Professor, I have to say, you have single handedly got me back into Magic! I played a bit in high school, but gave it up after moving away for college. I love your videos; they're informative and well put together. I also love how truly passionate you are about the game. It's infectious! Keep up the great work :)
I hate how so many people left these negative comments when they didn't even pay attention to what was said in the video... Completely agree with what was said and I feel it was very Advantageous to watch this. I feel this can cross over into other aspects of life as well and using data to help us when in need or are a beginner in a new hobby or activity.
7:05 Did this just turn into a life lesson? Whats that quote about intelligence being about understanding another persons thoughts without necessarily accepting them?
HEY! He reused the proxy footage from another of his videos! That's... actually a clever and efficient way to make multiple videos that involve similar subject matter... Kudos.
Sir, this is a very helpful tool. I'm not against looking at winning decks from tournies, I just never considered how helpful it would be in doing so. (: Thanks for the upload!
I am rather fond of tapped out. I like how they offer so many budget options for people like me who don't have hundreds of dollars to drop on their deck. They also offer scores for the decks provided by the community and a helpful comment section that can come in handy when you're looking for advice on what to sub out.
I'm actually currently looking for a semi decent substitute for ugin in my eldrazi deck. He's about to leave standard and I honestly don't know what I'm going to do then. His board wipe effect is just insane.
I have to say, watching your videos is always intriguing. It feels like I get to know you and your perspectives on things a little more each time. Thanks for the videos.
So many salty people in this comment section. In every format, there are good cards, and there are bad cards. That is the nature of TCGs. So by the game's very nature, there are optimal strategies, and there are sub-optimal strategies. Pro players spend an insane amount of hours building, testing, and tweaking decks in order to find the best strategies, the ones that will win the most consistently. Once found, these optimal strategies do not remain a secret past the first tournament in which they are used. They didn't back before the internet, they certainly don't now. So netdecks are known quantities for people who have more interest in playing the game than going through the hassle of building a deck from scratch. Some people aren't trying to make art -- they are end-users, not engineers. And if you Johnnies can't build decks that can beat known quantities, then that's on you, not the guy who is playing the game to win rather than make some sort of creative statement. Git gud. When you play a netdeck, you get to see a mastercraft is action. You learn what sort of deck-building decisions actually lead to success. And then, once you git gud, you can take that knowledge and apply it to your rogue brews. But for God's sake, stop moaning about netdecks. Some people are playing the game to win, not express themselves. When you forget that, you're playing a fundamentally different game than they are. And in a competitive environment, playing to win is all that matters.
After pulling a Pharika in a pack, I have fallen in love with Black/Green, using the constellation mechanic. After checking what the internet has been doing with this, I have built a deck which, which resembles a few of the decks I looked at, is still a homebrew which I made and tested myself. Netdecking both helped me create a deck which I like, and also be able to crush my friends with it! :)
Another way beginners can get help and learn the game is DOTP. It organizes the game and you learn how it works very quickly. I learned so much about my aura deck though Ajani's in DOTP 2014 and I think it helps learn what kind of decks there are.
I found Duels of The Planeswalker games to help me plus deck creation sites. I am truly against copying decks even though every deck is a copy of something. My game in casual has greatly improved with your site and others like it and also what I stated at the beginning.
Absolutely awesome vid. I especially love how you point out how homebrewing without knowing the metagame by reading deck lists is a disaster in the making. Its like Zac Hill said: if you have a deck and someone asks you "how do you handle and sideboard against the three biggest current matchups?" and you can't rattle off the answers in a steady clip, don't expect to win. Building a homebrew deck is awesome but doing so without knowing the current meta game is building in ignorance.
Wonderful video because of the wise and humble words describing the brewing process for *any* format. Objective consideration being the method, and expanding your adventure of information. I recommend Edhrec since he did not mention that, but did for TappedOut. Beyond this video, though, I must learn to consider Modern & Standard decks as an exclusive Commander player. The Professor has proven to me here they are valuable for improvement.
I took your advice and now im building my own type of jund monsters with red blue and green with blue taking the spot for black and keep these videos coming I love them
Rj Schaafsma to be fair I understand his point of view what's the fun of just copying someone else's deck I always love going through budget cards to find winning combos I just made a 40 dollar commander insect deck with mazirek and send a lot of people running from my crawling swarm
Very good video, thank you! In my city the metagame is full of Internet-based decks and it is shame how some players can't figure out how to use that awesome builds.
I also like play-testing the decks I make online on sites like untap.in and mtgdeckbuilder.net as a pre-proxy step to save on printer ink. It allows me to test the deck either solosanbox or against other players online (free!) and make modifications of cards I find don't have as much synergy in play as they do on paper. Cheers
I'd recommend anyone who hates netdecking to look into the Commander format. The metagame is a lot more loose and creative because of the multiplayer aspect. If someone rolls in with a cancerous deck, aggro decks will stomp on them, control decks will immobilize them, grouphug decks will incentivize people to kill them, and so on and so forth. It makes being stronger not necessarily a good thing, just a strategic option. Some people pretend to be mana flooded just to be ignored, in fact.
I definitely side more with the homebrew folks, the fun is in building and testing your own decks based on your own ideas (even if someone thought of the same thing before) it feels like its really yours
89 Homebrew decks on MTG vault! I agree with everything on this video, after so much deck building, the only thing I use these deck lists for is for getting basic ideas.
whenever I build a deck I look at every list I can find on the internet. I look at the cards that are played in the meta, and other card options that would fit that spot. More often than not I end up picking the one in the meta but sometimes choose what I like better. Overall, I use all these lists to help guide me in a general direction when i build my deck.
