What Makes a Deck Good? Ratios & Math: White Woods (Centurion) Case Study

How to think about deck building concepts: engine, non engine, sub engines, shooting yourself in the foot

[@BimYGO]

Let me know if you prefer long form, in depth content like this (can always watch 2x speed) or whether i should do much shorter videos also let me know if there is something else you want me to cover in my next video, or if you just want to see a specific deck profile breakdown or gameplay + profile etc

[@generalistvibe3279]

I appreciate the detail. Unless there is something specifically short to cover, I would rather all the information in one video

[@adblocker7430]

I like a mixture of both, some short videos that adress single points and examples, and long videos like this that tie it all together. Also keep up the good work, well done!

[@DaedricGun]

When it comes to learning what the deck does and what each card does, longer videos are preferred for me because I can watch the whole video in one sitting. If I want to take a break, I can always come back to it. But updated deck profiles throughout the years, different variants or new techs, shorter videos seems good to me because people by that time, everyone knows what the deck is 😊 annotating the video I think it is always helpful because I can skip things 😝

[@LacaYGO]

This video was awesome. I'd wish for a video where you explain in detail the perfect list you could come up with for a big event. A Combo compendium would also be nice. Keep up the great work!

[@BimYGO]

@@LacaYGO thanks! im planning on doing that after covering a few more variants (fsmith, kashtira, maybe others) but may wait til the next major event first to see what the meta really is

[@redoctober67]

You said they don't get tons of views, but you got mine (and my sub). Also, longform for in-depth topics like this is perfect, but having shortform for other smaller topics works, too. Having a healthy mix (like the ratios you talked about) will find you success, I think.

[@vindikite5081]

I think lumping in called by with crossout and the other "bad cards" is a bit of a stretch because called by has other functionality that is almost always live. Unlike crossout which requires your opponent to have drawn a specific card called by can be used as disruption in a lot of cases. Otherwise its a great video.

[@BimYGO]

true. i think the true answer of if its good or not will be (a) is everyone on breakers, making my called by not gas going first? (b) going 2nd turn 0, is this relevant against fsmith snake eyes? probably not

[@itsfvn9918]

I see White Woods posts from you, I click. Keep it up! Long or short form content I’ll watch!!

[@mewtwo34]

I don't see yugitubers make videos like this, you got a new sub. This reminds me of old school yugitubers

[@batsmak2506]

This is a very well detailed video on a topic that very few people understand. It's a bit of a shame that this will likely only be seen by people looking into playing White Woods specifically. I personally am very torn on the White Woods deck because a lot of what I find enjoyable and have success with are 60-card pile decks, which have even more math that needs to go into them for them to actually work, and while there are a ton of different engines that can complement the White Woods and each other (millennium and fiendsmith both fit excellently), I have been unable to find anything that can easily bridge the engines in a way that makes the numbers work. This is more annoying considering that Rciela herself is generic to act as a bridge, but there's just a severe lack of easy level 6 synchro options that easily fit in. All of this compounds with the fact that as you mentioned, the toys are the strongest part of the deck, and there are virtually no options to access them without roundabout sequences when you're already going off.

[@BimYGO]

my general rule of thumb for deck size is: if the primary engine is a 2-card combo, stay at 40. i dont cover this in the video but going from 40 to 45, 50, or even 60 sometimes doesnt impact the math on one card combo decks nearly as much as people thing - but it substantially impacts the math on 2-card combo decks (like mannadium) way more than people think there are modern outliers like branded, which have so many engine pieces that you can go over 40 and technically not hurt consistency, but very few decks have as much solid support as branded does as for pile decks with ww specifically or bridging - im not sure how much id value rciela being generic since searching legend to get a ww monster (or whatever route) still prefers you have a value send, like the toy stuff ive tested fiendsmith a bit and im really not convinced because its just a worse option than fiendmith in fire/fiend. if youve found a particular combo or synergy tho then def share in the meanwhile, im leaning towards a 40 card toy build with 10ish high impact non engine w/ prosperity

[@batsmak2506]

