Complexity of gamestate

    One of the numerous things I learned while reading Yugioh articles, which you can find in the librarie here, is the notion of complexity of gamestate.



    The complexity of gamestate is simply the number of cards each players have.
If both players have few cards available, it is an easy gamestate (or light gamestate). If both players have a lot of cards, it is a complex gamestate (or heavy gamestate).
Draw effects complexify the gamestate.
Destruction and damage effects simplify the gamestate.

   Draw power shines in an easy gamestate. If both players have 1 card in hand and player A cast Nice one !. He now have the double of his opponent's card.
If both players have 10 cards, getting an 11th one is not relevant because you won't be able to play all your options anyway (field restriction, gauge cost...).
    On the other hand, decks that lack ressource management love playing into a complex gamestate. With few ressources, they will be able to attack one turn, see their monsters destroyed during the opponent's turn, and then get stuck because they are out of ressources.
With a lot of cards, they will be able to consistently make the maximum amount of attack. And within 10 cards in the opponent's hand, not all of them are shields.

   This is why it is highly recommended to ignore side zone monsters against wizard, but run into them against Crimson.



    So far, there isn't any card that complexify both players' gamestates. Card car D from Yugioh and Howling Mine from Magic would be good example of this.
But there are a lot of cards that simplify both gamestates. Death damage is the card that represents it the best : both players loose a card. As simple as that.

   First, I will use Hades fall in the Water deck to put into application the theory I have, and hopefully you will understand where I want to go.
    Hades fall is in my opinion one of the best spells in Katana world. It is an easy +0.5 in terme of   ressource advantage. And it can put a unreal pressure on decks that rely on key monsters to work out (for instance Schedar Cassiopeia in Stars).
    It has a few weaknesses which makes the card more balance (like beeing a temporary -1.5), but still. No matter what Katana World deck I play , I will put a playset of Hades fall in it. Yet, I don't play any Hades fall in the Water decklist I used to publish my article about the deck.
   As you know from my previous article, Water is terribly lackluster in term of Ressource management. In term of Card advantage, Hades fall is a wash. Both players looses one card, it simplifies the gamestate. This is definitlly not what a deck with bad ressource management wants.
On the other hand, Ninjas have Shiden. They have much better ressource management. They WANT the gamestate to be easy.

   Now, let's talk about Death damage. Purgatory knights and Death have good ressource management. But is it good enough to compete against other decks ressource management ? Because those two decks need to extend on the field, no. This is why I won't play Death damage as a 4-of in Darkness dragon world.

   Here is a reflexion you can now carry into your future deckbuilding You are about to add more draw power in your Magic world deck. Isn't it overkill ?
Draw aways the lackey ! is a conditional wash. But why can't it be good against a Crimson or Star dragon world which has bad ressource management ?
 I don't think it will truly help you on your current deck which has already been playtested. But keep that in mind for future releases where a large pool of untested cards arrive.