS!!!!! SLIVERS!!!!! is one) because I have more fun with them, and I'm playing my list now. I'm not just a playtester for Team Luxurious Heir.
April 21, 2014 8:16 p.m.
Dalektable says... #23
I'm a big fan of home brewing, and I straight up refuse to net deck out of pride really. I will mesh a popular deck with one of my decks If i feel it would make the deck much better, but as a general rule I am a homebrewer.
April 21, 2014 10:19 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #24
Dalektable Would you reject a card if it was a common staple of the net decking community? (Like Wurmcoil Engine in a Tron brew, Master of Waves in MUD brew, AEther Vial in a hatebear type of brew.)
That's what I'm referring to.
April 21, 2014 10:23 p.m.
Dalektable says... #25
Ohthenoises Of course not. I think that's absolutely ridiculous, you shouldn't run a strictly worse deck because one card is used in a popular deck. Like I use Snapcaster Mage in my modern miracles deck that runs like a control deck, things like that are just staples and are so for a reason.
April 21, 2014 10:28 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #26
It's just something that I ran into the other day. It kinda took me for a loop.
April 21, 2014 10:30 p.m.
WovenNebula says... #27
I enjoy magic in all it's aspects, if a net deck is a plain Jane I attack or just burn type of deck then it's rather boring, if the net deck is not top tier a just a fun and strange combo brew besides eggs which is not fun to play against then it usually is quite fun playing their idea for a little bit. I enjoy building new brews cause if I win it's like a pat on my own back and makes a person feel good tho winning does that but when it's your own brew it gives a higher satisfaction. When it comes to high power cards, yes certain cards can just win you the game, it does irk me when they say you need fetch lands to win, as a player who has been playing over a decade of magic and we have done just fine without them, don't get me wrong they can thin decks and such but don't win games like Show and Tell , Sneak Attack , Dark Confidant and so on, those cards really can make your deck go for a win. Being suggested especially if they further your goal to win and impact the game that much shouldn't be argued, just simply state you want it to be budget or rather try something new, a spin off etc.. Off topic and back to fetch lands my o' my this past two years I have never see lands rise that high in price besides original duels in alpha, beta, and revised. I'm sad to see pain lands don't get the love they used to, if you use them you just make your deck that much more efficient and kill faster to avoid more than 5 damage from your own lands, anyways that's my opinion on the topic that suggestions should be taken like a grain of salt and play for the love of the game, if they love to win as often as they can then they usually net it up but if they play to see what they are capable of all the same, it's like high school preps, jocks, nerds whatever be it so long as they love what they do and are respectful it should be fine.
April 22, 2014 3:10 a.m.
megawurmple says... #28
The way I see it is that, although I try to steer clear of netdecking, I don't mind when others netdeck. If they want to maximise their chances of winning by taking a list off the web, then so be it. Hell, if anything, other people netdecking is better for me as I know how to sideboard against the top decks right now, and my ramp actually has a surprisingly good match up against a few of them.
Ohthenoises says... #2
This is mostly pointed to my own meta. No one on Tappedout.
April 21, 2014 5:06 p.m.