Is over 40 decks really that bad

[Thomas★Zero]

This is more so a topic on asking if you would use a 50 card deck aswell as how to play it wisely with the use of 10 more cards at your arsenal.

 

most common support in this would be something like...

 

Pot of Duality

Pot of Avrice

Hand Destruction

Morphing Jar

Magical Merchant

Ryko

Card Trooper

Formula Synchron

 

and many other of cards.

 

with over 40 card decks some of the main aspects to possibly see in this is to the fact of using the drawing, RFP and graveyard to an advantage in your duels.

 

For some examples of these their are...

 

Elemental Heros - they have the use of miracle fusion which by using such combos as Vision Hero Trinity with Future Fusion it ilaberates into a combo for a Miracle Fusion Engine.

 

Lightsworn - Their effects mill into your decks at rapid rates when in swarms allowing you to use the effects of cards related to their arch-type aswell as speeding the process of summoning Judgement dragons to your side of the feild.

 

Dark Alternates - these sorts of monsters need to have a large number of Dark monsters in the grave to be summoned and can be used with The Begining of the end when a large number of dark monsters are in your graveyard to let you draw 3 cards.

 

Sure big decks may have the disadvantage of chances of drawing certain cards but if you can figure out a method of labirating some useful draw combinations your deck will still be as good as it would of been if it were at 40

[Legend Zero]

We try to get our decks to go as fast as possible even with 40....so 50 would only hinder the process.

[-Berserker-]

Shadow Ghoul decks work better with more monsters...

[Yeezus]

TC doesn't understand how decks work

[burnpsy]

I remember running 41-45 cards in my Morphs before...

 

Overall, it's more consistent to have 40 cards. I found that that applied to Morphs even more, since you have to do mental calculations to see if it's worth it to risk summoning Celfon, and the chances of getting something are generally lower with more cards.

 

I remember that someone copypasta'd a wall of text into one of my Morphtronic deck threads that explains why it's mathematically better in general to run 40 cards... I'll go look for it.

 

EDIT:

 

Found it.

 

[spoiler=Someone Else Posted It As I Edited This In]

http://yugioh.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=2363

Yugioh Fundamentals: Math

 

Math can be used in Yugioh. Heck, it is actually one of the most important elements of the game. If you look deeper than a simple plus and negative aspect, you can figure the odds of drawing any individual card, and put away luck as a factor with consistency. If you build a deck with the mathematical backing of drawing odds and card ratios, you have a much higher probability of drawing the way you predict. It is not probable to predict drawing a Dark Armed Dragon, but it is not out of the mathematical probability to draw a Kalut on your opening hand and draw.

 

Here is the basic probability formula:

 

1 - (Total # of cards in deck that are not the desired card / Total # of cards in deck) x (# of non-desired cards remaining in deck after first draw / # of cards remaining in deck) x (repeat steps for each additional draw)

 

So lets plus in a Six Card Hand when running three copies of a card, lowing down to two, and to one:

 

1 - (37/40) x(36/39) x (35/3Cool x (34/37) x (33/36) x (32/35)

= 1 - (34 x 33 x 32) / (40 x 39 x 3Cool

= 1 -.606

= 39.4 %

 

 

When running two cards, your odds are 28%, one card is 15%. Adding five cards to the deck increases the odds about 4%, and adding a single card sums up around 1% odds off.

 

Now, certainly the variables exist that if you draw one or draw one searcher the probability of drawing another is much more different. But for an opening hand, this is the golden formula.

 

Lets put this into perspective of a Black Wing deck. The odds of drawing Kalut on your opening hand is just under 40% (The actuality of getting it is about 39.4%) and of getting whirlwind is 28%. Subtracting a card from the deck makes about a 1% shift in the decks contents, and as such running one Upstart Goblin gives you better odds for drawing cards like Kalut. Adding three brings the odds up to 43%. The 43% is nearly every two games you can open with Kalut.

