You've been building decks wrong.

Here's some advice about building a good Yugioh deck, which I've learned from having built... let's just say "several decks" over the years. Don't think you need to run every card at 3. And don't think you should never run a card at 3! What matters most is that you really know exactly why you're running a card at 1, 2, or 3 copies per deck. Every card and every strategy is different, and your opponent's cards and strategies will also factor into this!

Pliny pictures are from Wikipedia, which is definitely more accurate than his encyclopedia. To be clear, Pliny did his best--the blame is on medieval academia for not properly building upon his work!

Also, big thanks to my friend Terence for helping with this script and introducing me to the deeper realm of game theory! (He's the one who helped me build Sapphire Surprise too!)

I do vlogs, comedy, Nintendo stuff, and apparently card games now. Subscribe for more adventures, and hit the like button because it's free and keeps me from crying at night.

[mrbubbles]

‘Not to imply Yu-Gi-Oh players are dumb’

But they are though.

[williamdrum]

Don't forget that Ash is a tuner and can be normal summoned to make a synchro.

[Evan]

There's not nearly enough deckbuilding discourse that explore concepts like minimizing HOPT bottlenecks, flexible searches versus inflexible searches, Garnet and brick ratios relative to the "hardness" of them, as some can still be live if drawn if you also drew a way to get them into the GY or something, and concluding the discussion with the tacit implication that Forbidden Droplet is one of the best designed cards ever printed by letting you weaponize your bricks and duplicates as negates as long as you still have sufficient engine to play through what's left.

Good video.

[flipflipshift]

Evenly Matched is a funny example of a card you sometimes really want to open multiple of

[chrisshorten]

You have no idea how happy this made me about my apparently odd decision to run staples at 1 copy (save Ash, which I run at 2, because it's the one I have 2 of). I myself have found that, even at a single copy, Ioften wind up seeing my stake cards in my opening hand anyway, so this checks out to me.

[YukiHeroYGO]

You might helped me cementing my YCS HERO list as I am struggling with the 40th card. After this video I said “yeah fk it, one talent, one thrust, one lonely imperm. I am playing HERO, I desperately need more multiple-axis cards, flexibility and diversity.”
We have time until november, let’s test this list using this mentality for the non engine, which btw I absolutely agree with 😂❤

[jewfan]

I have always loved what the OCG meta used to do. Two copies of every meta hand trap to prevent bricking on multiples. It’s really good in my opinion

[dudono]

Running garnets at 2 might be better than running them at 1, especially if they're not completely dead in hand. Drawing into your one of is much more likely than drawing both copies of your 2 of, meaning you'll have a copy in deck to use.

[bluexberry]

In OCG or MD you would like wanted to have 2 Ash blosom if you are going second. 1 is for stopping enemy best card play and another is for defending Maxx 'C'.

[RealCerealHero]

Ngl When I first watched this video I was like "Nah this is insane play 40 cards for consistency or play 60 for pile" Then after a lost streak on MD I tested out your theory of playing more cards and one of hand traps or more hand traps without a once per turn and now i'm streaking in Master about to hit M1. My win rate from like 49% to 60% 💀. It worked extremely well because i'm currently playing Yubel, I was playing it at 40 which was okay... The problem is Yubel plays a ton of bricks, so if you off set the bricks with extra 1 ofs well you'll get less bricks. Anyway I wanted to shout out to you, you were right and thanks for making this vid.

[lunaeons]

This seems to not take into account the reason we run max handtraps.

That some hand traps arent useable in certain formats.

Like you can use say ash, ghost, and effect veiler as 1 offs but if its a format where ghost isnt useful then why run it

[CaptainMarvelEver]

Nice vid, I rarely run 3 copies of anything that is a natural brick alongside itself. Surprised this is such a foreign concept. Well done (something good actually came from an MBT video).

[Lunacorva]

What I find beautifully hilarious is that when I got back into Yugioh during 2012, I hadn't played since my playground era of 2004. So I built a deck of singletons because the anime and all the starter decks I played when I was a kid taught me that that's just how yugioh players build their decks.

I learnt very fast how WRONG I was and stuck to a small core of 2-3 copies ever since.

Now, exactly 20 years since those playground days, it seems singleton HAS become the optimal way to build a deck! XD

[KiiroSagi]

Totally agree, some alien brains were arguing with me that running 3 copies of thrust and 1 of talents is more justifiable than running 2 thrust and 2 talents.

[dontmisunderstand]

I'm glad this video exists. I've gone over the math and the strategies in this video multiple times myself, and have been using them for the past several years. My game of choice is Magic The Gathering, so it's not exactly a 1:1 comparison. For example, in Magic we still mostly draw our cards, so there are no cards in our decks that we're ever upset to see in our opening hand. But, the power of diversity is pretty overwhelming, both in a vacuum and in the context of metagames. If everyone's running 9 4-ofs, there's just no possible way for them to be able to handle 24 different unique threats or answers, and that still leaves me with 3 4-ofs myself to form the fundamental core of the deck's plan. Even the minimum deck size thing that most players hold sacrosanct is not actually all that impactful by comparison to the advantage this diversity brings. MtG is in a state where it's a lot harder to build a strong deck this way, but with Yugioh it almost feels like it might be hard not to. Though to be fair my experience playing Yugioh is only a few months of Master Duel, around the time that Tearlaments were dominating. I was using a silly Dragonmaid deck, and I found it to be more consistent at 60 than at 40. I doubt it was a good deck, but it had a winning matchup against the so-called tier 0 threat of the time so... eh.

[RashidMBey]

I don't even play YGO, but I enjoyed your video, your humor, and the sharp wit and insight you offered. Suuubscribed!

[matthewalle]

I use 2 copies for for my main hand traps and 3 for cross out because it’s basically negating so many hand traps that can stop my pain points

[CQSK]

In a format where maxx c exists at 3 copies, unless you’re a floo player or trap gimmick player etc.., you’re probably going to special summon on your turn. So you have to play the maxx c minigame before the real game starts. Ash has to be at 3 as well as called by and cross out at as many as legal. If you lose the maxx c minigame you probably lose completely 😔

[mikehawk]

The thing specifically with Ash in MD is that Maxx-C is legal, requiring every possible out to be played. And the thing with Ash is the sheer utility of it as opposed to something like Shifter if you draw multiple. I know with almost certainty that I'll be able to Ash something that my opponent is trying to do on the next turn, whereas other handtraps are much more situational or are legitimately dead draws in multiples

Also, loved the Pliny the Elder reference lol

[ghostlygun]

This reminds me a bit of advice that's given to people getting into Magic: the Gathering. Or at least it was; I don't keep up that well with it anymore. They're different enough games that not everything transfers over perfectly (mainly in relation to velocity of play and quantity of search effects/tutors), but I think the main takeaway that's given to newer players getting more serious about deckbuilding holds. The key is about the *feel* of a card when drawn. How often is it live? How often do you need it to be? How often does it feel good to draw vs how often does it feel bad? If you find yourself not liking seeing it, back off a copy or 2. If it always feels great, run 4. It's something that you get a feel for in playtesting, rather than adhering to a formula or following common wisdom. I think yugioh player have some understanding of this, but frequently fail to articulate it properly. They end up getting lost in the weeds of the 3-of default assumption because they forget they can run fewer copies of something rather than trading it out for some other 3-of that bricks slightly different scenarios.