Surfing the Net Decks
Lately I have taken a lot of heat from using various decks over the internet from the Wizards website postings of past regional decks as well as city champs decks. This incident, as if it were some sort of crime, has labeled me as a “net decker” a term coined for the multitude of individuals who take a deck list from the internet then proceed to construct it for themselves card for card. These decks off the internet are recipes for winning from each of the various formats within Magic the Gathering. The other half of these decks are procured from deck doctors like Patrick Chapin who use their expertise within Magic the Gathering to make new and innovative decks that break the format and change the Meta. The question that I keep asking myself is why certain individuals feel that net decking is so dreadful. Net decking not only single-handedly creates the meta-game it also allows for individuals who create decks to stand out of the crowd and possibly profit off of their abilities to compile cards.
In the realm of mathematics there are certain equations that have been formulated throughout the years by various professors, mathematicians, and other scientists in the field of physics as well as chemistry. Some of these equations can even be seen throughout the various romantic languages, like that of French language, with the use of conjugating verbs and building sentences. With that said no one hassles a high school student for copying and using the Pythagorean Theorem for finding the sides of a triangle. The reason nobody hassles that student is because it is the accepted method for finding the sides of a triangle. So why then does this not translate to the game of Magic: the Gathering?
Persecutors of the so called “net deckers” love to fortify their egos by spouting off at the mouth of their uncanny creative abilities. These players, aside from the pros, are also the same players who tend to lose on a regular basis to the main decks in the meta-game. If any of these creative connoisseurs do win it is by and large on the basis that the deck was designed to beat one certain deck in the meta-game and is nothing more than what we call in the discourse community a “rogue deck”. I’m sure if you asked any number of professionals on the pro tour if they came up against a deck that they had constructed themselves they would be more flattered than upset that someone hadn’t the creative capacity to construct a deck of their own.
Playing Magic the Gathering professionally does not hold a candle to the likes of other professional activities. A professional athlete stands to gain a tremendous amount more money than that of a professional MTG card player. Since this is common knowledge among the population there is no need to further prove my point of earnings between magic professionals versus professional athletes. It is because of this understanding that magic professionals gross less than others that they themselves need individuals to net deck to further their monetary gains. Net decking is an outlet that has been created within the public that allows for a deck guru to become recognized and gain an extra profit for his research through play testing. Because individuals taking the professional’s advice to heart some professional magic players can play Magic exclusively in conjunction with writing articles, publishing decks, and commentating on news throughout the Magic society from various websites.
In retrospect, if nobody cherished the ideas of being able to publish decks over the internet we would never truly be able to know card for card what is in a certain deck. This would ultimately lead to increased domination within the format due to players not being able to know exactly what they are up against. Wizards knows of this and as such as made the connection that certain deck lists should be published and made public knowledge. Armed with the awareness of other decks lists player are then able to shape decks to be able to win on a consistent basis against the top performing decks. This is easily pointed out with the current extinction of Reveillark based decks because of the amount of Faeries that run amuck. This cycle will shift again after someone has stepped forward with a deck that consistently dominates against Faeries and shows great match-ups with other top performing decks. If it were not for net-decks this process would be slowed and decks would remain king a lot longer than they do now.
So you may call net-decking a lack of cognitive ability, or a sheer part of laziness on a player’s part but net-decking has enough benefits to outweigh its supposed detrimental effects on the game. Net decking provides individual deck gurus with an outlet to extra income in the form of writing articles and publishing deck lists from various websites like Starcitygames and Wizards websites as well as letting those individuals stand out in the limelight. Net decking also arms these deck experts with the easily accessible knowledge they need to break the format and custom tailor decks to beat other top decks. It would be nice to say that Magic the Gathering existed in a vacuum and ever player brought their own deck which would then be impervious to all other decks and that this nameless format would not be influenced by outside sources, but sadly this is not Utopia and we cannot witness euphoric moments like this.
-Keith Ian McKimmy III
Tags: Net Decking Magic The Gathering
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Magic: the Gathering