Many years ago when I first started playing I made a reanimator net deck. A carbon copy at first then changed it to focus on dragons, to this day it's my signature deck. I walked away from the game and I'm just now getting back in the dynamic of play has changed.
I started building my own deck (Can't stand the thought of playing a deck that's not built by myself) just few months ago when I got into Magic and It's been quite a journey. It's not in any way a high end competitive deck - at least I don't think so - as it's missing modern staple mana fixes etc. but I really enjoy the mechanics and gameplay elements in it. If you want to check it out, just google "StatiCaustic Assault" and you'll find the link to TappedOut right away. The whole idea of the deck started when I got my first cards (M14 Deck Builder's Toolkit) and It had two Izzet Staticasters in it. Loved the flavor and mechanics on that card and once I learned about Deathtouch, I just had to find a way to get my Staticasters some of that and build a deck around it.
Live and Don't Learn. That's pretty much been my philosophy, though not necessarily by choice. Do you happen to have a school of said thought that I can not attend?
Tolorian, you're probably the best MTG youtuber out there. Huge thanks for making these amazingly entertaining/interesting and helpful videos! Also, your voice is really...comforting? I dont know what word to describe it, but its very calm and enjoyable to listen to. Im planning to try to get my friend into magic, and I myself have been playing for only 2 weeks. Only found your channel a day ago tho :(
I used to be a competitive homebrew player. In one extended tournament I knew sligh was not going to be played since tempest just rotated out and so I busted out a $5 suicide black deck dark rit unholy strength onto a 2/2 flyer and win, duress win epic winning. I busted out a homebrew white weenie with blue splashed in extended I finished second both times. I ran a 9 land green before that and that was mostly net deck, good times (this deck was $10 at the time, epic winning).
I haven't even played MTG in a very long time, yet I am enjoying your videos so much, also some of these tips can also be used for YuGiOh, so thanks for producing a very informative video that is enjoyable to watch, don't play Magic, but I will hit subscribe anyway =)
i designed my own version of tron being unique splashed blue/black for the black preator and some removal.... someone copied it and bought it to test it for me... they went 8/0 wins/losses in their local standard :D
Barely. Most of his videos are of him ranting about how "magic is dying" or how "unbeatable" his decks are while playing Xmage against the AI. Also, Desolator is horrifically transphobic, and reddit has a whole host of threads against him.
The trick to homebrewing in competitive is understanding that you have to innovate a new net deck. In standard this is what happens everytime a new set comes out and it is really taxing in terms of money and time. In what is called modern now, I do not see homebrew doing well for a long time.
Net decking made my first modern deck a thousand times easier to build. I started with a basic modern burn, then slowly homebrewed it into a boros burn deck.
Netdecking..... This seems oddly familiar to me, not sure how....... I feel like I might of done it before once or twice, but not sure how or when........ :/
Yup, takes me several days to make each of the videos, not counting things like the crack a packs which take very little time at all (hence me throwing those up on Tuesdays, just for fun). Considering I have a full time job, a wife, a son, and also I like to sometimes actually sit down and PLAY Magic, one per week feels like the max I can handle right now.
Tolarian Community College My wife and I are about to have our second daughter (August 30th...just 10 days!), so I'm really impressed with your ability to handle a family, job and hobby. I can't seem to find a good balance for those things and usually just give up hobbies. Do you have any time management tips? Also, thank you for these videos! I really enjoy watching them when I can.
Juan Valdivia Congratulations! Wow, SECOND child? Well, whatever time you regained after having your first...there it goes. I only have one at the moment (1 year old) and I have NO time management tips for you. We are very lucky to have my mother-in-law living 5 minutes down the road from us, and to have a support group of dear friends who come over frequently, love our son, and play games with us into the night. As a college professor, I am also lucky to not have a 9-5 job. I teach 2-4 classes per week, depending on the semester, and so I am home a lot. My wife was able to request all online classes for her to teach this last year, so she's been able to work full time from home. But no, I can't offer you any tips that you don't already know. You've done this before. You could probably give me advice. Right now, I just want to get him into the next room and sleeping through the night. A man can dream...
Tolarian Community College Thank you :) We are pretty excited. And yeah, I know the first year or so will mean 0 or very, very limited time for any hobbies. I currently do have a fixed worked schedule (8:30-5:30), but that may change in the future. I do like the idea of having friends over, though. We haven't really done that, and I'm not sure why. Thanks for the response :) If I do find some sort of way to get things scheduled I'd be happy to share. I'm sure there are tons of gamers in similar situations, so the information might be useful. Heck, if any read this, any tips now are appreciated :) Thanks again!
Hey professor, I am a new magic player looking to get into Red/Green Tron. I love the premise of the deck, and greatly enjoy playing control. The price tag is pretty steep to get all at once though. Is there a site that shows decks with overlapping cards, so I can play something while I wait for a paycheck? Thanks for the video as well, the proxy technique helped me find out it was fun to play!
A deck made with only various rats (sewer rats, ruin rats, etc.), several copies of Fling, and proper amount of lands. Objective is to defeat your opponent via flinging rats.
