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Yeah, I agree, but even though it's casual and not a tournament setting, I still want to be competitive and play to win. I'm trying to determine if 61 vs 60 really puts me at that much of a disadvantage. I know the advantage of the extra card is appealing, but I don't want to defeat the purpose if it throws everything off.

Used to stick to the 60 card limit, and for anyone new, I'd definitely recommend it. The reasoning is sound - you'll draw your best cards more often.

However, there's definitely a solid, logical reason to go up to a few cards over 60 (the highest I've seen any competitive player go is about 67) - land:nonland ratio. You can fine tune the ratio with more precision if you're willing to budge from 60 cards. 24/60 (0.4) and 25/60 (0.417) give you two options; 24/61 (0.393), 25/61 (0.410) and 26/61 (0.426) provide 3 more. The values are similar to above, but are different enough that the most efficient land:nonland ratio may actually be gained by going up to 61 cards. And of course, being more flexible allows for more fine tuning - but then, of course, you'll reach a point where the minute decimal gains become negligible (you could argue that it happens from 60-61 cards, but ultimately it comes down to what someone deems negligible).

There's an article I often refer to when looking at the land:nonland ratio maths:

www.gatheringmagic.com/the-extra-card-fa...

My decks fall into one of two categories; casual and competitive(obviously).

Casual decks are whetever I damn well please. These are decks I build around themes for fun, to play with my wife and 9-year old daughter, etc. These decks don't typically revolve around a win condition, specific mechanic, etc. My series of Ravnica guild-themed decks fall into this category, and are all between 65-75 cards. A little bit of everything thrown in with the kitchen sink.

My competitive decks stick to the 60-card rule as much as possible. These are decks I build specificaly to win games; no neato artwork, no cute stuff, no "themes," just built to compete. These decks usually have some gut-punch of a combo that makes people want to strangle me, so I don't use these on casual nights or against my daughter, who is still learning the game.

I'll be completely honest; they aren't that much better than my bloated casual decks, but I'm at least trying to somewhat take deck-building seriously with these.

I have to have a clear divide between deck goals, because if I built all competitive, all the time, I'd burn myself out and it'd stop being fun. If I played my casual decks all the time, I'd never win any games. It's a balance that keeps things interesting for me.

I can't think of a hard a fast reason why 61-64 cards would be a thing. Everyone builds a little differently, so maybe it's just a house-rulle of sorts they go by.

There are occasions where running 61 cards is actually more mathematically sound, but unless you are a very good deck builder with a decent knowledge of statistics there really isnt a good reason to.

Its worth noteing that:

Feb 28, 2013 -- 8:02PM, quadibloc wrote:

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You could be facing a metagame in which mill is very popular.

You could have a lockdown control deck, so that nothing much happens, and so you expect to win by being the last player to draw a card. And, of course, if you're using Blue's other ability, card draw, you'll need extra cards to compensate for that.

You could be playing Modern, where, on the one hand, there isn't a small pool of good cards for which you want the maximum chance of drawing them, and on the other there isn't a tiny pool of obvious must-haves that you need the maximum chance of drawing - the Power Nine or the original duals. So if you increase your deck to half again its size with cards that are just as good as the ones you've started with, you haven't lost any draw consistency.

So I can think of a few reasons - not necessarily good ones - for playing more than 60 cards, even if you are playing to win.

These are all really really bad reasons.  You are better off just hating out mill with cards designed to do so rather than bulking up your deck.  Pretty much the same for Prison style decks, you just need the ability to put your graveyard back in your library.

Not sure what you are saying about Modern.  In any deck you have cards that are important and cards that are less important.  Thats why you vary the amount of each card, to change your chance of drawing it relative to the others.  Each additional card dilutes the control you have over that chance a little bit more.  You certainly dont want to be playing some giant 90 card pile.