Locations
I am writing this Friday morning, October 22nd, 2010. If you go to check some decks on Deckcheck.net, well... it isn't there anymore. I'm pretty sure that this is some of the worst news for tournament Magic to date. I checked around this morning to see what people had to say about this, we've known it was going to happen for about a week now but no one else wrote about the loss of this site. It was perhaps the deepest and most vital sources of information for Magic on the Internet. I don't know if a single resource other than a major event organizing service or the DCI itself is more important to the tournament scene of Magic: the Gathering than Deckcheck.net was.
Since its inception in 2004, Deckcheck had been gaining a lot of momentum an a few years ago became the premier source to find deck lists for Legacy, Extended and Standard. The database was easy to search and had a wide number of sources to draw from. The interface was simple and clear enough for even casual players to utilize fully. I'm skeptical that there has been a single better tool for assisting to teach player the intermediate and advanced skills of not only deck building but of playing Magic. I've personally watched dozens of casual players move away from casual decks and begin netdecking decks off Deckcheck, tweaking those decks and eventually picking up a skill set needed to competently build their own competitive decks.
While I'm sure that the pains from loss of Deckcheck will not be permanent, it is going to take time for those wounds to heal. It took six years to develop the database, six years to develop the user base. How long will it take a replacement to even launch? I've heard rumors of a number of programmers and designers racing to fill the new void left by Deckcheck but the competition generated by those sources is going to fragment the data available and perhaps cause this hole to last for even longer... if anyone even releases a replacement.
I was hoping that this would actually just be a fluke of some sort, that the site would still be up when I went to check it this morning and EvilBernd would have a change of heart. This sadly did not pan out and the site was simply gone, replaced with a German 404 message. As nearly the only site that was willing and able to so coherently organize and display deck lists from tournaments around the world, Deckcheck.net's loss will be felt dearly.
It has been posted on ManaNation already, but I wanted to leave you with EvilBernd's closing words on the site:
A big "Thank you very very much!!" to all the players, TOs and judges who submitted decklists and who supported this site during its time being.
Yours truly, EvilBernd.
Rather than lament the loss of such a valuable resource, I've decided to contemplate those last words that he has left us with and consider fully what the loss of Deckcheck.net and the two incidents he's cited mean for the future of Magic. I'm not saying that this is the end times, by a long shot. But I'm left to wonder if the loss of Deckcheck will result in a Dark Ages for the spread of knowledge in the Magic community. Sure, Star City will continue to host data for their own tournaments and Wizards will post data from Grand Prixs, Pro Tours and their qualifiers and regional events but I'm sure that even non-Legacy players can appreciate the value of having easy access to those and even smaller tournaments in one location. I hope that something just as good comes along soon.
Oh, and if you just heard about Deckcheck, sorry – you missed out.
~Christopher Walton
im00pi at gmail for Electronic Mail
MasterShake on The Source
The loss of DeckCheck.net is indeed big, bigger than many people will realize. In searching for a replacement, I want to point people towards TappedOut.net's Top 8 section. It's currently under-utilized but the functionality is all there, ready for people to put to use. The registration wall will turn some people off, but it isn't a big hurdle to overcome. I highly recommend going to check it out. -- Trick