Is there any possibility of maybe doing some sort of review of android apps for Magic? I'm a huge fan of M:tG Tracker for proxying up both netdecks and homebrews for playtesting. I have the paid version, and it's pretty fantastic. I prepared a very rough, unrefined review for it, if you're interested. I tend to just kinda get into flows sometimes (usually rants.) The search function is a basic gatherer search in an actually usable interface. It displays either the card face, or the oracle text, and a tcgplayer price ticker with either low mid high, or normal and foil mids. You can select to add a card you're searching for to the last deck you had open in the deckbuilding section. Ah, my favorite part! You can create decks, making a name, setting the format, and adding any card to a maindeck and sideboard (displayed in red if banned.) The interface of adding the cards is pretty convenient for me, because I'm pretty good with spelling, which lets the autocomplete guide me. Also because I'm insane with card names, once I see it I know it forever, so I can just open a new deck from my homescreen in 5 taps or so, then quickly start adding 6-12 cards to a deck as my mind buzzes with the tingle of homebrew excitement (modern tribal Humans coming soon to a local top8 near you! ...maybe. =c) In the main decklist menu it lists all your magic decks and displays the colors, name, and format, (dat oxford comma,) for you to look through. The playtesting function has having a couple of bugs (resetting hands if i tap view card then back out) and quality of life, (no option to send top library card to bottom, no vintage restricted checkmark on cards legality,) but is absolutely the best thing i have come across in terms of mobile device usability (looking at you tappedout.net.) It even has a life counter with history (poison too) that supports several players and has all the good stuff everyone else does, (most mediocre feature, still pretty good.) I reccomend you at least check it out if you use android, I find it very helpful in my day-to-day brewing. Also, that ended up being a little more in depth than I anticipated, I typed this from my phone and my thumbs are about to fall off.
Also, there is no way to cut, copy, or paste out of the youtube mobile app comments, nor is there any apparent way to save a draft or edit after posting.
going through your comments professor it is almost like a lot of people did not watch the video they saw the title netdecking and went apeshit crazy on how it should not be done because it hurts the game which might be true but like you said it should not be ruled out either as a source of ideas and data to research.
A good idea is take cards you have that you greatly enjoy or cards that you find interesting on a top tier deck and search them up on advanced gatherers search. gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Advanced.aspx Its unrealistic to say you may find something that will work better in Standard, but sometimes you will find something in modern, or a cheaper version of a card you want to run, for example if you look up Hero's downfall "destroy" "target" and "creature" then put black a color, you may find something like Bone splinters and find you may like that, or its price, more. It's only suggested for newer or more casual players, as if you want the most optimal card in your deck it was probably on the net deck to begin with, but it is still a good way to improve a deck without entirely going online.
For a Modern, EDH, Legacy player, software like Forge (it's free but in Beta state) is a nice tool to try out new decks. Unfortunately, new blocks and sets take some time to be implemented and not always all the cards are in the game. It's not a perfect tool, but it's really close to be it. Another sources are WOTC videogames, but the cards available are unlocked as you play and spend money (real one) on it, so you got to spend a lot of time to build something. It's another tool, maybe more suitable for standard players that Forge.
is there a site that can analyze the deck your using and maybe offer suggestions/replacements (i get people telling me but that maybe mostly 'opinion')
I've come to the conclusion that I'm not a creative enough person to brew anything interesting or good in Standard/Pioneer/Modern, so I'm more than happy to play something other people have at this point. Life's too short to be miserable playing Magic.
I went to mtgtop8 and looked up red deck win the first 3 links where all eldrazi with only like 1 mountain between the three of them. Kinda made me sad.
For your next videos, could you tune down the music, so that we can hear the narrator better? Background music can be nice, but in this case it's too much, too flashy. thank you
kews5 I do not use proxys, mostly me and my friends gather together and playtest the decks using computer software, like cockatrice and forge. Forge you can put your Decks vs a AI and see how to play and learn by trial and erro, cockatrice you can use it to play localy or online with your friends and see if they work how and why. So when the time comes you can make the choice of getting the cards and play them at your MTG store with other people with cofidence you not only like the deck but it is effective
Profeser, if I use one of the decks you have done a video on eg. Modern Collected Elves do I still need to go through all of the processes shown in this video?
My theory is you will likely notice the majority of your deck lost will always be considered as a netdeck because dry few people have their own deck so done else has likely thought of it
sigh i both like and hate net decking. frankly outside of turnys i think people should look down on netdecking and for one main reason. it has forced magic into this stiff meta game which is ruled by pay to win. all the best combo are being posted driving up the prices to insane rates. cards go form being 1.00 to 20-30 in a day just because the meta game switched use that card. frankly unless you welling to shell out over 100 + bucks your in for a world of hurt in all but the most casual of games. i used to have this black zombie deck was really kick ass not that strong but still decent. went to build it and thanks to the way net deck helps shops pick which cards to ramp up the prices on this deck i used ot have that cost about 50 bucks back when i had it is now over $200.
I'm personally a bit of a plagiarizer lol. I might lose to something really cool and I'll chat with the person about the deck, ask for a decklist or archetype if they're cool about it, if not google it or use mtggoldfish or tapped out, build a barebones version of the deck/print the deck, try it, and tweak it myself and bling it out if i think it's worthy. the end result is always quite different than what the internet says to do anyway after playtesting.
i dont have a problem with people modifying netdecks to their style, i mean i do that with comander cuz thats way expensive. however what i dont like is when people copy the deck card for card especially in tournaments. when i play magic i really just wanna play against your creation, if it doesnt win, then work on it till it does
Do you use any special program to print out proxies? I'm looking to playtest some homebrewed decks, but want to playtest them before I start spending money on them.
Override9636 Nah, I just copy the image from a site like magiccards.info, then past in in microsoft word when I can resize it and add several per page. Print it out in black and white, cut with scissors and proxy up. Some people make fancy proxies, in color and whatnot, but I feel thy are just for testing and practice and don't have top be pretty. If I am only doing 4-8 proxies in a deck, then I just use a marker on a land.
