Some Clarification on Netdecking
Posted on Wednesday, September 23, 2009
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So…as I sit here listening to “Pretty Woman” on my Aerosmith Playlist on Pandora, I decided to look at the thread about netdecking. The issue has been probably one of the most debated issues within the game. Well, I can say that I’ve never been more surprised by the judgmental and misrepresentation of ideas on the net decking thread. I think the idea of netdecking could use some clarification.
Netdecking is for a Purpose
If you think this purpose is winning…why sir you deserve a gold star. Of course that is the goal of the game after all, and I hate seeing this idea that winning is somehow wrong or bad. In the long run however, netdecking is done for different purposes that can lead to improving your game and winning more.
There are many reasons to netdeck, the first one is to get a basic list going for the deck you want to build. I feel that this is where pojo usually draws its line of what is “innocent” netdecking. The truth is that sometimes you just don’t know where to start, so why shouldn’t you start with what has had the best results for others? This just feels like it should be common sense for most people. After finding what works and what doesn’t for you, you can make adjustments to the deck accordingly to what works for you. For those who don’t understand this it is fairly simple.
What Works for Others-----What Works for you
Playtesting
Another reason to netdeck is that it can give you a basic structure for a deck type that you might see, and also gives you a standard to use in play testing. When play testing you should always ALWAYS vary what deck you are using and what you are playing against. Now unless you have an abundance of time, writing down your own list for every single top tier deck can be very time consuming, so you need to stick to the standard deck choices.
Need Something to Play
The last reason seems to be the one most associated with netdecking. That reason is just because you need something to play in a tournament so you decide that if it won for someone else then it might just work for you. The success of this varies from player to player depending on how much they play test. Of course if Little Johnny were to walk into a store with a deck he has played with once, then he is probably going to lose a lot more than Big Spike who has tested his netted version of a deck against every deck in the format.
This reason isn’t the worst reason to do it, but it has varied results due to testing. That is pretty much the same with anyone using any deck though.
The Misconceptions about Netdecking
The more and more I read, the more and more people seem to think that people who netdeck are this small group of players who are mindless zombies who just want to win so they go and find the best deck they can and play with it. Honestly, this is way too far from the truth. Granted there are a small number of people who netdeck, don’t play test, and just laugh at everyone else who is running another deck claiming that they will win because they copied the Canadian national champion. Yes these players do exist, these are what we call bad players.
The misconceptions involve but are not limited to these ideas. The first one being that theperson playing their original deck will know their deck better. True, you may know what cards you put into your deck, but the harsh reality is that play testing is what leads to this knowing of the deck. Players do not automatically gain the knowledge of how to make flawless plays because they built their deck, the same goes the guy netdecking as well.
The second misconception I’ve noticed is that the netecker is a free win, this is true, if your opponent is as bad as the person who came up with this notion. Where you got your deck from in no way affects how the match will go unless you haven’t play tested like you should have.
Another misconception is that it proves you have no idea how to build a deck. This isn’t true at all. If anything, it shows that you are competent enough to use your resources to try and produce the best results you want. Honestly, yu-gi-oh has little variance between its best decks anyway, so even if you did build your own version you would probably end up only 1 or 2 cards off of the netdecked version.
Netdecking is Needed
For there to be any form of competitive theory or ideas in this game netdecking is absolutely needed. As a player you need to know what the top tier decks are, how to play with them, and how to beat them. For this to happen you need to get base ideas and builds for decks somewhere.
Netdecking promotes a healthy environment for the competitive play of this game. It isn’t there for just a tool to decide what deck you are going to use in the next tournament. It is there as a tool for identifying a metagame and play testing as well. Without netdecking there really can’t be a defined metagame for this game, it is part of the reason why everyone has to wait for the first jump to see what’s good, and part of the reason why everyone wants to know what is winning regional events.
Not the Anti-Christ of the Game!!!
Players using decks they copied off of online are not evil, or in any way shape or form less skilled than anyone else. I feel like the people who say this are overestimating how much the deck plays a part in a person winning. The idea of netdecking promotes a healthy metagame, and an environment where you can pit your own idea against the ideas of a format and help you improve your own game. It isn’t evil, or immoral, that really is just the idealism of people who are frustrated that they can not get their deck to win, after all, it is easier to blame the deck, rather than the player.
Thanks for reading,
E.P.B.
Why Some Theme Decks Fail
Posted on Monday, September 21, 2009
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Okay to start off, I’ve dabbled in pretty much every game that’s out. Magic was my first game, Pokemon was my second, Yu-gi-oh my third, and so on and so on. Every game has certain deck types that just won’t cut it for competitive play, and I guess for today I’m going to be discussing those decks in yu-gi-oh.
