In life, we do our best to avoid minimums. We hope to find jobs that pay better than minimum wage. We hope to score better on a test than the minimum passing grade. We pay down our credit card by making more than the minimum monthly payment. Minimums are never the ideal and, quite frankly, often the opposite.
However, in card games like Star Wars: Unlimited, players need to embrace the minimum when it comes to deck size. Why? The simple answer is consistency. In competitive card games players can only mitigate the randomness of card draw so much, and mitigating this randomness is important during play to ensure you have the best odds of having the card you need when you need it. One way to mitigate this randomness is by always playing the minimum amount of allowed cards.
SWU allows a minimum of a 50 card deck in Premier constructed format, and a minimum of a 30 card deck in Sealed or Draft. I implore you to embrace these minimums. This may sound easy, and for you veteran card players out there it may sound like a no-brainer. However, when building a deck for competitive play, this can be a very challenging proposition. As SWU releases more sets, the card pool will grow, and more and more cards will compete for the 50 slots in your deck. Temptation will creep in, and you will question, “What’s the harm in 51, 52, 53?” Don’t do it! Why? Let’s look at the math.
Introducing the hypergeometric calculator! Fancy. All this calculator really does is determine your odds of drawing a particular card in your deck. I could get into the math of it, but we all know math is pretty boring.
So let’s say you are playing a Vigilance deck with 3 Fell the Dragon, and your opponent (probably a busted young Han deck) just dropped a Krayt Dragon onto the ground arena. You need to clear it fast or eat that Overwhelm damage to your face. You claim initiative hoping you’ll topdeck a Fell the Dragon, it’s your only hope!
Let’s use the hypergeometric calculator to calculate your odds of drawing the card you need.
First, we’ll need to determine how many cards are left in your deck. Han played the Krayt Dragon a turn early using his ability so we are starting turn 8 of the game. You drew 6 cards to start the game and have drawn 2 cards on each subsequent turn, meaning you have drawn 18 cards in the game. This leaves you with 32 cards still in your deck.
Next, we’ll need to determine how many Fell the Dragons are left in your deck. Well, I bet you are now regretting that copy you resourced in turn 2, but hindsight is 20/20. So you have 2 copies of the card you need left in your deck.
Lastly, we all know in Star Wars: Unlimited players draw 2 cards at the start of their turn, so what are the odds of drawing your Fell the Dragon?
Your chance to draw one or more of Fell the Dragon is 12.3%.
If your deck has 55 cards to start the game, only 5 cards over the minimum required to play, your odds of drawing a Fell the Dragon are reduced to 10.7%.
Now a difference of 1.6% may not sound like a lot of variance, but tell that to the player who lost the game to the Krayt Dragon. Competitive card games, and really games in general, are about finding a competitive edge. The smaller your deck the more likely you are to draw the card that wins you the game. Over the course of a tournament these moments compound, and players with more consistent answers to their opponent’s play will do better in the long run. Obviously the individual player has to recognize the play lines to be successful, but you only have as many options as you have cards in your hand (unless you play Smuggle.)
For this reason I encourage you to embrace the following mantra:
Always play the minimum!
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