For instance, let's say that you're trying to figure out how consistent your Exodia-Fabled-Hero deck is. People are probably going to look at the name and slap you for even trying such a concept. But, you seem to draw amazingly every duel. Because of this, you may think that it's very consistent.
Or, we can take the Hero/Light-Beat decks that are common anti-meta strategies in the OCG. You could draw 4 of your 14 Monsters in your starting hand, or none of your Monsters, in every duel, and believe the deck to be terribly inconsistent.
The problem with this is that luck is skewing your perception of consistency. To avoid this, some people use statistics to figure out how consistent a deck is.
"How often can I get Rescue Cat and Faultroll in my hand by my third turn?" That's probably what some of the mathematicians try to figure out before they buy their X-Saber decks. And, if they could calculate that, it would be a pretty simple choice of whether or not to get the deck. That's because the win condition for X-Sabers is pretty basic.
But, what if you were to play a deck that could adapt to any situation? How would you be able to mathematically figure out how consistent the deck is? I'm sure that there's a way (it might just take a few months to figure out...), but it's not exactly practical.
Put simply, consistency is an illusion.
Now, to contradict myself, what if there were a deck that no matter what your starting hand was you could make a solid play? Is there such a deck where you can hand it to your opponent and say, "Pick any six cards, and I'll use those as my opening hand"?
They're called Stun/anti-meta decks. Each card can stand alone, but the Monsters work better when protected by Spells/Traps. If they aren't protected, then they usually die. Those decks can usually take control of the game very early, but they may struggle to keep control after a while, and they can't make big pushes or OTK. They lack synergy, since all of the cards stand alone.
Ultimately, consistency and synergy inversely affect each other, which is something you need to deal with when making a deck.
great post, but i really think that synergy leads to consistency.
ReplyDeleteIt's not black and white like that, and it's definitely not proportional. Like LG said, 0 synergy = 100% consistency, but the quality's low.
ReplyDeleteIf 0 of the cards in your deck synergise with each other, you have total consistency, as each one does what it is meant to do.
From there, if synergy is greater than 1 but less than 20, you're losing synergy. At 21 or higher, you start picking it up again.
Theoretically, if 37 out of your 40 card deck synergised with each other in any way you could think of, you've got 92.5% synergy, and 100% consistency because even if your opponent gets a lucky Trap Dustshoot after you drew all 3 'bad' cards, you still have 2 cards that work well together.