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Gaming Strategies &endash; Deck Probabilities
By Lion Wilson &endash; March 17, 2004
(DISCLAIMER: Any percentages, probabilities, or formulas presented
in this article may not necessarily be perfectly accurate, but none
that you ever receive will be. The real world is totally random and
many things can influence card probabilities other than just
numbers.)
In every card game, there is always a deck that can win big as
long as it gets the cards it needs right off the bat. Duel Masters is
no different, although without the aid of cheap searching cards,
these decks may run into trouble. I can't help you get the card you
need, but I can at least present the numbers to you so you know what
you're getting yourself into. I'm not going to give you a bunch of
formulas and things to figure out, because if you're not careful, you
can totally throw off everything you're doing. Instead I'm going to
give you some common situations and tell you your chances. (I also
have an automatic calculator available, but we'll get to that later.)
Most people play Duel Masters with a 40-card deck. (If you play
with over 45 cards in your deck, reading this whole article may not
be of much use to you. If would be more beneficial to acquire my
calculator, which you can scroll to the bottom for.) The 40-card deck
not only makes it easier to draw the cards you want, it also provides
a simpler format for solving your chances.
Let's just say you have a Deadly Fighter Braid Claw in your deck,
and you want to know your chances of drawing at least one of them on
your first turn. I'll first just tell you that your chances are very
good, almost 40%. If you want to draw more, however, your chances
drop dramatically. In fact, it is almost impossible to draw all four
of them in your opening hand. Let's quickly go over the chances for
all the card-drawing situations:
SITUATION / CHANCE
to draw 1 of a specific card in opening hand, with 4 in deck /
39%
to draw 2 of a specific card in opening hand, with 4 in deck / 8%
to draw 3 of a specific card in opening hand, with 4 in deck / 1%
to draw 4 of a specific card in opening hand, with 4 in deck / 0%
to draw 1 of a specific card in opening hand, with 3 in deck /
33%
to draw 2 of a specific card in opening hand, with 3 in deck / 5%
to draw 3 of a specific card in opening hand, with 3 in deck / 0%
to draw 1 of a specific card in opening hand, with 2 in deck /
25%
to draw 2 of a specific card in opening hand, with 2 in deck / 2%
to draw 1 of a specific card in opening hand, with 1 in deck / 14%
Now, you must understand that this is not always true, due to
shields. Some of your cards may end up stuck under them, and there's
not a really good way to incorporate that chance into the formula I'm
using, except to add in a plus or minus margin of error of about 4%.
Figuring out shield probabilities can get confusing, although it
is somewhat more concrete. You can end up with strange numbers that
seem to tell you that it's more probable to put more cards there than
it is to put less. I don't know about you, but that's exactly the
opposite of what I expected. I'll give you some examples here:
SITUATION / CHANCE
to place 1 shield trigger in opening shields, with 20 in deck /
15%
to place 2 shield trigger in opening shields, with 20 in deck /
33%
to place 3 shield trigger in opening shields, with 20 in deck /
33%
to place 4 shield trigger in opening shields, with 20 in deck /
15%
to place 1 shield trigger in opening shields, with 16 in deck /
26%
to place 2 shield trigger in opening shields, with 16 in deck /
37%
to place 3 shield trigger in opening shields, with 16 in deck /
23%
to place 1 shield trigger in opening shields, with 12 in deck /
37%
to place 2 shield trigger in opening shields, with 12 in deck /
33%
to place 3 shield trigger in opening shields, with 12 in deck /
13%
to place 1 shield trigger in opening shields, with 8 in deck /
44%
to place 2 shield trigger in opening shields, with 8 in deck /
21%
to place 1 shield trigger in opening shields, with 4 in deck / 36%
I've removed some of the more odd figures to make it all less
confusing. You can see some of the trends I mentioned about
everything being somewhat opposite. This leads me to believe that for
some reason the formula I'm using doesn't necessarily work as well
for shields, but I think the numbers are somewhat accurate
nonetheless.
Now for the fun part: you get to figure out your own
probabilities! If you have Microsoft Excel or some spreadsheet
application that can open .xls files, you can download my automatic
probability calculator here: dm-probcalc.xls
It comes complete with instructions on how to figure out everything,
so have fun with it!
Now that you know your chances when it comes to your Duel Masters
deck, you should have a slight edge over your opponent in an intense
battle. I hope you can use these numbers to your advantage.
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