@@BimYGO Ironically, the deck that first led me down the dark path of pile decks was Yang Zing Metalfoes, very much a 2-card combo deck, but one that had incredible redundancy in the combo pieces, and bumping the ratios on both sides of that allowed for powerful starter/extender hybrids like Brilliant Fusion and Speedroid Terrortop without having a prohibitively high ratio of drawing bricks. Largely I agree that 1-card combo decks can support the larger deck size far more than decks that need multiple pieces to get going. The fiendsmith and millennium cards fit in nicely because both are engines that field multiple bodies without normal summoning while also generating "spells" to send via the fiendsmiths equipping or the millennium field spell and s/t-placed monsters, but neither of them get you to the White Woods cards naturally. Beatrice lines can lead into Centur-ion combos via Rainbow Bridge of Salvation but simply playing that card opens up an entire other can of worms managing discard outlet ratios, and there are still non-engine concerns on top of all of that. There's probably some way to make it all work but I'm not sure I'll have the time to figure that out before NAWCQ. I do know that if I'm playing White Woods over Snake-eye, maindeck Skill Drain and access to the Calamity lock are the reasons I want to, so however I have it structured needs to accommodate for that.

[@BimYGO]

@@batsmak2506 re the last point: might end up being a good meta call if everyone swaps to breakers assuming a fsmith SE meta

[@jack119955]

Very helpful video that explains deck building concepts in a clear way, really appreciated

[@troomaster2312]

I'm planning on going to nats with this deck and i find all your videos the most helpful of all the guides out there on WW, keep up the good work!

[@BimYGO]

cheers!

[@donaxygo]

Discovered this channel through this video. Was really good content, definitely subbed!

[@user-xu1wu3km6s]

I appreciate this video man....keep up the gd work👍

[@IsBeyond]

Feel like the dawn walker / dusk walker engine deserves honorable mention, 1 card combo that gets u a 6 or 8 synchro + a monster reborn trap that pops

[@BimYGO]

in a vacuum the cards dont sound horrible. but the synchro only restriction is quite extreme, since apo/sp are the two easiest ways to play around nib, or to force hand traps before you gas out in terms of engine size, its not far enough off the fsmith package so id rather fsmith at that point

[@generalistvibe3279]

I hear you about Droplet. I hadn’t done any of the math, I was just considering tech for the upcoming format and thought the potential synergies were valuable enough, but you’re definitely right.

[@kingofnerds8818]

Great videos man. I've been trying to get all of the Centur-ion package and everything else prepared for white woods, but the only thing I'm really missing is 3x thrust... anything you recommend to put in it's place? Keep up the great work man, would love to see more WW centurion content 🎉

[@TylerSurface]

Great video 📹

[@takeikun8200]

thoughts on fiendsmith cards in ww? requiem and sequentia equipping themselves from gy enables your sends similar to toy cards and you get an early apo asw. level 6s are helpful for your 12s w rcia or maybe beatrice plays w diabell (guarantees skill drain) lurrie is a bad draw ofc but could be a possible option like cent

[@BimYGO]

i dont think the synergy is real there are many way better options to send for cost and youd never want to send something that isnt the toy engine if you had a choice i tested this initially with the idea of turning rciela and engraver into sync 12 to make crimson dragon plays without centurion bricks, but realistically (especially when hand trapped) you are going to make generic fiendsmith plays and then climb into diabell anyhow instead of going for sync 12 so its not 'bad' because fiendsmith is broken, but sending cards that do nothing after they equip is not synergy if it ends up being better than the centurion build it will just be because it has less bad draws imo - but at that point just play a better deck with fiendsmith , like snake eyes

[@takeikun8200]

@@BimYGO yea that makes sense tbh i was playing w cent and fiendsmith cards and the turn one was insane w lots of extension through ht but it was too many bad draws with both engines and only playing the smiths definitely felt worse. i didnt end up trying fiendsmith + toys but at that point the space is gone and we’re back to square 1

[@BimYGO]

@@takeikun8200 if you really want to play fiendmith in ww, definitely leave in the toys and take out centurion; ww needs those

[@-clod-8948]

this is a really good video

[@Flame082]

Another card that you can search and summon, and works under Skill Drain is Regulus. I run two Tanks to make him slightly more consistent to make. Not sure if he's worth the extra deck space and the brick, but should be definitely considered at least.

