Is This Format Too Dependent on Netdecking?

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Post by Card Slinger J » 3 years ago

The reason why I ask this is because when it comes to building an EDH / Commander deck it requires some form of netdecking as in using the Internet to help identify what cards and strategies go with said Commander to make for more optimized builds as opposed to less optimized builds. If you didn't have Internet Access like in the old days of Paper Magic, you literally had to rely on going through books of set expansions to find the right cards you're looking for or dig through thousands of common and uncommon bulk cards at your Local Game Store (LGS).

Netdecking is what separates those who are able to brew their decks more creatively as opposed to those who struggle with being as creative as those that are without proven game data or the Internet. When I first started playing MTG we didn't have anyone netdecking as the players at my locals with the best decks were the ones who put more time and effort into crafting their decks as opposed to players like myself at the time who weren't familiar with card type ratios and having the knowledge to build decks in a way that was just as satisfying as those that didn't netdeck.

Without the Internet I can imagine it being incredibly hard for an EDH / Commander player especially a newbie trying to find functionally identical cards in playsets within less time than it is with using the Internet in some way. Imagine If EDH / Commander was invented as a format WAY before 2009 like in the mid to late 90's when our Internet wasn't where it is right now. How would players be able to access the official rules unless it was from a Wizards product or via Strategy Guide that book stores like Barnes & Noble used to sell?
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Post by WizardMN » 3 years ago

What is your definition of netdecking? Most people use it as a shorthand for "copied an entire deck off the internet and ran that". That obviously doesn't apply to EDH in the vast majority of cases and doesn't even apply to your arguments.

If you are talking about "using online resources" I would disagree with your statement about it being "required". Things can be done without the internet just fine. But with there being 20k+ cards, at least having a location for the list of cards is good to have as to know what is available. The list wouldn't tell you what you had to include; just what you could.

I am honestly not even sure if you think this is a bad thing. Or, really, what your argument actually is? Are you simply claiming that those without internet will have fewer resources in which to utilize to build their decks? If so, my response would be an emphatic "duh". Of course a resource like the internet is going to be useful and not having it just means missing out. It doesn't mean someone can't still function without it (they would still see cards their opponent's play for example).

As for the rules of EDH: how did people know the rules of Magic as a whole? While the answer is probably closer to "they didn't" than would be desirable, those same avenues for sharing the rules of Magic is what would be used for EDH or any other variant.

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Post by Card Slinger J » 3 years ago

WizardMN wrote:
3 years ago
What is your definition of netdecking? Most people use it as a shorthand for "copied an entire deck off the internet and ran that". That obviously doesn't apply to EDH in the vast majority of cases and doesn't even apply to your arguments.

If you are talking about "using online resources" I would disagree with your statement about it being "required". Things can be done without the internet just fine. But with there being 20k+ cards, at least having a location for the list of cards is good to have as to know what is available. The list wouldn't tell you what you had to include; just what you could.
I think "online resources" was the term I meant to use instead of "netdecking".
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Post by Mookie » 3 years ago

....I'm not entirely sure what your complaint is here. Has EDHREC made it easier to build a deck? Has Gatherer / Scryfall / etc made finding cards for decks easier? Has being able to order cards online made it easier to acquire those cards? Yes, absolutely. But are those resources required to function? I'd say no.

For one point, this is a casual format. There is no incentive to make the strongest deck possible, which means that even if you copy a deck you find outright, it's usually going to be at least somewhat suboptimal unless you're explicitly copying a cEDH deck. Similarly, even if you're playing with a weaker deck than the rest of the table, you'll still have a shot of winning.

As a second point, I'd argue that copying a deck outright is never going to be optimal in the first place - pretty much every decklist is going to be tuned for its owner's meta, even in cEDH (I'll point to every cEDH deck running Mental Misstep as a sign that those decks aren't globally optimal). If you copy a decklist outright, there are going to be some cards that perform better or worse based on your own meta, whether that be needing more board wipes, ramp, removal, countermagic, or something else.