To understand why something fails though, you must first understand why it is good. Lets look at Lightsworn for my first example. Here you have a deck that can play aggressively, thins the deck, benefits immensely from this thinning, has a searcher card, a draw card, multiple monsters that can control the battle phase, and a boss monster that fits in amazingly with the them. The same is said about Gladiator beasts, and blackwings, and X-sabers but for different reasons. Also to a lesser extent, the D-hero engine contains these as well. Right now, those are the theme decks that are good or show promise of being good.
Why Some Theme Decks Are Good
The decks all have synergy between their cards, as well as multiple effects that are singularly powerful within the theme and for what the theme is trying to accomplish (utility). One thing I’ve noticed players saying though for a theme to be good is that they need a set of cards, like a draw card for the theme, an incredibly broken boss monster, revival cards, etc. This isn’t necessarily true. Gladiator beasts for example contain no draw card (except for Respite, but that isn't used in top builds anyway), no mass destruction card (Guyzarus counts sort of, but you can look at the deck before they had that card for an example), the trick is synergy.
SYNERGY, is the key. Synergy is the potency your cards to generate advantage, when used together. Using Blackwings as an example, they have effects that all work together. Sirocco works best when used with other monsters, Black Whirlwind needs other cards to generate advantage, Icarus Attack generates field control for a deck that will probably overextend. The way the cards work together is what makes the deck good.
UTILITY is what makes those cards be worth playing. A card with high utility can be beneficial in multiple situations and have a low cost or requirement to activate them. Judgement Dragon for example, has an easy play requirement and is useful in practically any and every situation, as well as having a huge body even if you don’t activate it’s effect.
So Why Do Some Theme Decks Fail?
Some themes are just terrible. These themes are themes where their general basis and idea is just really bad. Themes coming to mind are Koa’ki Meiru, Spirits and Guardians. These themes are themes that base themselves on decent to bad effects, while eating up card advantage like a fat kid in a twinkie van. Granted, there are some borderline doable and decent themes in yu-gi-oh, for a theme to be this, the general basis and idea of the theme must be solid.
Believe it or not, some themes out there are not terrible by any means, Frogs, Fortune Ladies, plants, X-sabers (Plants and X-sabers are fairly borderline, but coming up will explain why they fall short) and Batteryman, can come to mind at this point. All of these decks have ways to generate advantage, have defined win conditions that are not terribly hard to pull off, and can even have good boss monsters (Industrial Strength comes to mine), so if these themes have all of these what necessarily makes them fail?
Again that answer comes down to synergy and utility. These decks are not top tier because they lack potency and support in areas that they are lacking, and the cards just don’t generally work well together or in stand alone context.
Using Short Circuit as an example. Short Circuit is a very powerful card, it can create OTK scenarios, give you card advantage, and dish out a good size amount of damage to the opponent. The problem is that the card does not have a very high utility. The card can only be played in a situation where there are 3 Batteryman monsters on the field.
When synergy comes to mind, a lot of lower tier decks can have quite a few powerful cards, but none of them work particularly well together. Take for example, Batteryman AA, he just doesn’t really do anything for the theme. Sure he provides it with its win condition but other than that he is a particularly useless monster. Even if you use him with Battery Charger you still just end up with a useless monster on the field that doesn’t generate any kind of advantage within the theme.
An even better example would be Industrial Strength. You have a monster with a very DaD-like effect, the problem is that he completely goes against what the theme is trying to do. Instead of a dump and revive tactic leading to an OTK, he does an dump and RFG…this is bad when most of the cards in the theme revolve around bringing them back from the graveyard. Again it’s a powerful card, but it just has too low of a synergy within the deck.
The Other Reason: Lack of Support
No, this isn’t about how every theme needs their own D-draw or Judgement Dragon, this is more about how some themes are just missing some very key elements.
X Sabers is the main example in this area. Here you have a deck that is based on swarming and discarding your opponent hand, has relatively good synergy and utility, and some powerful card effects, the problem is that there are just not enough cards to make the theme worth while. The deck partially requires loading the graveyard with X-saber monster, but really there are not enough X-sabers with good effects that makes this whole part of the strategy worth while.
This is also where a lot of decks fall flat. Where as Elemental Heroes problem would be synergy and utility, a deck like Frogs and X-sabers would be under lack of support. The decks just are lacking support in a certain area of the theme. Frogs feel like they are lacking good themed spell and trap support (although Froggy Forcefield is relatively badass).
Fewer decks fall into these categories then you think, but I suppose to fix the other two problems the deck would need more support. Granted under supported and GOOD support are two very different things.
So Where Do You Go From Here?
