net decking and you

[Animus]

http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?t=402259

The thread above is a common sight on pojo's yugioh forums. netdecking is a sensitive subject within yugioh because in many cases in tournaments 8 out of the top ten decks were nearly identical only differing by a card or two. when this happens the style gets popular and everyone in the neighborhood starts playing what wins until the next thing comes along.

Me, i'm very passionate about gaming. to me TCGs are close to the most perfect form of gaming.

first of all they're portable. if you want to play in a casual situation all you need is a deck, something to count life, maybe a sideboard and some token cards. all of those can fit within a handy deck box.

its social. each time you open a pack there are one or two things you can use but the rest is crap. however that crap would go perfect in someone else's deck. likely the guy next to you will be in the same jam. however he has what you want. trade is inevitable. and who knows. maybe a friendly match.

its expandable. any tcg where the card pool grows periodically has the potential for endless possibilities. given that the game is pretty fair, any card is good for some kind of situation or deck. i've seen this a lot in magic. one card thats crap i any other situation is the missing link leading to a deadly combo in the right deck. this also accounts for another factor in winning forcing gamers to put up an effort to know what the card pool is capable of or else fall victim to a surprise. also on the other hand using an unorthadox card could be the surprise you need for the win because the opponent won't have an answer for it.

the most important aspect of TCGs that really get me to love them is customization. i've been playing for a little over a year starting with the beginning of ravnica. soon after i started i fell into using black and blue and naturally dimir. however my love for Gaze of the Gorgon has led me to using golgari. since that change the deck hasn't changed in style but it has changed a lot. i've gotten new cards, old cards and fueled them into my deck until it became a minor powerhouse. in a very geeky sense, at this point its sort of like my child. i raised it up into deck adulthood and i'm proud of it. in a way its become a piece of art and a bit of an icon representing me.

now thats where netdecking comes in. on a personal level its not immoral or anything but defeats the purpose of tcgs. so win or lose, its not very fun. i really enjoy playing someone and seeing a card and going "what the hell is that?!?!?!" so seeing the same card played the same way too many times gets to me.
now netdecking isn't really a problem. it happens and when it comes to new players it works as a way to make your own started deck. (although thats kind of a wussie way out. i'm still a newb and i didn't need the internet to make a decent deck.) the problem pops up when its encouraged. when everyone and their grandma is doing it then whats the point of it being a tcg? the customablility is just gone after that. its the syptom to a problem within the game itself, which is why the pojo thread brings me to tears.

at this point i'll have to note the difference between making a copy of a deck you saw online and looking for tips and tricks. when looking for tips and tricks and you see a deck you're mainly concerned with the one card that you do use and the few that help it and fit in your deck. even then you'd look through several simular decks for better options. essentially you're adapting qualities to figure out how to use what you're using better. net decking is copy cut and past with few card changes in between.

one arguement on the thread is that it doesn't hurt anyone. no i think it does. it hurts when it becomes an issue. when it becomes widespread customization is lost, and thus the point of tcgs in the first place, making gaming unfun. i can only say that its okay in the sense that evil needs to exist in order to define good.

now i'm asking a number of things.

1) is netdecking causing any problems in magic? i wouldn't know because i'm mainly a casual player. one deck has to go from being a multiplayer deck, to a one-on-one deck, to a two headed giant deck, to an emeror deck, without sideboarding. so netdecking just isnt' going to work.

2) how do you feel about netdecking?

3) how do you feel about deckbuilding being a very personal experience.\


sorry for the length but i had a lot to get out.

 

[Killer Joe]

What a "Hum-Dinger" of a question! I certainly am not one to speak for the members of this site and my opinion may drastically differ from the others, more alike, opinions you'll get from the members.

Here it is:
"Net-Decking" or what I used to call "Net.dec" is a reality. If you post a deck on the internet it's a net deck. Of course, most folks mean it to mean if a PTQ organizer posts the top 8 decks from that tournament and one makes an exact or a near exact copy of the most winningest deck, then thats what is more commonly known as net decking as you stated in your post (nice job, btw).

The problem lies in this: What is the criteria for anyone to call a net deck may NOT be the same criteria used by another.

Is net decking making an exact copy? A near exact copy? I know some folks who think net decking is playing up to half of the copied deck. I also know folks who say gleaning any information from the internet about deck ideas etc... is net decking or not playing an "original" deck.

Truth be told many folks, whether they would admit it or not, have played what another might call a net deck. Really. I made a deck many years ago called "Erratic Spikes", a blue/green deck with Spike creatures and Erratic Portal to send them back to my hand for replenishing (the creatures, not the card Replenish ). I added counter magic and bounce spells and one time my opponent accused me of playing a net.dec because he saw a similar combo with those two cards (Erratic Portal and Spike Weaver). Sure enough, I had found a deck that had those two cards in it but toally different on all other choice cards.

Was I playing a net.dec? I only have my word to defend myself. It was a horrible deck so I had no problem proving it was NOT a tournament worthy net deck.

