“To Momo or not to Momo,” that is the question. As an avid player of TCGs for over a decade and a half, I have always wondered how many of a specific type of card should you include in a deck to make including a “search for” card worth it. In this article, we will dive into the math behind the game and explore the probabilities of drawing a card off these conditional draw effects.

The Quest for the Perfect Deck

The question that intrigued me the most was how many “hits” my deck needed to run for me to be satisfied with running one of these conditional draw effects. For me, satisfaction means drawing a card 80% of the time or more. Of course, your preferences may vary, so feel free to adjust accordingly.

Note: In this article, I won’t be referring to these cards as “tutors” like in Magic the Gathering. Instead, I see them as conditional draw spells where sometimes you get a choice in what you take, but often you are just happy to draw a card.

Analyzing the Numbers

To test this hypothesis, I wrote a Python code to simulate a deck. The deck consists of four copies of the card with the effect, some cards that could be “hits,” and the rest are “misses.” I wanted to determine the likelihood of drawing a card off these effects when drawn at the beginning, played, and activated as soon as possible. Although this may not be the most accurate assumption in actual gameplay, it provides a good starting point for analysis.

The code looks at the opening six cards. If one of those six cards contains a card with the effect, it will “use it” and look at the next N cards (depending on what the effect says). If the next set contains a hit, it is considered a “hit,” otherwise, it is a “miss.”

There are probably more sophisticated probability analysis techniques, but brute-forcing it with computing power proved to be more practical for this analysis. In the chart below, you can see the minimum number of hits required in a deck to guarantee an 80% chance of drawing a card, based on the number of cards you see.

Building the Perfect Deck

Now, armed with this information, you can make more informed decisions when building decks with multiple card types and making changes. If you reduce the number of a certain type of card, you may want to reevaluate whether running these searcher cards is still worth it for you.

And as for the question of “To Momo or not to Momo,” the answer is probably not. Achieving the 13-hit threshold required for a card like Momo is difficult without running additional cards that may not be worth it.

Editor’s Note: My latest Kid deck runs 15 Land of Wano cards, including two Momos. So, it just barely passes the 80% threshold, although it still bricks occasionally.

Meet Quinn, the Author

Hi! My name is Quinn, also known as “AvianFang” in most online communities. I have been an avid player of TCGs for over 15 years and currently serve as a level 1 OnePieceTCG Judge. With a background in mechanical engineering and education, I bring a unique perspective to the table and aim to offer insights to help improve our community.

You can find me on Twitter @RomanceDonCast and listen to my podcast on Spotify here.

That’s all for now, fellow TCG enthusiasts! Keep these considerations in mind when crafting your decks, and may your draws always be fortunate!