As a person who has played all of the popular TCG's on a competetive level at one point or another, I have to say Hearthstone has the smallest amount of deck brewers I've ever seen. Yu-gi-oh *might* be worse. All that I see is netdeck after netdeck, and while netdecking isn't bad, having nothing but netdecks is stifeling to the game in my opinion. There could be so many more possible decks out there, but the brewers aren't brewing, and the professional gamers don't seem to want to try much either.
Is this a huge problem? No, it's not. However, I do think it's detracting from the health of the game. The game experience can grow stale when you play against the same few decks all the time. Then, when a new deck comes around, it's usually coming from a streamer or somebody making a "fun deck" that doesn't last long, at least in my experience.
More to the point, what causes this? Could it be the smaller card pool? The dependence on RNG somehow?
Thoughts?
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"What do you mean a turn four Mountain Giant isn't good enough?!"
Yes because everyone and their mother just netdecks the shit out of the game, making it bland and boring.
It's also because HS has an issue with power levels. You don't really have "alternatives", you just have "best cards".
The biggest factor of that is the clear lack of content. 160 cards per year is laughable, in particular if you have 8(!) classes. That issue is amplified partly because of the 30 card deck limit and partly because it costs a shit ton of dust to experiment.
The structure of the game itself discourages creativity. You get gold for winning games, you gain rank by winning games, you pass quests by winning games. When I'm playing a casual match with an unusual deck, it's hard to shake the feeling that I'd be earning more gold if I were just playing a proven archetype.
There's also no chat in-game, so if you do make some interesting plays or play a cool deck, you get no human feedback for it. I've certainly had people friend me after a match to congratulate me on my wacky deck or whatever, but that's rare. Although Hearthstone's rules and card design are whimsical, the whole play environment promotes a cold, min-maxing approach.
There's actually quite a bit of variety, depending on how you look at it. Like, there are quite a few viable archetypes right now, and within each of those archetypes there's quite a bit of variation. When I play against a deck, I can usually identify it within the first few turns, and I can say I probably could guess about 26 cards in their deck with some reliability. That's around 13% variation in established decks, and that's pretty good compared to other games. I played MTG for years and once a format was established the most variation you could expect would be a few cards here and there, maybe an extra land, and a slightly different side board plan.
I played against a Druid this morning that killed me with combo after playing two Ancients of War. I wasn't expecting it and I got punished. Is that a new deck? Not really. Is it different from cookie cutter combo decks? Certainly. There's variation within the decks that are established, and I think what tends to happen is people start with a netdeck, play it, then start tweaking it. This is less true for decks like Freeze Mage or Patron because those are well-oiled machines that need all their pieces but that doesn't seem too relevant to this discussion.
I think I understand where you're coming from, but I would be curious to hear what kind of world you would like to live in. What would make the game feel like there was more creativity in it? I'm not trying to be contrary for the sake of it, I'm genuinely curious.
There are two big problems I see with Hearthstone's lack of creativity in decks.
1. Small card pool. This is expected, since Hearthstone is barely two years old and Blizzard only releases an expansion or two each year. With a card pool this small compared to say Magic, interactions and combos between cards are much easier to spot, leaving little room for innovation.
2. Power difference between cards is the huge one I think. Cards in Hearthstone are either so powerful or so weak that they'll either see constant competitive play or none at all. There's little to no point trying to build a cool deck around lesser played cards only to get your ass handed to you. Is it fun? Absolutely...until you get wrecked over and over again. Which ultimately drives players away from being too creative with their deckbuilding.
Look at the cards that some classes like rogue or warlock got this expansion and I dare you to blame again the lack of innovation on the players. The problem is the quality of the cards that Blizzard put out, is like they dont even play their own game on never went pass rank 20.Most people could see most of TGT cards being shit before the expansion was out and it was worst than that. There's probably like 20 out of 130+ cards that are viable,I was mad that GVG had only a few playable legendaries and I thought they would never make the same mistake again.Boy I was wrong.
It's not because of the small card pool, it's because of the enormous player base and the matchmaking system.
