Do you think it's good or bad?

I ran across this quote in the Redemption topic. Here it is and below is my answer.

When have net deckers ever contritbuted to a playing community? They don't.

Actually, my playgroup wouldn't be as good as it is now if it wasn't for net decking.

Net decking is very good for an environment. Sure, you hear the rapid complaints of "You sir, have no originality!" or "YOU'RE A NETDECKER AND NOTHING ELSE!!!" but let's talk realistically. A winning deck gets posted online. You build that deck, whether it's card for card or loose construct, take it back to your store, and proceed to stomp face. Sure, your group is pissed, but here is where the netdecker takes control. Instead of stomping face week after week, encourage your players to build decks to compete with it.

When you bring a winning deck to your store that is higher than your store's caliber, you are bringing in the best to your playgroup. That top deck makes nearly every other deck better. Why? Because players learn how to tech. They will run cards to counter other decks. They will revise their deck and replace cards that didn't help them with cards that will help them.

When this game first started in Feb/Mar 2006, my playgroup started playing, but didn't really rocket into the competitive meta until July 2006. Why is this? We all played jank until I went online and copied TemplarPsi's Phoenix Championship Zasalamel deck. I proceeded to stomp everybody in the store. I got the usual dirty remarks, but I didn't care. I encouraged my playgroup to tweak their decks to beat it. Lo and behold,everyone and their mom increased their tempo to keep up with it, balanced out their play to keep up with it, and teched against it. After that, we didn't even need to netdeck that much as we were acustomed to competitive play. We knew what was good and what was not.

They called me a netdecker over three years ago. I don't care. We've been in the big boyz crew ever since because of netdecking.

thats basically how i see it its helped some in out playgroup get better i know it has worked for me

My main thing is though after you get ideas from decks online or from friends you should start coming up with your own stuff and some people just dont do that.

Ive always used the forums as ideas for decks but always build my own versions of said deck and even end up finding something just as good or even better in something else

well some times when someone brings a net deck their putting alot of money into it ( like 4 star madness cards like makai etc..) but they didnt actually buy packs for them which hurts the LGS unless the LGS does singles of some sort. then what if the other players cant afford to tech their decks to a level where they can even compete?

It basically boils down to 2 things Shane: 1. either you play casually or you 2. play competitively. In any game in universe with any sort of differentiation (in this example characters) there is always going to be a best build. Netdecking is a part of any competitive card game and always will be. Casual players will always frown on it because they can't beat the best, most tuned decks with their less refined casual decks. What do you do as a competitive player? Don't pay attention to them. You play your game and they play theirs. Any competitive playgroup is going to research the best decks, build the best decks, and play them against their own creations. This is called playtesting and netdecking in this sense is integral. If you go into worlds having tested you garbage deck against a bunch of other garbage decks, chances are you are going to get 2 and outed.

Netdecking is always going to be controversial because you are always going to have these two crowds. But in essence, does it matter if you netdeck and how do people know you netdeck? How do you know Joe Ufser from nowhere USA didnt have James' Worlds 2009 Ibuki build before he did? Right now I am going to tell you that our playtesting gauntlet is going to have at least 1 king, cassy, hilde, rashotep, hata, astrid, and a few others because we feel these are the best decks. When we start having more and more tournaments, we are going to build the stuff that has been winning so we can make sure we can beat the stuff that is winning.

I mean really, everyone wants their own character card or asset. To do this you have to be the best and win. Out of curiosity, how much do the teams that have assets playtest this game? Paul, Matt, Jon, Andrew, Tanner, Jeremy, Omar, or anybody else with cards, how much do you guys actually play against the best stuff in the format before going to a tourney? I am curious to know.

ShippuJinrai said:

If you follow that, then that is one reason why playgroups fail.

I don't segregate my community. I'm not a **** like that.

As a competitive player, I try to help out the casual players mentally with ideas and physically with cards. If somebody wants their playgroup to be one of the best, they'll put their best effort into it.