Looking on the internet at championship caliber decks is a-okay in my opinion. Copying them and smashing your friends with them is cool, too. When you have no one else to play against I think you may have learned a lesson in "abusive behavior"! *period*

That snotty-nosed little "Timmy" gamer kid that's annoying down at the local card shop that wins every game because his Dad is the CEO of Krunchy-Korn Inc. and can buy any single card he wants and build killer decks? Can't buy love,.....wait, um,...er,....I mean opponents to play against. Unless, of course, he only plays in tournaments but who'll be lonely inbetween rounds playing his game-boy and secretly listening to his iPod playing Avril Lavign or whatnot. That kid is without honor. But then again; what is honorable to me may not be the definition of honorable to anyone else.

My point is this: If you don't think it's right to play "Net.decs", then don't. If you don't think its right that anyone else plays "Net.decs", oh well, you can always complain about it but that's about it because we all have the right to control what we do and not what others do. Just don't play with people you don't want to play with.

Scenerio:
Timmy: "Hey Kid, wanna Battle?"
You: "No, go F.O.& D. you freaky little net decker."

Alternate scenerio:
Timmy: "Hey Kid, wanna Battle?"
You: "Sure, hold on a sec while I get my *special* deck." to audience

To quote Dennis Miller
"Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong"

 

[Animus]

sorry but this isn't really addressing what i'm complaining about. i'm worried aobut how widespread netdecking is in YGO to the point where gameplay is too predictable, i'm wondering if magic ever has the same problem, and if not can yugioh players do anything to emulate a solution

 

[TomB]

Well, in my day I was never much for playing netdecks, but I would approximate them in making decks to playtest against my personal creations. By using the "netdecks" to playtest against, I was able to fine tune MY deck to be able to anticipate what I expected to be playing against. The more predictable the decks I'd be facing, the more easily I could build something that would consistently do well against them.

I guess what I'm saying is, you can be innovative by making decks that nerf the current hot designs, thereby helping the situation by forcing the local deckbuilding community to account for more possibilities. If you (and others) do it well enough, the results will filter into the community at large, making the game more interesting for everyone.

In other words, the answer is up to you!


BTW, welcome to the site Animus!

 

[Oversoul]

Netdecking stopped existing. The term is obsolete. It originated when the use of the web as a resource of CCG's was in its infancy. Not all players were using the web as a resource. Probably only a small fraction were. In my experience, most of them were looking for general ideas or key cards that could patch holes in their decks. Some of them were simply copying winning decklists, though. The idea was that doing this was unsportsmanlike. Anyone who played a deck that vaguely resembled another person's winning deck was lumped into the same people that copied them verbatim.

Now everyone (not literally everyone, but all the tournament players that actually stand a chance along with most of the ones that don't) uses the web as a resource. Now far more people are posting decklists and decklists for entire tournaments are being posted as opposed to the decklists that win. The depth here is huge. Everyone in tournaments plays a deck that resembles another tournament deck to some extent. Even the exceptions have to use some of the same engines or fuse multiple concepts that were already found in other decks. The cardpool just isn't big enough to compete with the pool of players.

On the other hand, now no one plays an exact replica of a winning deck. There are metagame variations or personal preferences that make each "deck" have great variation. And instead of accusing each other of netdecking, players are arguing over the "optimal" version of a deck.

Also, three or four different concepts that are all considered separate "decks" can share a great deal of structure. I'm too lazy to look for a real example of this. But I can make one up that is probably accurate...

There have probably been builds of Control Slaver and builds of 7/10 that had half or even more than half of their cards in common. Both decks are using Mana Drain and other control elements and Goblin Welder to bring artifacts in and out of play, but one is trying to use Mindslaver on you every turn for a lockdown and the other is trying to destroy all of your lands and beat you down with Sundering Titan. And neither deck is static. People will be using different builds of both, switching various cards and eventually, two other builds might not look very much alike except for a few key cards.

In short, netdecking is dead.

 

[Killer Joe]

sorry but this isn't really addressing what i'm complaining about. i'm worried aobut how widespread netdecking is in YGO to the point where gameplay is too predictable, i'm wondering if magic ever has the same problem, and if not can yugioh players do anything to emulate a solution

Magic Tournament play is somewhat predictable but there is always the chance that someone will bring a "rogue" deck. Net decking won't go away and unfortunately there's nothing to be done about it. I hope this addresses your complaint, its no solution but an answer nonetheless.

 

[DarthFerret]

I have a little blurb I would like to spout off about here. It is actually a true story, and I found it kind of funny in the long run.

When Ice Age first came out, I was one of the guys standing in line to get a box. I took it home, rather than crack it open at the shop. I found the Zuran Spellcaster right away. Now keep in mind, that this was well before the internet was as widely used as it is today (at least for me, as I did not have a computer at the time...). I had been currently trying to make a deck with 4 Prodigal Sorcerers, 4 Clones, 4 Dopplegangers and 4 Pirate Ships and supplement it with counter magic. I was (in my opinion) about 4 creatures short. Well, long story short, I added the Spellcasters, and thus my "machine gun" deck was born. I played it a few times, but being in a very small community at the time, never did any form of tournament play. About 4 years later, I found this deck in a box of stuff, and took it to a card shop. Started to play a couple of people, and ended up having them call me a "noob" (that seems to happen a lot, even today, not sure why?), and then accusing me of net-decking. I had no idea what they were talking about at the time, so just shrugged it off. I come to find out that someone had taken the same idea as me (with a few good moderations with newer sets that I had not seen as I had stopped buying cards after Ice Age for a while), and had posted it somewhere. I ended up laughing at this.

