Netdecking Discussion [Why is everyone doing it?]

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alexmanelistu;n8108940 said:
I really feel the same. i played this game for witcher series. and i really wished to be different than hearthstone, if you played hearthstone you know that everyone is net decking. Also this game is better that hearthstone, were games which made me to think twice and in the end fill with satisfaction, but were few games.

1. At lack of card variety, your original deck may start to resemble a deck in the internet after you tweak it for effectiveness, that is sometimes unavoidable.

2. When you create a really good homebrew deck which provides a good win ratio...eventually it will become a part of the meta.

3. Most of the time original decks will not provide you the necessary punch to win. For some people the self-enhancement triggered by winning is the pinnacle of fun...and as species we are attracted towards effective methods, let it be card games or survival.

4. Compare netdeckers to gunslingers who can shoot you between two brows from 200 meters with a pistol. Do you need to be a gunmaker in order to enjoy the gun and kill others effectively?

I do not like netdecking as someone who plays dubious decks (such as Nilfgaard Weather or back when it was not very popular, self-mutilation) but it is more satisfying when you defeat those decks with your homemade deck. Like when they think you play a cookie-cutter John Calveit deck you drop on their head a weather effect or Ragh Nar Roog, it feels good.
 
Why do people net deck? Welcome to the online community.

On a more helpful note though, I think there are two main reasons people net deck.

1. It's easier to copy ideas and indeed whole decks than make your own deck. Not everyone is a competent deck builder, and I learned a lot from my mistakes deck building in HS. Deck building takes experience, experimentation, and most of all time, which not everyone has in abundance.
2. Your progression in this game is related to your winning rounds, so people want to make their decks as good as possible. This means focusing on one or two decks at most when you're starting up, and crafting is a committal process- you lose out on scraps if a card turns out to be worthless. Thus most people will beeline for netdecks or for example ask streamers what cards they should pick from kegs and incorporate into their decks. Finally, it's worth considering that the card pool isn't as big as it will be in the near future, which limits the number of archetypes that will be viable as of now.

These are inherent problems with a CCG: I don't think you'll ever get rid of them. That said, rank 15 play is very different from what you described, so the whole of ranked is not as homogeneous as you feel it is.
 
Nimraphel;n8109040 said:
Alright - you already have quite some cards for level (or rank?) 3. Henselt is definitely better simply because Foltest is... well, useless. Radovid is great as well. Anything but Foltest.

I would ditch Odrin. He is simply too little value for too much effort. For any Northern Realms player, getting Priscilla and Nenneke is essential! Those cards are ridiculously good, and resurrecting Priscilla with Nenneke/Shani can provide immense tempo and value.

You lack deck thinning furthermore. It is more important to thin your deck than making a ginormous 16 point cavalry for duplicating - since more often than not, they will eat a Geralt: Igni, Scorch, or weather. Reaver Hunters/Reaver Scouts can thin your deck. Kaedweni Siege Support is amazing - even in a row under weather, he provides 7 value. Swapping the Cavalry out for Ballista also makes you ignore the melee row - and actually allows you to tech Biting Frost into the deck, if you face a lot of Consume Monsters/Dwarf melee stacking. Obviously it's useless vs. weather monsters, but it can be powerful against a lot of other match-ups. And Ballistas can finish off key targets under weather.

Hope it helped :) NR can be powerful, but I would recommend incorporating ways to establish card advantage. Ciri (+ Roach) and Prince Stennis are widely used - and powerful Card Advantage generators.

Thx man, i already have nenneke, i must craft priscilla. you have a point,because i want to increase strength to an unit and i lose it from scorch or other things. i have 25 cards in deck now, but i try to follow your advise. can you give id from gog to add in friend list? i want to discuss more when game enters in open beta.
And i know that in high ranks net decking is not common, and i know you can inspire from net decking not abuse, but i face players which ussualy don t use their brain.
 
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I only play casual these days, purely because ranked is just the same decks over and over. Net Decking is the absolute bane of any card game, but there isn't exactly much you can do about it without shutting down any outside source that shows a decklist (the extent of variety is people running 2 or 3 Monsters Nest or something pointless like that). Even casual is mostly the same with people thinking playing Consume Monsters in everything is fun. Have some originality people, it's beta you are supposed to play with everything.
 
And thx everyone for explanation. I am enjoyed that in higher ranks people use their brain, i want to climb there but only with my deck.
 
alexmanelistu;n8109250 said:
Thx man, i already have nenneke, i must craft priscilla. you have a point,because i want to increase strength to an unit and i lose it from scorch or other things. i have 25 cards in deck now, but i try to follow your advise. can you give id from gog to add in friend list? i want to discuss more when game enters in open beta.
And i know that in high ranks net decking is not common, and i know you can inspire from net decking not abuse, but i face players which ussualy don t use their brain.

NEVER go above 25 cards! :) Not sure if I misunderstood you, but keep it at 25 always. And sure, you can add me. The ID is Nimraphel.
 
Well netdecking for new players should be encouraged as it gets them familiar with the cards and to see what works.

It can also be a guideline on what to craft.
New players REALLY shouldn't be crafting the odd epics like Frightener or Ogdrin when they could be crafting Shani or Caranthir.

There also not a lot of cards that work really well together so the core of most decks are the same.
Bronzes make up 60% of a deck which everyone has easy access to so the main variables are the Silver/Golds.
Most new players are going to craft the best epics as it makes the most sense.
 
The problem is, if you begin by semi net decking, it becomes habit and you will continue doing so as you get new cards You're automatically going to look up decks that make use of these new cards and it becomes a habitual cycle. Before you even realise, you will be playing and relying on straight up full net decks and you'll have learned nothing but how to play precisely like everyone else.
 