Tolarian Community College Thanks for the info! It might be even easier to make an Excel spreadsheet, with each cell at 240x336 pixels (2.5x3.5 inches), then just paste the card images in the cells and you wont worry about resizing.
Tolarian Community College search for magic bluebones proxy generator. the proxies get printed the same size as the cards. You can also copy-paste a decklist onto it super easily.
I hate that so many new players do nothing but play straight copies of the latest wining tournament deck. I get so much more pleasure from winning with something I created myself. I do feel that net decking has done a lot of damage to the fun of amateur competition. Since everyone is just playing the same 3 or 4 decks. Homebrew takes more skill. Even though it may put me at a disadvantage to those tons of net decking kids, its still much more fun that way. Id rather loose with a homebrew than win with a clone of something someone else made.
Just because you get more pleasure from that doesn't mean everyone will. And in what format are people playing the same 3 or 4 decks? Name me the format.
I think looking at lists is a good way to see what you will see on your opponents side. But the reason i think you should not do it to build your deck or choosing what you want to Play is that too many People do this and this leads to having a lot of decks that are the same and less People coming up with creative alternatives. That does not mean you should not consider this decks because you will Play against them but don`t copy ... "do it yourself"!!!
Honestly, i prefer to buy tons of cards at a time with intervals of a few months and make a deck then play with friends then after a bit scrap the deck and repeat the process
The salt in the comments is real. Guess what guys? Different people enjoy different things. Some people just aren't interested in building a deck from scratch, and there's nothing you can do to stop them from netdecking. Deal with it. The only wrong way to play Magic is to not play.
I dunno, some winning decks are very easy to play. Unless you're going weird like Dredge its generally not that hard to play non-combo decks from Modern/Legacy (Standard is very easy to play). Hell t once you understand the cantrips and counterspells (and interactions) a deck with blue isn't that bad; I ran and still do run reanimator and its relatively easy to play. Now if you want to fuck with someone tell them to play Elves cause Elves are common and well known so *looks* easy :P
Non-combo decks are still exceptionally difficult to play in legacy, as a single misuse of your mana, incorrect sequencing, or just telegraphing your hand-content, is usually enough to punish you severely, if not cost you the game.
boi, all these complaints about netdecking. Sure, I don't netdeck myself; but ultimately when you end up building an archetype and you progressively discover better cards for your deck, they are more and more likely to look like something closer to a netdeck and what point are you then going to do about it?
I hate paying so much money for my decks, going to a tournament and facing against some one with a deck that has been printed. I think it is so stupid and frustrating that game stores allow self printed decks to participate in tournaments where first place gets a large amount of money
if it is a local game store i doubt its that much money even though they should not be allowing that in the first place if you mean the bigger tournments those clearly would not have proxy decks allowed so i am not sure what in the world you are talking about.
At my local game store we had a tournament where the price was 250 dollars. Of course you had to pay 30 dollars to participate. The guy that won the 250 had a printed deck. That's what I'm talking about
Well whether you believe me or not I really don't care. It still happened to me, I haven't gone back to that game store seems and is why I try to only play draft
So I show the video to my wife. At 0:59 she laughs and says, "Is that what the internet looks like?" Thanks, honey, and yes. Yes it is.
Well when I jumped to 0:59 I laughed because I heard F**k this game.
hahahaah
It was like "welcome to the internet" meme! I laugh so hard xd
+Tolarian Community College Exactly my thought!
Professor, I have to say, you have single handedly got me back into Magic! I played a bit in high school, but gave it up after moving away for college. I love your videos; they're informative and well put together. I also love how truly passionate you are about the game. It's infectious! Keep up the great work :)
I hate how so many people left these negative comments when they didn't even pay attention to what was said in the video... Completely agree with what was said and I feel it was very Advantageous to watch this. I feel this can cross over into other aspects of life as well and using data to help us when in need or are a beginner in a new hobby or activity.
The card at 7:20 is a bit of life advice everyone should take to heart at all times.
7:05 Did this just turn into a life lesson? Whats that quote about intelligence being about understanding another persons thoughts without necessarily accepting them?
+fieldy409 Everything is a life lesson.
HEY! He reused the proxy footage from another of his videos! That's... actually a clever and efficient way to make multiple videos that involve similar subject matter... Kudos.
Are you saying he proxied his proxy footage???
Sir, this is a very helpful tool. I'm not against looking at winning decks from tournies, I just never considered how helpful it would be in doing so. (: Thanks for the upload!
I'm so glad you found it useful! Cheers!
I used your recommendation from your product review videos of buying an ultra pro play mat and Dragon shield Sleeves, and they are great! :)
I am rather fond of tapped out. I like how they offer so many budget options for people like me who don't have hundreds of dollars to drop on their deck. They also offer scores for the decks provided by the community and a helpful comment section that can come in handy when you're looking for advice on what to sub out.
I'm actually currently looking for a semi decent substitute for ugin in my eldrazi deck. He's about to leave standard and I honestly don't know what I'm going to do then. His board wipe effect is just insane.
+Jacob Kemp colorless for the most part. It's eldrazi.
+Andrew Frost The board wipe with Ugin is more than insane
I have to say, watching your videos is always intriguing. It feels like I get to know you and your perspectives on things a little more each time. Thanks for the videos.