[@hermosillo157]

Any thoughts about using broomy? The level 2 spellcaster/light/tuner coming out in infinite forbidden

[@BimYGO]

i think one of the best uses is bringing out out with asteria to make herald of the arc light as a floodgate/omni. the problem is that the hand effect is neg and ww cant afford neg cards because its a multi-card combo deck so id classify it as a 'win more' card that technically makes your endboard a lot better with the right set up, but you dont want to draw it and dont need it for your combo that said, if youre playing more casually i encourage you to play what you like because you wont be punished for suboptimal choices nearly as much in casual settings

[@lankeysob]

Thoughts on grabbing Neo Space Connector/Dolphin through the toybox engine to rip from hand and get hand knowledge?

[@BimYGO]

if it didnt require a normal summon id say it would be decent going first after siding it adds bricks and normal summons into the deck, and during your combo even if you didnt draw a normal summon you usually search asteria, so youll use your normal i think if youre going to use soldier or rciela for a normal summon it needs to be an extremely high impact floodgate. thunder king rai-oh off soldier or jowgen off rciela are ones id recommend, but id probably put them in the side not the main

[@plabcentral630]

It’s definitely how many copies of goofy cards are in your side deck. 3 if herald of the abyss always

[@themacmilitant4280]

Yet another great video. Well done! On the subject of ratios, what is the benefit of playing three copies of Silve as opposed to two? The same goes for Legend, as I only have two copies of that in my list atm. Is 3-3-3-2 for WW main deck engine monsters more mathmatically advantageous than 3-3-2-2? For WW engine spells/traps, my list is 2-1. I've seen other lists with 3-1, so I'm curious.

[@BimYGO]

re spells/traps: ocg seems to heavily favour 1/2 legends and 2 trap - i dont think this makes sense because the only thing that drawing trap does is let you have access to it if the thing that wouldve searched it is stopped, but as its searchable by multiple cards i dont think thats relevant. re legends, i think its better at a higher count the larger your centurion engine is. for example, if youre on 3 emblema, 1 trudea, 1 primera, 1 fspell: you should (almost) always have spellcaster (primera) access in hands that wouldnt otherwise give it to you - which means legends is a pseudo starter. without the centurion cards, legends doesnt work without a ww card to pair it with, in which case you probably lost re monsters: i think if youre on prosp you play 1 rcia, but remember for the 5th summon, 4 mat apo combo i show in another video - prosp will break that combo since you use rcia to send tank to answer the main part of your question re silve and ratios: ofc risette/asteria+toys are the heart and soul of the deck, and the tuners are supporting but mandatory pieces the reason that i play 3 silve has less to do with ratios and more to do with checking for hand traps; if you have silve+legends/risette/prosp, the silve checks for imperm/veiler SAFELY so that you continue playing after that. drawing silve and NO extender doesnt allow you to make this check, in which case you need the silve to resolve and its not as good imo the two real problems with 3 silve are: 1 - drawing silve means drawing asteria at the same time (super low probability) or searching asteria leaves you with a dead card cuz you have to choose which to normal 2 - more importantly, if youre playing centurion cards, asteriax3+primerax1+trudeax1=5 normal summons; going above 5 increases the chance of drawing double normals more than it increases the chance of seeing just one normal, and i think this is the biggest argument for playing less silve. conclusion: pure ww toy can play 3 silve, ww toy centurion can play 1 or 2

[@themacmilitant4280]

Such a detailed and thoughtful response. Once again, thank you!

[@WMouze]

Contenido de calidad... voy a verlo de nuevo por que seguro que me perdí algunas palabras.

[@adrienb8376]

Thank you for this video and for your work on the whitewood engine. It is highly inspiring. I was doubting about the centurion toy version, now I think I'm pretty sure I'll buy this triple engine. My only fear is a potential calamity/generic core synchro end card ban into the next ban list.

[@BimYGO]

if calamities gets banned then the sync12 plays would follow ocg, which is double blazar (not once per turn) combined with skill drain, that's basically a win condition, and probably worth maining triple drain triple prosperity for just keep in mind that often, fully committing to the sync 12 line may leave you without wwsyncro fodder for the tuners to use to bring themselves out, which might turn off your woes from going into silvera, so you either play for ww followup or adapt your combo to ensure woes is live on their turn

[@cutecombo8496]

More long form content/theory please!

