So Net-Decking is a fragile topic, and is frowned upon by a lot of people, but what are your thoughts?
In my opinion I don't mind net decking, it gives less experienced players the chance to try out a deck that is known to be successfully from others, and allows them to get used to some of the synergies of a specific class. Also, Net-Decking helps out people who build decks, as often people will create that deck, test it and then provide their feedback.
On the flip side however, some people find that net decking can be slightly annoying when someone such as Reynad posts a video of a zoo deck, that he probably got from someone else, and the next day 1000 people are playing the exact same deck.
To conclude, I think net decking is useful for a lot of people such as deck builders and new players to the Hearthstone community, what are your thoughts?
What annoys me is that if you build a deck yourself, without ever looking at these over-used popular streamer decks, and it happens to contain a lot of the same cards - because choices are limited - you're accused of ripping it from somewhere! I've seen some of the streamers try claim every opponent is using their decks after they played one card!! Get a grip lads! :D
I have tried and tested a few of the well known decks, and hated playing them. I always end up swapping out half a dozen cards for ones I prefer, so in the end, it's not that deck at all.
I think half the fun of the game is building decks, if you only ever copy someone else's builds, you're not playing 'your' game. Use them as a template at best IMO
I agree with you on the fact that net decking will get you nowhere, you need to build desks yourself and see what works through trial and error. However I fell for new people net decking can be beneficial. Thanks for your thoughts
I don't see the point in net-decking, but I won't think less of a player for it. It just doesn't seem very entertaining to me to play this way. Figuring out a deck idea, and how it works (or why it fails) is way more fun.
Netdecking something like faceroll hunter really pointless. Yeah, you'll win, but you barely did anything to achieve that, with a copy-paste deck that might as well be run by a bot and still win. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but let's be honest, the skill-ceiling of faceroll hunter is pretty low.
I do see, however, why many people end up with similar decks, whether they're netdecking or not. There's simply not enough cards in the game to avoid recurring builds. The "Zoo deck" is just another reincarnation of former Warlock builds, the only thing that's really new about it would be Shieldbearer.
Token Druid? Not a new idea either, the class simply encourages it with cards like Savage Roar and Soul of the Forest (although that one's rarely used).
The point is that there is and there always be someone that knows the game better than you, knows how to build decks better than you, knows cards synergy better than you.
I usually find myself using online decks as templates and then swap in cards that I'm comfortable playing with.
For example, netdecking (to me) is what for a wow player is copying builds/rotations/priority lists/stats priority. Nothing wrong about it since theorycrafters and experts already worked on those.
I netdeck. I only play at most 5 games a day (or just enough to do the dailies). I net decked a pally hyper aggro deck that got to me rank 5 last season. I am still enjoying the game so far. Seriously though, with the number of users and so few cards, there can only be a limited number of unique decks.
I personally don't net deck, I think that part of what makes this game so fun is to build new decks yourself and test them out yourself. But lots of people have their own opinion on Net Decking, and everyone views it differently :)
My name is Martin, and I'm a netdecker. I netdeck my dailies. Whatever daily I have, I just look up the top rated deck on hearthpwn of the day for the class and play it. I netdeck my serious decks. I like to see a deck in action to understand how it works. I netdeck my fun decks, because some of them, I never would have thought of.
I don't netdeck my competitive decks though, since you can't netdeck if you really consider competitive play. You will always be a step behind those you netdecked from.
TL;DR: Netdecking is a good thing, just not the best thing.
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Please report toxic behaviour and unwanted threads, so the moderators can deal with them.
There's the game, then there's the stuff around the game. There's people that want to do what they want to do, then there's people that want to tell others what to do.
Realistically, that's life. The stuff outside the game itself provides an element of human drama, and increases interest in playing the game; that's business. It's not great having people telling you what to do, but without order, there's chaos. The best thing is to take things in moderation, and try not to get bent out of shape by people that want to do things in ways you wouldn't want them to.
Personally do I net-deck? Sure, why not. A scientist doesn't insist on reducing everything to first principles and doing all work personally; progress wouldn't be made that way. Instead a scientist uses (and hopefully credits) the work of other scientists; as Issac Newton wrote, "If I have seen further than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants" (or something to that effect). One of the benefits of being human is being a *social* animal, with language to communicate complex thoughts.
Am I a plagiarist because I'm using an alphabet, words, and language that I hadn't personally developed? Perhaps I am - but there's no denying that it's certainly practical, and although there may be negative consequences, I think those negative consequences are acceptable to myself and to others.
