Consistency and Engines

Consistency and Engines


You hear it all the time. You ask people “How can I make my deck better?” They will probably say something along the lines of “You need to make it more consistent. Take out this, that, and those and add this that, and the other.” Wondering why you couldn't see these fixes yourself? Well I have some advice that may help you find what you’re looking for.


In general, there are 5 ways to make a deck more consistent. Back in the day of Yu-gi-oh, you mostly had to rely on the draw phase to get the parts of a combo you needed. For the last few years however, that is no longer true. By adding one, or a mixture of these 5 engines: Draw Power, Deck Thinning, Stalling, Milling, and/or Search Power, you can make your deck far more consistent. This is better than just putting cards in and hoping you draw them as if you were Yugi Moto and had the “Heart of the Cards.” I will talk about each one of these in depth. Each has its pros and cons, so in no particular order, I give you the consistency engines.

Thinning Engine:
Have you ever heard someone say “You need to get your deck down to 40 cards.” The reason is that with every card you add, you make it more difficult to draw what you actually need. I found that with new players, this is the hardest concept to understand because the mindset is “If I have more powerful cards, I have more options.” Having more options means nothing if you are mathematically unlikely to get those options.

Since you open with 6 cards, starting with a 40 card deck means your single draws later on are 1/34 at worst for a card you only have 1 of.
1/54 for a 60 card deck.
In a 40-card deck, you have 15% chance of opening with a card you run 1 of. 28% chance of opening with at least 1 card you run 2 copies of. 39% chance of opening with at least 1 card you run 3 copies of.
In a 45-card deck, these odds fall to 13%, 25%, and 35.6% respectively.
In a 60-card deck, these odds fall to 10%, 19%, and 27.5% respectively.

If you plan on running a card that can only be run in singles like Torrential Tribute, don’t count on drawing it. If you base your deck around drawing 1 card, like Dark Armed Dragon or Black Luster Soldier (EotB) which are both limited to one, your deck will be inconsistent. Even when running cards in triples, you only have about a 39% chance of grabbing 1. Deck thinning, allows you to run a lower deck limit than the legal 40. This makes it more likely that you will draw what you actually need. Let’s say you add 3 Upstart Goblin, It would be similar to running a 37 card deck instead of 40. Now, since you open with 6 cards, starting with 34 card deck means your single draws later on are 1/31 at worst for a card you only have 1 of. In a 37 Card deck, you have a 15% chance of opening with a card you run 1 of, 25% of opening with a card you run 2 of, and 35% with a card run in triples.

Another example is that in my Evol deck, I run 3 Evo Force, and 2 Enemy Controller. They are functionally similar, so it is like I am running 5 out of 40 of the same/similar card. I have a 1 in 8 chance of drawing one of them. That is a very good chance. What does 1 in 8 mean? It means if I shuffle my deck the best I can, I should expect an Evo Force or Enemy Controller to pop up within the first 8 cards of the deck. For lack of a better term, I will call this Deck Thickening, or “adding cards that are functionally similar to a card you are using.” You still stay at the 40 card limit when doing this, but this can be even more effective than Deck Thinning. For example, if your main objective is to stop the battle phase, you can add cards like 3 Battle Fader, 3 Swift Scarecrow, and 3 Threatening Roar. With these numbers, you have 9/40 cards that stop attacks or almost a 1 in 4 chance to draw a card that stops battles

1/8 in your example means you should expect drawing your Evo Force/Enemy Controller successfully 1 out of 8 times, if you repeat the draw from the 40-card deck many, many times.
Example: Draw once from 40-card deck. Put it back. Shuffle. Draw once from 40-card deck. Put it back. Shuffle. Repeat 1000 times.
1/8 times you draw, it will be Evo Force/Enemy Controller.

For the first 8 cards you draw, the correct #s, using combinatorics, for drawing Evo Force/Enemy Controller are 30.6% to get 0, 43.7% to get 1, 21.1% to get 2, 4% for 3, 0.34% for 4, and nearly impossible to get all 5.

That is what you are looking for when you deck thin. Essentially, forgetting all the other math, the most important question you want to ask is “What are my chances of drawing this card or strategy with this deck size?” If I run 3 Blue Eyes White Dragon in a 40 card deck, Then I can expect 1 blue eyes out of every 13 cards I draw. (In general, running 1 out of 40 gives you a 1 in 40 chance of getting a card, running 2 out of 40 gives you 1 in 20 chances of getting a card, and running 3 out of 40 gives you 1 in 13 chances of getting a card.) Making the deck 3 out of 34, I can expect a card 1 out of every 11 that I draw. The ratios only get better as the deck gets thinner by adding deck thinner cards like Toon table of Contents and Upstart Goblin. (Let us not forget the famous Reckless greed)

Deck thinning is good, but even alone can still have problems. Running 3 Upstart Goblin, 3 Jar of Greed, and 3 Toon table of contents just makes it more likely that you will actually draw what you need. You still rely on the draw phase for adding cards to your hand, and if you get wiped out in 1 turn it can be difficult to recover. Also, if the card you need is at the bottom of your deck, you have no way to get to it. Another issue is that sometimes you truly do need 40 cards to use your strategy. Deck thinning mostly helps when you have a very focused idea.

