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Playing Magic is a voluntary action. That is, players play Magic to feel joy. The action furthers a purpose, for which achievement the mind activates; a mind without purpose does no work. Purpose further assumes responsibility – purpose without action is wasted – and action assumes control; purpose without the ability to act is futile. To forfeit control is to forfeit existence, because mind and body are mutually dependent. The person who needs a game to give joy, who demands to be given perfect formats, who chooses ignorance or ambiguity, who grants luck motive power, who prioritizes blame, who calls 'joy' 'corruption' and 'honor' 'non-fulfillment', is dying. The motive of life is joy, which is the reward for discovery and achievement of a valid (non-contradictory) purpose, the product of quantity and value (or potential value) of achievements consistent with a morality, where value is proportional to personal fulfillment – joy of creation exceeds appreciation; the joy of art is the cognitive or physical effort of interpretation. An object's value is dynamic and non-inherent: dependent upon use. Valuation of an object of art changes as interpretation changes, and valuation of a tool changes as its usefulness changes. Two fundamental actions exist: discovery and achievement, or innovation and perfection, or generation and reduction. These processes are mutually dependent, but must act separately. A non-existent object can't be perfected, and an unfiltered idea is trivial by default, but the processes of generation and reduction are opposed and require incompatible contexts. In Magic, innovation is the directed discovery of a format, deck, or play with potential, and perfection is the methodological refinement of the object until it works or its potential is refuted. Discovery functions in the contexts of preliminary testing and non-competitive casual, while perfection functions in the contexts of final testing and tournaments. Attempts to reconcile these contexts are disasters. A netdeck in non-competitive casual stifles exploration of new ideas; a preliminary or non-metagamed deck in a tournament rarely wins, and frustrates opponents by its dismissal of the tournament objective. In deckbuilding, the essential contexts are format and metagame. Format is the set of legal decks. Metagame is the set of played decks. Designing a deck for a format is innovation, while designing for a metagame is perfection. A metagame necessarily includes netdecks (exact or similar versions of known decks), because they define it. Prohibition of netdecking is practically impossible, but also undesirable; it inhibits joy. The anti-netdecking cause follows from either of two flawed assumptions and an incorrect definition. It assumes that innovation is the sole component of joy, or that the contexts of innovation and perfection are compatible. It defines 'creativity' as the desirable end, but creativity is the means of innovation and perfection which achieve joy. While the cause correctly attacks the practice of blindly accepting a deck – a choice of ignorance – its premise is flawed by a misunderstanding of joy.
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"Maggot
Carrier; good game." I smiled – proudly – to affirm my only win, as I pored
half-briskly through my teacher's decks, to see each and miss no use. At once, I
savored Magic – in fervent and perfect impatience. At once, I was defeated and
exalted by its infinite facility of discovery and perfection. I hastened to a
card shop, where – overwhelmed – I bought the cheapest packs from sets I'd never
heard of and left. Magic enthralled me; but quite nearly, it killed me.