Often times I find it difficult to find inspiration for new things to write about. I just do not find comfort or necessity in parroting what many others before me have already said. I want everyone to take something away with what I choose to write about. Luckily, my new Psychology textbook gave me something very enlightening. So stick around for something you may just have never thought about quite the same.

This is taken from Exploring Psychology, 5^th Ed, David G. Myers (pg 18):

            Failing to recognize random occurrences for what they are can predispose people to seek extraordinary explanations for ordinary events. Imagine that on one warm spring day 4000 college students gather for a coin-tossing contest. Their task is to flip heads. On the first toss, 2000 students do so and remain standing for a second round. As you would expect, about 1000 of these progress to a third round, 500 to a fourth, 250 to a fifth, 125 to a sixth, 62 to a seventh, 31 to an eighth, 15 to a ninth, and 8 amazing individuals, having flipped heads nine times in a row with ever-increasing displays of concentration and effort, remain standing for the tenth round.

            By now, the crowd of losers is in awestruck silence as these expert coin tossers prepare to display their amazing ability yet again. The proceedings are temporarily halted. A panel of impartial scientists assembles to observe and document the incredible achievement of these gifted and talented individuals. Alas, on each succeeding toss half of those remaining flip a tail, until all have sat down. “Oh! Of course,” their admirers say, “coin tossing is after all a highly sensitive skill. The tense, pressured atmosphere created by the scientists’ scrutiny has disturbed their fragile gift.”

When I first read this passage I stopped literally in my tracks. I had to re-read it and double check that I was indeed reading a general psychology textbook. The correlation of this is more then just strong: It becomes as simple as word replacement.

Go back and replace every occurrence of the phrase “coin toss” with “Yu-Gi-Oh”, every “toss” with “duel”, and the word “scientist” with “judge”.

What amazes me most about this segment is not the concept - it is in the presentation. The wording used painted a picture I have seen all too well for far too long: A simple truth, one we should all be able to see, masked behind a massive cloak of theatrics. Let’s start with the general concept.

I am going to first pose a question. A coin is flipped six times. Which of the following configurations is more likely to occur?

1. HHHTTT
2. HTTHTH
3. HHHHHH

First response is everything here. Hind sight bias will not prove much. A study actually showed that many people chose option 2. The general concept of this is that most people fail to recognize true random behavior if it does not generally appear this way. In retrospect we can all agree each of these three configurations have the exact same chance of occurrence.

What makes most favor the second option? The other options have too high an appearance of order, pattern, and consistency. It looks traceable and easy to extrapolate to flips 7, 8, and 9. We trick ourselves into what we feel a random result set should look like: In this case, roughly alternating with patches of inconsistency. As part of our mental processing and the way we absorb and interpret information we search for patterns. If a pattern appears to begin emerging our brain begins to jump ahead of the data.

We all can see how a perfectly standard coin produces total randomness: giving you an exactly 50% chance of landing either way with each new toss. It is vital to understand that this chance always resets. Just because you flipped 5 heads in a row does not give you a better chance of flipping tails.

The other side of this situation begins to show in the presentation. A very structured tournament-style setting is implemented. The situation involves a huge turnout and a cut to top eight. Excitement occurs over the cream of the crop: choice professionals that fight their way to Day 2.

We can see this easily play out as sort of ridiculous when it comes to just flipping a coin. What about rock-paper-scissors? There is definitely a bit more to that game. What about Poker? That has a whole range of professional play with fabulous prizes and a lifestyle. What about Yu-Gi-Oh?

Theories on Overall Randomness of YGO

We now see that competition involving a random act can be masked to hide that fact, but does YGO possess this inherit randomness? My theory would suggest to you that it does but in a turn by turn shift. Let’s start with test situations.

For the purposes of the situation we will assume that both players are of roughly equivalent skill and experience – measured by knowledge of when and how to best play the cards they are dealt. Both players have decks built with roughly equivalent card values.

The first draws of the game we see total and absolute randomness: 6 cards are extracted from a randomized 40 card source. Both players have the same chance of drawing any cards they may happen to run. The opening player views his hand and finds it devoid of any “power” cards (Graceful Charity, Snatch Steal, Heavy Storm, Confiscation, Chaos Sorcerer, etc.) or otherwise possessing some bad curve of monsters to S/Ts. For whatever reason this is a hand he feels does not work for early tempo or aggression and chooses a strategy of defense.

As the game goes on his opponent draws into a Nobleman of Crossout.

“Ripped!”

Yes it was actually: An excellent draw and a good kiss by Lady Luck. This is where shifting occurs. What actually made Nobleman of Crossout a good draw? Ironically enough, the other player did.

You heard me. I nut drew and it was partially your fault.

Shifting randomness is something many of us have seen but never really recognized. It just always appeared that the controlling player can keep drawing answers to put away the opponent. The opponent is struggling to keep up and loses his head over how he just cannot seem to pull out of this.

Let’s head back to a context. In no deck do I feel shifting shows more prominence then in Soul Control.

In the sense of aggressive play, when a player is in control it involves monsters thrown into the red zone each turn going for broke on an opponent’s life points. Picture in your mind a standard Soul Control deck list. If what I described is your current board position what cards would be absolutely incredible to see show up? Zaborg the Thunder Monarch, Mobius the Frost Monarch, Jinzo, Nobleman of Crossout, Exiled Force, Heavy Storm, Creature Swap (Frog or Spirit users), Mystic Swordsman LV2, and so on.

Now take us back to a new position. The Soul Control player has lost control and has been forced on the defensive to protect himself. He needs a pull through. Which cards really will not help him? Surprised? It’s the same damn list! This is because all of those cards are about reinforcing advantage – not reclaiming once it is lost.

The majority of competitive decks show this same curve. Suffering from inadequate ways to truly retake control from an opponent our focus has become starting early, hitting strong, and keeping it going. These decks cannot fight back if the game is late enough.

Consider this to a snowball. When first made its small and delicate; easy to fall apart. As it gets rolling with a bit of momentum it gets harder and harder to stop. Eventually it gets to the point where very specific answers must be drawn or simply nothing will suffice.

We begin to see correlation. The random occurrence of drawing useful cards is linked directly to game state. The same cards remain in a deck. The same chances of drawing any one card exist. But whether the card works or not depends on control.

Starting with an opening hand we begin to see YGO as roughly as bad as our coin tossing scenario (assuming, of course, mirror matching in terms of skill and build). You can get the hand to get early control, or you cannot. You can get the cards to shut down your opponent’s control attempts, or you cannot. However, early game is absolutely everything as it pushes future good draws in your favor. As turns counts move along shifting allows the controlling player to draw the same cards he normally would have, but at a higher rate of immediate utility.

In some ways this makes the initial randomness of the opening hand much more prominent. The trick still remains to find ways to take early leads, and then let fate work towards you.

This, of course, is just a theory about our current game state. It is, however, easily testable. Run an experiment where you manipulate conditions. Or just conduct natural observation and take notes into what specifically plays out and under what conditions do players find specific cards truly useful. I encourage and challenge you to not accept this simply at face value but seek validity for yourselves.