Hello readers, welcome to the Casual Zone! This is a foul mouthed Magic the Gathering blog that covers the culture of MTG, players, and EDH. So with introductions set aside, let me begin this week’s article by saying:

Get the fuck off your highhorse.

This might not be for to you, but often enough I’ve listened to a lot of scrubs in Magic who blame other players instead of spending that effort to “get good.” It’s either “Netdeckers are bad at magic. They only win because they copied Sam Black” or “Magic is pay-to-win. Scrubs only beat me by spending more money than me.”

So here’s number 1 of a 3-part series about scrub mentalities that keep shitty players shitty.

“He’s a shitty netdecker, he can’t build decks.”

The casual stigma against players with optimized competitive decks is real. Just when someone’s Modern Soratami Landfall aggro deck folds to a tier 2 deck, they grumble about how their opponent just copied someone else’s deck and is somehow inferior in the game.

“Did you build that yourself or did you copy it online?”

There’s a sliver of truth in the stigma against “netdeckers.” I’ve stomped a lot of players who “netdeck” with my homebrew Modern Human aggro deck. When it comes to sideboarding time, there is a clear division between an OK player, and a great player. I have met netdeckers who just don’t have the technical skill to pilot their deck at peak efficiency. But my deck folds to Jund. (Which means it sucks.) Choosing to be a special snowflake doesn’t change the metagame I’m playing in. I can put the “I’m Creative” sticker on my shirt all I want, but the sticker doesn’t give me “protection from decks that are actually good.”

“So which site did you copy that deck from? MTGTop8 or TappedOut?”

A lot of scrubs fail to realize “netdecking” can actually teach them better deckbuilding. “What? That doesn’t make sense.” It does, and here’s why: Playing netdecks tuned by competitive players shows what good decks look like.

I started out this hobby as a control player. I could build control decks all day and rock all my friends with them. But if they told me to build aggro I just couldn’t do it. Netdecking variations of Red Deck Wins and Naya Zoo allowed me to brew an aggro deck that is just as fast as Affinity. (Too bad it can’t beat Jund.) Being able to pilot and build aggro decks helps all my decision making when I’m being a douchebag with blue. And that couldn’t have happened as efficiently had I not been a dirty netdecker.

“Too bad this game is all about people copying decks online.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I am 100,000,000% in support for creative deckbuilding. I love homebrew decks! While being able to build creative decks is a great skill to have, playing a netdeck is not a crime. (Except playing Eldrazi, then that’s a crime. Don’t worry, justice will come.) Players who are netdecking might not have time to brew something from out of thin air. Or maybe they just want to smash face with tentacle monsters on turn 2.

If you feel this way about netdecking, then I want to tell you that hating on netdeckers won’t make you a better player. Facing the reality of metagames and understanding that your own deck probably won’t win against netdecks will make Magic much more easier to enjoy. That’s why the Against the Odds series is titled the way it is. The more you let go, the more fun you’ll have.

Because at the end of the day, Reality Smasher is still coming at your face for 5, and having special snowflake powers isn’t going to ban Eye of Ugin in time for game 2.

Wildly disagree? Have something to add? I welcome discussion over at the Reddit thread right here!