Pot of Desires allows you to banish the top 10 cards of your deck, facedown, and then draw 2 cards.
Why would someone do this? Is gaining 2 cards worth it?
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Related: boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/32511/…– Arcanist LupusCommented May 31, 2019 at 5:35
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" Is gaining 2 cards worth it?" Well, one net card.– AcccumulationCommented Feb 23, 2022 at 7:45
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5 Answers
Why would someone do this? Is gaining 2 cards worth it?
Exactly.
Banishing 10 cards face down is the trade-off for drawing 2 cards; it's up to you (or the deck builder) to determine if this trade-off is worth it.
Having a card that just lets you draw 2 cards would be too broken. Such effect should have a trade-off to make it more balanced, and that is why this card requires banishing 10 cards.
In theory, no one wants to banish 10 cards facedown, because as they are facedown you can't recover them by any means (at least as far as I know, as you don't know what card it is).
However, in practice, drawing 2 cards may be worth it, and even decisive for the game result.
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7"Having a card that just lets you draw 2 cards would be too broken." More accurately, it was too broken - that was Pot of Greed.– ConManCommented May 30, 2019 at 6:10
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I recall there only being a tiny few cards that interact with banished face down cards. Not worth putting in a deck alongside desires alongside whatever you're playing– L_ChurchCommented May 30, 2019 at 8:21
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@ConMan precisely. A modern card with such effect should have a trade-off, otherwise it will end banned Commented May 30, 2019 at 9:23
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2Right. Suppose you know that your opponent is going to win unless you can draw a specific card from your deck. Sure, by playing this card, you banish 10 cards, but you have a chance at not losing. By not playing the card, you guarantee a loss for yourself. It's pretty clear that at least in some circumstances, the card can be advantageous. Commented May 30, 2019 at 17:37
If you have Eater Of Millions on the field, that gives him +1000 Attack AND you gain 2 cards in your hand.
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1Similarly, there are a few other cards that specify that they work with cards that were banished face-down, along with some cards that only care about the number of banished cards (and thus don't care whether the cards were banished face-up or face-down), which can benefit from Desires' cost. It's a risky play nonetheless, though. Commented Jan 12, 2020 at 21:45
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The rogue strategy of Gren Maju beatdown has been using Pot of Desires and Gizmek Orochi to create a field of large monsters and a large banish pile to boost the attack of Gren Maju Da Eiza and Eater of Millions. It has done well in a number of tournaments last year. Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 14:28
Banishing cards can be an upside in many decks too, and not just decks that care about what's banished.
The chance of banishing all three copies of a card in your deck to this is really low, first player, first turn those odds are only 1.833%, while the odds to banish 0 or 1 copy are 80.978%.
This leaves you with 2 or 3 copies left in the remaining 23 cards of your deck, or one in your hand after the draw. You go from these cards being 8.571% of the remaining deck before to 8.695% of the deck after (with two copies left) and if you get lucky and land in the 35.141% you didn't banish even one copy, you're left with that card as 13.043% of the remaining deck.
You can always get unlucky and hit two or worse three copies, and of course these odds get worse over time, but until you're down to half of your deck left (20 cards is 50% chance to remove 2 or three copies, 50% chance to remove one or none), banishing 10 cards is more likely to leave multiple copies of your important pieces and increase the density.
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That makes no sense. Banishing cards face-down can't increase the chances of getting the cards you want. Commented Jun 29 at 19:59
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@Acccumulation reducing the deck size increases the density of those cards in the deck. This works for a similar reason to why no one runs over the 40 card minimum deck size, it reduces density of the specific cards. There is a risk that you will banish moultiple of the important cards, but early on that risk is low.– AndrewCommented Jun 30 at 18:53
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@Andrew I am certain that you will find that because the removed cards are randomly chosen from the deck, the expected fraction of your deck that is cards that you want after removing cards is equal to the fraction of your deck that is cards that you want before removing cards. As a result, the probability of drawing those particular cards does not change. The math is different when considering deck building because in that case the deck builder chooses which cards to include or omit.– murgatroid99 ♦Commented Jul 5 at 22:03
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@murgatroid99 I used the same hypergeometric math to remove 10 cards as is used to predict liklihood of drawing specific cards in the next 10 draws for player 1 turn 1: 35% 0, 46% 1, 17% 2 and 2% 3 copies of any 3 of are removed by the random banish ten. Based on those odds the density left is likely to increase for a given card or stay roughly the same (1 banished 2 left is very slightly more dense) its not the same as during construction but that was me trying to explain how the high chance of most copies in a smaller deck is a benefit.– AndrewCommented Jul 6 at 11:51
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Using those probabilities to get a weighted average the density goes from 8.571% of the deck before Pot to 9.304% of the deck after, a small increase but an increase. , granted the draw two is a part of that– AndrewCommented Jul 6 at 12:02
Also if you use it together with Soul Absoprtion you gain 5000 Health pretty sure there are more cards like this
Because Pot of Greed is banned.
But yeah, by playing 3 copies of your combo pieces you'll mitigate the downside, Upstart Goblin was limited for just drawing 1 card, and it increase your opponent's lifepoints. I'm considering adding desires to my deck because when I was playing with my brother I kept bricking, but if I just had more cards on the same turn rather than using what I had to keep myself alive I might have won.
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