[@Izumocchi]

Hello there! What's your opinion on the Runick build?

[@BimYGO]

heavily relies on chaos angel and chengying for monster clear since the ww cards dont naturally do that i think its decent but the centurion win condition with calamities or blazar+skill drain is much stronger against current meta. gotta play 18ish runick cards in the main and not go over 40

[@Izumocchi]

@@BimYGO thanks for the answer

[@jeremiahprok5811]

ngl the centurion part of the deck seems like it should just get cut or something cause if youre playing to go first then is the thrust needed without imperm?

[@BimYGO]

not sure if you watched the entire video but thrust is part of the powerspell ratios, since the dice roll doesnt care if youre "playing to go first" or not i also mention going first thrust can get legend or woes, and legends can be activated the turn it was set by resetting it off a ww effect

[@jeremiahprok5811]

@BimYGO why not side the thrust and play prosp? Calamities should just be game yes?

[@BimYGO]

@@jeremiahprok5811 they are not mutually exclusive, you can play both. prosperity is better in a power spell build than a ht build in my testing, thrust has been better going second than prosp, and prosp has been better going first; but going second is naturally more difficult, so i rate thrust guaranteeing access to talents/evenly/drnm over prosperity maybe hitting them worth nothing that in the centurion build, the standard combo draws twice, or if you resolve rcia, legatia, and tri edge, it draws 3 times - which you cannot do under prosp. ofc you can still do the combo under prosp with auxilia, but then you dont draw 2/3. btw, calamities is not just game against good players on good decks and there are ways to chain block it based on what youve drawn. some decks are impacted way less by calamities than others if they have card effects that dont activate/resolve on field

[@Kioyaa]

Hey man, have u already try the runick version ?

[@BimYGO]

yes - i think its decent but it does have some major limitations you have to keep in mind. you cannot rely on flashing fire for monster removal since you often wont have bp, and so there is a burden placed on chaos angel and chengying to fulfill that role. you have to pay attention to this in your gameplan runick minimum count is approx 18, which means you have very little space for anything else, so you have to rely on runick being your entire toolbox usually if you draw runick cards you wont lose to calamity because you can interrupt its summon or make it miss timing i dont have major issues with it, but i am leaning towards prefering centurion because the win condition is strong, whereas runick requires you to play correctly consistently and focus on card economy without a clear win condition (card economy is basically the win condition)

[@OsirusHandle]

​i agree tho i think in the runick variant you can potentially get away with less engine, with the summons from rspells toybox just feels too much anyway. Normal sm silve is a decent combo even if it gets impermed. a downside is handtraps like veiler + runicks is pointless since either they pass and you win or they play through it with extender and runick spells arent enough ​@@BimYGO

[@RescueKatz]

I like the insight and depth provided here so thank you for that but some of the statements I can't totally agree with. 9:30 in my opinion I feel that most people who have played against snake eye know how good a single imperm can be on ash. i have skipped many a turn with it and i've seen it happen on top ycs streams as well but yeah for a majority of the time you do need more than 1

[@BimYGO]

snake eyes technically can draw 3 ash 2 imperm and pass turn with zero engine - its statistically possible. but its not statistically normal, and the point of deck building is to configure the ideal, statistically normal hand so drawing one se ash with zero extenders is possible, but it is statistically abnormal, that's all

[@pcprincipal7415]

Can you play that engine with swordsoul ?

[@BimYGO]

if you mean the iris swordsoul specifically, yes. if you mean an actual swordsoul deck, no

[@elizabethcruz7994]

i do think called by will have to be played in white woods because of the release of multchummy, this deck gets stopped by that card and you are forced to end early if you get multchummy, or let them have more draws which is a death sentence in this meta.

[@BimYGO]

the chance of you drawing crossout AND your opponent drawing mulchummy is 4% - and this is only relevant when youre going first however, i could see it being a side deck card in a hand trap matchup where you side out a breaker for the called by, especially if they are playing a deck that gets hurt by called by, like fsmith or snake eyes not worth playing crossout just for mulchummy cuz you have to play a hard brick going first and id never main crossout to begin with.