So many salty people in this comment section. In every format, there are good cards, and there are bad cards. That is the nature of TCGs. So by the game's very nature, there are optimal strategies, and there are sub-optimal strategies. Pro players spend an insane amount of hours building, testing, and tweaking decks in order to find the best strategies, the ones that will win the most consistently. Once found, these optimal strategies do not remain a secret past the first tournament in which they are used. They didn't back before the internet, they certainly don't now.
So netdecks are known quantities for people who have more interest in playing the game than going through the hassle of building a deck from scratch. Some people aren't trying to make art -- they are end-users, not engineers. And if you Johnnies can't build decks that can beat known quantities, then that's on you, not the guy who is playing the game to win rather than make some sort of creative statement. Git gud. When you play a netdeck, you get to see a mastercraft is action. You learn what sort of deck-building decisions actually lead to success. And then, once you git gud, you can take that knowledge and apply it to your rogue brews.
But for God's sake, stop moaning about netdecks. Some people are playing the game to win, not express themselves. When you forget that, you're playing a fundamentally different game than they are. And in a competitive environment, playing to win is all that matters.
After pulling a Pharika in a pack, I have fallen in love with Black/Green, using the constellation mechanic. After checking what the internet has been doing with this, I have built a deck which, which resembles a few of the decks I looked at, is still a homebrew which I made and tested myself. Netdecking both helped me create a deck which I like, and also be able to crush my friends with it! :)
Another way beginners can get help and learn the game is DOTP. It organizes the game and you learn how it works very quickly. I learned so much about my aura deck though Ajani's in DOTP 2014 and I think it helps learn what kind of decks there are.
I found Duels of The Planeswalker games to help me plus deck creation sites. I am truly against copying decks even though every deck is a copy of something. My game in casual has greatly improved with your site and others like it and also what I stated at the beginning.
Absolutely awesome vid. I especially love how you point out how homebrewing without knowing the metagame by reading deck lists is a disaster in the making.
Its like Zac Hill said: if you have a deck and someone asks you "how do you handle and sideboard against the three biggest current matchups?" and you can't rattle off the answers in a steady clip, don't expect to win.
Building a homebrew deck is awesome but doing so without knowing the current meta game is building in ignorance.
Wonderful video because of the wise and humble words describing the brewing process for *any* format. Objective consideration being the method, and expanding your adventure of information. I recommend Edhrec since he did not mention that, but did for TappedOut. Beyond this video, though, I must learn to consider Modern & Standard decks as an exclusive Commander player. The Professor has proven to me here they are valuable for improvement.
I took your advice and now im building my own type of jund monsters with red blue and green with blue taking the spot for black and keep these videos coming I love them
What a great video. It is fantastic to have a resource like this to show to players. Well done and keep up the great work!
one of the most important videos for magic the gathering
Desolator is triggered
I can here the whines from here.
Rj Schaafsma to be fair I understand his point of view what's the fun of just copying someone else's deck I always love going through budget cards to find winning combos I just made a 40 dollar commander insect deck with mazirek and send a lot of people running from my crawling swarm
Rj Schaafsma IKR, I can hear him becoming a seething mess right now... 😅
I did not notice the date... AT ALL...
Try hard net-decking douche bags
This is quite possibly the most Informative video bout net decking . Well done
I'm really new to magic, and this vid (along with others) is a wealth of info. Thanks for the suggestions!
Very good video, thank you! In my city the metagame is full of Internet-based decks and it is shame how some players can't figure out how to use that awesome builds.
I also like play-testing the decks I make online on sites like untap.in and mtgdeckbuilder.net as a pre-proxy step to save on printer ink. It allows me to test the deck either solosanbox or against other players online (free!) and make modifications of cards I find don't have as much synergy in play as they do on paper. Cheers
I'd recommend anyone who hates netdecking to look into the Commander format. The metagame is a lot more loose and creative because of the multiplayer aspect. If someone rolls in with a cancerous deck, aggro decks will stomp on them, control decks will immobilize them, grouphug decks will incentivize people to kill them, and so on and so forth. It makes being stronger not necessarily a good thing, just a strategic option. Some people pretend to be mana flooded just to be ignored, in fact.
I definitely side more with the homebrew folks, the fun is in building and testing your own decks based on your own ideas (even if someone thought of the same thing before) it feels like its really yours
89 Homebrew decks on MTG vault! I agree with everything on this video, after so much deck building, the only thing I use these deck lists for is for getting basic ideas.
OMG I never thought of proxies!!! I feel so dumb now....
This helped thanks your one of first channels I go to for starting commander and other things too :)
whenever I build a deck I look at every list I can find on the internet. I look at the cards that are played in the meta, and other card options that would fit that spot. More often than not I end up picking the one in the meta but sometimes choose what I like better. Overall, I use all these lists to help guide me in a general direction when i build my deck.
Many years ago when I first started playing I made a reanimator net deck. A carbon copy at first then changed it to focus on dragons, to this day it's my signature deck. I walked away from the game and I'm just now getting back in the dynamic of play has changed.
I started building my own deck (Can't stand the thought of playing a deck that's not built by myself) just few months ago when I got into Magic and It's been quite a journey. It's not in any way a high end competitive deck - at least I don't think so - as it's missing modern staple mana fixes etc. but I really enjoy the mechanics and gameplay elements in it. If you want to check it out, just google "StatiCaustic Assault" and you'll find the link to TappedOut right away. The whole idea of the deck started when I got my first cards (M14 Deck Builder's Toolkit) and It had two Izzet Staticasters in it. Loved the flavor and mechanics on that card and once I learned about Deathtouch, I just had to find a way to get my Staticasters some of that and build a deck around it.