Luthon said:

This is understandable.

However, UFS has been the game where all of the utility cards are commons and uncommons. Even without dropping hundreds on singles, you can contribute a good base of a deck for a player who can't afford high-cost cards.

It also winds down to how selfless or selfish the competitive players are. That IMO is the real breaking point.

Shaneth said:

Dude, pre-rotation Standard was nothing if not costly as hell to get the cards required for mid-to-high level play.

Current standard is fine except for Knight Breaker/Twilight Embrace.

There's a difference between being a **** and just ignoring negative comments. I am the first one to help out new players in our scene whether it be loaning cards or even writing decklists out on the fly. Any of our local guys will be the first to tell you that. What i meant here was that if a player is being negative in downplaying you for playing popular decks, you shouldn't let it get to you. When I play against people who don't like to netdeck and I am playing a more popular build of something, I will try to point out some of the ways to improve the matchup for them while I am playing. You can look at netdecking as a boon as well. If you play against it enough, you start finding out more and more tech to deal with all of it. When i said they play their game i simply meant that that is the approach they take to deckbuilding. I don't encourage alienating a member of our playground under ANY circumstances. Hell, I drink with 75% of them.

The way i worded it was bad. I in no way encourage netdecking. Nor would i EVER encourage segregating a playgroup. I just see it as a form of preparation. Every deck you build ever should have your own personal touch on it. Otherwise, a lack of originality could end up getting you predicted, countered and beat. Perfect example was one of my teammates (Dave/Sketch) ran order Donovan at worlds 2008 (a very popular deck) with maindeck dark heart. He had 6 different opponents pick up and read the card for the first time. And he top 16'd.

I meant that casual players approach deck building very differently. Not that they play a whole different game. All in all its a matter of having fun and getting better. Basically, it shouldnt matter how you build your deck as long as your make the game fun and try to help the community grow. If i sending like a **** i apologize.

Since it is my statement that got this thread started I'll chime in. Neck decking as I defined it in the other thread was taking 80 percent or more of proven combo, deck, or formation and playing it point for point as described. Here is the thing. I didn't read any point in time that after you net decked you gave back to the community in which you took the idea from IE posting modifications and possible anti-tech. While your local play group may benifit those who post ideas very rarely get any recprical love from their non-contributing benifcators. The new player goes to the boards and looks at the top deck and merely copies because the culture encourages the behaviour. The net decker doesn't can many time afford their uber deck because they aren't buying boxes of product on average they are picking up singles online.

Play testing and net decking are different things. Play testing against a top deck is there so you can establish your own creation or abomination of deck to see how it stacks up to the top deck. If you want to keep that to yourself that is fine.

When the shop I play at had heroclix tournies I was the defender of the shop. We played casual as group but when non-regulars showed up it was mainly for the prize support. I read up on every popular tactic at the time and I had a fun team and serious flexible anti-meta team. Every net decker that I faced played their team exactly how it was posted on the boards. The popular tech was simple and effective but fell to abnormal figures and certain theme combos. Did I stop every shark? No I did not but the store had a rep for not being an easy place to win at. I went to other store in town that wanted to be hardcore venues and I established myself as a decent player. The whole time I never saw a net decking shark sit down and hang out. Never once did they try sharing tech. They just moved to the next store to get the next round of prize support.

There is a point in which people want to make their community better. But if there isn't cross shop competition or the set goal of the group is to travel to big tournies and win then neck decking is lame. It says to those around you "Forget our fun casual atmosphere I value the prize more." Unlike heroclix you can't really set up theme tournaments in UFS.

Some might say that I'm anti-competitive. No I'm not at all. But I feel that competiveness without effort is a sign of mental weakness and desporation for material goods. Again that is my personal view.

There is no reason to netdeck if you're part of a casual playgroup. End of story.