A relevant anecdote: I was grinding out golden priest this season, alternating between dragon priest and control priest. I went as high as rank 250 or so, then fell to about 900, got a little bored, decided to try something unconventional, and went the rest of the way playing face priest (Shadowbomber, Leper Gnome, charge minions, etc.). By the time I got my 500th win, I was down to rank 2900 or thereabouts. So I started trying out all my weird homebrew decks: pirate rogue, control rogue, Wailing Soul druid, dragon warrior, mech hunter, etc. I fell all the way to rank 4000.
Today, I switched to a tempo mage (my own refined list, but fundamentally a netdeck) and cruised back up to the 600s in just a couple hours.
People play netdecks because they work. I think I'm a very good player, and I also think I'm pretty good at building decks, but it's just no comparison. I've never made it to legend playing a homebrew deck, and when I've played homebrew decks at legend, they haven't done well. In a physical CCG, your good-but-not-great homebrew deck might beat all your friends' decks, and it might even beat everybody at the local hobby shop or comics store or wherever. In Hearthstone, where the game picks from a pool of literally millions of players to match you with somebody of roughly equal skill, you're severely punished for playing an unrefined deck. And even a total wizard of a deck brewer can't refine his own deck, by himself, as well as thousands or millions of players can refine it once it gets into the wild and achieves netdeck status.
The structure of the game itself discourages creativity. You get gold for winning games, you gain rank by winning games, you pass quests by winning games. When I'm playing a casual match with an unusual deck, it's hard to shake the feeling that I'd be earning more gold if I were just playing a proven archetype.
There's also no chat in-game, so if you do make some interesting plays or play a cool deck, you get no human feedback for it. I've certainly had people friend me after a match to congratulate me on my wacky deck or whatever, but that's rare. Although Hearthstone's rules and card design are whimsical, the whole play environment promotes a cold, min-maxing approach.
This is pretty on-point, I actually haven't thought about it this way. Maybe if Blizzard implemented more types of quests that support interesting decks, instead of the usual "kill 50 minions" or "win x times with this class"?
It's not because of the small card pool, it's because of the enormous player base and the matchmaking system.
A relevant anecdote: I was grinding out golden priest this season, alternating between dragon priest and control priest. I went as high as rank 250 or so, then fell to about 900, got a little bored, decided to try something unconventional, and went the rest of the way playing face priest (Shadowbomber, Leper Gnome, charge minions, etc.). By the time I got my 500th win, I was down to rank 2900 or thereabouts. So I started trying out all my weird homebrew decks: pirate rogue, control rogue, Wailing Soul druid, dragon warrior, mech hunter, etc. I fell all the way to rank 4000.
Today, I switched to a tempo mage (my own refined list, but fundamentally a netdeck) and cruised back up to the 600s in just a couple hours.
People play netdecks because they work. I think I'm a very good player, and I also think I'm pretty good at building decks, but it's just no comparison. I've never made it to legend playing a homebrew deck, and when I've played homebrew decks at legend, they haven't done well. In a physical CCG, your good-but-not-great homebrew deck might beat all your friends' decks, and it might even beat everybody at the local hobby shop or comics store or wherever. In Hearthstone, where the game picks from a pool of literally millions of players to match you with somebody of roughly equal skill, you're severely punished for playing an unrefined deck. And even a total wizard of a deck brewer can't refine his own deck, by himself, as well as thousands or millions of players can refine it once it gets into the wild and achieves netdeck status.
This is a VERY good point. If peope weren't always playing in a competetive situation, even in casual, maybe more brewing would occur.
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"What do you mean a turn four Mountain Giant isn't good enough?!"
All of this makes a good deal of sense, at least to me. Back when I played MTG, brews were very popular, probably because in Standard and EDH, you could afford to play a different kind of deck, so to speak. In HS, where every win goes to furthering your collection, I suppose it is not that great of an idea.
To answer your question, what I would hope for Hearthstone is a game that had established decks such as Patron, Freeze Mage, etc, but was also a game where brewing was both viableand fun. As some people have said, it often feels like a waste of time to brew or play with a brewed deck, due to the reward structure. Maybe include an incentive for brewing, or maybe less incentives for always winning. I think the first idea would probably be more effective.