Sadly, a lot of these lower theme decks won’t get you anywhere in the long run in terms of competition. Playing with one can be fun as well as a learning experience, but there are a lot of times where you just think “Wow, if I only had a card like this in the theme, I could probably win!”
Theme decks are not all about broken cards (yes, they do help) because like Batteryman Industrial Strength shows us, even if your theme has its own Dark Armed, doesn’t mean it will be a good theme.
So if you decide to play with one of these themes, it doesn’t mean you can’t play competitively, it just means that your results might not be as great as other decks. When building the deck, try to build onto the decks strengths first and then cover the weaknesses as much as possible.
So to wrap things up, always play to win no matter what deck you use, and in the end you may just find a couple of surprises in certain “trash” themes.
So until next time…
E.P.B.
Not Your Real Article
Posted on Saturday, September 19, 2009
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Well, after some recent discussions on pojo, I feel like its necessary to post this. It is an article on the three different psychological profiles of gamers. It fits for MTG, and I assure you it fits for yu-gi-oh. So check it out.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr220b
Yes, I understand that it's very very old.
E.P.B.
Something to Lighten the Mood.
Posted on Thursday, September 10, 2009
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Funny conversation, pretty random for a blog post, but still.
E.P.B. Rambling about WoW Mini's:
Jason: and his base ABC's are the ones you should use too, which is convienant.
Jason: (sorry, I'm probably rambling about htings you have no idea what I'm talking about)
Jake: lol
Jake: yeah, tbh no idea
Jason: well its basically in basic english...: Translation: Pro pro pro pro pro pro pro pro pro pro pro pro pro pro pro pro. <----Make sense?
Jake: definitly
Improving your Yugiz 1 – Tactics vs. Strategy Part 1
Posted on Wednesday, September 9, 2009
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Hello everyone. I’m Jake – I originally cofounded this blog with Jason, but in the following weeks have completely abandoned it. I’ m trying to return to helping out when I can (sorry Jason) and will be writing this Improving your Yugiz section once a week (or trying to). So, enjoy, and hopefully improve your Yugiz!
So, today I’ll be talking about the difference between strategy and tactics. Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, here are my definitions:
Playing tactically: When you play tactically, you are playing for the short term. Maybe you’re aiming to gain some card advantage, or maybe your trying to take their lifepoints down a notch. Most of the plays the average player makes in Yu-Gi-Oh are, in my experience, tactical, designed to make their board position as good as it can get in the short term.
Playing strategically: When you play strategically, you are playing for the long term. The plays you make may not be optimal (you could have gained CA or LA by making a different play) but you are trying to set yourself up to have a favorable position later in the game.
The way I look at it is that tactical playing is what all the what do you do in this scenario puzzles (gameboy games, dumb pojo threads)encourage. These puzzles give you a game state, and ask what your move would be – you are disconnected from the game, as you are not really playing it, and try to find the play sequence that puts you in the best position at the end of the puzzle. In other words, big flashy plays that kill your opponent, or elegant plays designed to gain as much advantage as possible, these are tactical plays. Strategic plays are more subtle, designed to win the game in the end. How about an example.
Last format: Blackwings vs Lightsworn. BW player has a reasonable field and hand, BW Armor Master and 2 facedown s/t (Book of Moon and Bottomless Trap Hole) with a Kalut and Whirlwind in hand, while the LS player just has a full hand. The LS player summons Lumina and pitches a Garoth to special summon itself.
Should the BW player activate BTH?
Tactically, the answer is yes. Garoth hitting the field will yield the LS player more mills and possibly more cards, which puts you in a certainly worse situation.
Strategically, in my opinion, the answer is no. After playing the Lightsworn vs Blackwing match-up countless times last format, I realized that without BW having a killer hand, Judgment Dragon hitting the field is inevitable. Bottomless Trap Hole-ing a Judgment Dragon is much more important the Bottomless Trap Hole-ing a Garoth. In fact, in the BW-LS matchup, an unanswered JD is generally a game-ender. So saving the BTH for JD is strategically important.
Obviously, there are exceptions to this idea, depending on what the field and hand states are. If the BW player has a good chance of ending it before JD hits if he BTHs the Garoth, then that is probably the right move. Otherwise, saving it is probably right. (It gets complicated when you consider LS’s other main win condition, Celestia, so I’m leaving her out. The example is clearer this way, but if anyone is playing last format still…know that the existence of Celestia makes this decision harder. FYI, if you have Solemn, its better to Solemn Celestia and BTH JD.)