So what are the negative consequences of netdecking? The person that creates or popularizes a particular deck gains reputation, which translates into more viewers, more revenue, and possible additional commercial endorsements. As with all things, those things could be viewed negatively, but let's say whatever negative consequences are "acceptable". Then consider people that make use of netdecks. It's voluntary behavior (nobody *makes* you netdeck), so arguably any negative consequences are acceptable to those people too.
Then, consider the people that object to others' netdecking. Is it "wrong" that they object? Consider one person selling drugs to another person that operates heavy machinery. A bystander might not be directly involved, but would certainly have reason to object. Are objections to netdecking of that nature? Well, you could say that netdecking discourages original thought, and if that is true, it could be said that netdecking is harmful to the community. So objection isn't necessarily because people want to tell others what to do, perhaps it's "conscientious objection".
Now, you can see that there's a lot of ways to look at it, but at the end of this wall of text, what difference has it all really made to you personally? Probably you've already made up your mind about what you think is best for yourself, and best for others. So even in the light of (hopefully) reasoned discussion of both sides of the matter, if you haven't changed your mind, what positive end has been served?
This is why there *aren't* a lot of reasoned discussions, and so much flame bait, and people shooting off their mouths, on the internet. Because at the end, most people really don't care about reasoned discussion, and just want to get their own way; and on the internet, they're far less worried about negative consequences being attached to their real lives (outside the internet), and most people really realize that deep down.
Getting back to the OP - yeah, netdecking boosts you, no doubt about it. But you need to be on board with the current meta, and need to be able to think for yourself, if you really want to progress *in the game*.
But there's a lot of stuff outside the game that people often associate with "success" in Hearthstone that actually has little to do with the game itself. If you've got good packaging, you can be a roaring success on Twitch, even if you aren't really the best player. If you do your research and grind, you can even get really high on rank, where someone with a lot more talent and skill might simply not have the time to grind up to the top.
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If you see a post that you find objectionable, report it, it helps keep the forum clean. But be aware people are allowed a lot of latitude.
If you find my posts to be rude, objectionable, or whatever, well, I got tired of writing polite TL; DR (Too Long, Didn't Read) posts at crybaby whiners. So now I just make it short and nasty.
If you find that funny, well and good. If you find that sad, that's even better.
What annoys me is that if you build a deck yourself, without ever looking at these over-used popular streamer decks, and it happens to contain a lot of the same cards - because choices are limited - you're accused of ripping it from somewhere! I've seen some of the streamers try claim every opponent is using their decks after they played one card!! Get a grip lads! :D
Reynad is particularly bad about that, he's always playing against his decks, or so he would have you believe. Judging by his over inflated ego, he has invented every deck archetype in Hearthstone.
Nice opinion Aardvark, I appreciate the time and effort that you put into that post. I think you have a lot of valid points in there and some good analogies of net decking and the way people play.
It saves time. I'll tend to experiment with decks I find here, play eight or ten matches with them, and then start pulling out cards that just aren't working for me. Net decking is a start to crafting something more in line with your own playstyle. Some decks are strong enough that they don't need any tinkering (Reynad's Zoo Warlock or Hunter Rush), but man others can stand some tinkering.
And that tinkering helps you learn the game. You have to understand the game reasonably well to get success out of net decks. If you don't understand the game, you're not going to know how to play a deck effectively. You're not going to see the synergies that the creator intended. A deck on its own is not worth much, you have to know how to play it. Someone like Savjz could go 75% with some deck he created himself. Put that deck into the hands of someone else and they might struggle to hit a 50% win-rate.
It is perfectly okay to go online and look at popular decks, build them, and test them out. However, you should not rely on net decks as your means of playing the game. A competent player should be one that can build their own decks, using the knowledge they have of the game and the ideas they've seen from net decks.
I look at new decks for ideas. Things like equality + wild pyromancer, unleash the hounds + leeroy jenkins, etc. All of the decks that I actually use in hearthstone are built by me, and they tend to do very well. If i make something original or epic, I post it up here for other people to see!