Homme Chapeau said:

Costly only because people didnt think outside the box and think they have to get all the cards everyone is running...the only money cards in my siegfried deck i took to worlds with me were the grounder betas and they were even only like 8 bucks and i ran 2 of them

Having a deck that probably cost at most 50 bucks and still placing 14th overall = Awesome

Edit: Oh and i guess the path of the masters might be worth something but i traded for those the day before singles and was only running 2

I think netdecking is fine for someone new to the game if they want to jump into a competitive environment, to really learn the game you need to play against good players with a deck that is strong enough to compete. Once you learned though, originality is best (I dont mean you cant take ideas or some combo to start with though) In general no one plays a deck better then the person who designed it because they know what they made it to do.

For example, when I picked up this game last summer I net decked Sketches Akuma deck off the forums and built it, played it for a few weeks, then I netdecked Havoc's road block donnie deck for nats, and after nats when realm of midnight came out I built my own victor deck for worlds and built things originally after that.

Net decking when the meta is very open is typically not a good thing. After all the banning in block 3, the meta opened up like crazy and a ton of decks and deck types became viable. Pretty much the entire top 8 of worlds piloted original creations(some decks were off of presumed "dead" symbols).

At US nats? Pre bannings? The meta was insanely stagnant and a lot of the decks were a innovated, copied or rebuilt version of a popular deck.(hanzo kick, chun-li air, gill spiral arrow, seong-mina spinta).

When the game leans too far into one symbol or char. The meta gets stale and netdecking nearly becomes a competitive neccessity. When the Game is fairly wide open, net decking is less useful and honestly should be used as nothing more then a power gauge for your original builds, or to fill out a team deck in the 3v3 format.

Like right now, the game is pretty open, but every competitive playgroup should have a Strong fully supporterd Astrid deck built just to test against the **** thing. You'll have a good idea of how good your next <insert tekken guy here or insert set 12 guy with tekken support here> deck really is after running 5 or 6 games against a well built Astrid. After running the gauntlet against a Astrid, if you kept up with her okay, now give it the same run against a equally well built rashotep deck, if your deck can hang with rashotep too, then your new deck is good to go.

Net decking serves it's purpose, it's occasionally ugly, but it is also occasionally very useful.

I for one have played against Shane, Chubbs, and their playgroup and they told us awhile ago that the best way to learn to be competitive is to verse the top decks of tournaments. Shane has already expounded on this with his first post. Netdecking can be used as a means to learn about tech that you might not get the oppurtunity to face in your meta. Now there are some players that build decks off of those decklists that just play them. I don't think that Netdecking is the problem but rather people who might be doing it and than thinking that they are the ****. Other than that, it still will gives people a taste of the high level competition that they will have to face if they wish to be up to tournament caliber games.

Mt_Do said:

Problem the 1 : The top decks are rarely posted, either because someone couldn't be assed or because we want to "respect the wishes of the creator".

Problem the 2 : If the deck requires cards that are not present in your meta, you are boned if you want to see how it works.

Yes, problem the 2 exists - Tell that to my almost identical boxes of Tekken.

well that can be a problem. Oh well.

The problem is that the top decks are only posted IF the PLAYERS of those decks feel like putting in the effort to post their lists.

This means that we oftan times will only get a couple of the top 8 lists. so we can't see what beat what, and glean ideas off of that. The lack of information was really rough on me when I was first getting in to the game. When plunging into a new format, seeing a couple top 8 results gives you a very good set of cards to read up on .

Netdecking is fine. casual players can complain more in other games, but in UFS (especially block4) the game is so much more synergistic that you can really get away with just doing what your character does, and doing it well.

Edit: Proxies are awesome for playtesting. you don't need to spend money/time aquiring cards until AFTER you decide if you like what you are running.

I pretty much agree with Failed2k on this, you need to build what is 'obviously' the best to practice against and to understand. I think I mentioned in the other threads I also build and play around with the champ cards becuase the champs will probably run themselves and for the same reason you need to have some intimate knowledge of the best.