I've always enjoyed homebrewing decks, usually theme decks, and I'll play them ranked. I figure I'll probably lose but at least I threw out something differnet and when I do win it makes it that much better.
I just wanna know why everyone throws the term netdecker or netdecking around like its the worst thing to ever exist. Because in every card game ever, people are constantly asking around to see whats the best, or whats the meta, and all competitive players adapt to that and will play what is currently best, if anything its worse in real life card games. I remember the last time i played Yugioh, all it was, was lightsworn, blackwings, and gladiator beast for literally a fucking year and some time. THATS IT. 3 FREAKING DECKS. Because they were the best, now how did everyone come to play these decks? Surely everyone didnt just go home and magically all think of the same deck. They took it from others, and played it because it is what won. (And you cant say those are casual players, this is like literally every regional i ever went to during that time, people will do whatever it takes to win, even if they have to do some "netdecking" or just doing the same thing irl (looking around to see whats good, playing that deck)
The only difference between real life card games and this one in regards to "netdecking" is instead of the internet, you just asked the guy next to you whats in the meta right now, and you make a copy. Most of the time the difference if any is only a few cards.
The part that makes me laugh the most is that it was way worse than hearthstone during some metas in regards to the different decks that were actually competitive, so you have 3 different decks everyone and there mom is playing, yet you still have 10000s of cards and a 40 minimum limit on your deck, people were still being less creative in that scenario with more resources at their disposal than they are now with hearthstones limited ones. Unless you are the most casual player in the world and just wanna have fun and could care less, you are more than likely going to use whats winning, instead of taking tons of time to figure it out yourself and build from scratch. Thats always how the majority of players will be in every card game. Kudos to the select few that make actual breakthroughs like the guy who created handlock (still being used) and freeze mage and patron warrior etc.
Also i know plenty of deckbuilders i dont think the effort is lacking plenty of people wanna build a deck, theres just way more failures or average decks being created by alot of these unknown players than there are godly decks like the ones i listed above that stick around for a while and get people noticed. I think thatll change but not in the near future, need more options and a more diverse meta. Some of the sickest concepts i see people create arent viable in the game at the moment, but totally could be at another time.
I just wanna know why everyone throws the term netdecker or netdecking around like its the worst thing to ever exist. Because in ever card game ever, people are constantly asking around to see whats the best, or whats the meta, and all competitive players adapt to that and will play what is currently best, if anything its worse in real life card games. I remember the last time i played Yugioh, all it was, was judgement dragon, blackwings, and gladiator beast for literally a fucking year and some time. THATS IT. 3 FREAKING DECKS. Because they were the best, now how did everyone come to play these decks? Surely everyone didnt just go home and magically all think of the same deck. They took it from others, and played it because it is what won. (And you cant say those are casual players, this is like literally every regional i ever went to during that time, people will do whatever it takes to win, even if they have to do some "netdecking" or just doing the same thing irl (looking around to see whats good, playing that deck)
The only difference between real life card games and this one in regards to "netdecking" is instead of the internet, you just asked the guy next to you whats in the meta right now, and you make a copy.
The part that makes me laugh the most is that it was way worse than hearthstone during some metas in regards to the different decks that were actually competitive, so you have 3 different decks everyone and there mom is playing, yet you still have 10000s of cards and a 40 minimum limit on your deck, people were still being less creative in that scenario with more resources at their disposal than they are now with hearthstones limited ones.
Nobody said netdecking was bad in and of itself. What's bad is when almost every single deck that is seen in use is a netdeck, for reasons already specified.
Also, while having variety in said netdecks is appreciated (as with Hearthstone, where there are over a dozen popular decks that everyone copies), there is little difference in there being only 3 decks around compared to a dozen or so, at least for me. Gameplay gets stale quickly either way.
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"What do you mean a turn four Mountain Giant isn't good enough?!"