Everyone talks about using a net deck and then tinkering it to your desire. In my opinion that isn't enough to say that the deck is your own... I view decks based on their card backbones. For example, if I have imp master, violet teacher and savage roar in a druid deck, It's obviously a token/roar deck, and every other card in it is just to help get these combos to work. Before the recent patch where secrets were no longer triggerable on your turn, I made a paladin deck with the backbone of 2x eye for an eye, 2x truesilver champion, 2x sword of justice, 1x blessed champion, 1x blessing of kings, 1x blessing of might and leeroy jenkins. The idea is to be able to create a 18 dmg leeroy jenkins on turn 10 as a finisher, or draw the game. The draw condition exists when you opponent has a high damage minion, because you can buff it to the skies, then trigger eye for an eye.
As a relatively new player, I look through other decks and watch their use to learn new combos and see what the meta is. Best way to learn what counters something is to use it and watch what screws you over IMHO.
I don't build other decks (mostly because I can't afford to), but try to see what strategies are used and then I try to replicate the general strategies with what I have.
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Unless explicitly stated, my posts are my opinion and mine only.
Using a homebrew of good cards that you didn't copy off any site won't get you past rank 10 UNLESS it's only 2 or 3 cards off of an existing meta deck. The card pool is small, no doubt about it, and choosing a single strategy (aggro, midrange or control) for any class will generally create the same deck in the same class (eg making a warlock aggro deck from scratch will look similar to zoo no matter how much of your own thought you put into it).
Once you have a solid homebrew and go online to find out how to make it better and compare strats, chance's are you'll find a similar deck that just won a tourney, and you're given the choice of either a)testing it out, realizing its better than yours and becoming a netdecker, or b)sticking to some odd philosophy about "originality" and continue hovering around rank 10 with your slightly weaker homebrew.
Obviously there are some people who get to legend with their own decks, but those people are either way above the average skill level or have the time to test and grind and finetune and perfect their deck to the point where it is the best possible version of a strategy for that class. And as the card pool grows we will obviously see more original decks, but netdecking should always exist because its silly to not use the experience of other players to benefit ourselves. Imagine if NASA had designed the Apollo rockets without looking at the Nazi successes and failures simply because the wanted to make it a "made in America" rocket.
Using someone else's deck feels awkward and doesn't "fit", like putting on someone else clothes.
One could argue that I haven't learned how to play the deck, which is half of it, but its also I don't WANT to. Example, in a rush deck I have a habit of making favorable trades instead of going for the face, which is generally not a good way to play since the rush lose steam quickly. Its like I NEED to play control.
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So Net-Decking is a fragile topic, and is frowned upon by a lot of people, but what are your thoughts?
In my opinion I don't mind net decking, it gives less experienced players the chance to try out a deck that is known to be successfully from others, and allows them to get used to some of the synergies of a specific class. Also, Net-Decking helps out people who build decks, as often people will create that deck, test it and then provide their feedback.
On the flip side however, some people find that net decking can be slightly annoying when someone such as Reynad posts a video of a zoo deck, that he probably got from someone else, and the next day 1000 people are playing the exact same deck.
To conclude, I think net decking is useful for a lot of people such as deck builders and new players to the Hearthstone community, what are your thoughts?
What annoys me is that if you build a deck yourself, without ever looking at these over-used popular streamer decks, and it happens to contain a lot of the same cards - because choices are limited - you're accused of ripping it from somewhere! I've seen some of the streamers try claim every opponent is using their decks after they played one card!! Get a grip lads! :D
I have tried and tested a few of the well known decks, and hated playing them. I always end up swapping out half a dozen cards for ones I prefer, so in the end, it's not that deck at all.
I think half the fun of the game is building decks, if you only ever copy someone else's builds, you're not playing 'your' game. Use them as a template at best IMO
I agree with you on the fact that net decking will get you nowhere, you need to build desks yourself and see what works through trial and error. However I fell for new people net decking can be beneficial. Thanks for your thoughts
I don't see the point in net-decking, but I won't think less of a player for it. It just doesn't seem very entertaining to me to play this way. Figuring out a deck idea, and how it works (or why it fails) is way more fun.
Netdecking something like faceroll hunter really pointless. Yeah, you'll win, but you barely did anything to achieve that, with a copy-paste deck that might as well be run by a bot and still win. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but let's be honest, the skill-ceiling of faceroll hunter is pretty low.
I do see, however, why many people end up with similar decks, whether they're netdecking or not. There's simply not enough cards in the game to avoid recurring builds. The "Zoo deck" is just another reincarnation of former Warlock builds, the only thing that's really new about it would be Shieldbearer.
Token Druid? Not a new idea either, the class simply encourages it with cards like Savage Roar and Soul of the Forest (although that one's rarely used).