 

That gives you the same respective chance of having Battle Fader, rounded out of course. But lets assume you want an out/stop to a OTK. So your cards decked are 3 Battle Fader, one Gorz, and one Tragoedia. Adding additional probable options changes the formula,

 

1 - (35/40) x(34/39) x (33/3Cool x (32/37) x (31/36) x (30/35)

 

This greatly increases your odds of assuring you get a desired card in your opening hand.

 

 

Each additional card you draw should increase your odds of drawing a card by about 5% to get a specific card. So using formula one, you can increase odds to draw into one of the three cards to nearly 45%.

 

But the fact remains it a general deck building sense to dictate what you can draw. Let’s say you want to see your odds of drawing your tech. Your odds of drawing one Dark Armed Dragon are about 15%. These and many more values are easy to determine with a little bit of leg work.

 

Looking at the probability formula in a deeper sense, you can plus in variables for late game. If you went through about half your 40 card deck.

 

1 - ( the last few draws you took x # of copies) / ( the first draws you took x # of copies)

 

If you have three copied of a card in your 40 card deck, your odds after going though just about half your deck are over 84%! These odds are simply amazing. Odds are in your favor late game to draw into a card, and this makes figuring what you will draw easy.

 

Now, why are these values a challenge to players and an asset to prepared ones? This is much more simplistic than the actual equations. The odds of drawing into two exact cards, drawing Dark Armed Dragon, drawing two/three answer spells or into the one Lumina are extremely slim, for you and your opponent. You will never assume that an opponent will have such cards, it is not mathematically probable. A lot of ‘Pro’ player’s state is a challenging match-up to play against non-‘Pro’ players because they play in an unconventional manor. I disagree. It is just easier to play against yourself. If you build your deck mathematically sound, and so does your opponent or you know the statistics, you make different plays. You never assume it is the worst case scenario, but rather a more plausible answer. The player who has no idea the odds often will rely upon top decking and not conserve the ‘boss’ card as often, hoping they will draw another.

 

But in the total scheme of things, better player will save an answer card for a problem they know they cannot beat. Worse players will waste resources to topple such an issue and use one of few answers instantly. This has the benefit of giving better players dead cards a lot, but eventually they will become live, and then superior to the hand of an opponent. But playing against an equal player will make the same conservative assumptions you will, making games go to time or force you to make the best of every resource.

 

Knowing the odds simply allows a player to have certainty that when playing against a Perfect Harold deck, they will have just about three answers to several locks. Forcing them to waste resources early to make a play means if you last to a late game, you will win. Being a prepared player, combined with Meta knowledge, wins the game. By simply knowing the odds of getting into such a card you can make better decisions as per your aggression. My formula's are not exact (I have been using them for what, ten years?) but they were are the most simplistic way to address this. You can get more specific mathematically, which is fine. But often, due to other variables as far ranging as card thickness and sleeve size, it is impossible to get an exact figure of how likely you will be to draw a specific card. For generalization sake, my figures are fine.

 

Next Mathematical Rule: 8/40 Rule.

 

Simplified, 8/40 is 1/5. Or you will draw one of the eight cards in your opening hand. This is the premise behind Fifth Gadget. 45 card deck, nine Gadgets, or one fifth of the deck will be a Gadget. This is the golden rule of Mathematical Yugioh. No matter what I, your math teacher, Jae Kim, or your parents say, this is the single rule you must adhere to. If you want a way to get a card in all opening hands, you run three copies and five ways to draw it. It is that simple. This is an advanced concept, right? Not quite, but the outlets to get into those eight are.

 

This brings me to the role of Floaters. This portion would have a better role in Advantage, as a Floater is a monster which replaces itself. Sangan, Mystic Tomato, Gadgets, Machina Gearframe, Stratos, Shining Angel, ect. Floaters allow a player to toolbox. It is effectively a tool to get any desired card. Old school decks, in the age of control or beat down, abused the concept of Floaters. They did not want to thin into a win condition put to have advantage for pressure. Surely you can follow why, no broken win conditions means that the simple plus should give you the mathematical win. But floaters now have a different role entirely, a role in the 8/40 rule.