Thirdly, I'd estimate that the vast majority of cards that go into decks are cards the owners already happened to have on hand. People certainly buy or trade for cards they want for decks, but the default is always going to be whatever they already had lying around. That only changes when the friction involved in acquiring cards becomes extremely low, which isn't a realistic scenario for paper.

Fourthly, while using online resources may be feasible if you're going with a more popular commander with a more popular build, that isn't the case for more niche commanders and strategies. Similarly, a huge part of the format is self-expression - if you want to build a Beeble tribal deck, that's a thing you can do in this format. And if you do want to build a special snowflake, there simply aren't going to be any decklists available to copy. In this case, I'd say that having EDHREC and other resources available is a massive boon - it makes researching off-the-beaten-path strategies significantly more viable.

I'll also call out that if you are using a deckbuilding resource or deck template created by someone else, it's pretty much always going to have some subtleties to it that won't be apparent to a new player. Gradual deck tuning and experimentation is always going to be necessary if you want a deck to operate at full capacity, and that isn't a thing that can be done without actually playing a deck a lot.

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Post by void_nothing » 3 years ago

Right, since netdecking as such - meaning copying the entire decklist - isn't something that happens in EDH (not that netdecking is even really relevant as a concept anymore), I fail to see what the argument is here.

Is a more knowledgeable player base and more convenient means to purchase single cards a bad thing?
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Post by folding_music » 3 years ago

not so much netdecking as half of your deck being virtually required to be good land, land-fetchers or rocks, and tutors so that you can keep up to the rising power level. it's another compromise format where you get to remove your favourite cards and add fellwar stone giggle

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Post by MeowZeDung » 3 years ago

For me half of the fun of the game is the deckbuilding, so I would never just search up and copy a list (unless it's incredibly creative or seems insanely fun). I'll use EDHrec for ideas, but I think it would be no fun to just find a commander and sleeve up all the "High Synergy" and "Top Cards" for them on EDHrec without any further thought.

My preferred tool is scryfall because you can customize a search to find a very precise kind of thing that you are looking for. It allows you to pursue your own brewed up strategies, that may look nothing like the EDHrec norm for that commander, down a deep, deep rabbit hole. In other words, pure fun :cool:

I wouldn't consider using those online tools as references to be "netdecking". Finding a list, clicking "Buy this deck on ______" and sleeving it up would be netdecking. Some people don't like building decks, and that's a shortcut to them getting to enjoy playing the game. More power to them I guess. I think the bigger problem is some of the cookie cutter legendaries that WotC has printed in the last year or two.
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Post by Mookie » 3 years ago

As an addendum to my previous post, I'll call out a few of the normal complaints about netdecking, or an increased proliferation of data in general.

The first common complaint is that it can lead to format homogeneity - if a deck is featured in a prominent tournament and keeps putting up good results, a lot of people will copy that deck, which can lead to it being a large percentage of that format. That... isn't really a thing in EDH. There are certainly times that it feels like a certain commander is everywhere (ex: every time precons come out), but it's not like all the old commanders just disappear. This is partially because there's no selection bias pushing people to play a specific deck. If you're playing competitively, you're strongly incentivized to play the strongest deck, which means that only the strongest decks see extensive play. But in a casual (non-competitive) format, people will just play whatever they find fun, which will naturally vary from person to person.

Another common complaint is that it can lead to formats being solved too quickly. I'm not going to entirely disregard this problem - it's very possible for people to find all the hidden tech for a specific commander pretty much as soon as it is revealed. However, if we look away from the level of individual decks and instead consider the format as a whole, EDH isn't really a solvable format - there simply isn't enough data available due to how many unique decks there are.