I would but that contradicts the motto of "live and don't learn." I am very stubborn when it comes to my deck building.
Live and Don't Learn. That's pretty much been my philosophy, though not necessarily by choice.
Do you happen to have a school of said thought that I can not attend?
Old Dude Remembers the 90s: Netdecking?! We only had Inquest then to check out the top decks.
Netdecking is like a citation in paper it is important to understand the information, but also put it into your own words.
Tolorian, you're probably the best MTG youtuber out there. Huge thanks for making these amazingly entertaining/interesting and helpful videos! Also, your voice is really...comforting? I dont know what word to describe it, but its very calm and enjoyable to listen to. Im planning to try to get my friend into magic, and I myself have been playing for only 2 weeks. Only found your channel a day ago tho :(
Great video as usual. TCC was my first channel i subscribe and it was years ago. Thanks Prof.
First but on a side note, very good and clear information! Love your videos!
and you reassured me when you talked about proxy decks and practice
This reminds me of the Master of the Internet comedy videos, though I doubt you meant it that way. Either way, thanks for the video.
I used to be a competitive homebrew player. In one extended tournament I knew sligh was not going to be played since tempest just rotated out and so I busted out a $5 suicide black deck dark rit unholy strength onto a 2/2 flyer and win, duress win epic winning. I busted out a homebrew white weenie with blue splashed in extended I finished second both times. I ran a 9 land green before that and that was mostly net deck, good times (this deck was $10 at the time, epic winning).
I like how every time I watch one of your videos, I ask the question: What even *IS* that word?!
7:17 Some very excellent general life advice.
Did you know Cockatrice? A app for play MTG with all the cards and free to test your decks?.
greetings from chile!
I haven't even played MTG in a very long time, yet I am enjoying your videos so much, also some of these tips can also be used for YuGiOh, so thanks for producing a very informative video that is enjoyable to watch, don't play Magic, but I will hit subscribe anyway =)
i designed my own version of tron being unique splashed blue/black for the black preator and some removal.... someone copied it and bought it to test it for me... they went 8/0 wins/losses in their local standard :D
meant modern* lol
Rip people
Des's reaction to this video would likely be the equivalent of charging a Note 7 without unplugging it...
yes, because he is just someone who rants as opposed to the professor who actually tries to give useful and balanced advice
LastOfUsClips he makes good points though
Barely. Most of his videos are of him ranting about how "magic is dying" or how "unbeatable" his decks are while playing Xmage against the AI. Also, Desolator is horrifically transphobic, and reddit has a whole host of threads against him.
LastOfUsClips SAVAGE!... and true
The trick to homebrewing in competitive is understanding that you have to innovate a new net deck. In standard this is what happens everytime a new set comes out and it is really taxing in terms of money and time. In what is called modern now, I do not see homebrew doing well for a long time.
Net decking made my first modern deck a thousand times easier to build. I started with a basic modern burn, then slowly homebrewed it into a boros burn deck.
Netdecking..... This seems oddly familiar to me, not sure how....... I feel like I might of done it before once or twice, but not sure how or when........ :/
Some of the best magic videos on youtube ! :)
Only problem is that i would wish you uploaded more but i guess takes time to make quality videos :)
Yup, takes me several days to make each of the videos, not counting things like the crack a packs which take very little time at all (hence me throwing those up on Tuesdays, just for fun). Considering I have a full time job, a wife, a son, and also I like to sometimes actually sit down and PLAY Magic, one per week feels like the max I can handle right now.
Tolarian Community College My wife and I are about to have our second daughter (August 30th...just 10 days!), so I'm really impressed with your ability to handle a family, job and hobby. I can't seem to find a good balance for those things and usually just give up hobbies. Do you have any time management tips?
Also, thank you for these videos! I really enjoy watching them when I can.
Juan Valdivia Congratulations! Wow, SECOND child? Well, whatever time you regained after having your first...there it goes. I only have one at the moment (1 year old) and I have NO time management tips for you. We are very lucky to have my mother-in-law living 5 minutes down the road from us, and to have a support group of dear friends who come over frequently, love our son, and play games with us into the night. As a college professor, I am also lucky to not have a 9-5 job. I teach 2-4 classes per week, depending on the semester, and so I am home a lot. My wife was able to request all online classes for her to teach this last year, so she's been able to work full time from home. But no, I can't offer you any tips that you don't already know. You've done this before. You could probably give me advice. Right now, I just want to get him into the next room and sleeping through the night. A man can dream...
Tolarian Community College Thank you :) We are pretty excited. And yeah, I know the first year or so will mean 0 or very, very limited time for any hobbies. I currently do have a fixed worked schedule (8:30-5:30), but that may change in the future. I do like the idea of having friends over, though. We haven't really done that, and I'm not sure why. Thanks for the response :) If I do find some sort of way to get things scheduled I'd be happy to share. I'm sure there are tons of gamers in similar situations, so the information might be useful. Heck, if any read this, any tips now are appreciated :) Thanks again!
TappedOut!!!
desolator's been triggered
Great video my friend
I did the exact plan before watching this video ;-D
but still thanks for sharing
Thank you for making your videos keep up the good work
What's the way to print the deck out like shown in the video? I like that idea and if I can print the whole deck like that in one go would be helpful
Great video!
Thanks!
Hey professor, I am a new magic player looking to get into Red/Green Tron. I love the premise of the deck, and greatly enjoy playing control. The price tag is pretty steep to get all at once though. Is there a site that shows decks with overlapping cards, so I can play something while I wait for a paycheck?
