#'oh but the variety! in standard you can sometimes guess exactly what your opponent has!' this isnt a downside

[lesbianralzarek]

content warning: me being a HUGE bitch

i looooove playing standard because i just saw an mtg post that was like "my husband did this pro strat where he judged that his opponent was bluffing based on what mana they had up??? 🤯" and its like... yeah? thats how card games work?

i fucking love being in a format where its feasible to know every legal card. genuinely dont understand the appeal of formats that arent conducive towards/rewarding reading your opponent(s). thats, like, the thing for me or else id just play solitaire

just being a hater. like what you like. but why

[cloudchaserandflitterexplain]

Cloudchaser and Flitter Explain: When to run 1, 2, or 3 copies of a card

I can’t wait to make new decks again. I’ve already got lots of ideas.

Did you see that Rainbow Dash Friend? She is going to be so useful during the late stages of aggro! And who could forget that Sweetie Belle? She’s going to be useful just about everywhere.

And then there’s us, of course. Maybe Blue/Yellow will be put back on the map after this. It just needs a tiny little shove and it’ll be great again! Oh, I hope it gets it. I really do!

You haven’t been this chatty in a long time. How about we channel all this energy into something constructive?

Like what?

Hi everypony! You looking forward to Defenders of Equestria being right around the corner? We certainly are!

In fact, Cici was just talking about one of her favourite subjects: deck building! So I thought we’d tackle a somewhat advanced deck building topic: knowing how many copies of a card you should run in any given deck.

Wah? We’re doing this now?

Yup!

Well, I’m not ready for this at all, but…

Let’s do it!

That’s the spirit!

So long time fans may remember our very first one of these was on deck building. And I brought up that it’s almost always correct to use three copies each of 15 cards for consistency purposes.

And I countered and said there were times where you wouldn’t always want to do that! Hence what we’re talking about today.

Yeah. It’s become more and more apparent recently that you won’t always want to this.

But it’s still a good rule of thumb in case you’re new to deck building. What we’re talking about here is a bit of an advanced technique.

I guess you could say it’s still almost right to run three copies of each of your cards. But you definitely don’t have to for everything.

So let’s talk about some reasons to run only one copy of a card!

The most common reason of course is if you have other ways to find it when you need it.

Yeah. Cards like Gyro, or Pinkie Pie: Everypony’s PFF can really help out there as they’re like extra copies of that one card you need, despite only having one copy.

In fact, there’s a whole bunch of decks that rely on this strategy. We call them Toolbox decks! They’re not a full archetype themselves like aggro or control, but rather a sub-archetype. You’d say, for example, toolbox control when talking about a control deck that uses a strategy like this.

Yeah, toolbox decks handle deckbuilding a bit differently than most other decks. They’ll Include a lot of singletons that handle specific situations and rely on other cards to search for them when they need them.

This makes it unlikely they’ll draw these cards against matchups where they’re not so great, but very likely you’ll draw them in the matchups that are! A pretty good combination, if you ask me.

You could also use a lot of card draw and meticulous. But that only helps you find your one ofs, doesn’t guarantee it. So you can’t rely on them too much.

Unless you have an awful lot of it!

Well, yeah. But even then, it still might not be enough.

So you could do both at the same time!

Yeah, but—

Huh. That could work out pretty well, actually.

Now the other common reason to possibly include one copy of a card is when you’re absolutely positive you never want to draw two copies. A lot of unique cards fall under this category, for example!

This can be risky, though. Since if you need that card for a particular matchup, well, you’re not likely to get it.

Unless you’re using the card searchers we mentioned above, of course.

Still. sometimes you’ll find yourself just wanting one card to deal with that one player’s deck, and not want to devote too much deck space to it. And this is an option.

And of course the last reason to run only one copy is if you only have one copy! Hard to run more if you don’t have them.

I guess...

But you should consider getting more if you can.

Cards aren’t cheap you know, Cici. And not everyone’s as rich as you, Ms. Moneybags.

I said “if you can"!