[@FlameEcho]

I think the droplet analysis needs better methodology. Looking at the chance of having the given unsearchable card and cards it combos is in your hand is pretty much always going to inherently generate relatively low percentages you simply don't see a card like droplet often. This can easily mislead you into thinking the card/combo is bad because you won't see it often. The the higher end of those percentages are actually fine though if droplet is good whenever you see it even if that's only 30%~ of the time or less that card can still be very good. You might consider looking at numbers like the chance of drawing 0 of the cards you want with droplet given you assume you have a droplet in hand ie the chance of 0 of the combo pieces drawn in a 5 card(rest of your going second hand) in a 39 card deck.

[@BimYGO]

drawing box/soldier going second w/ 6 cards in hand is 63%, and you combine the probabilities so that the 33% chance of drawing droplet in a vacuum becomes 23% to draw droplet in combination with box/soldier so to actually answer your question, in hands where you have drawn droplet, you have a 57% chance to then draw soldier/box. this is simply not acceptable imo, as its almost a coin toss whether your droplet will cripple you vs be usable, keeping in mind that sending soldier or box materials off droplet means you no longer have those cards to send off engine and then need other sends

[@babrad]

Math isn't important for the deck, it's all about the "Heart of the Cards" - every X/2 drop at locals

[@VTRCOM]

Deck looks solid, but fiendsmith will make this deck look rogue. that makes me sad

[@BimYGO]

coping for banlist

[@ozimantv]

It is funny how you didn't talk about hopt problems due to over consistency. For example, you have lets say 14 starters but its actually 4 playsets and a duplicate then you have %74.604364 chance of not drawing duplicates and drawing at least 1 in other words you have a little over %15 chance of drawing duplicates which makes this REALLY bad in my book since the %90 initially talked about becomes a fugazi due to the hard once per turns of bonfire, witch and i didn't even account for drawing both witch and spoil which performs like a duplicate since if you have witch then spoil searching another copy is practically useless. Now admittedly i am nitpicking and this is a good video for a mediocre player to improve but this doesn't really address the advanced issues. For example, when judging hand traps vs engine people often over value hand traps because the hard once per turns and normal summon limitation plays in their favor when they thing but when you make a non linear deck then this concept flips on its head. You can lets say ash the snake eye ash but lets say i play dragon ravine destrudo ancient fairy to search tearlements field spell and a sami tearlements engine alongside snake eye which doesn't require a normal summon of its own but can use the negated normal summon to go on. This also wouldn't run into the problem of having playsets making you brick problem because destrudo is always summonable from hand as long as you can get 1 snake eye on field so its a reliable extender, dragon ravine is also not a brick because it can help us get access to flamberge through either discard or sending from deck and tearlement cards are also not bricks. (Yes this sub engine doesn't work on tcg due to lack of kitkalos but this is just an example) So i would argue diversification of engine to have more hopt's to be able to play around even more hand traps and fixing the consistency problem of playsets is a better practice. Similarly niche hand traps should be used at reduced number in favor of a bigger variety so that you have less of a chance to draw duplicates.

[@BimYGO]

thanks for the comment i take your point in a vacuum, but the reality does not follow the examples you use. what is evidenced by premier event results is that hopt overlap is not a relevant negative force if you assume a mass hand trap meta - which is undeniably the meta we are in and se is undeniably the best deck of the format pre info by a long shot so when, not if, your opponent hand traps you, the functional redundancy saves you. if for some reason they dont, then they lost anyhow to your endboard. and if they arent playing snake eyes, assuming both players are skilled, statistically at a premier event, the snake eyes player will win anyhow because the deck is better also keep in mind that it is very standard to search followup in your own turn or your opponent's turn,, which you also dont mind getting off of a double (like drawing two se ash) since you only need a few cards to full combo through interruptions anyhow and still want followup so yea, of course my video will be talking about the examples based on meta because that's reality. talking about dragon ravine and tearlaments is irrelevant to the meta

[@ozimantv]

@@BimYGO I don't think you understand the issue here. Let me put it this way. Traditional deck building guidelines are outdated and playing playsets instead of functionally same or similar cards (aside for those which require normal summon) is not a good idea anymore ESPECIALLY because of the meta not regardless of it.

