Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Consistency, and why it should matter more to you

Dragonite 15- The thing is that each time you draw a card, the chance you draw an energy changes. This makes your calculation incorrect. Also remember a percentage is a decimal. I don't know how to do it, but Ryanvergel does, and is most likely correct.
 
here's a quick way to see that you're wrong:

if we said that the odds of drawing an energy was 1/10, and my opponent mulligans 3 times, and i draw 7+3 cards, is it really 100% chance of me having an energy?

you'd quickly think 'no', it isnt. you're right that it is upwards of 70%, but how you got there was a little off, intuitively.
there is a slight modification in my math for odds of specific basic with a total number of basics. thanks to NoPoke especially for helping me on a different website when we were trying to figure out the odds.

ill post the update later tonight. ill try to do a basic 'odds of t2 claydol' start. too
 
The biggest consistency issue I have right now is that I cant decide what to add to get more consistency.

Communications will make spiritombs destory me even more, elm is another supporter whcih tends to mess up your hand, and roseannes can be so useless sometimes :/
 
Ryan, is this what you intended to say ?

This is a very important concept to grasp. The whole of a deck is its purpose, intention, or main strategy. My viewpoint is similar to the designers of the 20th century- form follows function.
Click to expand...

Is a word missing in the bolded sentence?
 
if consistency is "agreement or harmony of parts or features to one another or a whole", then i argue that the whole in pokemon is a deck's purpose, intention, or main strategy.

its intended, just needs the context of that enlarged phrase defining consistency
 
I give a sincere nice try on the math Ryan. I have degree in Actuarial Science and earn my living as credentialed actuary. To get credentials, I had to pass professional exams, the 2nd of the 10 exams had included nasty nasty probability problems like this on them. Let's just say, I didn't get the problems correct the first time I had to do them. The fact that you are close is impressive, but I feel the need to correct this.

The odds of a mulligan with a 16 basics ins a 60 card deck is correct at 9.9% (10%) Your math is 100% on that.:thumb: The 90% of the universe of 7 random cards are non-Mulligans. We need to remember this because the 10% of the mulligan universe we don't want to include.

:fire:There are multitude of problems that you have in calculating the lone 30HP basic start: The math ignores the probability of the multiple Hopips. The 47.45% is the probability of having 1 or MORE 30HP pokes, in your seven card draw. The multiplication of the two probabilities don't work because the total lack of independence and order dependence issues.... to say it politely, the approach was wrong.

To get your mind into the correct math construction, let's just expand on your probabilities of having a mulligan. There is only one unique scenario, card one, card two, .. Card seven are all non Basics. One scenario with the probability string as you stated as:
(44/60)*(43/59)*(42/58)*.....(38/54) = 9.9%.

This is the probability of having drawing 0 basic in 7 cards in a 60 card deck with 16 basics in the deck with replacement. Hypergeometric Distribution in Excel. In Excel =HYPEGEOMDIST(0,7,16,60). You did this right.

What is the probability of having only 1 basic of the 16 basics in a 7 card draw of a 60 card deck with replacement. It is really made up of 7 scenarios that gives you the one basic start. The scenarios are defined by what card # you get the basic, and the others are all non basics. Thus, the First scenario is drawing a basic on the first card, then next 6 cards being non basics. The Second Scenario is draw non basic card one, then a basic card two, and rest are non basics.. Third Scenario, the 3rd card is the basic,... so on and so on.

Probability of Scenario 1 is (16/60)*(44/59)*(43/58)*(42/57)*(41/56)*(40/55)*(39/54) = 4.18%
Probability of Scenario 2 is (44/60)*(16/59)*(43/58)*(42/57)*(41/56)*(40/55)*(39/54) = 4.18%
Probability of Scenario 3 is (44/60)*(43/59)*(16/58)*(42/57)*(41/56)*(40/55)*(39/54) = 4.18%
..
Probability of Scenario 7 is (44/60)*(43/59)*(42/58)*(41/57)*(40/56)*(39/55)*(16/54) = 4.18%

Thus the probability of drawing 1 basic in a hand of 7 is 29.24% = (7 * 4.18% ).
In Excel, = HYPERGEOMDIST(1,7,16,60).