 

Floaters can now help your opponent. BW Shura and Flamvell Firedog capitalize off of floaters, and Frog-Archs just use them to pump out a monster via Soul Exchange. Due to this, the mathematical advantage is nullified due to the superior advantage the common beating monsters provide. This makes a few match-ups unfavorable for the mathematically sound player. To counter act this, you need to give your floaters a higher purpose. A higher purpose in terms of getting not only mathematical advantage, but giving you a superior condition than my aforementioned common monsters provide.

 

I best use Machina Gearframe to describe the perfect role of a floater now. It gets you Machina Fortress. Machina Gadget decks stick to the rule of 8/40 in most situations currently. Two Machina Peacekeeper, Three Machina Gearframe, and Three Machine Fortress. Eight ways to get Fortress. This is a superior condition than Shura or Firedog can provide, as simply put, Fortress is the bigger and more deadly card in all situations, and provides amazing pressure and control. Peacekeeper is a terrible card by all means, but its ability is amplified due to its role in the mathematical principles behind assuring Machina Fortress. All decks which run floaters need to stick to such a principle to win games, if not the floaters will do more harm than good.

 

Back to the 8/40 rule after a slight detour into the floater world. If you construct a deck to give you the golden 1/5 rule in all situations, you can all but assure you will have the card you need to win in all games. This is much more fundamental than the first mathematical principle of figuring the odds of drawing one of your tech cards; this is rather the way to assure your engine will go off each game. To exemplify this point I will venture onto a deck which uses specific win conditions. LightSworn is that such deck. In the past the singular theme of LS had two win conditions, Lumina and Judgment Dragon. Hybrids had the range of three to five. But for simplicity sake, we will use standard LS. Three Lumina, Two Judgment Dragons, Three Charge of the Light Brigade. Standard LS assured they would have a win condition in a frequency of 1/5, meaning the deck could get a way to win turn one, each game.

 

Using this rule is the golden standard to show you if your deck will be able to win on a consistent basis. Other mathematical theories have a non-direct approach to a win ratio, but this is the most direct method. If you can get your boss monster turn one, you already have a leg up on your opponent. This 8/40 rule should be memorized by all players for this simple reason. If your deck doesn’t have access to a way to win in this frequency, another deck will. On the opposite side of the coin, if you draw it in too much frequency (Thinning in addition to floaters/searchers), your deck will be inconsistent and cloggy. It is more than ideal to stick to the 8/40 rule at all times.

 

[.Nu-13]

I remember that someone copypasta'd a wall of text into one of my Morphtronic deck threads that explains why it's mathematically better in general to run 40 cards... I'll go look for it.

 

You mean this one?

 

Yugioh Fundamentals: Math

 

Math can be used in Yugioh. Heck, it is actually one of the most important elements of the game. If you look deeper than a simple plus and negative aspect, you can figure the odds of drawing any individual card, and put away luck as a factor with consistency. If you build a deck with the mathematical backing of drawing odds and card ratios, you have a much higher probability of drawing the way you predict. It is not probable to predict drawing a Dark Armed Dragon, but it is not out of the mathematical probability to draw a Kalut on your opening hand and draw.

 

Here is the basic probability formula:

 

1 - (Total # of cards in deck that are not the desired card / Total # of cards in deck) x (# of non-desired cards remaining in deck after first draw / # of cards remaining in deck) x (repeat steps for each additional draw)

 

So lets plus in a Six Card Hand when running three copies of a card, lowing down to two, and to one:

 

1 - (37/40) x(36/39) x (35/3Cool x (34/37) x (33/36) x (32/35)

= 1 - (34 x 33 x 32) / (40 x 39 x 3Cool

= 1 -.606

= 39.4 %

 

 

When running two cards, your odds are 28%, one card is 15%. Adding five cards to the deck increases the odds about 4%, and adding a single card sums up around 1% odds off.

 

Now, certainly the variables exist that if you draw one or draw one searcher the probability of drawing another is much more different. But for an opening hand, this is the golden formula.

