This or That Magic: Net Decks or Home Brews?
Welcome back to This or That Magic, the series where we try to answer life's most important questions the best way we know how: with a game of Magic. This week, we're looking at one of the most contentious Magic-related questions: which is better, net decks or home brews? To find the answer to this question once and for all, Tomer will be the filthy casual representing the home brews, with a black-white deck featuring a bunch of family members (and some very Tomer-esque justifications for other cards), while I will be the big, bad net decker peeling his Mono-Green Spider off the web in hopes of crushing Tomer's dreams! Which deck will come out on top? Let's get to the video and find out!
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Discussion
So, there you have it: home brewing is the way to go. The matchup was weird. While I think Tomer's deck was more powerful than my Mono-Green Spiders, my deck just lined up very poorly against his, with most of my removal being enchantment based, which means Mother of Runes is super good against us. As such, we simply didn't have an answer for things like Teysa, Orzhov Scion (who apparently lives in church). While we came close to stealing game one on the back of Rhonas's Monument, it was hard for our deck to keep up once Tomer assembled all of his pieces.
Probably the best part of the entire match was the irony. While I was representing the net decks, my Mono-Green Spiders deck was very much a home brew. On the other hand, our home brewer Tomer pretty much net decked from an old episode of Budget Magic where we played WB Aristocrats in Modern. This means that the net-decking home brewer beat the home-brewing netdecker, which sounds pretty absurd.
From a more meta level, this absurdity is fitting, just like the entire debate over home brews or net decks. I like to play decks that I build, and I like to play other people's decks too. My theory is that you should play whatever is fun for you and makes you happy, and you shouldn't get caught up over where the deck comes from. If you love brewing your own decks, awesome; if you love playing other people's decks, awesome!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. We'll be back in a few weeks with another This or That Magic. In the meantime, make sure to let us know in the comments if you have some sweet ideas about other this-or-that questions we can answer with a game of Magic. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions as well. You can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive (and Tomer @BudgetCommander) or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