Since Mulligans are redo's. The probability of starting iwth 1 basic, given you have 1 or more basics need to be calculated.

1 Basic Start = Prob (Basics = 1 ) / Prob (Basics >= 1)
1 Basic Start = Prob (Basics = 1 ) / [1 - Prob (Basics = 0)]

Thus Prob (Basics = 1) = 29.24% and Prob(Basics >=1) = 100% - 9.92% = 90.08%
1 Basic Start = 29.24% / 90.08% = 32.47%

Well given that we have started with only 1 basic 32.47% of time and we know that 5 of the 16 basics are 30 HP, it is a straight forward multiplication of 5/16.
Thus lone 30HP pokemon start is 10.15%, not 12.7%.
You could skip the 5/16 part of the math and add up the 7 scenarios of draw 1 of the 5 bad basics and 6 non basics(44 cards). But it still needs to be divided by the universe of non-mulligan starts. (If you look at the algebra above, you are just replacing the 16 with a 5 directly in the string of multiipcations)

tl;dr lol. I agree with your main point of your post. Is there something wrong with 4 call and 3-4 Claydol for consitency btw?
 
Last edited:
X/X+1 claydol lines are the most tilting (it fits best) things I have ever seen in this game. It just boggles my mind.

Why not play a 2nd luxury ball!? its a dead card either way, and at least luxury ball can get anyone.

i will NEVER play X/X+1 claydol in a deck.

remember, if you have the ROOM in a deck for DEAD cards, you have 100% in my mind not built that list to its maximum possible form. no good deck should have room for dead, useless cards. with communication, bebe, luxury, ungodly tech basics like mesprit/azelf/uxie and stuff like dusknoir/nidoqueen/flygon/machamp, anyone- there should just never be a 3-4 claydol. you are clearly lacking in some other area and made a lazy move.
 
I thought your article was about consistency.

As a point of reference the deck for this discussion is about a Flygon Build that doesn't run draw and depends on Dual Claydol engine for draw.

Claydol is core to the deck, you have 40 dead cards in you deck if you don't connect to a claydol. Thus maximising Claydol start is paramount.

My flygon build and game plan was an immediate dual claydol engine, and quickly build from that. I went from 3/3 Claydol to a 4/3 Claydol. I originally had 1 draw supportor, but I decided that all of my draw was going to be from Claydol, and an emergency Uxie. Because of Call NRG and Roseanne's you have 8 more ways to get your baltoy's down than you do in finding your Claydols. Going Max on the Claydol just helps those odds.

Again, the 2nd Luxball is worthy of debate (Gengar format as in the past, and spiritomb negatives), and we aren't arguing about pokemon communication.
 
unless a deck has maxed all of its other high-utility search options and setup cards like candy/bts/rose/bebe/luxury/communication/collector/uxie/call, then i don't think it can afford a 3/4 claydol. if it did hit all of those marks, i would expect it to also greatly benefit from power cards like NM/palmers or expert belt, etc-

i havent seen and dont believe a deck exists that can adequately fit a 3/4 claydol without sacrificing consistency in other areas. a 3/4 claydol is inherently more consistent than a 3/3 claydol, but as i said repeatedly- merely increasing the odds of opening with it doesn't warrant its usage. otherwise we would be using 20 energy decks to guarantee always starting with one t1. the fact is that sometimes the consistency in that area is better spent elsewhere- the trick is finding a balance- being within the threshold of what is just consistent enough, and what provides the deck its ability to set up while still affording needed cards that aren't set up- offensive/defensive and disruptive cards and the like.

without seeing a list or anything like that i cant speak for everything, but i am certain that if you have the room for a dead card like the 3/4 claydol, the deck is lacking in some other capacity- not necessarily consistency
 
