There was a recent thread over on the Neutral Grounds forums about how Filipino MTG players often “netdeck” or use decklists off the internet. To anyone who starts playing MTG, the ability to build your own decks has always been one of the primary appeals. For this reason, every MTG player would like to think that they have in themselves some level of deckbuilding “skills” and that using netdecks should be treated as a loss of pride in one’s own work.
I don’t feel strongly about this issue; I’ve used both netdecks and my own homebrew designs in tournaments before. Checking my own stats (one advantage of this blog is that I have a record of every tournament I ever played): I have a 59% match win rate when using a netdeck, and 54% when using my own homebrew designs. There’s a statistically signficant difference, so I can’t claim that I am an awesome deck designer. (Maybe in the future.)
I think that netdecking makes more sense the less time you can dedicate to Magic. For people like me who barely have one hour a week to playtest before playing in tournaments, netdecking makes a lot of sense. Definitely, if you have the time and inclination to design and develop your own original decks, you should do so, especially since having a Filipino-designed deck taking the world stage would be a big source of pride to local Magic players.
But for people like me especially at times like these when I’m busy with work, if I try bringing a self-designed deck to a tournament with minimal preparation, usually disaster happens. For the time being, I should focus on learning the ins and outs of the known decks so that I can make less mistakes and choose a good deck to play in the coming GP Trials and Nationals Qualifiers.
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