Draw Engine:
Giving a deck draw power, allows you to go through the deck faster than normal. Cards like Gates of the Dark World, T.G. Hyper Librarian, Reckless Greed Spellbook of Secrets, and Sylvan CHARITY let you push your way into a deck to get your cards faster. For example, Dark Worlds and Mythic Rulers both have a powerful draw cards: DWD, Gates, Dragged down and Trade in- Cards of Consonance, Gold Sarc. The most important thing to remember about Draw power is that it replenishes hand advantage. You hear duelist talk about advantage all the time, and hand advantage is one of the most important ones. If you play your whole hand in the first turn, you have gained field advantage, but lost hand advantage. If you get hit with a Dark Hole and/or Malevolent Catastrophe, and you have no hand advantage then in most cases you have effectively lost the duel. Draw power cards allow you to make strong plays, while keeping hand advantage which can be used if something goes wrong. Decks with draw power cards are not afraid to make big plays, because they know they will be able to replenish their hand (Super Rejuvenation anyone? lol) Unless you are playing something like Infernity (This deck works by not having a hand), you never want to be playing off of 1 card or 1 draw phase at a time. Today’s meta is too fast for that.

Draw power is a great way to make a deck more consistent, but does also have flaws. It suffers from some of the same problems deck thinning does. It doesn't matter how much you draw, because if that key card you need is at the bottom of your deck, you’re not getting it, or getting it too late. Some decks are based off of pure draw power, Like Deep Dragon Draw Exodia decks, but that is an exception. You don’t want to have solely draw power in your deck.

Search Engine:
Search power is probably 1 of the best tools to use to make a deck consistent. The gladiator beast back in their days and geargias now rely almost entirely on this type of consistency. Search power allows you to look in your deck and add whatever card you need to either your hand or field. Like I said in the previous sentence, you have 2 kinds of search power cards; cards that add cards to the hand, and cards that put cards on the field. You will want both. These searchers allow you to search your deck for any monster that falls into these parameters upon being destroyed by battle. Sangan did it just being sent to the graveyard. Gold Sarcophagus allows you to search your deck for ANY card and add it to your hand (Which is now commonly used with dragons since you get a net 0 that turn off the ruler effect search and 2 turns later you get a plus one). Search cards are great because they allow you to pick what you need. The problem of a card being at the bottom of your deck, is no longer a problem because you can just search for it. Pot of Duality puts deck thinning and searching into 1 card. It shows how important it is to have a mixture of more than 1 type of consistency engine.

Search power is great for allowing you to keep slight, hand advantage or slight field presence. In general however, searching is usually a 1-4-1 (meaning you are just keeping whatever the previous advantage is that you had, not adding advantage like draw power would). There are plenty of exceptions to this rule, but for our purposes, use the general statement.

Stall Engine:
The stall engine works by safely allowing you to draw without fear of getting attacked. For example, Swords of Revealing Light will allow you to draw 3 cards while your opponent isn't allowed to attack you. The stall engine is useful because of how it can be safely splashed into many deck types with cards such as Nightmare's Steelcage, Swords of Revealing Light, Attraffic Control, Messenger of Peace and even monster cards like Cyber Valley, Spirit Reaper, and Marshmallon. Another positive aspect of the stall engine is that it baits destruction cards such as Mystical Space Typhoon and Smashing Ground. A Dust Tornado used on a stall card is a destruction card not used on your face down Mirror Force. The stall engine is also good for comebacks. If you have no hand, and no field, if you draw Swords of Revealing Light the next 3 cards may just save your life.

Of course like the other engines, there are down sides to the stall engine. The first is that the stall engine lets your opponent set-up on you. While they can't attack, they still get a draw phase and will try to get ready for when the stall is over, or for when they eventually get an answer to it. Also, while the continuous aspect of the stall engine can be positive, it can also be a vulnerability. If you use it and you are counting on it to make sure you don't get hit, but your stall card gets destoryed, your set-up may vanish. Another disadvantage is that this method is not fast. It merely slows the game down to your pace. The final problem is similar to the draw engine and thinning engine. If the card you need is on the bottom of your deck, the stall engine won't get you there fast.

Mill Engine:
Mill power is becoming one of the most powerful consistency engines in the game. In the past, it was foolish to put too many cards in the graveyard. Now, some of the most powerful decks in the game use this engine like Sylvans, Dragon Rulers and lightsworn. Milling, is essential taking cards from your deck and dumping them in your graveyard. This may sound foolish, but with all the retrieval and revival cards now, it is easy to get things back from the graveyard. Cards don’t stay in the graveyard as long as they use to.

The biggest problem with milling is how unpredictable it is. When you mill your deck, you have no idea what you are dumping in the graveyard. When you dump spells and traps into the graveyard, they are usually out of the play for the rest of the duel. You will frequently see players mill 3 spell and trap cards into the graveyard like Mystical Space Typhoon, Dark Hole, and/or Torrential Tribute. This is good and bad. On the positive side, this thins the deck out; however, when playing a mill engine you usually want the monsters in the graveyard. By milling spells and traps, you run into the danger of drawing the monsters that you wanted in the graveyard such as Dragon Rulers, Sylvans, Lightsworns, even Dandylion and Spore.

Conclusion:
I want to just say that the best decks use either all of these aspects, or at least 2 very well. Dark Worlds have great search and draw power. Lightsworns have great mill power. Fire Fists have very good search power, Geargias/Gadgets have good search and deck thinning abilities. X-Sabers have exceptional search abilities as well as retrieval abilities in the case of milling. It is important to find an engine or two that works in your deck-type. Not every deck can use a ryko mill engine, or an upstart deck thinning engine. Experiment with each type of engine and you will be able to create a viable deck faster, and do it with more independence. I hope this can help some people who are building decks to make them with a bit more ease.

Basically what i'm saying is there's lots of different styles of "Consistency" In our little game, Find the best one that works for you or get a deck itself that is good for one of these engines, "Heart of the Cards" Ain't gonna always be there for you but sometimes a little hope is something that you always need

-sleeps through lesson- what? i mean yea yea deck milling n stuff

*Claps Slowly as old man*

Well thank you.  That must've taken a while to type and we appreciate it.

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