 

Lets put this into perspective of a Black Wing deck. The odds of drawing Kalut on your opening hand is just under 40% (The actuality of getting it is about 39.4%) and of getting whirlwind is 28%. Subtracting a card from the deck makes about a 1% shift in the decks contents, and as such running one Upstart Goblin gives you better odds for drawing cards like Kalut. Adding three brings the odds up to 43%. The 43% is nearly every two games you can open with Kalut.

 

That gives you the same respective chance of having Battle Fader, rounded out of course. But lets assume you want an out/stop to a OTK. So your cards decked are 3 Battle Fader, one Gorz, and one Tragoedia. Adding additional probable options changes the formula,

 

1 - (35/40) x(34/39) x (33/3Cool x (32/37) x (31/36) x (30/35)

 

This greatly increases your odds of assuring you get a desired card in your opening hand.

 

 

Each additional card you draw should increase your odds of drawing a card by about 5% to get a specific card. So using formula one, you can increase odds to draw into one of the three cards to nearly 45%.

 

But the fact remains it a general deck building sense to dictate what you can draw. Let’s say you want to see your odds of drawing your tech. Your odds of drawing one Dark Armed Dragon are about 15%. These and many more values are easy to determine with a little bit of leg work.

 

Looking at the probability formula in a deeper sense, you can plus in variables for late game. If you went through about half your 40 card deck.

 

1 - ( the last few draws you took x # of copies) / ( the first draws you took x # of copies)

 

If you have three copied of a card in your 40 card deck, your odds after going though just about half your deck are over 84%! These odds are simply amazing. Odds are in your favor late game to draw into a card, and this makes figuring what you will draw easy.

 

Now, why are these values a challenge to players and an asset to prepared ones? This is much more simplistic than the actual equations. The odds of drawing into two exact cards, drawing Dark Armed Dragon, drawing two/three answer spells or into the one Lumina are extremely slim, for you and your opponent. You will never assume that an opponent will have such cards, it is not mathematically probable. A lot of ‘Pro’ player’s state is a challenging match-up to play against non-‘Pro’ players because they play in an unconventional manor. I disagree. It is just easier to play against yourself. If you build your deck mathematically sound, and so does your opponent or you know the statistics, you make different plays. You never assume it is the worst case scenario, but rather a more plausible answer. The player who has no idea the odds often will rely upon top decking and not conserve the ‘boss’ card as often, hoping they will draw another.

 

But in the total scheme of things, better player will save an answer card for a problem they know they cannot beat. Worse players will waste resources to topple such an issue and use one of few answers instantly. This has the benefit of giving better players dead cards a lot, but eventually they will become live, and then superior to the hand of an opponent. But playing against an equal player will make the same conservative assumptions you will, making games go to time or force you to make the best of every resource.

 

Knowing the odds simply allows a player to have certainty that when playing against a Perfect Harold deck, they will have just about three answers to several locks. Forcing them to waste resources early to make a play means if you last to a late game, you will win. Being a prepared player, combined with Meta knowledge, wins the game. By simply knowing the odds of getting into such a card you can make better decisions as per your aggression. My formula's are not exact (I have been using them for what, ten years?) but they were are the most simplistic way to address this. You can get more specific mathematically, which is fine. But often, due to other variables as far ranging as card thickness and sleeve size, it is impossible to get an exact figure of how likely you will be to draw a specific card. For generalization sake, my figures are fine.

 

Next Mathematical Rule: 8/40 Rule.

 

Simplified, 8/40 is 1/5. Or you will draw one of the eight cards in your opening hand. This is the premise behind Fifth Gadget. 45 card deck, nine Gadgets, or one fifth of the deck will be a Gadget. This is the golden rule of Mathematical Yugioh. No matter what I, your math teacher, Jae Kim, or your parents say, this is the single rule you must adhere to. If you want a way to get a card in all opening hands, you run three copies and five ways to draw it. It is that simple. This is an advanced concept, right? Not quite, but the outlets to get into those eight are.

