Net-decking Net-deckers and the Decks They Net-deck - BradPironciak


From: Brad Pironciak [mailto:sorrybutyourewrong@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 4:44 PM


Net-decking Net-deckers, and the Decks They Net-deck by Brad Pironciak April 20, 2005

	As a Yu-gi-oh player, I hear this a lot more then us VS. players do, but 
	the phrase is still prevelant. VS of course, is lucky enough to not 
	experience netdecking the way the Yu-gi-oh TCG does, with only ONE deck 
	ruling above all. To fully understand Netdecking, I believe it is appropriate 
	to look back to it's roots.
	After the Magic world championships, and the internet starting to be more 
	prevelant in American homes, netdecking started to increase dramatically. 
	The rich and poor alike flocked to their computers to see the power of cards 
	like 'Black Lotus' in combination with other cards for an eerily alike group 
	of top 8 decks. Of course, the rich had a much easier time building these 
	amazing world champion decks.
	Now that we know, for the most part, where net-decking originated, it is much 
	easier to understand its deeper concepts, which luckily, aren't very deep. As 
	humans, we have a desire to be the best. Despite playing a card game for fun, 
	a player is always going to have that desire to win, and in some cases, be 
	the best.

AND SO THE WAVE COMMENCES!

	By storm, these cards viewed online are bought in singles all around the world, 
	until finally, most of these players have the amazing decks they always wanted, 
	to face off in an amazing battle of luck against a player running the exact 
	same thing!

And the world was right again. Right?

WRONG.

	Now obviously, the players who have won these big tournaments didn't have a 
	chance to net-deck, since no one had run that deck before them.
These players thought out their strategies, and playtested for an umpteen amount 
of hours, until finally, all the sweat and tears came together, into one brilliant, 
tournament smashing deck.
	When these nice kids who gathered the money together to buy their singles entered 
	tournaments with their new confidence, and new 60 card deck filled with wonderfulness, 
	they didn't know how to play the decks. Scratch that, they did know how to play the 
	decks, but they didn't know how to play them PERFECTLY, which is how they had to be 
	played to win the way they did.
	There's got to be an automatic 2 reactions that a player feels when their deck is 
	copied and widely played. Either #1, they're going to feel flattered, or #2, they're 
	going to feel crappy, because they have to deal with a bunch of carbon-copy decks 
	and bad players running around. I can only assume that when Teen titans got off 
	the ground, and every player and their mom was running it, Robert Leander and David 
	Derrico must have felt at least a little bit of #2.
	Let me finish by saying that despite what this article may have sounded like, I don't 
	despise net-decking. Infact, I'm actually building the Fantastic Fun deck that recently 
	won 10k Amsterdam. All that I'm saying is that if you're going to net-deck, know what 
	your doing. Don't just blindly copy a deck. Proxy it. Playtest it. No, I mean REALLY 
	play-test it. Make sure you know every move that could happen in every single situation 
	and know EXACTLY what you would do when that happens.
	If I won some big event with Fantastic Fun, I would never call it my own, because 
	simply, it is NOT. If Richard Edbury or Dean Sohnie came up to me after winning, 
	I would thank them for designing such an amazing deck, and be on my way. 
	
	Happy net-decking, and playing!

I'm always here at SorryButYoureWrong@gmail.com