For example, I have always been a priest player. When BRM came out I started working on my own dragon priest deck, and with TGT it got even better. I have never modeled it after a net deck, but I am pretty sure my deck is nearly identical to a lot of dragon priest decks on this site and others. Why? Because the deck has a clear core set of cards: Northshire Cleric x 2; Dragon Whelp x 2; Wyrmrest Agent x 2; Twilight Guardian x 2; Azure Drake x 2; Blackwing Corrupter x 2; Holy Nova x 2; Ysera x 1. That's 15 cards you are going to see in pretty much every dragon priest. Then of course are the other really common includes: Chillmaw; Velen's Chose; Blackwing Technician; Dark Cultists, etc. You tend to see the variety in the three drop slot (technicians or cultists?); tech cards (Harrison; Mass Dispel, Lightbomb, etc); extra dragons (Chromagus; Nefarian; Dragonkin Sorceress); other value drops (Dr. Boom; Sylvanas). Personally, I run a slightly more mid-range with Darkbane, Dragonkin Sorcerers, and power word glories thrown in. I think this shift is a creative shift from the standard, but if you play me on ladder you may never see these creative choices if I don't draw/play the cards and may just think I am a net decker when I have been refining my deck all season and made it from scratch myself.
I just wanna know why everyone throws the term netdecker or netdecking around like its the worst thing to ever exist. Because in ever card game ever, people are constantly asking around to see whats the best, or whats the meta, and all competitive players adapt to that and will play what is currently best, if anything its worse in real life card games. I remember the last time i played Yugioh, all it was, was judgement dragon, blackwings, and gladiator beast for literally a fucking year and some time. THATS IT. 3 FREAKING DECKS. Because they were the best, now how did everyone come to play these decks? Surely everyone didnt just go home and magically all think of the same deck. They took it from others, and played it because it is what won. (And you cant say those are casual players, this is like literally every regional i ever went to during that time, people will do whatever it takes to win, even if they have to do some "netdecking" or just doing the same thing irl (looking around to see whats good, playing that deck)
The only difference between real life card games and this one in regards to "netdecking" is instead of the internet, you just asked the guy next to you whats in the meta right now, and you make a copy.
The part that makes me laugh the most is that it was way worse than hearthstone during some metas in regards to the different decks that were actually competitive, so you have 3 different decks everyone and there mom is playing, yet you still have 10000s of cards and a 40 minimum limit on your deck, people were still being less creative in that scenario with more resources at their disposal than they are now with hearthstones limited ones.
Nobody said netdecking was bad in and of itself. What's bad is when almost every single deck that is seen in use is a netdeck, for reasons already specified.
Also, while having variety in said netdecks is appreciated (as with Hearthstone, where there are over a dozen popular decks that everyone copies), there is little difference in there being only 3 decks around compared to a dozen or so, at least for me. Gameplay gets stale quickly either way.
See thats the thing though, people use the term like its some sort of hate speech on here lmao, i see it alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the time. Like someone is less than them because they netdeck and they let them know it happily. Its just silly to me. And yea i understand what you mean, little difference really still a limited amount of decks, but itd take 12 or so compared to the 3. And as for the game getting stale i really feel you, im so happy im in legend because once i got there i was able to start experimenting with my own decks and having more fun than absolutely tryharding with the best decks out right now just to hit legend.
For example, I have always been a priest player. When BRM came out I started working on my own dragon priest deck, and with TGT it got even better. I have never modeled it after a net deck, but I am pretty sure my deck is nearly identical to a lot of dragon priest decks on this site and others. Why? Because the deck has a clear core set of cards: Northshire Cleric x 2; Dragon Whelp x 2; Wyrmrest Agent x 2; Twilight Guardian x 2; Azure Drake x 2; Blackwing Corrupter x 2; Holy Nova x 2; Ysera x 1. That's 15 cards you are going to see in pretty much every dragon priest. Then of course are the other really common includes: Chillmaw; Velen's Chose; Blackwing Technician; Dark Cultists, etc. You tend to see the variety in the three drop slot (technicians or cultists?); tech cards (Harrison; Mass Dispel, Lightbomb, etc); extra dragons (Chromagus; Nefarian; Dragonkin Sorceress); other value drops (Dr. Boom; Sylvanas). Personally, I run a slightly more mid-range with Darkbane, Dragonkin Sorcerers, and power word glories thrown in. I think this shift is a creative shift from the standard, but if you play me on ladder you may never see these creative choices if I don't draw/play the cards and may just think I am a net decker when I have been refining my deck all season and made it from scratch myself.
