[Achilles]

40 or death.

[Einstein]

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

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.
[/b]

Alright, would you play a 50 card deck?

[Aenema`]

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

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.
[/b]

Alright, would you play a 50 card deck?
[/b]

No... >__> Is this going anywhere?

[tarshark]

Depending on the deck, 40 cards isn't bad. 40 can indeed be better, but not always, and 41 never particularly hurts. If you did the math, you'll realize that the difference in probability of drawing a single particular card in your deck is measured in tenths of a percent.

[Darthkuriboh]

The decktype your running determines how many cards you use. If you're using say.. a dark deck, then with Allures and Ddraws, stratos, disk commander and dark grepher, you're looking at 10 cards that can very easily thin your deck. If you play DMoC (and if you don't in a dark deck, you're awful), then that number jumps a LOT with the ability to use monster reborn and premature burial on either it or disk commander. so for a safe bet you can say 42-44 cards is okay for that deck (I run a 44 card deck right now that's VERY consistant and I don't even own DDraws or allures). For a deck like gadgets, if you want to run 5th gadget (which is partly inconsistant due to multi gadget draws) you can thin your deck out marvelously with each gadget. Which is, of course, the point of Gadgets. However, I fully recommend card trader (which I've ran with excellent success) to even out the gadget hand and make yours a bit better. 5th Gadget is ALWAYS 45 cards, because it packs a ton of 1-1 removal, as well as slow and steady advantage with gadgets.

I'd say 40 is a good number if you run a lot of non-tribute stuff, but if you run more than 4 big monsters, you need to run more than 40 cards to keep your hand from being filled with huge dead draws.

[Phaetion]

I abide to what you said...but what about a deck as dangerously fast as Dark World? I have a 40-card DW deck on me, and on occasion, i would be less than 5 cards left.

What is your say on a really fast DW deck?

[Saruno]

The chances of drawing 1 card out of 40 is usually 1/40 or 2.5% chance of drawing a card you need

now if you run lets say 41 cards which is the normal over limit for most decks is 1/41 or 2.44% chance of drawing the needed card.

Now between them is not that much differences until you get to like 44 cards which 1/44 or 2.2% chance of drawing a certain card in your deck

Idealy for most decks you want to stay 40 - 41.

[Anonymoose]

I think there was a guy named Fili Luna who won a jump as a "screw you" to this article. I could be wrong on the name. I agree that 40 cards is the optimum deck number, except in the case of fifth gadget (which is hardly ever ran anymore), but 1 or 2 extra cards isn't going to screw the deck over.

That being said, when you limit yourself to 40 cards, you tend to have to make wiser decisions because the deck space is precious. 40 cards tends to be enough if you know what you're doing and can tweak your deck to your preferences.

[Darthkuriboh]

I abide to what you said...but what about a deck as dangerously fast as Dark World? I have a 40-card DW deck on me, and on occasion, i would be less than 5 cards left.

What is your say on a really fast DW deck?[/b]

how many DWL's and DWD do you run?

[Nomad]

Sure, having 40 is pro seeing as there's way too little of a chance to deck out. There's also thinning and deck movement to think about... But sometimes in order to fuel a straregy, you need the deck to be at 42. My insect deck is a prime example of this. In order to make it 40, I'd need to lose 2 cards with I cannot do. Because the deck uses The Ultimate Insect monsters, plus like 8 field searchers... Self thinning isn't a problem.

[Phaetion]

3 of each, as well as 3 Broww, 2 COSR (looking for a third), Morphing Jar, Card Destruction...and a few others

[Einstein]

[quote][quote] <{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/quote][quote][quote]

0

• Back to top of the page up there ^

[Black Hayato]

40 is sechs.

[Darthkuriboh]

3 of each, as well as 3 Broww, 2 COSR (looking for a third), Morphing Jar, Card Destruction...and a few others[/b]

and I'm assuming you're also maining 3 solemns as well. Sounds to me like you're running good on your deck to be honest. Keep it as it is

[Aenema`]

50 is just way too much. =\

[Einstein]

50 is just way too much. =\[/b]

Would you run a 20 card deck if you could?

[Aenema`]

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

50 is just way too much. =\[/b]

Would you run a 20 card deck if you could?
[/b]

If the starting lifepoint count was minimized to like 2000 or 3000, yes.

[Darthkuriboh]

50 is just way too much. =\[/b]

I disagree. Since Konami flatly refuses to stop making broken generically splashable cards, raising the deck minimum to 50 might be the only way to balance out the game and slow it down a few degrees.

[Cybernetic Champion]

50 is just way too much. =\[/b]

It can be or it can't be depending on what deck you use. For example I used a 57 card deck and won a tournament with it. Of course iT did have lots of cards to draw cards. In some deck's such as an anti-mill deck you would use more, if you knew that most of your opponents played a mill deck.

[Fresh]

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.[/b]

I argee with you all the way