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Heart of the Cards-a logical look by Sean

From: seanslcars@comcast.net
Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 23:45:32 +0000

Sean’s back with a new article for you all. Don’t forget to check out www.seanzhomepage.freeservers.com for my personal site and if you want send in your decks to be fixed in my informal deck garage feel free to email me.
This is my "Feel good" article. I’ll be addressing the issue of the Heart of the Cards, giving it a critical analysis and closing out with my thoughts on it.
First of all let me make it clear that I am a Christian, and so I certainly have no anti-supernatural bias I am operating on here. My position is a purely analytical one. I believe strongly in the supernatural, so please do not send me hatemail accusing me of writing this article on an anti-supernatural campain.
To start off, I had to do some field research. I asked the question "Do you believe in the Heart of the Cards?" to 43 people I knew, 44 if you include myself. Of these 44 (I will include my own opinion, 12 did not believe at all in the Heart of the Cards, 21 believed in it to a certain extent (I include myself in this category), and the remaining, and 10 believed in it completely, i.e., they believed that there is some mystical energy field that makes it so if you believe hard enough you will always draw the card you need.
I’m sure we all have a story or three to tell that follows the theme, "Only one card in my deck would save me, and I drew it! That can’t just be coincidence!" Or can it? Calculator time. Sean’ Note: All fractions rounded off to the nearest thousandth.
Many duelists have been playing since Legend of Blue Eyes originally came out way back when. Others just started. I’ll just use myself as an example. I started a while after LOB, about 2 ½ years ago. So we’ll just say an even 2 years for our example; it’s probably around the cumulative average. Most draw-or-die situations occur at least ten turns in. Some do occur before, but the vast majority occur after. In order to give the benefit of the deck, I will just use ten turns in as a constant. Next, I will assume the deck being used is a standard 40 card deck with both Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity. Finally, I will assume you get into these situations an average of three times a week on average. Seem a bit much? Not really, considering it’s basically just a situation where you’re about to lose.
Let’s not deal with career length yet and focus solely on the single incident. Let’s say you’re in a draw-or-die and it is your tenth turn so far. Only one card in your will save you. Sort of. We have to take into consideration the draw cards Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity. Let’s start the math. You drew 5 cards into your opening hand, and have since drawn 9 cards for a grand total of 14 out of your original 40. Therefore, you have 26 cards left in your deck (assuming you’re not running any other draw power cards other than Pot and Charity. Yet again, I am giving the benefit of the doubt away). Already we’ve got a 1 in 26 chance of drawing the card you need. Not exactly the lottery odds here. But we’re just getting started. We now need to take Pot and Charity into account. There are 4 scenarios possible. Scenario 1: You have not yet drawn Pot or Charity. That means you actually have 3 cards in your deck that can potentially save you. That means three out of 26, or 1/8.667. Less than one in nine odds against you. Scenario 2: You have drawn Graceful Charity but not Pot of Greed. You now have 2 cards out of 23 remaining in your deck that can potentially save you, or 1/11.5 odds. Scenario 3: You have drawn Pot of Greed but not Graceful Charity. You now have 2 cards in 24 that can save you, or 1/12 odds. Finally, Scenario 4: You have drawn Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity already. That means you have one in 21 odds to save yourself.
Next let’s get into the specifics of duels over your career. I gave you all the individual situation odds already. As you know by now, I like to give the benefit of the doubt, so I’ll take the longest ones, the already-drawn-pot-and-charity 1 in 21 odds. We need to reach back to our numbers of an average of 3 situations of draw-or-die a week. A year is 52 weeks. That means 156 times a year. Double that for two years and you have 312 situations like this. 1 in 21 odds remember? 312 divided by 21 equals 14.857 times that you got rescued, and don’t forget I’ve been using benefit-of-the-doubt-numbers this whole time. You should have had one of these wonderful epiphanies 14 times already (rounding down, again benefit of the doubt to my opposition). If you’ve only had one, I don’t think it’s really much to hang your hat on and claim that it proves the complete existence of the Heart of the Cards.
Next a logical analysis. The next card is the next card. You can wave your hands over it, mumble spells, call forth the Shadow realm, whatever, you’re not going to change what the next card on your deck is. The only way you can do that is by cheating. Keep an eye on people going through these theatrics. Many times they’ll try to distract you and discreetly drop a palmed BLS on the top of their deck when you’re not watching. No amount of theatrics can physically change the next card on your deck. Yes Yugi and Joey do it on the show. Very few things on the show ARE real. Sorry for those of you who want to be the one to unlock the power of the Pharaoh or want to obtain the three god cards and rule the world or get millennium items and seal people’s souls away, but it DOESN’T EXIST! The mystical power of the Heart of the Cards is just another yugioh myth that looks good on TV but doesn’t really exist.
Now onto the "feel good" part of my article. What is the Heart of the Cards really? It’s an idea. It’s doing your best to build the best deck you can and then using it as best you can. It’s an unshakeable confidence in your abilities and the deck you have assembled. You will occasionally lose. You may lose more than you win. Remember, every time someone wins a duel, someone else has to lose. Don’t try turning to cartoon sorcery to try to win. What you’re looking for is on the inside of yourself, and the power of confidence and trust in yourself is the true power at work when we speak of the Heart of the Cards.
Hope you’ve enjoyed my philosophical article. I got to say, this is the most time I’ve ever spent on a Pojo article. I realize that this is very much open to debate, speculation, disagreement, and flat-out hatred. Please feel free to email me with your viewpoint, and happy dueling.
Sean
Comments? Questions? My email is seanslcars@comcast.net and my AIM screenname is NazGul0010. I’m not one of those people that says "No hatemail please". I love reading that stuff. Until next time-SetoKaibafan13