The third common complaint I'll call out is that people will just copy a decklist and run it without understanding how to properly build or pilot a deck. Which.... isn't really a bad thing, IMO. I'll point to the precons making the format significantly more accessible as being a good thing - I have no issue with lowering the barrier to entry. From the opposite direction, it may be that the increased volume of knowledge makes the format less approachable for new players, but I don't really consider that a barrier to entry - having depth is a good thing. I will note that there have certainly been a lot of complaints about certain commanders (whom shall remain unnamed lest this devolve into yet another discussion about them) being overpowered and basically carrying suboptimal decklists by themselves, which could have a negative long-term effect by harming new players' deckbuilding skills... but that's more of an issue with power creep in general than a knock against knowledge creep, IMO.

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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

Personally I don't use any online resources when I make my decks (almost always).

The format does have a very different vibe than it did back in '09/'10 when I started playing. Searching cards was possible but a lot less convenient. I remember looking through all existing blue cards to build my first commander deck, Higure, the Still Wind (I think I ended up with a 300+ nonland card list that then had to be cut down, lol).

Did that state of the format have charm? Absolutely, it was super fun to find legitimate hidden gems. Is it practical today? No. But I don't think that the existence of powerful card search engines or even EDHrec is what's "ruining" the format these days - I think the worst part of the format right now is the prevalence of absurdly broken commanders, which would have been dumb even without the internet even existing.
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

Not even a little bit. EDH is the least netdeck reliant format, as in contrast to other forms of constructed winning isn't the sole goal. The overwhelming majority of EDH decks are willingly suboptimal from the moment of their inception due to commander choice alone, with the dominant factor being various forms of self-expression. And that's great - there's no wrong way to play EDH, as long as you find some like-minded individuals to sling your preferred flavour with. Let's tackle some forms of getting usage out of the internet:
  • Card search engines. Those have been around for a while. While Scryfall is nicer than Gatherer, I remember using the original for some of my earlier decks before magiccards.info and whatnot else caught on. Gatherer was already doing fancy advanced queries in 2009 (and probably earlier). We've just gotten collectively better at figuring what to query oracle for.
  • EDHREC. A nice way to collapse common patterns for a particular legend, and get an idea for the sort of stuff that tends to make up a deck core. But this is far from a definite solution to a commander. For example, recently I've tossed together a Xantcha deck, and EDHREC was wildly unhelpful. There was no clear trend in the recommendations, and the theme refiner is only as good as the algorithm picking decks apart. And this is not a problem at all. EDHREC is good for getting a feel for various cards which might work nicely in a deck, but you can't exactly push a button and get something good.
  • Individual decks. The internet is swarming with these, be they various deckstats builds that get hoovered into the EDHREC hive mind or this site's meticulously groomed primers. This is as close to netdecking as you can get, if you get smitten by one of these and base on it. That's the key word though - base on it. I have encountered netdecks of all four of my primers out in the Cockatrice wilds, which was very flattering, but every single one of them swapped some stuff around as they didn't like it or wanted to fit some other cards in. The most confusing was Patron of the Orochi choosing to jam in Walking Ballista for whatever reason, but it was his choice and it was in there. This serves as a testament to EDH's individuality - even if you come the closest you can to netdecking, you still put your own spin on someone else's build.
 
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

It's kinda similar to mmo builds; they tend to homogenize over time as people collaborate. There's an element of sadness for me that there's not as much to discover now but collaboration is what makes humanity so powerful.

I think magic and multiplayer have too much variance for computers to play the game for us like they basically do for high end mmo gameplay with these hyper analyzed rotations.

So we spend less time building and more time tuning and playing, I think that's just.the next evolution of the game. Every format has that pattern to am extent but commander is by far the most complex.

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Post by Hawk » 3 years ago

I'd say on balance - no.

Certainly, the proliferation of EDHRECs, Scryfall, various Commander podcasts, and forums has changed the format. 10 years ago Commander was wildly different than Commander today - we've seen decklists become more honed, more focused. Mana rocks and lands have reached peak efficiency with an emphasis on 2-CMC acceleration and untapped mana sources. Removal is either extremely versatile or extremely efficient. Sweepers are less omnipresent, but games tend to be faster and more likely to "descend to the infinite".