As I think I hinted at earlier, most yugioh players are more tactical. You will often hear players talking about the ‘best’ play – a concept that is generally tactical. While there is generally one play that is better than others, its much harder to find strategically than it is tactically, and when players talk about it, they generally mean tactically. Let’s face it, tactically, Yu-Gi-Oh is not such a complex game. With enough practice and experience, you can learn all the card interactions and rulings, and start to be able to maximize your resources with every play. This is where most average to good players are. To get better, you need to start realizing when you have to give up the most advantageous (best tactically) play for a play that is better in the long run (strategic plays).
So, how can you get better at strategic playing? Playtest! Play the different matchups (including the mirrors) and when a game ends, figure out what caused one deck to win. Keep playing, and figure out if you see a pattern in the winning game states. I bet you do. Start playing in a way that ensures that you get to that gamestate – that is strategic playing. In the earlier example, a pattern I saw in the BW vs LS matchup was that BW won more when they had answers to JD. Therefore, saving my JD answers benefited me strategically, and I started doing this more in the matchup.
OK, this is getting longish, so I’ll just continue this discussion to next time. What you can expect:
Next time: Exercises and examples!
The time after that: Strategy vs Tactics in deckbuilding
Before I leave, a quick discussion of Lightsworn. Now, Lightsworn have long been called a ‘sack’ or ‘autopilot’ deck. The main argument here is that LS takes very little skill to play.
The people who say this are right. Lightsworn takes very little skill to play.
Very little tactical skill that is.
Strategically, however, Lightsworn is one of the more complex decks out there. One of my friends has had a lot of success with LS over the last few formats, much more than me, even when we play the same build, and I’ve recently discovered why: he is a much more strategic player than I am. Timing is everything in LS: when to Honest, when to JD, when to Garoth, when to Aurkus (last format, the answer to this was simple: always), when to Gardna, and when to Celestia. It’s a little simplistic, but timing issues like this almost always boil down to strategy. The truth is, the answers to these questions are different for each matchup, and understanding your best route to victory for each matchup is critical. So, to sum up: stop calling Lightsworn a no-skill deck. It just takes a different kind of skill.
Moving Foreward....
Posted on Tuesday, September 8, 2009
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This blog has been pretty dead the past few weeks, in between college and stuff I've been pretty busy. Now this is the part that yu-gi-oh players may want to skip over, or read more closely, its really up to you. In my spare time I've been studying WoW minis extensively (spare time as in the past 3 days, last week was hell), since I have to take a break from my yugi locals I wanted a new game to look into.
From what I've read and my understanding so far, the game is really actiuon based. I was minorly (minorly)dissapointed with how bored position didn't affect the game so much. I say this because it seemed like the main ideawas to gain control over the victory point. I haven't seen too many of the other bored designs mind you so it could just be me.
The victory point is an interesting concept though, it basically ensures that the game will be one of action and not multiple turns sitting on your arse. I like this concept, since I enjoy my action in my games. Another game design I adore is the concept of time being a resource in the game. This idea was amazing, and well done. Even though it takes multiple turns to be able to use a character again you still get the feeling that game is steady paced, and once again, you're not sitting on your arse twittling your thumbs.
I also adore the sculpts on the minis. Its part of the reason why I wanted to play the game so much. They just look stunning, and nothing beats feeling like you're controlling your own mini army (they just look that good).
I also enjoy the extensiveness that comes into building your own party. I'm still a beginner on a lot of things to this game, but I still feel like I need to learn more about this. Granted from what I'm looking at so far I've been spendng hours studying whats good with what, there is a lot but thats a good thing.
Granted there are a few things with the game that I didn't like so much. The bases for the minutures are poor, and for a clumsy giant like myself its hard to turn the bases to the correct didgets, especially when the minis get in the way (Varimathras I'm looking at you...)
I don't like the price of boosters, but I hear most miniture games are expensive. The singles are relatively cheap, so it sometimes feel like I wouldn't make my money back from the boosters. The boosters do make up for the fact that you get a playable party out of each booster however, I feel like thats pretty cool.
The major problem is the player base. I haven't been to my local tournament (This saturday, wish me luck ;) )so I wouldnt know about it here but from what I understand is that this game is small. I would like it to be bigger...nao. That won't happen like that though.
I feel like although a majority of its player base are WoW players it seems like they wouldn't have time to pick up a minis game. I mean they already have the computer game and card game being shoved down their throats...Plus UD has been pretty dead since they lost Yugi, they just haven't advertised the game enough. Also it was a pretty terrible idea to schedule the minis events at the same time as the card game events. From what I heard at the major tournaments the WoW card game and minis game tournaments were both at the same time, which basically means that revenue was cut in half >.<;
So if anyone actually reads this blog, give WoW minis a try. Its a really great game and I've only heard good things about it.
Update
Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2009
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Its going to be a slow week since college has started. I'm going to try and post something this weekend.
~E.P.B.
