Lyrics of the Night : Net-Decking

If you are like me, who got into Vtes during the part of your life when you've got too many things to do and too little time, you'll find that building a deck from scratch for Vtes is seldom easy, especially when you just got into the game without too good a knowledge of all the options available to you during deck-building.

Well, the beauty of internet allows you to "Net-Deck". Which means you can look at all those tournament winning deck that were posted on Vtes-related sites such as Extrala and Lasombra and simply copy everything and get a working deck.

For many other CCGs, this "copying" removes a lot of creativity and intelligence required for playing. Afterall, a good Red deck is a good Red deck, and it is probably tuned and ready for use in pretty much every situation, and does things almost always the same way. This is probably one of the main issues that Richard Garfield tackled when he created Vtes to address some of the unexpected problems of MTG.

For Vtes, simply net-decking will not get you too far. Granted, most, if not all, CCG, has an element of "local habitat-ation" that one needs to do - which means, you have to at least tune your deck a little bit to cater to what your local play community's challenges and playstyle. This is even more pronounced in Vtes.

With the exception of some "solitaire" decks, which are so thematic that they do one thing only and do it pretty much consistently in every environment, almost every other Vtes deck requires extensive "re-tuning" in order to become truly competitive. And that, in a way, prevents complete net-decking. Simply copying even a consistently tournament-winning deck will not necessarily make that deck a champion in your environment.

Why is that so? Because players are different, playstyles are different, and therefore, the deck will work differently in the hands of different people, and definitely perform differently in different communities. Even well-tuned Stealth Bleed deck, which in essence is the most "solitaire" deck that Vtes can spawn, also works differently with different composition. In place A the deck might be winning despite a lack of combat defense but requires more stealth, in place B the combat element might be so strong that it cannot survive without 8 Old Friends. A combat deck that swept through a tournament in place C consistently, might meet other competitive combat monsters in place D and has to rely on alternatives, which is completely unnecessary in place C, and is therefore lacking.

In these circumstances, it is up to the net-decker to tune the deck. Take out cards that does little or under-perform in your environment, and add in cards that shines for you. Doing this very often changes the deck significantly, and after a few rounds of those, especially after a few expansions, the deck will surely and truly become yours.

So there's no need to criticize people for net-decking, it is probably a lazy way to start a deck, and it IS a way of stealing other people's idea. But the effort involved in tuning the deck can be enormous, and the personal touch added to the deck can sometimes, and in fact, very often, make the net-deck completely different from the source.

Net-decking will help new players understand many things required in a deck, and speed up learning curve. Sometimes, looking at a deck, forming it up and throwing it into a game actually make the player realize how a card can be utilized, or how a card is supposed to work - that experience will then be transferred to all the other decks that he will eventually build or tune, and in time, becomes his completely.

And always remember, net-decking for Vtes, will not make super decks, that doesn't happen.

Ok, except for the Thrown Gate deck, where G1 can play with his eyes closed. That, is a super deck. (Maybe I can do the same with a Blood Sister Computer Hacking deck too...)

(o.o)