Netdecking is looking up tournament-viable top-performing decks from the internet and copying the deck list.
Whether you’re studying a recent tournament-winner’s deck list, or Warren Buffet’s stock portfolio, imitating the interface of Amazon’s store front, or aiming at bankruptcy like Netflix, spying combined with reverse-engineering are the shortcut path to success in games, business and life. It’s not only valid, but highly advisable.
This blog post will introduce you to the idea of netdecking and expand upon its application to encompass additional aspects of life outside of just PvP card games. I had this epiphany over the necessity of writing about this, as I’ve been consumed for weeks playing the newly released Neostesia competitive card game.
Basically, look up what top people are playing and copy-paste their strategy. Test out in a simulated environment how the ideas work, so you can develop quick insights, then modify the concept to your specific needs with a few iterations.
Why do people copy ideas? Look up the numbers yourself, roughly 90% of everything novel fails. The extinction rate of any kind of deviation from the median average is gory. Be it a new deck, new product, business idea, boy band, or whatever, everything new has a tendency to burn in glorious fire. Similarly, of the new cards released in any new card game set, eventually only a handful are played, because a couple are more powerful than others in context of the metagame.
Yes, we are talking about card games, for the most part. Stay with me and I’ll expand your mind a little.
Netdecking is not just a gaming concept. Many companies, if not most, are reverse-engineering what other companies are doing. Entire business models get copied. My first game development gigs back in 2015 were to spy on top-selling eroge and write breakdowns; itemized lists with the number of assets, like how many sex scenes, number of backgrounds, hours of playtime, etc. It’s incredibly effective to just steal ideas and throw your own twist on them. Observe, everybody is doing it.
Now, we’re going to draw a far-out-there geopolitical parallel to illustrate this gaming concept.
The Chinese are notorious for stealing technologies. They’ve spent years spying and reverse-engineering what made the US-EU bloc supremely successful. Same thing you do when you look up what tournament players are playing; you reverse-engineer successful formulas. The Chinese have done this for decades, even bribing our politicians into quid-pro-quo deals, buying information. They are now catching up in global competition, thanks to treason among us. The Japanese also stole tech after losing World War 2, they just travelled to our countries, studied in our universities and sent their information back home to Japanese companies that reverse-engineered what we were doing. Asian countries have caught up quickly with the developed western world, in mere 100 years they’ve bridged their massive wealth gap with the US-EU bloc.
All the conservative BRICS countries, who understand that the domination of women is the foundation of nations, have been growing rapidly on all metrics these past decades, now surpassing G7 countries in GDP. Cuck nations are dying, patriarchies are thriving. Would be very sad, if it wasn’t a painfully predictable outcome of letting women vote.
You’ll want to start learning new languages, because English may not be dominant in the next 20 years.
Now, sexism aside, let’s get back to talking about competitive card games!
Netdecking is best defined by its opposite, which is coming up with your own model of execution. Creating a fresh competitive deck takes trial and error and theorycrafting, it’s the scientific process in effect. Because you can’t just theorycraft greatness in your little head, you have to play against other players and see what sticks.
If your deck is one mana (or other resource) short at some critical moment that comes up often against dominant decks, then your strategy is simply terrible. The cards available in the metagame set the limits for what is viable. As no deck plays in a vacuum, but against other decks, a single powerful card in popular use sets the pace for the entire meta. For your concept to succeed, it must be built within the framework of what other people are actually playing.
Trying to come up with an original competitive deck is also foolish when you factor in that the thought process of a top deck is probably done by a man 20 IQ points higher than you. Just accept that you’re not smart enough for originality. While you should develop ideas further, the basis of development must be rooted. Forgetting the roots is often a very bad idea.
If you are adamant about creating something fresh, you’ll want to collect feedback at the earliest convenience. Encourage people to criticize your ideas. You will get vibes. These vibes evoke imagination, you may even accidentally stumble upon a huge discovery. Your playstyle can be pioneering. The theoretical understanding can come later, after the idea is already widely adopted. This is how science often works; solutions are produced before they are understood.
When I was netdecking in Magic: The Gathering, I would visit websites where the card arts were up, then print them. Use a home printer and put the flimsy paper inside a deck shield with another Magic card. Then, see how the deck plays.
The iterative process of developing a new idea is lots of trial and error, writing up hypotheses, debating your ideas, spending funds and time to try out the ideas, and going back to the drawing board after failure.
If you’re a hentai artist for example, you have the understandable desire to develop a unique personalized style. But people just keep masturbating to cookie-cutter dot-nose bug-eyed anime girls, while you’re broke and sad. Because the anime style already went through decades of iterative optimization, it’s much easier to get commissions if you do basic anime.
The scientific method is a highly useful tool for discovering what is consistently true. But there’s another tool that gets you much faster results, but with the caveat of an imperfect understanding. That tool is intuition, and it’s a core complementary skill when reverse-engineering models of execution that you have not done the full thought process on. Instead of being slowed down from forcing your thinking on the straits of rational thinking, you follow a hunch.
You can shortcut to results by listening to your intuition, often more accurate than scientifically oriented westerners give it credit. Listen to your feelings, you know it to be true. My Red Starter rush deck is the path to greatness and respect.
Now, if copying ideas without any iterative process was a recipe for success, there’d be no pressure for evolution. But there is plenty incentive. Dominant decks get hard-countered. Markets get saturated with copycat products. Bitches grow bored hearing the same pickup lines. Thus the actual formula for success is using established, successful models as the base for further development. Just change something, give it your personal touch. Follow a hunch.
When you observe this carefully, there’s immense pressure to go one step beyond what everyone else is doing in games and in life. If you go two steps ahead, you’ll find yourself outside the Overton window, too advanced for your time. Being too far ahead the curve risks literal crucifixion. But being one step ahead, it’s risky, often advantageous and usually successful.