And yet, I'd say we actually see LESS "goodstuff.dec" now than we did 10 years ago - those resources have made it easier than ever to find the exact cards to make your Cat Tribal deck or RUW Flashback deck really sing. I think Scryfall, if anything, INCREASES creativity - allowing one to find obscure old cards that'd just flick past in their quest for comforting, known quantities when building decks in 2010 or 2011.

Also, the nature of budgets and information mean new stuff is always floating into metas - Fellwar Stone went from Trash to "Secret Budget Gem" to Format Staple thanks to intel sharing, and now is such Staple that it's no longer budget - and we have a new wave of alternative budget rocks instead.

I don't think there is a loss of that creativity - I feel more energized than ever brewing decks. I think what has happened is that the format has made the band of what's "Good in EDH" more narrow - Ruinous Ultimatum looks so absurd compared to Violent Ultimatum but it has too, because the halcyon pure days where you could just fill a deck with 40 lands and 30 fun 5-7 drops is just gone; your decks need to be tighter, more optimized, and more lean to compete even against the average precon. But that's just as much to do with WotC getting their grubby fingers into designing cards for our format as it is with the proliferation of data and statistics imo.

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Post by RxPhantom » 3 years ago

I stay away from EDHrec for the first two drafts of a deck. I'll use Scryfall, but I really want the core strategies of the deck to be my idea. So, after I make the first draft and give it a few spins, I figure out what worked and what didn't. I do the same for the second draft. By then, most of the list is pretty firmly in place and I feel comfortable seeing how other players approached these commanders.
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Post by umtiger » 3 years ago

I don't know about netdecking (i.e. copying an entire deck from someone else), but I have noticed that decks more than ever are homogenized. Even in a game with strangers before the game even starts, I have a good idea of almost all the cards that I need to play around.

Some of this is bearing out in the secondary market as well. Everyone wants to buy the exact same cards and then complain about price. It even happens in games. When someone plays an "out-of-place" card, someone else is right there with a comment, "Why are you playing that? Isn't card xyz better?"

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Post by onering » 3 years ago

I actually think it HELPS the format, by allowing people who are seeking to build around underused mechanics or niche commanders access to not just consensus lists of best cards in colors, but lists of synergies, hidden gems, and every card ever printed so they can actually find cards that they may have never known about otherwise to support their build, and find cards they can add to put an extra bit of power into an otherwise mediocre but fun strategy without diluting it much. Consensus best decks always proliferated, even before the advent of numerous online resources, because word of the consensus best decks spread quickly and those were the decks most likely to see print in magazines or get highlighted on forums. It's the more niche stuff that didn't spread, and now it does.

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Post by Cyberium » 3 years ago

As long as you're not just copying a list, I think it'll be fine. I am a Melvin/Vorthos, my deck will always emphasize flavor and mechanics over other elements, if I research online for idea it's to support the core flavor, not to overtake it.

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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

I don't think you can ever have enough resources about any topic..period. Its more of a case of if people can filter through all the available information to come up with what they want.

Its actually pretty difficult to find good lists as well, there is a lot of dodgy stuff even in the heavier traffic youtube channels, etc. So people eventually have to think about a decks design even if they do start off with an initial net-deck.

I've been playing Magic since 1994, so yeah Inquest magazine used to be my source of searching through for cards. Do I find search queries and filtering with online card database engines much better? Affirmative, me likes technology.
And for sure we were incredible isolated as far as what could be done in terms of deck building during that period. Was that more creative? I'm not sure really. More knowledge can leads to even greater creativity. I feel like if my knowledge was limited to literally interactions that I've only thought of by myself, that my ability to create would be much more limited at this stage.
The thing is that there has been 20 years worth of printing cards since the "non internet" days. Its a lot to keep up with, so having information on the internet to help with such a vast array of cards and interactions is basically necessary.
There is no way I could make the decks I do if I was still armed with a 200 page Inquest magazine refiling through the printed list. I just wouldn't have the time or effort to invest.