See thats another point too you get a 30 limit but theres just too many staples to get REALLY creative with some of these decks some times and its so common for people to make what is literally the same deck. Like if i wanna make a dragon priest ill go home and throw together a dragon priest, and if i play it ill probably be called a net decker because as usual its similar to the decks you see on here, all of the core cards are gonna be the same obviously.
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As a person who has played all of the popular TCG's on a competetive level at one point or another, I have to say Hearthstone has the smallest amount of deck brewers I've ever seen. Yu-gi-oh *might* be worse. All that I see is netdeck after netdeck, and while netdecking isn't bad, having nothing but netdecks is stifeling to the game in my opinion. There could be so many more possible decks out there, but the brewers aren't brewing, and the professional gamers don't seem to want to try much either.
Is this a huge problem? No, it's not. However, I do think it's detracting from the health of the game. The game experience can grow stale when you play against the same few decks all the time. Then, when a new deck comes around, it's usually coming from a streamer or somebody making a "fun deck" that doesn't last long, at least in my experience.
More to the point, what causes this? Could it be the smaller card pool? The dependence on RNG somehow?
Thoughts?
"What do you mean a turn four Mountain Giant isn't good enough?!"
Yes because everyone and their mother just netdecks the shit out of the game, making it bland and boring.
It's also because HS has an issue with power levels. You don't really have "alternatives", you just have "best cards".
The biggest factor of that is the clear lack of content. 160 cards per year is laughable, in particular if you have 8(!) classes. That issue is amplified partly because of the 30 card deck limit and partly because it costs a shit ton of dust to experiment.
This sort of comment just screams that you actually havent played any tcg competitively...ever
The structure of the game itself discourages creativity. You get gold for winning games, you gain rank by winning games, you pass quests by winning games. When I'm playing a casual match with an unusual deck, it's hard to shake the feeling that I'd be earning more gold if I were just playing a proven archetype.
There's also no chat in-game, so if you do make some interesting plays or play a cool deck, you get no human feedback for it. I've certainly had people friend me after a match to congratulate me on my wacky deck or whatever, but that's rare. Although Hearthstone's rules and card design are whimsical, the whole play environment promotes a cold, min-maxing approach.
There's actually quite a bit of variety, depending on how you look at it. Like, there are quite a few viable archetypes right now, and within each of those archetypes there's quite a bit of variation. When I play against a deck, I can usually identify it within the first few turns, and I can say I probably could guess about 26 cards in their deck with some reliability. That's around 13% variation in established decks, and that's pretty good compared to other games. I played MTG for years and once a format was established the most variation you could expect would be a few cards here and there, maybe an extra land, and a slightly different side board plan.
I played against a Druid this morning that killed me with combo after playing two Ancients of War. I wasn't expecting it and I got punished. Is that a new deck? Not really. Is it different from cookie cutter combo decks? Certainly. There's variation within the decks that are established, and I think what tends to happen is people start with a netdeck, play it, then start tweaking it. This is less true for decks like Freeze Mage or Patron because those are well-oiled machines that need all their pieces but that doesn't seem too relevant to this discussion.
I think I understand where you're coming from, but I would be curious to hear what kind of world you would like to live in. What would make the game feel like there was more creativity in it? I'm not trying to be contrary for the sake of it, I'm genuinely curious.
Nothing doing, traveler.
There are two big problems I see with Hearthstone's lack of creativity in decks.
1. Small card pool. This is expected, since Hearthstone is barely two years old and Blizzard only releases an expansion or two each year. With a card pool this small compared to say Magic, interactions and combos between cards are much easier to spot, leaving little room for innovation.
2. Power difference between cards is the huge one I think. Cards in Hearthstone are either so powerful or so weak that they'll either see constant competitive play or none at all. There's little to no point trying to build a cool deck around lesser played cards only to get your ass handed to you. Is it fun? Absolutely...until you get wrecked over and over again. Which ultimately drives players away from being too creative with their deckbuilding.