I run even claydol numbers, usually 2-2 or 3-3 ... but one of the secondary benifits of running an odd line like 2-3 is that you can be more efficient with your NM drops. Instead of getting back both 1 card, the Claydol, and Baltoy, you just get the Baltoy & 2 cards of choice. Ditto for Palmers & even Rescue to an extent. The fact that all of the recovery brings back odd numbers of Pokemon can make a difference here.
 
that's only so impacting the smaller the numbers are.

at 1-2, being able to forego recycling the claydol might be decent. with a 3-4 line, the odds of even recycling the baltoy are slim to none.

a 1/2 line seems absurd- it benefits too much from the second baltoy, or merely removing the second claydol who will never see play. 2/3 i have seen, but again, how often does a 2/2+ line of claydol recycle the baltoys and whatnot? seldom if ever.

i think that point is weakened severely when we consider what decks would even run an "off" line of claydol, what "off" lines would actually be run (2/3 and 3/4 usually) and how improbable that scenario is given all the factors.
 
Ryan, my entire argument was prior to release pokemon communication for a 3 baltoy-4 claydol made sense. At that point, I was max on Rosanne, Call, Bebe, and Lux. 1 extra spot to increase consistency was the Claydol. You made the argument that a 2nd Luxball might have been a better choice, I granted you the 4th claydol vs 2nd Luxball is debateable topic, but the 2nd lux ball is a dead card too. Point in fact, is simple observation that I win(or had a chance to) when I get double claydol going. Thus extra random tech wasn't as important as consistency. (I had enough tech to be competiive).

With Communication, moving back down to 3-3 we are agreed with.
 
Last edited:
Wow, that was a really good article.

One thing that I would like to point out is the rule of 8's in Pokemon. If you want to have the odds of pulling a card on your first turn, you need to run at least 8 of that card. For example, if you need to draw into energy your first turn, run no less than 8 because it becomes statistically unlikely if you are running less than 8. If your opening hand has 8 cards, 60/8 ~ 8. So, if you want to draw into at least 2 basics, run about 16. If you want to draw into 3, put cards into you hand that allow you to get 3. I don't mean run 24 basics. But, if you run 16 basics + 4 call, then that is 20 cards, putting you really close to 24. Add in an Uxie, its almost a guaranteed 3 pokemon start T1.

I've also been thinking for a while that high energy decks will run the format post rotation due to the loss of the big draw Pokemon. People continually say "The Interviewer's Question/Engineer's Adjust is just too long of a set up." I disagree 100%. If one were to use a high energy deck (20+), Interviewer's Question would potentially draw out a lot of unneeded energy. What's the point in that? It leads to high probability of drawing cards you DO want. Play Interviewer's, grab a lot of energy, attack to a card that allows you to draw (or something like Electivire FB that does dump and draw). Use Engineer's to discard the unwanted energy and draw cards you do want. I also think cards like Regice and Felicity's Drawing are some of the most underrated cards in the format because of their ability to dump unwanted cards from the deck to increase probability of drawing wanted cards. Interviewer's/Engineer's may seem slower NOW compared to what we are used to, but I honestly think the setup will be slower but the game will be faster with this kind of combination. I mean seriously, what good does 3 Claydols do you late game when Prizes are tied up at 1-1? Claydol is broken (not in the sense that it is used in Pokemon) in that it makes you put BACK unwanted cards, thus increasing your odds of drawing cards you probably don't want again. My son runs a Jumpluff deck. Usually, 3 BTS don't get used. So, that just means they get recycled over and over and over again. What good does that do? Its late game and you still have 2 Bebe but have a full bench....but it sure would be nice to draw into a Poketurn to pick up that bat. I think when people start incorporating probability, they will start building better decks.

Some quicks guidelines I go by:
No less than 15 basics
Atleast 10 energy
12ish Supporters

This greatly increases your odds of avoiding donks by starting with 2 pokemon and will almost guarantee to start with an energy and a useable supporter
 
Yeah, i think this article is good for those that run ARCHETYPES!! but for rouges, (LIKE SHUPPET/STARMIE!) you must take into consideration where you want to put your consistency, drawpower or starting hand?

But overall, an amazing article! this is gonna help new players at BRs and CCs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top