David Sirlin is one of America's top ranked street fighter players, playing in world level tourneys in USA and Japan, and has wrote extensively on the subject of competitive gaming. He is also a consultant that almost every major producer of video games talk with about game balance, and he himself has a degree in programming, and is the president of his own programming company.
I've admired this person for a LONG time now, being a competitive person in other games(mostly fighting games), and to my suprise, Sirlin has written on other subjects, one which suprised me was Magic. Here it is:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/3737.html
Quote:
"Net Deck" Should Be In Quotes
David Sirlin
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This article is timeless, because it's about the ongoing fight against an ancient, seemingly unkillable evil. That evil is not the so-called "Net Deck" or players of such decks - but is instead the very term itself, and the vile ideas that accompany it. Like a pesky Hammer of Bogardan, it just keeps on showing up when you wish it would be removed from the game. Even the archeologists who excavate this article in the year 5,029 will find value, as the lesson is as applicable to the scrubs of tomorrow as it is to the scrubs of today.
For the benefit of those reading this from the year 5029 (where a 2/2 probably costs 6GG), there are people here in 2002 who use a curious term called "Net Deck" to describe a Magic: the Gathering deck that has actually won a tournament and/or has been endorsed as being good by a large number of players.
Example usage:
"I accused him of being a dirty, rotten Net Decker. He had the audacity to deny it, even though his deck was only three cards off from the Brazilian National finalist!"
Which is more absurd: a) the (derogatory!) claim that the opponent is using a deck widely accepted as good, or b) that the opponent actually feels some shame in the notion? Both are so absurd that the concept should not even be dignified or given the credibility that goes along with having an actual name. I can't imagine any non-scrub using that term without putting mocking "quotes" around it.
There are no "Net Decks." There are good decks that are widely known.
Magic is a zero-sum game with winners and losers. How can one possibly fault an opponent for trying to win? God forbid my opponent plays a deck that actually won something and is known to be good! Should he be expected to only play janky decks that roll over and die?
"No," says the scrub. "He should be expected to build his own decks." Should he, though? Why is that? In the OBC format (back in the year 2002), for example, Blue/Green is obviously strong. Synergy between cards like Wild Mongrel, Basking Rootwalla, Roar of the Wurm, and Quiet Speculation is undeniable. Does it matter whether the opponent figured out that synergy in an isolation chamber in his basement, or by reading any of a thousand articles and posts on the net? No. The tournament prize does not go to the person who ignored the largest amount of readily available data about good decks: It goes to the winner.
Besides, a deck like U/G builds itself. Should the opponent take out some Wild Mongrels or Circular Logics to avoid the possible appearance of impropriety? Start with islands and forests and you end pretty much end up with 90% of everyone else's U/G deck because you have to.
Back to that "dirty, rotten NetDecker." Is the deck he "stole from the Net" so great in the first place? Well, it's probably extremely good... But is it optimal? The format constantly evolves. Better versions of decks are tweaked out all the time. Superior players very often win with non-optimal builds due to their own skills at playing the game, then inadvertently pass on these non-optimal builds to the masses who assume anything that got first is the best possible build. You have every opportunity to have an even more tuned version of the "Net Decker's" deck. If you believe his version is the best possible one, then...Why aren't you playing it?
Perhaps you don't have "fun" playing it. If that's the case, the next paragraph about Rogue players will help you - but you're way out of line expecting other players to not play the best decks. If their deck is really so unbeatable (is it winning every tournament?), then either a) cards need to be banned (very unlikely), b) you need to play a different format, c) wait until the deck rotates out, or d) play a game other than Magic. If you choose d, though, you'll encounter the same heartache in your new game, due to your misunderstanding of the basic concepts of winning and losing.
So where does that leave you, the rogue? It leaves you with a fascinating puzzle: Given that I know what the community thinks the best decks are, can I discover or invent a deck unknown to the masses that beats the known archetypes? If I can, the rewards are huge. No one will have a sideboard prepared for my threat, and no one will have the experience playing against my deck. Not to mention the more intangible cheers of support I will receive for being "innovative."
Or in other words, as voiced by none-other than StarCityGames' editor, The Ferrett:
"I'm all for rogue decks. What I don't get is when someone shows up at a tourney with a rogue deck that sucks against several major archetypes and THEN bitches about net decks. [Please use quotes around the phrase next time. -Sirlin] That's a challenge, chum: Make a rogue deck that hands the net deck its a**. Don't ask everyone to show up packing sucko cards just because you can't get it together..."
Well said, Ferrett.
If you are Playing to Win, then I hope you use every piece of information about the format available to you, especially the successful results of other players. Great things are much more likely to be discovered by a community of people all looking at the same problem and sharing ideas than you in your basement working alone. You might find it fun to be shielded from the harsh realities of hardcore tournament players and live only in a world of janky rogue decks; if so, then find other players with similar aversions to winning, but don't invent derogatory names for "good decks" in some vain effort to rewrite the physical laws of the universe and put the genie back in the bottle.