The point is that there is and there always be someone that knows the game better than you, knows how to build decks better than you, knows cards synergy better than you.
I usually find myself using online decks as templates and then swap in cards that I'm comfortable playing with.
For example, netdecking (to me) is what for a wow player is copying builds/rotations/priority lists/stats priority. Nothing wrong about it since theorycrafters and experts already worked on those.
I netdeck. I only play at most 5 games a day (or just enough to do the dailies). I net decked a pally hyper aggro deck that got to me rank 5 last season. I am still enjoying the game so far. Seriously though, with the number of users and so few cards, there can only be a limited number of unique decks.
I personally don't net deck, I think that part of what makes this game so fun is to build new decks yourself and test them out yourself. But lots of people have their own opinion on Net Decking, and everyone views it differently :)
My name is Martin, and I'm a netdecker.
I netdeck my dailies. Whatever daily I have, I just look up the top rated deck on hearthpwn of the day for the class and play it.
I netdeck my serious decks. I like to see a deck in action to understand how it works.
I netdeck my fun decks, because some of them, I never would have thought of.
I don't netdeck my competitive decks though, since you can't netdeck if you really consider competitive play.
You will always be a step behind those you netdecked from.
TL;DR: Netdecking is a good thing, just not the best thing.
Please report toxic behaviour and unwanted threads, so the moderators can deal with them.
There's the game, then there's the stuff around the game. There's people that want to do what they want to do, then there's people that want to tell others what to do.
Realistically, that's life. The stuff outside the game itself provides an element of human drama, and increases interest in playing the game; that's business. It's not great having people telling you what to do, but without order, there's chaos. The best thing is to take things in moderation, and try not to get bent out of shape by people that want to do things in ways you wouldn't want them to.
Personally do I net-deck? Sure, why not. A scientist doesn't insist on reducing everything to first principles and doing all work personally; progress wouldn't be made that way. Instead a scientist uses (and hopefully credits) the work of other scientists; as Issac Newton wrote, "If I have seen further than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants" (or something to that effect). One of the benefits of being human is being a *social* animal, with language to communicate complex thoughts.
Am I a plagiarist because I'm using an alphabet, words, and language that I hadn't personally developed? Perhaps I am - but there's no denying that it's certainly practical, and although there may be negative consequences, I think those negative consequences are acceptable to myself and to others.
So what are the negative consequences of netdecking? The person that creates or popularizes a particular deck gains reputation, which translates into more viewers, more revenue, and possible additional commercial endorsements. As with all things, those things could be viewed negatively, but let's say whatever negative consequences are "acceptable". Then consider people that make use of netdecks. It's voluntary behavior (nobody *makes* you netdeck), so arguably any negative consequences are acceptable to those people too.
Then, consider the people that object to others' netdecking. Is it "wrong" that they object? Consider one person selling drugs to another person that operates heavy machinery. A bystander might not be directly involved, but would certainly have reason to object. Are objections to netdecking of that nature? Well, you could say that netdecking discourages original thought, and if that is true, it could be said that netdecking is harmful to the community. So objection isn't necessarily because people want to tell others what to do, perhaps it's "conscientious objection".
Now, you can see that there's a lot of ways to look at it, but at the end of this wall of text, what difference has it all really made to you personally? Probably you've already made up your mind about what you think is best for yourself, and best for others. So even in the light of (hopefully) reasoned discussion of both sides of the matter, if you haven't changed your mind, what positive end has been served?
This is why there *aren't* a lot of reasoned discussions, and so much flame bait, and people shooting off their mouths, on the internet. Because at the end, most people really don't care about reasoned discussion, and just want to get their own way; and on the internet, they're far less worried about negative consequences being attached to their real lives (outside the internet), and most people really realize that deep down.
Getting back to the OP - yeah, netdecking boosts you, no doubt about it. But you need to be on board with the current meta, and need to be able to think for yourself, if you really want to progress *in the game*.
But there's a lot of stuff outside the game that people often associate with "success" in Hearthstone that actually has little to do with the game itself. If you've got good packaging, you can be a roaring success on Twitch, even if you aren't really the best player. If you do your research and grind, you can even get really high on rank, where someone with a lot more talent and skill might simply not have the time to grind up to the top.
If you see a post that you find objectionable, report it, it helps keep the forum clean. But be aware people are allowed a lot of latitude.