Thanks for the video as well, the proxy technique helped me find out it was fun to play!
would you recommend a program like magic workstation if your printer is sucky and do not have the money to buy a new one to print proxies.
A deck made with only various rats (sewer rats, ruin rats, etc.), several copies of Fling, and proper amount of lands. Objective is to defeat your opponent via flinging rats.
I'm making your merfolk deck as we speak. I guess that's the same as net-decking right?
Is there any possibility of maybe doing some sort of review of android apps for Magic? I'm a huge fan of M:tG Tracker for proxying up both netdecks and homebrews for playtesting. I have the paid version, and it's pretty fantastic. I prepared a very rough, unrefined review for it, if you're interested. I tend to just kinda get into flows sometimes (usually rants.)
The search function is a basic gatherer search in an actually usable interface. It displays either the card face, or the oracle text, and a tcgplayer price ticker with either low mid high, or normal and foil mids. You can select to add a card you're searching for to the last deck you had open in the deckbuilding section.
Ah, my favorite part! You can create decks, making a name, setting the format, and adding any card to a maindeck and sideboard (displayed in red if banned.) The interface of adding the cards is pretty convenient for me, because I'm pretty good with spelling, which lets the autocomplete guide me. Also because I'm insane with card names, once I see it I know it forever, so I can just open a new deck from my homescreen in 5 taps or so, then quickly start adding 6-12 cards to a deck as my mind buzzes with the tingle of homebrew excitement (modern tribal Humans coming soon to a local top8 near you! ...maybe. =c) In the main decklist menu it lists all your magic decks and displays the colors, name, and format, (dat oxford comma,) for you to look through.
The playtesting function has having a couple of bugs (resetting hands if i tap view card then back out) and quality of life, (no option to send top library card to bottom, no vintage restricted checkmark on cards legality,) but is absolutely the best thing i have come across in terms of mobile device usability (looking at you tappedout.net.)
It even has a life counter with history (poison too) that supports several players and has all the good stuff everyone else does, (most mediocre feature, still pretty good.)
I reccomend you at least check it out if you use android, I find it very helpful in my day-to-day brewing. Also, that ended up being a little more in depth than I anticipated, I typed this from my phone and my thumbs are about to fall off.
Also, there is no way to cut, copy, or paste out of the youtube mobile app comments, nor is there any apparent way to save a draft or edit after posting.
excellent work!!!
going through your comments professor it is almost like a lot of people did not watch the video they saw the title netdecking and went apeshit crazy on how it should not be done because it hurts the game which might be true but like you said it should not be ruled out either as a source of ideas and data to research.
A good idea is take cards you have that you greatly enjoy or cards that you find interesting on a top tier deck and search them up on advanced gatherers search. gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Advanced.aspx
Its unrealistic to say you may find something that will work better in Standard, but sometimes you will find something in modern, or a cheaper version of a card you want to run, for example if you look up Hero's downfall "destroy" "target" and "creature" then put black a color, you may find something like Bone splinters and find you may like that, or its price, more.
It's only suggested for newer or more casual players, as if you want the most optimal card in your deck it was probably on the net deck to begin with, but it is still a good way to improve a deck without entirely going online.
I'm making black white standard enchantment deck any suggestions
For a Modern, EDH, Legacy player, software like Forge (it's free but in Beta state) is a nice tool to try out new decks. Unfortunately, new blocks and sets take some time to be implemented and not always all the cards are in the game. It's not a perfect tool, but it's really close to be it.
Another sources are WOTC videogames, but the cards available are unlocked as you play and spend money (real one) on it, so you got to spend a lot of time to build something. It's another tool, maybe more suitable for standard players that Forge.
is there a site that can analyze the deck your using and maybe offer suggestions/replacements (i get people telling me but that maybe mostly 'opinion')
Xmage.de is a good place to test deck ideas
I've come to the conclusion that I'm not a creative enough person to brew anything interesting or good in Standard/Pioneer/Modern, so I'm more than happy to play something other people have at this point. Life's too short to be miserable playing Magic.
Very nice video.
I am making a Mono Black tron deck can I get some help as to witch cards might e good in it?
pretty sure desolator magic has some pretty strong opinions on this video
Earned a sub
I make proxies and test as well
I went to mtgtop8 and looked up red deck win the first 3 links where all eldrazi with only like 1 mountain between the three of them. Kinda made me sad.
I don't seem to be able to change the quantity of cards in my collection in mtggoldfish? Can someone lend me a hand?
Professor. What type of decks or archetypes would you say are not as popular, but can be powerful? Something like an "underdog" deck.
Nick Hannah Thanks a lot. I'll try it out.
For your next videos, could you tune down the music, so that we can hear the narrator better? Background music can be nice, but in this case it's too much, too flashy. thank you
Yes, absolutely. It is a little tricky to balance sometimes.
I know this is old video but i have one small question, do you use some program to print the proxies ( to be in same size like originals ) ?
kews5 I do not use proxys, mostly me and my friends gather together and playtest the decks using computer software, like cockatrice and forge.
Forge you can put your Decks vs a AI and see how to play and learn by trial and erro, cockatrice you can use it to play localy or online with your friends and see if they work how and why.
So when the time comes you can make the choice of getting the cards and play them at your MTG store with other people with cofidence you not only like the deck but it is effective
Profeser, if I use one of the decks you have done a video on eg. Modern Collected Elves do I still need to go through all of the processes shown in this video?