The good decks are out there. Play against them. Improve them. Analyze their weaknesses and counter them. Find secret decks to beat them. That is the path of improvement that will make you a great player. Complaining about "Net Decks" is a more along the lines of pissing at the ocean in order to change the tides.
- David Sirlin
David Sirlin
---------------------
This article is timeless, because it's about the ongoing fight against an ancient, seemingly unkillable evil. That evil is not the so-called "Net Deck" or players of such decks - but is instead the very term itself, and the vile ideas that accompany it. Like a pesky Hammer of Bogardan, it just keeps on showing up when you wish it would be removed from the game. Even the archeologists who excavate this article in the year 5,029 will find value, as the lesson is as applicable to the scrubs of tomorrow as it is to the scrubs of today.
For the benefit of those reading this from the year 5029 (where a 2/2 probably costs 6GG), there are people here in 2002 who use a curious term called "Net Deck" to describe a Magic: the Gathering deck that has actually won a tournament and/or has been endorsed as being good by a large number of players.
Example usage:
"I accused him of being a dirty, rotten Net Decker. He had the audacity to deny it, even though his deck was only three cards off from the Brazilian National finalist!"
Which is more absurd: a) the (derogatory!) claim that the opponent is using a deck widely accepted as good, or b) that the opponent actually feels some shame in the notion? Both are so absurd that the concept should not even be dignified or given the credibility that goes along with having an actual name. I can't imagine any non-scrub using that term without putting mocking "quotes" around it.
There are no "Net Decks." There are good decks that are widely known.
Magic is a zero-sum game with winners and losers. How can one possibly fault an opponent for trying to win? God forbid my opponent plays a deck that actually won something and is known to be good! Should he be expected to only play janky decks that roll over and die?
"No," says the scrub. "He should be expected to build his own decks." Should he, though? Why is that? In the OBC format (back in the year 2002), for example, Blue/Green is obviously strong. Synergy between cards like Wild Mongrel, Basking Rootwalla, Roar of the Wurm, and Quiet Speculation is undeniable. Does it matter whether the opponent figured out that synergy in an isolation chamber in his basement, or by reading any of a thousand articles and posts on the net? No. The tournament prize does not go to the person who ignored the largest amount of readily available data about good decks: It goes to the winner.
Besides, a deck like U/G builds itself. Should the opponent take out some Wild Mongrels or Circular Logics to avoid the possible appearance of impropriety? Start with islands and forests and you end pretty much end up with 90% of everyone else's U/G deck because you have to.
Back to that "dirty, rotten NetDecker." Is the deck he "stole from the Net" so great in the first place? Well, it's probably extremely good... But is it optimal? The format constantly evolves. Better versions of decks are tweaked out all the time. Superior players very often win with non-optimal builds due to their own skills at playing the game, then inadvertently pass on these non-optimal builds to the masses who assume anything that got first is the best possible build. You have every opportunity to have an even more tuned version of the "Net Decker's" deck. If you believe his version is the best possible one, then...Why aren't you playing it?
Perhaps you don't have "fun" playing it. If that's the case, the next paragraph about Rogue players will help you - but you're way out of line expecting other players to not play the best decks. If their deck is really so unbeatable (is it winning every tournament?), then either a) cards need to be banned (very unlikely), b) you need to play a different format, c) wait until the deck rotates out, or d) play a game other than Magic. If you choose d, though, you'll encounter the same heartache in your new game, due to your misunderstanding of the basic concepts of winning and losing.
So where does that leave you, the rogue? It leaves you with a fascinating puzzle: Given that I know what the community thinks the best decks are, can I discover or invent a deck unknown to the masses that beats the known archetypes? If I can, the rewards are huge. No one will have a sideboard prepared for my threat, and no one will have the experience playing against my deck. Not to mention the more intangible cheers of support I will receive for being "innovative."
Or in other words, as voiced by none-other than StarCityGames' editor, The Ferrett:
"I'm all for rogue decks. What I don't get is when someone shows up at a tourney with a rogue deck that sucks against several major archetypes and THEN bitches about net decks. [Please use quotes around the phrase next time. -Sirlin] That's a challenge, chum: Make a rogue deck that hands the net deck its a**. Don't ask everyone to show up packing sucko cards just because you can't get it together..."
Well said, Ferrett.
If you are Playing to Win, then I hope you use every piece of information about the format available to you, especially the successful results of other players. Great things are much more likely to be discovered by a community of people all looking at the same problem and sharing ideas than you in your basement working alone. You might find it fun to be shielded from the harsh realities of hardcore tournament players and live only in a world of janky rogue decks; if so, then find other players with similar aversions to winning, but don't invent derogatory names for "good decks" in some vain effort to rewrite the physical laws of the universe and put the genie back in the bottle.
The good decks are out there. Play against them. Improve them. Analyze their weaknesses and counter them. Find secret decks to beat them. That is the path of improvement that will make you a great player. Complaining about "Net Decks" is a more along the lines of pissing at the ocean in order to change the tides.
- David Sirlin
Discuss