Anyway, on to the next number: two!

I’m pretty sure everypony out there knows how to count, Flitter.

Cloudchaser!

Wah?

Was that a joke? I’m so proud of you!

Augh, get off me!

Moments like these practically beg for celebratory hugs.

But maybe we should get back to what we’re talking about, hehe. Reasons to include two copies of a card instead of one or three.

There’s actually a lot of these!

The most common of which is entry. It’s become standard to run 8 entry in most decks, though some live more dangerously and run 6, while others play it a bit safe and run 9. But 8 is probably the most common in the competitive circles, at least.

And, well. 8 doesn’t cleanly divide by 3. So most ponies run 2 sets of three and a set of two to meet a total of 8.

Which leaves you with 37 cards; also not divisible by three!

Yeah. So a lot of times ponies run 13 sets of three, and 3 sets of two. Because they’d usually rather run two copies of a card than one.

But how in equestria can you decide which cards to only run two of instead of a full three?

Dramatic much?

Always!

Well, it’s kind of similar to the reason to run only one of something. You pick your most situational cards, the ones that are only useful against some opponents, and you run two instead of three.

The idea here is that you want to run enough copies of them that you see them when you need them, but not so frequently that you’re constantly drawing them when you don’t need them.

Just remember this little poem: three is too many, one is too few. That only leaves you with option two!

You’re composing poems about deck building now?

Oh, like you haven’t? I’ve seen your “Ode to Aggro” rough drafts, remember?

I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Anyway, another reason to run two copies of a card instead of three is for variety.

Let’s say you’re running a Pink control deck, and you want to be able to dismiss friends. But a lot of the best dismissal has a restriction that prevents it from affecting just any friend. And your deck only has 6 slots you want to devote to dismissal.

You could run three copies of, say, Foodfight! and Yoink!. But then you’d have no way to handle smaller friends. Instead, you could run three copies of Foodfight! and Downright Dangerous, but those are pretty AT expensive. Or you could also run three copies of Yoink! and Downright Dangerous, but then you’d only be able to dismiss large friends during faceoffs.

Or you could run two of each! Still the same amount of dismissal, but different ones are better in different situations!

Exactly! It gives you a little less consistency, but way more flexibility. So it’s sometimes a worthwhile tradeoff depending on the needs for your deck.

Lastly, unique cards are also a good thing to run two copies of. Lots of unique cards are really powerful, so you want to draw them. But a second copy is frequently useless unless the first left play somehow.

Now, maybe you only want to run a single copy. Like we said earlier. But maybe you find that one copy isn’t enough for your deck and you just never draw the card when you need to.

In that way, they’re very similar to your situational cards. Three is too many, one is too few. That only leaves you with op—

I think they get the point without you needing to repeat your rhyme, Flits.

Well, it’s basically the main reason to run two copies of something. So it’s handy to remember!

Or would you rather I compose a rap about it?

NO!

I mean, uh… let’s move on to our last case. When to run three copies of a card.

This one’s easy!

Since three is the maximum number of copies you can run of any particular card, you want to run three copies of anything you want to see frequently! Whether this is a key card, a way to interfere with the opponent’s plans, or just general utility.

Yeah, uh. That’s basically it. You run a full three copies if it’s something you want to draw a lot of. Nothing more to it.

Or in other words…

If it’s a card you want to see, make sure that you run a full three!

More poems? You know you skipped one, right?

I can fix that!

You should make sure to use exactly one...

If you need it in rare situations?

Close enough, I guess.

See? I am the mistress of poetry!

Well, that’s about it, I guess. Hopefully this should help you deckbuild.

Even if it is contrary to some advice I gave everypony earlier.

Well, it takes a big pony to admit she was wrong. And now everypony’s learned something!

Yeah, I think it’s pretty useful. Even if most of the time it is correct to use a full three copies of a card, now everypony knows the exceptions.

Well, in that case, bye everypony! Hope everyone’s still excited for Defenders of Equestria!

I know I am!