Messiah plays dice:The mathematics of deck building (Part 1)

There is a belief in the Cardfight! Vanguard community that Vanguard as a trading card game is competitively non-viable as "luck" is a very prevalent mechanic, which can very easily swing games, and while it is certainly true that Vanguard has many elements which involve chance, that does not mean that it is impossible for Vanguard as a trading card game to be competitive, and today I am going to give you the knowledge to be able to manipulate chance so you can win more games of Vanguard! No, I am not talking about stacking or other forms of cheating. I am talking about:

The mathematics of deck building!

Mathematics is a skill that is rarely, if ever used for deckbuilding. However it is a very important skill that can give you the edge in a cardfight, since your deck is the main thing you can edit to improve your play.

Mulligan is a mechanic whose power is very understated in vanguard, as it gives you a way to directly manipulate your hand once without losing any advantage or having to use any abilities.

The chances of having a specific card in your starting hand after your first draw:

# Cards in deck	Mull 0	Mull 1	Mull 2	Mull 3	Mull 4	Mull 5
1	12.24%	14.20%	16.94%	17.85%	19.56%	21.20%
2	23.21%	26.53%	29.81%	32.80%	35.60%	38.23%
3	33.02%	37.48%	41.56%	35.29%	48.71%	51.85%
4	41.75%	46.93%	51.55%	55.67%	59.36%	61.68%

Using this handy table, you can decide how many copies of a card you want in your deck for how often you want that card in your hand when you are starting the game.

For example, I know that if I want Flash Ripple Odysseus (The Rippul Gansta) in my hand when playing Ripple, since the maximum I can run is 2 I know that I have a 32.8% chance of getting him at the start of the game.

I hope this information helps you make your play better!

If you want to learn more about deck building, more specifically the likeliness of being double crit by a stride at 3 damage, I would recommend watching this video by my good friend TimmyPowerGamer!

That is all for today. The next part of Messiah Plays Dice will be on how much more consistent ride chains are!