Ladies and gentlemen, I'm a neckdecker (def: one who puts together decks they saw were successful online and plays them in paper) and I make no apologies for it. I would go so far to say, that netdecking has been one of the most influential elements for my growth as a player and a student of the game.
"How is that possible? If you ripped someone else's deck, you clearly haven't enough creativity or skills of your own. You stunt your own growth in the game."
Dead. Wrong.
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When I started scouring the internet to learn how to play MTG, I came across the same line over and over "I hate netdeckers and net decking". I was new to the culture and the lay of the land, so I followed suit and adopted the same attitude, without really thinking where it was taking me. Everyone was talking about "homebrews" and "secret tech" and "testing" they'd done and I was enticed by this world of untapped potential that lay within the cards that only seemingly required the right magic *pardon the pun* combination to smash fools.
I spent weeks, my first few weeks, maybe even months "brewing" what I thought was the perfect mix of cards that were failsafe to make what I saw was the most controlling UW control deck that ever was!
One problem. I had no idea how to win, I could stop you playing just about everything in the first few turns. You weren't getting any creatures out, you weren't casting anything on my watch. You were basically doomed to draw or fall asleep as I got the match to run 40mins until I ran out of cards and you ran out of patience. I had no idea where I was going wrong, and my mash of cards was so far from what anyone had ever seem played, that every suggestion I got seemed different from the last. The weeks went by, and I started to get a hangover from my own homebrew.
That's when I watched my first Pro Tour. I watched David Caplan (Canadian) rip up the scene with his Mono Red Burn deck. It was everything my deck wasn't. It was fast, it did damage straight to the opposing player, it was inexpensive, it was Canadian! (Note: that last point isn't a real factor) I walked straight to my local shop, picked up all the cards I could and mail ordered the rest. I watched his coverage over and over. What did he do here, what was the right play there, finally I had a template and a battleplan to work with.
The very first casual event I went to with my Mono Red "Canadian" Burn deck, I placed in the top 10 of my 30 some group of people. I was so thrilled you could not imagine. For a guy who had won only a handful of points in the weeks before. I felt like a million bucks.
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"Netdecking is still for chumps"
Netdecking is a great resource. It provides a common framework for players to analyze what cards work and in what combinations. It puts labels to the decks we craft and brings minds together. For me, netdecking was my first taste of success in a world filled with veteran players playing Tier 1 decks (not of their own creation) and eccentric homebrewers who had played the game since its inception.
The next time you rip on a player for beating you with a netdeck, ask yourself. Who am I more mad at, the guy who walks in with the same deck as someone else online, or myself for not reading the meta and predicting what you're going to see in play. The internet and its resources and free and available for everyone to use. Use the tool, don't be one.
@Ricostravels
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