I really only bring this up to share my single and only view on the whole topic. That is, that yes, there are people that probably copy decks that have worked in tournaments and such, however, just because you see them playing something that you saw online, does not necessarily mean that they copied it. The amount of Magic players are so huge, that someone is bound to make a deck very similar to, or even exactly like one that is posted online. That is the beauty of the game. Two, totally different people on other sides of the world, can come up with the same thing, merely because they stumbled upon it.

That is all..

 

[Killer Joe]

I'm not sure any of us were any help, none of us gave a solution to his concern it seems. However, all are good testimony to the Net Decking factor, GOOD JOB Y'ALL!

 

[Spiderman]

I almost think Animus is asking in the wrong place, seeing as how most of us are casual players and/or stopped playing Magic regularly. Net-Decking would only be a concern in a tournament.

That said, from what brief articles I've read at magicthegathering.com, there's a wide variety of decks in the different formats (Standard, Vintage, etc.). So while someone might "netdeck" since decklists are out there, it's not gonna be same deck six slots out of the top 8 or so like Animus says in Yugioh.

 

[EricBess]

Net Decking is one of the reasons I play casually. I can't tell you how many times I've fallen just short of top-8 with a deck of my own creation. But I simply don't have time to tune my decks to the level that they would need in order to compete with the net decks. Sometimes, the net decks are just better ideas in general, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that they get tested and updated by how many different people playing in how many different environments?

I suppose I could have just net decked, also, but as you commented, to me, that takes most of the purpose and fun out of the game.

I've been far more involved in the YuGiOh scene than you might imagine (working for Upper Deck and all) and I've seen it go from a format where everyone plays the same 25 cards in their 40-card deck to an environment with net decks, but card variety. Personally, I think the environment is more heathly with net decks than it was pre-banned list.

 

[Mooseman]

I've been far more involved in the YuGiOh scene than you might imagine (working for Upper Deck and all) and I've seen it go from a format where everyone plays the same 25 cards in their 40-card deck to an environment with net decks, but card variety. Personally, I think the environment is more heathly with net decks than it was pre-banned list.

I have to agree with EB here, I have run many Regional tournaments and have had to type up deck lists many times and although there are certain cards that are in almost every deck (Sangan, Breaker the Magical Warrior, Pot of Avarice, Heavy Storm, Scapegoat, Ring of Destruction, Mirror Force and Smashing Ground), there is more variety now than there used to be.

Now, about "net" decking in general, Oversoul is on the right track, the internet is used as a resource for competition players to be at the top of the game, but casual players also use it to get ideas for decks. I have, since I suck at deck building, but I will just use the deck idea and not card for card copying, but hey that's just me.

I do not understand the players who will copy a "winning" deck from the net and take it to their local card store or gaming group and be proud that they won with it..... duh.... a caveman could do that.....

 

[DarthFerret]

I do not understand the players who will copy a "winning" deck from the net and take it to their local card store or gaming group and be proud that they won with it..... duh.... a caveman could do that.....

**And now, Geico sues Mooseman for copyright infringement**

 

[Mooseman]

Maybe I'll get a part in their TV series.......

 

[Oversoul]

Now, about "net" decking in general, Oversoul is on the right track, the internet is used as a resource for competition players to be at the top of the game, but casual players also use it to get ideas for decks. I have, since I suck at deck building, but I will just use the deck idea and not card for card copying, but hey that's just me.

Yeah, in casual play it becomes a bit fuzzier. In some sense, casual players can do whatever they want. And what they do seems to vary a lot. And that could easily include netdecking or something that some people would call netdecking...

Netdecking means different things to different people, but I've usually* heard it referred to as a concept for competitive tournaments. There, I think netdecking is "dead" because the players that do real research and real playtesting always (eventually) beat out the ones that are lazy and copy everything verbatim from the net. From a biological perspective, netdecking went extinct (or is heavily endangered, at least), but its genetic descendent, internet research is thriving.

*There's an exception to this that really sticks out in my mind, but some of you may have already heard it. What happened to me one time was that I competed in a "casual" tournament at a card store and brought HHT (I was going to link to the article, but our articles are coming up as dead links for me right now...), which was my Necro-Donate deck. Whether it was a netdeck is beside the point (and it might be a case similar to what DarthFerret was talking about, except way more broken). My opponent in the third round called it a netdeck and seemed to mean it. Then again, he also cheated twice to beat me, was participating in the tournament despite being "head judge" at the store, and was generally not the sort of person whose opinion on the matter holds much weight with me.