[@BimYGO]

@@ozimantv youre right, i definitely dont understand the issue here lol. are you saying that every snake eyes player topping premier events pushing the deck to tier0 status is wrong and they dont understand deck building? do you have an actual, relevant example in the meta? otherwise whatever point youre making isnt coming across in an intelligible way

[@ozimantv]

​@@BimYGO I am saying they are playing unoptimized decks that are over consistent. There are 2 reasons why they are on the top tables 1) Sheer numbers. Check the snake eye decks from top to the bottom and you will see less than 3 decks that are optimized in a way that i am describing that are going against 30-40 at least unoptimized ones. If We do the math %15 inaccuracy over a sample size of 30-40 vs no inaccuracy or smaller inaccuracies in 3-4 at best decks is not gonna be in the favor of the optimised decks. Basically, your argument boils down to nothing more than "so all of these people are wrong and you are right?" Well if you want an ACTUAL example on how your LOGIC here doesn't track from real world time wizard formats are the best example. You see a particular example would be goat format. I was one of the VERY FEW who used solemn judgement on that format while it was the current format. People told me the EXACT same thing as you do. Guess in the grand scheme of things who was right? Want another example? I was the person who invented the midrange dino rabbit and until my list won a few ycs's by admittedly better players than me nobody thinked about that deck. So if you wanna appeal to authority by saying oh but all these players pushing the deck to "tier 0" you are just plane kidding yourself. You see the idea players push decks to certain "tiers" is nothing more than a ridicoulus sentiment of those who don't even understand what "META" means. It doesn't mean "most successful decks" it doesn't mean "the most popular decks". It means "the most effective tactic available. In other words "meta" exists in a vacuum and we as players trying to figure it out: It is not the other way around that our decks exist in a vacuum and we shape the meta with it as you think. Thats the fundamental mistake you are making. 2) Best deck builders are often bad players because we make complicated decks and make technical mistakes during gameplay. The best example of this (that you will most likely know of) is branded. It is a difficult deck that only a skilled deck builder can make a playable list let alone an optimized one however even people like PAK will not bring their OWN list. They will bring someones list that you DON'T KNOW OF because that person you don't know of specializes in deck building not actually being able to play the game optimally. In this sense you have to realize that %99 of the snake eye decks and users just NET DECK and TRUST the general consensus which is FAULTY because those decks are almost always OUTDATED by the time those players bring them to tournaments. Do you know what is funny? You people treat us like mad man until there is a tournament upset like in 2019 with prank kids even though we keep telling you people the problems with your approach.

[@BimYGO]

@@ozimantv i appreciate your enthusiasm for the topic, but i think youre getting a bit carried away with thinking you know better than (almost) everyone else firstly, there is a simple explanation for someone creating a major upset, like with prank kids or with HAT - and that is that they found a strategy that, while NOT the best deck, was well positioned in a format where no one was familiar with their deck or had deck built to deal with it the same principle can be applied to rogue decks, just in a less extreme sense; floo isnt actually better than full power tearlaments, but there were scenarios where floo players topped tear format because of shifter the other issue that i have with your position is that its simply not true that the best players just pick the best deck that other people built; pak plays branded BECAUSE he doesnt want to play snake eyes. joshua schmidt played runick bystial BECAUSE he didnt want to play meta etc. but then those decks dont actually end up doing well because people learn what they do and realize the deck isnt amazing, its just unexpected and/or well positioned additionally, players like jesse kotton, arguably the greatest of all time, actually DO experiment with lesser known decks and bring a huge amount of creativity to deck building - but what happens is he just goes and plays the same old snake eyes list as everyone else because it actually is optimal the strongest examples of deck building divergence in SE format are italian nats (se kash power spell) or paolo's kash/skill drain/crossout list - all of these are reactions to the existing meta in a vacuum, the classic se deck is just objectively the best deck. both of us can theorize about why something is or isnt correct, but at the end of the day, tier 0 format data points in one direction, and that's that youre wrong about it being 'over consistent'