If you find my posts to be rude, objectionable, or whatever, well, I got tired of writing polite TL; DR (Too Long, Didn't Read) posts at crybaby whiners. So now I just make it short and nasty.
If you find that funny, well and good. If you find that sad, that's even better.
Reynad is particularly bad about that, he's always playing against his decks, or so he would have you believe. Judging by his over inflated ego, he has invented every deck archetype in Hearthstone.
Poetic.
Nice opinion Aardvark, I appreciate the time and effort that you put into that post. I think you have a lot of valid points in there and some good analogies of net decking and the way people play.
As for my own opinion on net-decking ...
It saves time. I'll tend to experiment with decks I find here, play eight or ten matches with them, and then start pulling out cards that just aren't working for me. Net decking is a start to crafting something more in line with your own playstyle. Some decks are strong enough that they don't need any tinkering (Reynad's Zoo Warlock or Hunter Rush), but man others can stand some tinkering.
And that tinkering helps you learn the game. You have to understand the game reasonably well to get success out of net decks. If you don't understand the game, you're not going to know how to play a deck effectively. You're not going to see the synergies that the creator intended. A deck on its own is not worth much, you have to know how to play it. Someone like Savjz could go 75% with some deck he created himself. Put that deck into the hands of someone else and they might struggle to hit a 50% win-rate.
The deck is only half the battle to winning.
Poetic.
Here's my opinion on net decking:
It is perfectly okay to go online and look at popular decks, build them, and test them out. However, you should not rely on net decks as your means of playing the game. A competent player should be one that can build their own decks, using the knowledge they have of the game and the ideas they've seen from net decks.
I look at new decks for ideas. Things like equality + wild pyromancer, unleash the hounds + leeroy jenkins, etc. All of the decks that I actually use in hearthstone are built by me, and they tend to do very well. If i make something original or epic, I post it up here for other people to see!
Everyone talks about using a net deck and then tinkering it to your desire. In my opinion that isn't enough to say that the deck is your own... I view decks based on their card backbones. For example, if I have imp master, violet teacher and savage roar in a druid deck, It's obviously a token/roar deck, and every other card in it is just to help get these combos to work. Before the recent patch where secrets were no longer triggerable on your turn, I made a paladin deck with the backbone of 2x eye for an eye, 2x truesilver champion, 2x sword of justice, 1x blessed champion, 1x blessing of kings, 1x blessing of might and leeroy jenkins. The idea is to be able to create a 18 dmg leeroy jenkins on turn 10 as a finisher, or draw the game. The draw condition exists when you opponent has a high damage minion, because you can buff it to the skies, then trigger eye for an eye.
As a relatively new player, I look through other decks and watch their use to learn new combos and see what the meta is. Best way to learn what counters something is to use it and watch what screws you over IMHO.
I don't build other decks (mostly because I can't afford to), but try to see what strategies are used and then I try to replicate the general strategies with what I have.
Unless explicitly stated, my posts are my opinion and mine only.
Using a homebrew of good cards that you didn't copy off any site won't get you past rank 10 UNLESS it's only 2 or 3 cards off of an existing meta deck. The card pool is small, no doubt about it, and choosing a single strategy (aggro, midrange or control) for any class will generally create the same deck in the same class (eg making a warlock aggro deck from scratch will look similar to zoo no matter how much of your own thought you put into it).
Once you have a solid homebrew and go online to find out how to make it better and compare strats, chance's are you'll find a similar deck that just won a tourney, and you're given the choice of either a)testing it out, realizing its better than yours and becoming a netdecker, or b)sticking to some odd philosophy about "originality" and continue hovering around rank 10 with your slightly weaker homebrew.
Obviously there are some people who get to legend with their own decks, but those people are either way above the average skill level or have the time to test and grind and finetune and perfect their deck to the point where it is the best possible version of a strategy for that class. And as the card pool grows we will obviously see more original decks, but netdecking should always exist because its silly to not use the experience of other players to benefit ourselves. Imagine if NASA had designed the Apollo rockets without looking at the Nazi successes and failures simply because the wanted to make it a "made in America" rocket.
Using someone else's deck feels awkward and doesn't "fit", like putting on someone else clothes.
One could argue that I haven't learned how to play the deck, which is half of it, but its also I don't WANT to. Example, in a rush deck I have a habit of making favorable trades instead of going for the face, which is generally not a good way to play since the rush lose steam quickly. Its like I NEED to play control.