+Matthew Hookings Yes, his decks are not the final draft of a deck.
great vid
My theory is you will likely notice the majority of your deck lost will always be considered as a netdeck because dry few people have their own deck so done else has likely thought of it
sigh i both like and hate net decking. frankly outside of turnys i think people should look down on netdecking and for one main reason. it has forced magic into this stiff meta game which is ruled by pay to win. all the best combo are being posted driving up the prices to insane rates. cards go form being 1.00 to 20-30 in a day just because the meta game switched use that card. frankly unless you welling to shell out over 100 + bucks your in for a world of hurt in all but the most casual of games.
i used to have this black zombie deck was really kick ass not that strong but still decent. went to build it and thanks to the way net deck helps shops pick which cards to ramp up the prices on this deck i used ot have that cost about 50 bucks back when i had it is now over $200.
I'm personally a bit of a plagiarizer lol. I might lose to something really cool and I'll chat with the person about the deck, ask for a decklist or archetype if they're cool about it, if not google it or use mtggoldfish or tapped out, build a barebones version of the deck/print the deck, try it, and tweak it myself and bling it out if i think it's worthy. the end result is always quite different than what the internet says to do anyway after playtesting.
i dont have a problem with people modifying netdecks to their style, i mean i do that with comander cuz thats way expensive. however what i dont like is when people copy the deck card for card especially in tournaments. when i play magic i really just wanna play against your creation, if it doesnt win, then work on it till it does
Do you use any special program to print out proxies? I'm looking to playtest some homebrewed decks, but want to playtest them before I start spending money on them.
Override9636 Nah, I just copy the image from a site like magiccards.info, then past in in microsoft word when I can resize it and add several per page. Print it out in black and white, cut with scissors and proxy up. Some people make fancy proxies, in color and whatnot, but I feel thy are just for testing and practice and don't have top be pretty. If I am only doing 4-8 proxies in a deck, then I just use a marker on a land.
Tolarian Community College Thanks for the info! It might be even easier to make an Excel spreadsheet, with each cell at 240x336 pixels (2.5x3.5 inches), then just paste the card images in the cells and you wont worry about resizing.
Tolarian Community College search for magic bluebones proxy generator. the proxies get printed the same size as the cards. You can also copy-paste a decklist onto it super easily.
At 2:00 , a nice cup of BBQ sauce
Nah, it's espresso. Good old stock footage espresso.
I hate that so many new players do nothing but play straight copies of the latest wining tournament deck. I get so much more pleasure from winning with something I created myself. I do feel that net decking has done a lot of damage to the fun of amateur competition. Since everyone is just playing the same 3 or 4 decks. Homebrew takes more skill. Even though it may put me at a disadvantage to those tons of net decking kids, its still much more fun that way. Id rather loose with a homebrew than win with a clone of something someone else made.
Just because you get more pleasure from that doesn't mean everyone will.
And in what format are people playing the same 3 or 4 decks? Name me the format.
So, I can proxy the deck I need and go to FNM or a Grand Prix...
Youtben W. No. You can proxy a deck to test it out before you buy it.
Aww...
Youtben W. At a Grand Prix, I had a proxy card because I didn't receive it in time, and the judge thought it was okay.
Ray Maloney why would price make any difference? thats baloney
It was just a noble hiearch
How do i print the cards out
I think looking at lists is a good way to see what you will see on your opponents side. But the reason i think you should not do it to build your deck or choosing what you want to Play is that too many People do this and this leads to having a lot of decks that are the same and less People coming up with creative alternatives. That does not mean you should not consider this decks because you will Play against them but don`t copy ... "do it yourself"!!!
Honestly, i prefer to buy tons of cards at a time with intervals of a few months and make a deck then play with friends then after a bit scrap the deck and repeat the process
The salt in the comments is real.
Guess what guys? Different people enjoy different things. Some people just aren't interested in building a deck from scratch, and there's nothing you can do to stop them from netdecking. Deal with it.
The only wrong way to play Magic is to not play.
I dunno, some winning decks are very easy to play. Unless you're going weird like Dredge its generally not that hard to play non-combo decks from Modern/Legacy (Standard is very easy to play). Hell t once you understand the cantrips and counterspells (and interactions) a deck with blue isn't that bad; I ran and still do run reanimator and its relatively easy to play. Now if you want to fuck with someone tell them to play Elves cause Elves are common and well known so *looks* easy :P
Non-combo decks are still exceptionally difficult to play in legacy, as a single misuse of your mana, incorrect sequencing, or just telegraphing your hand-content, is usually enough to punish you severely, if not cost you the game.
boi, all these complaints about netdecking. Sure, I don't netdeck myself; but ultimately when you end up building an archetype and you progressively discover better cards for your deck, they are more and more likely to look like something closer to a netdeck and what point are you then going to do about it?
good vid👍
I hate paying so much money for my decks, going to a tournament and facing against some one with a deck that has been printed. I think it is so stupid and frustrating that game stores allow self printed decks to participate in tournaments where first place gets a large amount of money
if it is a local game store i doubt its that much money even though they should not be allowing that in the first place if you mean the bigger tournments those clearly would not have proxy decks allowed so i am not sure what in the world you are talking about.
At my local game store we had a tournament where the price was 250 dollars. Of course you had to pay 30 dollars to participate. The guy that won the 250 had a printed deck. That's what I'm talking about
Ed Knight i still really really doubt these facts if they did they should of lost the rights to host FNM
Well whether you believe me or not I really don't care. It still happened to me, I haven't gone back to that game store seems and is why I try to only play draft
Ed Knight report the store to WoC
"You can click on these images to be taken to the sites shown." **sigh** I miss Annotations