Netdecking in it's purest form (100% copy, and then use in big tournament) though is a no-no for me. It shows disrespect for the person willing to share, and it says something about your ability to innovate. Why? Becuase if you 100% copy you are, at the very best, 'tied' with the originator, and therefore aren't truly trying to win, but instead are 'okay' with knowing there is at least one deck out there on par with yours. And if you disagree with that, it then assumes that you are the better pilot of said deck, which is disprespect for the creator.

Now, something that is very valid is during play around you find a weakness, solve it, and therefore end up making your own creation. This is where things get grey, is your deck different enough/(markedly better) to justify it being used at a major tourny? Maybe. But to avoid the negative I point out in the above paragraph, you had better be ready to defend it as such.

The truth is netdecking and then forming answers, and then evolving, is the basis of a growing card game. We will never reach an ultimate design if this doesn't happen becuase, simply put, no one has enough time to ensure they have the 'best' deck possible, but as a group we can get damned close to finding it.

Ultimately, I can't stand people that 'only' net deck. i.e. you rarely, if ever, see original creations from them. These people are not 'experiencing' the game, which to me is part and parcel design and compete . These players are what I believe Logos' early comments are directed towards, and I agree with him re: that much for sure.

Desgin and compete with your own decks, play around with and against others. This is the most effective way to learn, and the most effective way to win (you will pilot your own creation better than anyone you play against, and if you've played against the other known bests and are confiedent in your match-up, then you probably have a good chance of winning).

- dut

dutpotd said:

No offense, but I'm pretty sure 90% of you people out there would pilot my creations better than I would. Remy was a glitch in the matrix. I don't see how that disrespects the creator. If he wins, that means that, indeed, the creator was simply not up to par, if he loses, we laugh at the copier.

Homme Chapeau said:

lol at your whole thing in quotes, with some clever editing you can fix it.

Second, you answered your own question. i.e. If you are saying the creator isn't up to par, that equals a disrespect to him/her... Doesn't it?

- dut

I know for can nats, I tried to make a better version of the gill deck then tanner's version, I enjoyed the experience.

I think it's good to know the good decks, but even if you are a "netdecker" (like me, I only try to play the "best" deck), you should always try to innovate and push the limits of the game and just improve the game concepts.

For instance, although no body picked up on it, my deck at can nats was a transformational deck.
That's when it's a deck that can sideboard into something else completely. one game your facing a gill deck locking you down, the next your facing a donovan deck trying to spike the ish out of you. You have to fight both decks differently (ei holding grounds suck vs gill, but not donovan).
I haven't seen any other true transformational decks, ei sandbagging into chun li doesn't count!!!

Netdecking is honestly the best way to learn how to properly play the game, once you understand all the appropriate concepts, then you should branch off and try to innovate, but it's better to learn how to crawl before you start walking.

Mt_Do said:

The thing is that we don't see top decks posted. It is not required by the top 8 of any major tourney (including regionals) to post their deck. Scouts and players of these tournies don't have to post decks. So if there was a trend to black out deck information the culture would be screwed for establishing a norm beyond the blantently obvious.

SHANE YOU FILTY NETDECKER!!!! Lol anywho I don't netdeck I always find a Character I love or a attack I really wanna play and start from there! The closest I get to copying a deck is when I hear about a new loop deck.. I never see the deck list, I just hear about the combo and build it my way. Amazingly I had no outside influence when I discovered RW Tira, still my favorite deck ever!! Alltogether when it comes to NY I can't name one netdecker.. The creative minds of Hata(well before FFG), Fred, Goo, Omar.... Kinda keeps our meta shifting in tempo and everyone on their toes..

You know, you can be accused of netdecking because you have a fairly good deck that chopped some heads... sigh

Da_ghetto_gamer said:

One of those is mine, and you still haven't given it back!