What every card above the minimum deck size costs
Your data
Nothing here is tied to one game: any game with a smallest legal deck has the same trade, because every card above that number is one more thing between you and what you wanted.
Results
| Chance at the smallest legal size, in per cent | — |
| Chance at the size you are running, in per cent | — |
| Points the extra cards have cost you | — |
| Points the next card would cost | — |
| Copies that would buy the loss back | — |
What each card above the minimum costs
| Deck size | Chance, in per cent | Points that card cost |
|---|
The last column shrinks as the deck grows, which is the part worth knowing: the first card above the minimum is the most expensive one you will ever add, and every card after it costs a little less than the one before. Five more cards in a small deck hurt more than five more in a large one.
The other half of the answer is how cheaply the loss is bought back. One extra copy of what you are looking for usually repays about ten cards of space, so the honest question is not whether the extra cards dilute you but whether you would rather spend the slots on them or on another copy.
What this cannot see is what those extra cards do. A deck that runs long because it has genuinely useful things to run is a different case from one that runs long because nothing was cut, and the arithmetic here treats them exactly alike.
How much does one card above the minimum really cost?
More than any card you add later. With three copies of what you want and five cards seen, the first card above forty costs about three quarters of a point of consistency, and the price falls from there.
By the time the deck is sixty, another card costs about a third of a point. Five extra cards in a small deck hurt more than five in a large one.
| Deck size | Chance, in per cent | Points the next card costs |
|---|---|---|
| 40 | 33,7551 | 0,7344 |
| 45 | 30,3735 | 0,6217 |
| 50 | 27,6020 | 0,5135 |
| 60 | 23,3343 | 0,3668 |
Can I just add another copy to make up for it?
Usually, and cheaply. One more copy repays about ten cards of space: running forty-five or fifty instead of forty, a fourth copy puts you back where you started.
It takes sixty cards before a fifth copy is needed, which reframes the argument: the question is not whether extra cards dilute you but whether the slots are better spent on them or on another copy.
So is the minimum always right?
Not on this evidence alone. The page prices the dilution exactly and knows nothing about what the extra cards do, so a deck that runs long because it has genuinely useful things to run is treated the same as one that runs long because nothing was cut.
Read the figure as the price of the space, then decide whether what fills it is worth that price.
Why does the cost per card shrink?
Because each card is a smaller share of a bigger deck. Adding one to forty changes the mix by one fortieth; adding one to sixty changes it by one sixtieth.
That is also why the very first card above the minimum is the most expensive one you will ever add, which is the opposite of the usual worry about decks slowly growing.
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