Hearthstone...I play that.
Music...I make that.
Youtube...I have that.
https://www.youtube.com/user/FreeloaderMC
Look at the cards that some classes like rogue or warlock got this expansion and I dare you to blame again the lack of innovation on the players.
The problem is the quality of the cards that Blizzard put out, is like they dont even play their own game on never went pass rank 20.Most people could see most of TGT cards being shit before the expansion was out and it was worst than that.
There's probably like 20 out of 130+ cards that are viable,I was mad that GVG had only a few playable legendaries and I thought they would never make the same mistake again.Boy I was wrong.
It's not because of the small card pool, it's because of the enormous player base and the matchmaking system.
A relevant anecdote: I was grinding out golden priest this season, alternating between dragon priest and control priest. I went as high as rank 250 or so, then fell to about 900, got a little bored, decided to try something unconventional, and went the rest of the way playing face priest (Shadowbomber, Leper Gnome, charge minions, etc.). By the time I got my 500th win, I was down to rank 2900 or thereabouts. So I started trying out all my weird homebrew decks: pirate rogue, control rogue, Wailing Soul druid, dragon warrior, mech hunter, etc. I fell all the way to rank 4000.
Today, I switched to a tempo mage (my own refined list, but fundamentally a netdeck) and cruised back up to the 600s in just a couple hours.
People play netdecks because they work. I think I'm a very good player, and I also think I'm pretty good at building decks, but it's just no comparison. I've never made it to legend playing a homebrew deck, and when I've played homebrew decks at legend, they haven't done well. In a physical CCG, your good-but-not-great homebrew deck might beat all your friends' decks, and it might even beat everybody at the local hobby shop or comics store or wherever. In Hearthstone, where the game picks from a pool of literally millions of players to match you with somebody of roughly equal skill, you're severely punished for playing an unrefined deck. And even a total wizard of a deck brewer can't refine his own deck, by himself, as well as thousands or millions of players can refine it once it gets into the wild and achieves netdeck status.
This is pretty on-point, I actually haven't thought about it this way. Maybe if Blizzard implemented more types of quests that support interesting decks, instead of the usual "kill 50 minions" or "win x times with this class"?
Hearthstone...I play that.
Music...I make that.
Youtube...I have that.
https://www.youtube.com/user/FreeloaderMC
This is a VERY good point. If peope weren't always playing in a competetive situation, even in casual, maybe more brewing would occur.
"What do you mean a turn four Mountain Giant isn't good enough?!"
All of this makes a good deal of sense, at least to me. Back when I played MTG, brews were very popular, probably because in Standard and EDH, you could afford to play a different kind of deck, so to speak. In HS, where every win goes to furthering your collection, I suppose it is not that great of an idea.
"What do you mean a turn four Mountain Giant isn't good enough?!"
To answer your question, what I would hope for Hearthstone is a game that had established decks such as Patron, Freeze Mage, etc, but was also a game where brewing was both viable and fun. As some people have said, it often feels like a waste of time to brew or play with a brewed deck, due to the reward structure. Maybe include an incentive for brewing, or maybe less incentives for always winning. I think the first idea would probably be more effective.
Sorry, forgot to quote you Timeiscandy :/
"What do you mean a turn four Mountain Giant isn't good enough?!"
I've always enjoyed homebrewing decks, usually theme decks, and I'll play them ranked. I figure I'll probably lose but at least I threw out something differnet and when I do win it makes it that much better.
30 cards in a deck, amount of useful cards.
I just wanna know why everyone throws the term netdecker or netdecking around like its the worst thing to ever exist. Because in every card game ever, people are constantly asking around to see whats the best, or whats the meta, and all competitive players adapt to that and will play what is currently best, if anything its worse in real life card games. I remember the last time i played Yugioh, all it was, was lightsworn, blackwings, and gladiator beast for literally a fucking year and some time. THATS IT. 3 FREAKING DECKS. Because they were the best, now how did everyone come to play these decks? Surely everyone didnt just go home and magically all think of the same deck. They took it from others, and played it because it is what won. (And you cant say those are casual players, this is like literally every regional i ever went to during that time, people will do whatever it takes to win, even if they have to do some "netdecking" or just doing the same thing irl (looking around to see whats good, playing that deck)
The only difference between real life card games and this one in regards to "netdecking" is instead of the internet, you just asked the guy next to you whats in the meta right now, and you make a copy. Most of the time the difference if any is only a few cards.
