Quote (Voyaging @ Jul 15 2015 03:50am)
Yes deck thinning is a benefit, but people are exaggerating how much different a 30 vs 29 card deck is. It's not really a very substantial statistical difference, and it's certainly not worth using 3 mana to get it (flare for example costs only 1 mana and has an incredibly powerful effect in addition to the deck thinning and it's virtually never played)
Obviously deck thinning is not the main reason to use it, but I don't think you can exaggerate what a huge benefit the difference between a 30 and 29 card deck is. Lets forget that Mulliganing exists for a second because that puts things way more in the favor of Arcane Intellect. You straight up start with a minimum of 3 cards before you draw for your opening turn. We'll also forget that if you go 2nd you start with 4 putting things even more in Arcane Intellect's favor if you go 2nd. That's a 3.7+ percent smaller deck. When you are grinding through hundreds of games to get to legend, getting the card you're looking for 3.7+ more games out of 100 is incredible.
This post was edited by jspBryan on Jul 18 2015 07:55am