I'm one of the first people to brew and publish lists around new commanders, so my first efforts are completely just me and "Gatherer" trying to come up with synergy.
However after a few weeks I do like to check out EDHREC to see what else people have added to their lists, and for sure you get some cards that you didn't think about.
I find this really helpful.

My answer to your question is basically "no". The format is not too dependent on the internet for ideas, as Magic is a complicated game, with complication interactions and just a incredible large set of cards to choose from.
If a person wants to try an online list verbatim then that is fine. They get to experience synergy in a way that they might not have thought about and it will enhance their knowledge for the future or give them a deck that they can potentially really enjoy. There is nothing worse than purchasing cards to then have a deck fall flat on its face and not have a fun experience with it.
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Post by Kelzam » 3 years ago

The weird stigma against "net decking" or using available resources when building decks be it for Commander or other formats is an absurd form of gatekeeping that should have died in the late 90's with the rise of Magic search engines and discussion boards to share ideas, and frankly the mentality is also just as out of date. This bizarre badge of honor people wear for not using the tools as they become available to them just so they can wield some weird form of superiority complex to belittle others is baffling.
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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

In a single sentence, not a damn chance.

To elaborate, there's no way someone truly netdecking can win in this format with any sort of reliable consistency. The actual definition of netdecking, taking a list from the net verbatim and inserting it into your own meta is just not enough. It won't account for the eccentricities or nuances of the people you play with, let alone any particular social contract stuff your meta employs.

If we're considering literally any internet research to be netdecking, well, the format has thrived from that, we would not be here at nexus if not for that. But that's not what netdecking is. Having access to gatherer, scryfall and forums like these and sally are ways to delve beyond what most people are playing and make a deck your own, and I think it's probably done amazing things for diversity in building and cards 'off the beaten track' seeing more than zero playtime. Hell, I'd never have managed my vorthos decks without internet access of some kind or other.

Ultimately it depends where you're playing and who you're playing as to how much netdecking you see, but in the long term depending on netdecking to build your decks is a losing endeavor; if the rest of the internet knows what's in your deck the rest of the internet knows what's in your deck. People will know what's coming and hold answers. Or nuke you until you stay down. In other formats, sure, it can be employed to give you a fighting chance. In this format, it just doesn't do you any favors.

So yeah, I don't think there's a chance that this format depends on netdecking. 'Let's brew!' threads and decklists online like here at nexus, well that's different. You're talking about people dedicated to discussing the ins and outs of in-game strategy, and that's something you just don't get from a simple list of cards.

To clarify, I think probably resources like EDHrec are a little different from what we do here or simple databases like gatherer etc. It's probably where most people would attempt to netdeck from, and it's probably the worst place to do so. It's a decent resource, but only if you know what you're doing with the data it presents you, and it absolutely cannot make up for tried and true in game experience testing your options.

I'll also echo what Kelzam has said above. There's nothing particularly wrong with netdecking in essence. Like any method of brewing a list it's going to need to be tested and tweaked with actual in game experience because metas, but if people want to do it there's no reason to attack it.

Personally, I really love the online banter around brewing; if that's netdecking sue me. It's about the only time I get to spend around my cards at the moment with a 3 month old kid, so I'll enjoy every second of it.
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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

This is probably gonna be anecdotal evidence, as I'm mostly using what I've seen in the groups I play with. I find that a lot of the people I play commander with mostly build their own decks without too much aid from netdecks/lists they found online. I know a few people that will watch commander vs videos for ideas to base decks on but not completely copy ideas. However most of the people I play with build from what they have or just pick up cards they think are fun or cool

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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

It's also worth noting that a lot of the YT vids out there as well as deck tech articles are relatively elementary, if not pretty underwhelming.