The part that makes me laugh the most is that it was way worse than hearthstone during some metas in regards to the different decks that were actually competitive, so you have 3 different decks everyone and there mom is playing, yet you still have 10000s of cards and a 40 minimum limit on your deck, people were still being less creative in that scenario with more resources at their disposal than they are now with hearthstones limited ones. Unless you are the most casual player in the world and just wanna have fun and could care less, you are more than likely going to use whats winning, instead of taking tons of time to figure it out yourself and build from scratch. Thats always how the majority of players will be in every card game. Kudos to the select few that make actual breakthroughs like the guy who created handlock (still being used) and freeze mage and patron warrior etc.
Also i know plenty of deckbuilders i dont think the effort is lacking plenty of people wanna build a deck, theres just way more failures or average decks being created by alot of these unknown players than there are godly decks like the ones i listed above that stick around for a while and get people noticed. I think thatll change but not in the near future, need more options and a more diverse meta. Some of the sickest concepts i see people create arent viable in the game at the moment, but totally could be at another time.
Nobody said netdecking was bad in and of itself. What's bad is when almost every single deck that is seen in use is a netdeck, for reasons already specified.
Also, while having variety in said netdecks is appreciated (as with Hearthstone, where there are over a dozen popular decks that everyone copies), there is little difference in there being only 3 decks around compared to a dozen or so, at least for me. Gameplay gets stale quickly either way.
"What do you mean a turn four Mountain Giant isn't good enough?!"
ALL my decks are creative. And they're fun as hell.
Are they good for ranked? I couldn't say. But i'm one of those who barely play ranked to begin with.
Big question: how do you know it is a net deck?
For example, I have always been a priest player. When BRM came out I started working on my own dragon priest deck, and with TGT it got even better. I have never modeled it after a net deck, but I am pretty sure my deck is nearly identical to a lot of dragon priest decks on this site and others. Why? Because the deck has a clear core set of cards: Northshire Cleric x 2; Dragon Whelp x 2; Wyrmrest Agent x 2; Twilight Guardian x 2; Azure Drake x 2; Blackwing Corrupter x 2; Holy Nova x 2; Ysera x 1. That's 15 cards you are going to see in pretty much every dragon priest. Then of course are the other really common includes: Chillmaw; Velen's Chose; Blackwing Technician; Dark Cultists, etc. You tend to see the variety in the three drop slot (technicians or cultists?); tech cards (Harrison; Mass Dispel, Lightbomb, etc); extra dragons (Chromagus; Nefarian; Dragonkin Sorceress); other value drops (Dr. Boom; Sylvanas). Personally, I run a slightly more mid-range with Darkbane, Dragonkin Sorcerers, and power word glories thrown in. I think this shift is a creative shift from the standard, but if you play me on ladder you may never see these creative choices if I don't draw/play the cards and may just think I am a net decker when I have been refining my deck all season and made it from scratch myself.
See thats the thing though, people use the term like its some sort of hate speech on here lmao, i see it alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the time. Like someone is less than them because they netdeck and they let them know it happily. Its just silly to me. And yea i understand what you mean, little difference really still a limited amount of decks, but itd take 12 or so compared to the 3. And as for the game getting stale i really feel you, im so happy im in legend because once i got there i was able to start experimenting with my own decks and having more fun than absolutely tryharding with the best decks out right now just to hit legend.
See thats another point too you get a 30 limit but theres just too many staples to get REALLY creative with some of these decks some times and its so common for people to make what is literally the same deck. Like if i wanna make a dragon priest ill go home and throw together a dragon priest, and if i play it ill probably be called a net decker because as usual its similar to the decks you see on here, all of the core cards are gonna be the same obviously.