 

This brings me to the role of Floaters. This portion would have a better role in Advantage, as a Floater is a monster which replaces itself. Sangan, Mystic Tomato, Gadgets, Machina Gearframe, Stratos, Shining Angel, ect. Floaters allow a player to toolbox. It is effectively a tool to get any desired card. Old school decks, in the age of control or beat down, abused the concept of Floaters. They did not want to thin into a win condition put to have advantage for pressure. Surely you can follow why, no broken win conditions means that the simple plus should give you the mathematical win. But floaters now have a different role entirely, a role in the 8/40 rule.

 

Floaters can now help your opponent. BW Shura and Flamvell Firedog capitalize off of floaters, and Frog-Archs just use them to pump out a monster via Soul Exchange. Due to this, the mathematical advantage is nullified due to the superior advantage the common beating monsters provide. This makes a few match-ups unfavorable for the mathematically sound player. To counter act this, you need to give your floaters a higher purpose. A higher purpose in terms of getting not only mathematical advantage, but giving you a superior condition than my aforementioned common monsters provide.

 

I best use Machina Gearframe to describe the perfect role of a floater now. It gets you Machina Fortress. Machina Gadget decks stick to the rule of 8/40 in most situations currently. Two Machina Peacekeeper, Three Machina Gearframe, and Three Machine Fortress. Eight ways to get Fortress. This is a superior condition than Shura or Firedog can provide, as simply put, Fortress is the bigger and more deadly card in all situations, and provides amazing pressure and control. Peacekeeper is a terrible card by all means, but its ability is amplified due to its role in the mathematical principles behind assuring Machina Fortress. All decks which run floaters need to stick to such a principle to win games, if not the floaters will do more harm than good.

 

Back to the 8/40 rule after a slight detour into the floater world. If you construct a deck to give you the golden 1/5 rule in all situations, you can all but assure you will have the card you need to win in all games. This is much more fundamental than the first mathematical principle of figuring the odds of drawing one of your tech cards; this is rather the way to assure your engine will go off each game. To exemplify this point I will venture onto a deck which uses specific win conditions. LightSworn is that such deck. In the past the singular theme of LS had two win conditions, Lumina and Judgment Dragon. Hybrids had the range of three to five. But for simplicity sake, we will use standard LS. Three Lumina, Two Judgment Dragons, Three Charge of the Light Brigade. Standard LS assured they would have a win condition in a frequency of 1/5, meaning the deck could get a way to win turn one, each game.

 

Using this rule is the golden standard to show you if your deck will be able to win on a consistent basis. Other mathematical theories have a non-direct approach to a win ratio, but this is the most direct method. If you can get your boss monster turn one, you already have a leg up on your opponent. This 8/40 rule should be memorized by all players for this simple reason. If your deck doesn’t have access to a way to win in this frequency, another deck will. On the opposite side of the coin, if you draw it in too much frequency (Thinning in addition to floaters/searchers), your deck will be inconsistent and cloggy. It is more than ideal to stick to the 8/40 rule at all times.

[burnpsy]

I edited it in only to find that I was Ninja'd. :/

[Guest ~ Epic Hero - Saber ~]

Weeell... 41-42 card decks are sortasemiviable if you consider stuff like Chaosworn (maybe), pure Fortune Ladies (bad idea though), or others... certainly stuff that have a lot of draw power and deck thinning... but 99% of the case its best to go for 40. I generally only run 41 or 42 card decks if I'm at the phase of experimenting with them, and I need to test a few options to see what works best - ergo, I only go for more than 40 cards with the ultimate purpose of testing what I need to drop to take it down to 40. But 50 anything over 43? God no.

[Resident Fascist]

I use 40-45.

[-Lightray Daedalus-]

7th Gadget can go 45 cards...and I think that's the one with most cards I've seen

[Fraz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv7NCkGcViY

[Solemn Silver]

I dont like going over 47

[Ky2quick]

I usually keep my decks at 42 there's one I keep at 44 that's my BW deck which I hardly use

[Anbu-of-Sand]

40 is ideal to get the cards you need faster, 42 at most. Anything higher is (slightly) pushing it.

[Guest PikaPerson01]

Depends on the deck, but in general, the lowest amount is best. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't know basic math or statistics and should be ignored.