The abominations are stacked ten-deep at eye level: microwavable plates of spaghetti-and-meatsauce. I'm standing in aisle five at my local grocery, mouth agape, wondering how agitated a guy can become over a bunch of bright red boxes on prime shelf space.
If you're me? Very.
Am I overly tense? Arguably true. But like flavored gelatin and soup, spaghetti is not that difficult to make. And I'm not talkin' 'bout Mama's handmade linguine, either: I'm talking about a one-pound cardboard box of noodles and a sixteen-ounce jar of sauce that together will offer your undiscriminating tastebuds that same, simple culinary experience at a fraction of the cost. For goodness sake, the canned version has been available for years, so we're talking about paying a higher price to avoid washing the pot.
Our grocery shelves trumpet the direction our society is heading to those of us who take the time to remove the fuzzy earmuffs. To me, these aisles aren't filled with boxes of spaghetti-and-meatballs - but rather platefuls of convenience smothered in mental idleness. Recognize it once and you'll begin to see it everywhere...
And it's just as prolific with regards to deckbuilding on the internet. Ever seen these meatballs?
"Got a turney Sunday, plz hlp, need Mono-U decklist. Can somebody post one? Thx. -Jus' Gimmeit."
"This deck is called 'Die Even Harder.' This build replaces my original 'Die Hard' deck. Haven't playtested it, but IMHO it has some SERIOUS potential. So whattaya think? -Null Rod."
Posts from my imagination... But the examples are mirrored in the real world enough to use here. You've seen them: They litter websites like so many crushed soda cans and discarded Popsicle sticks. But posts like these should make you wonder how "Jus' Gimmeit" can correctly play the deck in that tournament, if he hasn't an inkling as to what its cardbase consists of. Or how "Null Rod" can tell the world his deck has "serious" potential without ever conducting so much as a test draw.
No doubt the internet is a fantastic resource to those who know how to make the most of it. The potential problem with these pages, however, is that they can be misconstrued as a virtual supermarket to the indiscriminate mind:
Sligh? Produce department, next to the jalapenos.
Stompy? Aisle four, below the Green Giant vegetable cans.
Ice Blue Zoo? Frozen section, top shelf, beside Fish.
Hey, you're only a point-and-click away from winning!
Sadly, it's the new initiates to the game, who desperately crave ideas for decks, that fall prey to this mode of thinking - and I don't know if I can entirely blame them, either. After all, there's another generation of players joining the Magic world for which references to "Black Summer" may well have them searching for an uncommon out of The Dark. New players are inherently ignorant of the lessons learned from the past, and the card pool they need to master to play Type 1 and Extended is growing incrementally larger all the time. Who has that kind of time - or money?
I know because I'm part of that next generation; never mind the fact that my wife considers me too old to be part of the first. I came to the game just before Nemesis was introduced. I bought a couple "Classic" starter boxes and a preconstructed, then melded something together out of that cardpool, following the advice of a mentor and close friend of mine Marc to "stick to two colors at the most."
I then promptly watched my deck roll over each Friday night to far more tuned decks.
In a display of remorse at the beatings I took each week, Marc gave to me what was left of his brother's card collection - mostly Ice Age commons and uncommons, to expand my card pool. I think all of us have an "innocent" time that we recall fondly from our earliest days of playing Magic, and for me it was how happy I was to draw into one of the four Elvish Hunters in my green-white build...
Needless to say, the beatings continued.
Then I discovered the internet: Deck names were bandied about, names like "Keeper," "Oath" and "Suicide Black." Discussion boards were filled with lingo like "goldfish," "swing" and "jank." Sites like The Dojo's "Decks to Beat" page were filled with the latest successful decks. I remember scouring sites, wondering if the key to winning was playing with a killer deck I found on the net.
But I'm old enough to know better (and I'm developing the bald spot to prove it). Time will tell you that you will never master anything by experiencing it second-hand. Instead, I'm convinced the right way to improve your deckbuilding skills is through thorough first-hand analysis of one card choice to the next... And it helps even more if you play within your pool of cards. Although I was losing with the Elvish Hunters, I was playing within my card pool... And learning some fundamentals.
Sounds like common sense, but it looks as though it's not common enough. We Magic players can tend to take losing about as well as bullfighters: The temptation to win and win now can drive many a new player straight to the net. Besides, what does it hurt if someone gets a copy of a Mono-blue deck and starts winning? He may even decide to tweak a card or two here and there through playtesting. He may get to know this particular deck inside-out with time. What's the problem?
Newer players who abandon building their own decks and focus instead on obtaining the cards for and learning to play proven netdecks only delay their mastery of the game. They may think they know the sixty reasons why these cards were chosen. They may have even read something about why the cards were chosen that made perfect sense. But they won't have the same understanding of the card synergies that another player has who built his own version through continuous and thorough playtesting. By running a netdeck, they skip right past that all-important first-hand analysis, where the comprehension takes place.
To put it in grocery terms, read all the online posts about soup you want - but you won't really know the difference between two brands of chicken noodle on aisle seven until you've actually tasted them.
This may also help explain the grousing on the part of experienced players - those who have painstakingly analyzed and understand their card choices in a complex deck - when they lose to a netdeck at the hands of a relatively untested player.
There's a second, subtle pitfall that comes from playing netdecks too soon: You subconsciously limit yourself to learning to play the game from a subset of cards. You then risk not recognizing the impact of new cards or what the restriction or banning of old mainstays will have on an archetype. Your vision of the game may also not expand beyond the common archetypes you end up playing all the time. It's like going to the grocery and buying nothing but bananas every time. In the long run, the thought of playing the game won't be as appealing.
You had to see it coming.
If you didn't, then I better add this: Please don't walk away from this thinking I'm proposing that you never run a netdeck. Just take the time to develop a firm grasp of the game mechanics and the card base first.
Oscar Tan's "Control Player's Bible" series is an excellent example of what I think is the right approach. Notice how much of it is devoted to careful analysis of Keeper's card choices, including those cards that may historically have been included but may not necessarily make the cut now. It's this kind of card-by-card analysis that players need to learn to master for themselves. It's also this kind of analysis that players crave but by all appearances is generally lacking on the internet.
One reason why is that it's not the microwavable plate of spaghetti-and-meatballs. Analysis requires work on the part of players, and their analysis will always be limited by their understanding of the game. Why go through all that when the posted deck and sideboard are available for immediate use?
So beware the hidden costs of playing a netdeck. In the end winning will not make you a better player, but taking the time to learn how to build your own decks will.
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