154 replies to this topic

[Einstein]

This topic came up to me recently in the YGO forums and I vehemently defended the idea that you should never use more than 40 cards in a Deck, and I wanted to back up that idea here.

The thesis of my point of view is that reducing the number of cards you have heightens the chances that you'll draw a card you need. Let's start with a very basic example. If you're running a deck based around "Exodia, the Forbidden One", how many cards would you ideally have in your deck to maximize your winning chances? Six. You would have one of each piece of Exodia, plus one other random card in there so that you don't lose the game in the first turn. Now, let's say someone told you that you had to have 10 cards in your deck. What cards would you add, if you could use any card and there were no limitations? You'd probably use 5 "Pot of Greed". That's because you want to draw more cards and increase the likelihood of drawing the five pieces of Exodia. If you had to have a 20 card Exodia deck, you'd use 10 copies of "Pot of Greed" and probably two copies of each piece of Exodia. And here, you see it would be basically impossible to lose, but that's so much more complicated than just running one of each piece and just one other random card. There's no reason to add in extra cards if you could do what you wanted with less cards.

Now, of course, there are real limitations on what kinds of cards you can use and how many copies of them you can use, so if you had to make a 20 card Exodia deck in the current Advanced Format, you'd maybe use cards like "Sangan", "Emissary of the Afterlife", etc. Or maybe "Pot of Avarice" and some cards to bring monsters back from the Graveyard. But you wouldn't be happy about this, because a guaranteed first-turn win is probably always better, isn't it?

There's no reason this logic can't be extended to deckbuilding in general. Some decks are based around a specific card; some are not. For instance, a "Cyber-Stein" OTK is based around getting "Cyber-Stein" out and summoning something like "Cyber End Dragon". So naturally, the main goal of the deck is to Summon "Cyber-Stein". Now as before, you would want to play this with only seven cards so you could just end the game first or second turn. If you had to make a 40 card deck, your idea would be to include as many cards as possible that would either help you search/Summon "Cyber-Stein", or defend it or increase your chances of pulling off the OTK. And, of course, there certainly are plenty of good cards you could use to help the theme. But if you had 80 cards in your Deck, you'd start to run out of good cards and your chances of drawing "Cyber-Stein" would be decreased dramatically.

Other decks aren't based around a specific tactic, but have a general strategy (for instance, a Warrior Toolbox deck) that involves using cards that work together to pull off a slower win. Now, why should we use only 40 cards in these? There's a couple reasons. The first is similar to the last point I made above. I'll use the Warrior Toolbox example because I've played the deck before. There are certainly 40 good cards you can use in a Warrior Toolbox deck, because there's lots of good Warrior Effect Monsters, plus all the 'requisite' monsters like "Spirit Reaper" or other generally good cards one would use. But if you had to make a 60 card Warrior Deck, the number of good Monsters you could use would start to slim out. You could start to go into previously used Warrior cards like "Blade Knight", "Marauding Captain", etc., but you wouldn't be happy about it because those cards are inferior to the newer cards that have since been released, and pretty soon you would start using outright mediocre cards. So one reason to minimize the number of cards is simply to use the best of the cards you have available. The second reason is a corollary to this. In theory, the 40 cards that you are using in a deck are the 40 best cards you could find for that deck (if not, you need to rebuild). This means that if you have 40 cards and add a 41st card, that 41st card is not as good as the other 40 cards. Is that such a bad thing? I would argue that in fact, it is. If you're in a tight spot, you want to draw the absolute best you can rely on. If your opponent has 3 monsters on the field and you've got no cards at all and 1000 LP, and you draw that second "Enemy Controller" you added, you're going to be slightly annoyed. There's a huge difference between how a deck looks on paper, and how it actually plays; while it may be nice to have two of a certain card because it protects your monsters or something like that, it may not always work to your advantage.

That last thing leads me on to something else. A lot of people, when defending 41 or 42 cards, will say something like "it's a lot more consistent" or "a lot more stable." I'm not particularly looking to offend anyone in this article, but that's simply stupid. There is no way that adding a card inferior to the 40 cards you're using could possibly make your Deck better. It is just logically impossible. If you're using that six card Exodia deck, does adding a "Sangan" to your Deck make it more consistent? No, you're going to decrease your chances of winning, even though "Sangan" is a really good card. Similarly, adding a card or two to a deck is actually decreasing the consistency, because assuming your Deck has the central idea of only a few different cards, like "Dark Armed Dragon", drawing the cards you actually need will be less likely because you added in other cards.

To go into the math a little bit, let's say you have a 40 card deck. If you have one "Cyber-Stein" in your Deck, the chances that you draw one in your first five cards is 12.5%, and the chances that you'll draw it in your first 10 turns is 37.5% (and of course, this is with normal drawing and no deck thinning). If you had 42 cards in your Deck, the chances of drawing "Cyber-Stein" in your opening hand is 12.1%, and the chances of drawing after the first 10 turns is 35.7%. This may not seem like a huge difference, but in a tournament where you play most likely more than 20 games of YGO, that can really add up.

To conclude, I'd just like to point out the logic of the situation. You wouldn't disagree that 6 cards is better for Exodia than 60, because the less cards you have, the greater your chances of drawing the cards you need. If you agree that's true, how can you possibly justify using 41 or 42 cards over 40?

tl;dr - 42 may be the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, but it's worse than 40 in YGO.

[Anonymoose]

What about 5th gadget?

[Aenema`]

Look at gadgets. 40 isn't all that great for them becasue you have more of a chance of drawing double gadgets, which is the last thing you wanna do. Esp if you aren't really experienced with them. I also know quite a few people who run Decks with 41 cards. It's perfectly fine. Reason being is that the game is so fast paced now with all the draw cards that 1 or 2 extra cards wouldn't hurt the deck much at all.