A case in point is Glissa, the Traitor. I challenge anyone to come up with a fluid working decklist based on EDHrec, or a YouTube vid. She isn't solved, so there's doesn't exist a perfect list to netdeck.

Likewise I've seen a fair amount of Varina, Lich Queen content out there, and again, not a lot of it is stunningly good. Again, she isn't solved, but I feel like the list I run is pretty good and pretty fun. And it's not because I've taken the best cards available and jammed them into sleeves. It's because the thread I maintain has a lot of back and forth conversation about what fits and works, what archetypes are available to work with, and that is invaluable. It's the back and forth discussion that makes these forums so great, and you just don't get that from taking someone else's 100 and inserting it into your meta.

So on balance online resources I think have done wonderful things for the format. Strict netdecking is fine, but has it's limitations. Mostly because it lacks discourse, and that just cannot be beat. I don't consider what we do here to be netdecking, but even if it were I wouldn't give it up. Without sites like this one I wouldn't be half the player I am.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

I actually don't think I know of anyone who netdecks for anything less than CEDH. If you don't know this format its hard to know whose list to follow which is part of why I really don't think I have seen anyone that I ever suspected was netdecking.
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Post by Lifeless » 3 years ago

Online resources are great for identifying synergies and gaps in your gameplan, particularly for players with finite amounts of time who lack encyclopedic knowledge of MtG. I've been playing semi-regularly for over 25 years and I still miss interactions and synergies because it's really hard to keep up with the number of effects and new cards.

I also agree that for the most part these resources don't lead to completely homogenized lists. Sure you're going to see some core cards and strong interactions more often but there's still a lot of variety in lists overall.

Ultimately these resources help level the incredibly uneven playing field of EDH.

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tstorm823
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Post by tstorm823 » 3 years ago

Kelzam wrote:
3 years ago
The weird stigma against "net decking" or using available resources when building decks be it for Commander or other formats is an absurd form of gatekeeping that should have died in the late 90's with the rise of Magic search engines and discussion boards to share ideas, and frankly the mentality is also just as out of date. This bizarre badge of honor people wear for not using the tools as they become available to them just so they can wield some weird form of superiority complex to belittle others is baffling.
It's not baffling at all. I have some decks online and take great pride in people using me as a reference, I have no problem with people using online resources to help build their decks, but it isn't baffling.

People get upset in any situation where the balance of the meta breaks. When the power levels of decks lose balance, it makes a worse experience. For anyone who started out playing Magic as Richard Garfield intended, where people have the few cards they happen to pull from packs and play with their friends, the first time they experienced a broken meta is likely when someone went online to research good decks and bought all the singles they needed. That's a bad taste in a lot of mouths.

It takes a significant level of sophistication to go online, see what other people are doing, and use their ideas while still maintaining a power level even somewhat consistent with your playgroup.
Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."

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Treamayne
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Post by Treamayne » 3 years ago

Online research =/= "Netdecking"
One is learning about the game, cards, interactions, etc. The other lifting at least >50% of a complete decklist

And while I agree with most of what has been said so far, the one point I wanted to address is what I think some of the root causes of the bad reputation for net decking stems from.
- Pub stompers I have seen/dealt with have a disturbing tendency to "Netdeck" some tier 1-2 general just so they can feel superior (even when they play it poorly)
- Some people who "Netdeck" try to pretend it is their own "creation" (usually because they changed a handful of cards)

Using a deck (in whole or part) from the internet is not inherently bad; however, using that resource to make a bad play experience for anyone (strangers, playgroup, etc.) or pretending it is wholly your creation is something that bothers me.

I realize that some Generals are "solved" and the incidence of multiple players having many cards in common may be high, but even then I would usually expect more than a few cards to differ between lists. With less common or newer Generals, I find it odd when many players have nearly identical decks but all claim to have built it "all myself."
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