Cagey75;n8110380 said:
The problem is, if you begin by semi net decking, it becomes habit and you will continue doing so as you get new cards You're automatically going to look up decks that make use of these new cards and it becomes a habitual cycle. Before you even realise, you will be playing and relying on straight up full net decks and you'll have learned nothing but how to play precisely like everyone else.

any statistics on that...?
 
Oh jeez, this complaint again? Let people play the way they want to play. They aren't not having fun playing great decks they looked up simply because YOU can't have fun that way. Man, every game seems to have people complaining that others aren't playing the RIGHT way and they should change the way they have fun. What a tiring joke.
 
Opinion on netdecking?

Brief explanations to those who don't know word netdeck: Essentialy it's meta-deck. Just like in LoL where there are over 100 champions to choose from you mainly see the same champions every game.

I personally dislike netdecking on Gwent for these reasons:
1. It can get really boring to be forced using same tactic nearly every game as opponent deck will be nearly identical most of the time.
2. Gwent is on beta. Netdecking reduces feedback on cards CDPR could potentialy get that could improve the game alot.
3. There are 300+ cards to use in plenty of games. Right now I know that for example, monsters will spawn frost 24/7, Nilfgaard most likely have those 16 units (there might be 1-3 card difference) and so on.
4. Units in these decks are likely to be banned more than needed to break the netdeck.

These are purely my opinions and feel free to give positive opinions also if something good comes in mind.
 
Netdecking is love and hate.

It allows new players to find competive decks so they don't waste scraps on bad cards or build a bad deck.
On the other hand it removes deck creativity and funnels most players to run the same decks.

It helps beginner players while it helps killing diversity.

Keep in mind though that currently the game still needs to be balanced. And the current state of balance was atleast partially done on purpose to see how archtypes plays out.

Personally i prefer trying different decks out and see how they run, rather than going for those "top tier" decks. One reason i play casual and not ranked (where my ass, face and **** would be whooped, slapped and cut off repeatedly).
 
I hate myself when i am netdecking, i avoid it at all cots as much as i can...afford. So i use different combinations of cards to make a deck i am having fun with.

Talking in general though i think it's just inevitable for any CCG. Humans are wired to abuse and exploit but to also follow the most efficient road available to reach to success. In this case get more rewards/kegs. So we shouldn't expect anything less at this point, just be patient for more content and for them to address some issues and include more cards which will add variety.

Most of as had the same sentiment during OBT and we should acknowledge that it is too early atm. in OBT to expect anything more, for any CCG really.

Lastly, about your #2 point, even netdecking shows data analytics and stats to them, what is being used mostly, which card and why. Cards that are used less or not at all will get prolly a rework at some point and so on. Don't consider an absolute minus. You can consider it as such if Devs do nothing, which i doubt CPDR will ever be that.
 
The thing with netdecking is that there is so little cards in game, and some of them are below avarage, that even if you play your deck, it may end very similar to most popular atm.

Also if there exist hip deck which is good it will get netdecked at some point.
 
There has already been an uncountable number of threads regarding netdecking so that it certainly doesn't need another one.
I can only recommend you to read the following article as it perfectly describes the nature of ppl constantly complaining about netdecking:
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

Gwent in its core is a competitive game similar to Chess or a Beat' em up.
See, noone complains about the fact that professional / competitive players rely on the ever same Chess openings or Fight Moves. A competitive player tries to win and will use (in compliance with the rules) any mean to achieve his goal. This also includes netdecking which is a common thing in actually ANY CCG, be it Magic/Duelyst/Heathstone/you name it. That doesn't mean that you will not adapt the general concept of a deck to better match the meta (or give it your own 'flavor'), but it is almost certain that a better version of your 'built from scratch home-brew' already exists. If you are familiar with other competitive CCGs like Magic you will notice that true innovation mostly comes down to new variations of already existing archetype. Brand new designs (like Zac Elsik's Lantern Control) are the exception rather than the rule. Nevertheless, no competitive player complains about the great meta share of Death's Shadow or Mardu Vehicles (to stick with the Magic analogy).

TLDR: Netdecking is a fundamental part of competitive gameplay and only Scrubs/narrow-minded ppl tend to constantly complain about it. If its not your 'style' to adapt to that fact, you will most likely never achieve greatness in this or any similar game.
 
Netdecking is just a non-issue if you ask me. I mean, you play against a queensguard deck 5 times and then you can probably recreate it with an error margin of one or two cards. And considering how narrow the archetypes are in the game atm it's not like it would be impossible for a somewhat experienced card player to put together a very similar deck without even playing the game at all. The fact that some people went on a website to copy one version of a type of deck just means they circumvented playing the game for a few hours to see what people are playing, which is completely insignificant in the long run.
 
Ninschi;n8737950 said:
There has already been an uncountable number of threads regarding netdecking so that it certainly doesn't need another one.
I can only recommend you to read the following article as it perfectly describes the nature of ppl constantly complaining about netdecking:
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

I didn't read the article but you have to consider something. Netdecking is overwhelming for F2P accounts. If someone is complaining about it perhaps he/she is not a scrub but someone feeling overwhelmed. Here you can argue, "well, that's the nature of CCG's", which is true ofc. Just saying though, consider all angles.
 
Well, some archetypes do not have room for a lot of variation. I don't think you will find two vastly different Wild Hunt decks for instance. I have not netdecked my Wild Hunt deck, and yet I'm sure it's within two or three cards of any other Wild Hunt deck out there.
 
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