[Einstein]

Right, but my entire point is that there's no logical justification for adding them.

[Faint]

Eh, I generally use 41-44 cards, depending on the decktype. The only deck that I would run 40 cards in nowdays is Exodia ;(

[Aenema`]

Right, but my entire point is that there's no logical justification for adding them.[/b]

There isn't much justification for keeping Decks at 40, besides Exodia. >__>

[Einstein]

Didn't you read my article?

[Aenema`]

Didn't you read my article?[/b]

Yeah, but you're missing the point of my 1st post. There's so much draw power in the game right now that the extra 1 or 2 cards wouldn't hinder your Deck that much.

[Einstein]

The effect of draw power is essentially canceled out when you add more cards. You could thin your deck by playing "Pot of Avarice", but that doesn't really do anything when you're running 44 cards, compared to someone playing a 40 card deck without that.

[Aenema`]

The effect of draw power is essentially canceled out when you add more cards. You could thin your deck by playing "Pot of Avarice", but that doesn't really do anything when you're running 44 cards, compared to someone playing a 40 card deck without that.[/b]

Who uses Pot of Avarice anymore?

[Einstein]

I'm just giving an example (that happens to be a card I know about). When you add draw power to the deck (that isn't a raw +1 like "Pot of Greed"), your mindset is, "Well, this card should help me speed up the deck a little bit so that if I'm not getting the cards I need, I can get closer to the cards I do want by milling through the deck in some fashion." When you add extra cards so that you have more than 40, your mindset is, "Okay, I'm willing to slow the deck down so I can add more cards that I want to be able to use." Those two mindsets are pretty much contradictory.

[Aenema`]

Well, it's kinda hard not to tend to be as hard about adding extra cards to your deck when you have cards like:
-------------------------------------------
Destiny Hero-Disk Commander
Dark/1*
Warrior/Effect
When this card is Special Summoned from the Graveyard, Draw 2 cards.
(Limit Reverse *can be ran in 3s*, Monster Reborn, and Premtaure Burial can all accomplish this.)
---------------------------------------------
Allure of Darkness
Spell
Draw 2 cards, then remove a Dark Monster from your hand from play. If you can't, discard your hand.
---------------------------------------------
Trade-In
Spell
Discard 1 level 8 monster. Draw 2 cards.
----------------------------------------------
D-Draw
Spell
Discard 1 "Destiny Hero" monster from your hand. Draw 2 Cards.
-----------------------------------------------
Hand Destruction
Spell-Quickplay
You and your opponent discards 2 cards, then both you and your opponent draw 2 cards.
-----------------------------------------------
Card Trooper
3*/Earth
Machine/Efffect
Once per turn send up to 3 cards from your Deck to the graveyard. This card gains 500 atk for each card sent to the graveyard this way. When this card is destroyed and sent to the graveyard, Draw 1 card.
----------------------------------------
There's just too many draw options out there that are ran in most Decks to not warrant being able to run more than 40 cards.
And don't forget your Deck thinners like:
Reinforcement of the Army
Sangan
Foolish Burial(Send 1 card from your Deck and send it to the graveyard.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elemental Hero Stratos
4*/Wind
Warrior/Effect
When this card is normal summoned or special summoned, you can select and activate of of the following effects:
1)Destroy Spell or Trap Cards on the field up to the number of "Elemental Hero" and "Destiny Hero" monster you control (excluding this card).
2)Select and add 1 "Elemental Hero" or "Destiny Hero" Monster from your Deck to your Hand.
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[Rice]

40 all day every day.

anything else is just bad.

[Aenema`]

40 all day every day.

anything else is just bad.[/b]

I feel that both of you are just so misguided. =\

[Einstein]

I think it's the other way around, you haven't given me a logical justification why more than 40 cards should be used, and I've given you several logical reasons why more than 40 cards shouldn't be used.

[Aenema`]

Well, the proof is in my last post on this topic. There's just too many cards that can be used to thin out your Deck, so adding those extra 2 cards that can help you in the long run just don't seem to be that much of a difference. But this whole topic boils down to a player's personal preference, anyways.

[Einstein]

You haven't really responded to the fact that adding deck thinning is useless when you're intentionally doing the opposite by adding more cards to your deck.

[Aenema`]

When 12 Cards in your Deck are draw cards and you have 3-6 Thinners, 2 extra cards won't matter, imh.

[Einstein]

I agree with you to an extent. It's not the end of the world if you're playing 42 cards - you saw the math at the end, it's only a 1.8% difference, and that probably falls well into the error bars for mistakes people make while playing anyway. However, when two very good players duel, every little advantage counts. Whoever more effectively controls the little differences will more probably be the winner. Things like having 41 cards while your opponent has 40 cards, having a less than adequate Side Deck, having a Fusion Deck with only 9 Fusions in it (if you run Fusion cards), these are all things that aren't game-ending, but put together they add up.

Let us conduct a little thought experiment. Would you play 60 cards? Why or why not?

[Aenema`]

I agree with you to an extent. It's not the end of the world if you're playing 42 cards - you saw the math at the end, it's only a 1.8% difference, and that probably falls well into the error bars for mistakes people make while playing anyway. However, when two very good players duel, every little advantage counts. Whoever more effectively controls the little differences will more probably be the winner. Things like having 41 cards while your opponent has 40 cards, having a less than adequate Side Deck, having a Fusion Deck with only 9 Fusions in it (if you run Fusion cards), these are all things that aren't game-ending, but put together they add up.

Let us conduct a little thought experiment. Would you play 60 cards? Why or why not?[/b]

Yeah. I get where you're coming from. On the 60 card thing? Hell no. You couldn't pay me to play a 60 card deck.