Becoming a Better Duelist 1: Slimming Your Deck Size
After a brief bit of thinking, I've decided to start doing columns for my friends (most of whom are into Yu-Gi-Oh) about how to improve their game and become a better player. Of course, by no means am I saying I'm the best player ever, or even the best qualified to do this column--but I'm the one with the blog.
So, before we get to advanced deck building, card advantage, or budget playing or some of the other things we'll eventually cover, let's start with the basics: Deck Size. Now, when you're done snickering at how that sounds in your head, I'll talk about what that's so important.
Done yet? Ok, cool.
Now, the first mistake a rookie player makes, is looking at all the cards they *want* to run, and figuring that adding more, is better for you because more cards = more options. This is a fallacy.
In a 40 card deck, in which your opening hand is going to be five cards + draw phase, when you draw your opening hand (without your draw phase card), you've already gone through an eighth of your deck. This is a good thing. (Don't worry about decking out--that almost never happens unless your opponent's deck is designed to do so, which they usually aren't.) Having a significant (more than a tenth) of your deck in your hand presents you with more useable options for defeating your opponent, which is what you want.
On the other hand, in a fifty card deck, your opening hand is STILL five cards + draw phase, but this time you've only gone through just over a tenth of your deck. It seems like you have even more options because you have more cards, but that's incorrect. With the exception of cards that allow you to directly manipulate your deck--you don't actually have access to ANY of the cards in your deck besides the one at the VERY top. The rest are, usually, completely inaccessible. At the start of your turn, your options are your hand, the field, and what's at the top of your deck--ONLY that. This means that one card you think is really great and helps you win games? If it's not in your hand at the start of a turn, you're actually less likely to draw it if your deck is larger than 40 cards. It's more likely to be found in the middle (or worse, at the bottom) of your deck, where it'll remain lost in the land of bloated deckspace.
Now that we've taken apart the classic "more cards = more options" (only true if they're in your hand or somewhere on the field) argument for large decks, let's have a look at the other reason for keeping one's deck close to 40 as possible:
Win Condition. Now every good deck has this. You have a set win condition that will allow you to push to victory. This is why you stick as close to 40 cards as possible--you select ONLY the cards that will allow you to reach your win condition as fast as possible, and cards that will disrupt your opponent's win condition. (How many depends on the state of the meta at the time. We'll get into that later.) Doing this will cut your number of dead draws (a card that you cannot immediately play when you draw it) and hopefully lead to you having a deck where when you draw you: A.) Are able to swing and deal damage to your opponent, or B.) alter your opponent's field so you can do A.
Now what your win condition IS depends on the type of deck you have. The most popular strategy is to swarm and stomp, but it's up to you to decide exactly how your deck does that, and what cards are best to do so within the archetype/Type/Attribute/strategy you've chosen. I'll be talking more about win conditions next time, but this article is running rather long and was meant more to be a beginner's lesson on effective deck construction before we got to more vital details. See you next time.
So, before we get to advanced deck building, card advantage, or budget playing or some of the other things we'll eventually cover, let's start with the basics: Deck Size. Now, when you're done snickering at how that sounds in your head, I'll talk about what that's so important.
Done yet? Ok, cool.
Now, the first mistake a rookie player makes, is looking at all the cards they *want* to run, and figuring that adding more, is better for you because more cards = more options. This is a fallacy.
In a 40 card deck, in which your opening hand is going to be five cards + draw phase, when you draw your opening hand (without your draw phase card), you've already gone through an eighth of your deck. This is a good thing. (Don't worry about decking out--that almost never happens unless your opponent's deck is designed to do so, which they usually aren't.) Having a significant (more than a tenth) of your deck in your hand presents you with more useable options for defeating your opponent, which is what you want.
On the other hand, in a fifty card deck, your opening hand is STILL five cards + draw phase, but this time you've only gone through just over a tenth of your deck. It seems like you have even more options because you have more cards, but that's incorrect. With the exception of cards that allow you to directly manipulate your deck--you don't actually have access to ANY of the cards in your deck besides the one at the VERY top. The rest are, usually, completely inaccessible. At the start of your turn, your options are your hand, the field, and what's at the top of your deck--ONLY that. This means that one card you think is really great and helps you win games? If it's not in your hand at the start of a turn, you're actually less likely to draw it if your deck is larger than 40 cards. It's more likely to be found in the middle (or worse, at the bottom) of your deck, where it'll remain lost in the land of bloated deckspace.
Now that we've taken apart the classic "more cards = more options" (only true if they're in your hand or somewhere on the field) argument for large decks, let's have a look at the other reason for keeping one's deck close to 40 as possible:
Win Condition. Now every good deck has this. You have a set win condition that will allow you to push to victory. This is why you stick as close to 40 cards as possible--you select ONLY the cards that will allow you to reach your win condition as fast as possible, and cards that will disrupt your opponent's win condition. (How many depends on the state of the meta at the time. We'll get into that later.) Doing this will cut your number of dead draws (a card that you cannot immediately play when you draw it) and hopefully lead to you having a deck where when you draw you: A.) Are able to swing and deal damage to your opponent, or B.) alter your opponent's field so you can do A.
Now what your win condition IS depends on the type of deck you have. The most popular strategy is to swarm and stomp, but it's up to you to decide exactly how your deck does that, and what cards are best to do so within the archetype/Type/Attribute/strategy you've chosen. I'll be talking more about win conditions next time, but this article is running rather long and was meant more to be a beginner's lesson on effective deck construction before we got to more vital details. See you next time.
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