Saturday 17 September 2011

Why Chain Disappearance isn't good against Fairy Agent?


Today we are going to look at one of the concepts I have been thinking about for the past few weeks. That is, whether Chain Disappearance is good as a side-decking material against Fairy Agent. To do so, we will use a conceptual model, where assumptions are made, to investigate the Math behind it.

Based on observation, quite a number of players are siding in Chain Disappearance against the Fairy Agent Matchup as an answer to the special summoning of Mystical Shine Ball. This coupled with the fact that Fairy Agent is one of the most popular decks around for the time being, also meant that more players are playing Chain Disappearance in their side-deck.


So, what is it in Mystical Shine Ball that is so fearful that there is a need to side-deck against it? The vanilla monster allows one of the most card-gaining plays in this Metagame. To unlock it, it has to be used in conjunction with Agent of Creation – Venus. At the cost of 500 life points, a player may utilise the effects of Venus to special summon one Mystical Shine Ball from their hand or deck. Simply put, you can reduce your deck count and increase resources on the field at the same time using just one card. The release of Xyz monsters, specifically Gachi Gachi Gantetsu, further improved the utility of the card. It is a common sight to see an Agent of Creation – Venus, with an attack of 2000, surviving long periods of the game to gain insane resource lead on opponent.

The probability of drawing Agent of Creation – Venus in an opening hand of 6 is 39.43%. We will assume that the rational player will try to special summon Mystical Shine Ball using it at every first opportunity available to reduce/eliminate the chance of drawing into the vanilla monster, and to increase the chance of drawing other cards (by reducing total deck count). The scenario of obtaining it via Pot of Duality is ignored because the latter’s side effect will prevent Venus from using its effect.

 Let A be Opponent drawing Agent of Creation - Venus in their opening hand

P(A) = 0.3943

The usual number of Chain Disappearance being included in the Side Deck of players varies between 1 and 2. For the purpose of illustration, it would be assumed at 2.

Let B be myself drawing Chain Disappearance in my opening hand

P(B) = 0.2807


This meant that if I include 2 copies of chain disappearance in my deck, I will have a 28.07% chance of drawing it in my opening hand. Obtaining the card via Pot of Duality is ignored and will be explained somewhere later in this post.

By combining the 2 probabilities above, we can obtain the conditional probability of activating Chain Disappearance on opponent’s first turn (assuming you go first).

P(A|B) = P(A) * P(B) = 0.1107 (A & B are statiscally independent)

This meant that by including 2 copies of Chain Disappearance, and going first in the game, there is an 11.07% chance of activating it on Mystical Shine Ball on opponent’s inaugural turn. To change a way to look at this, it means that for every 10 games where you go first, on average there would be one game where you get to activate Chain Disappearance on Mystical Shine Ball on opponent’s opening turn. At first glance, it would seem to be a decent ratio, but once the assumptions are lifted, it would be a different case.

Assumption Investigation 1: Chain Disappearance obtained by Pot of Duality
Earlier, we ignored the chance of obtaining Chain Disappearance by Pot of Duality. It is without a doubt that the chance of drawing into it would be greater should we include them. However, being a rational player, if your opponent were to see that you pick Chain Disappearance from your Pot of Duality then the most rational move in most case would be to hold the specifically affected play until they can clear your trap. This means that even if opponent has Venus in their hand, they would hold it until a later turn. The chance of activating Chain Disappearance on Mystical Shine Ball on opponent’s first turn is then reduced.

Assumption Investigation 2: Chain Disappearance not cleared by Mystical Space Typhoon or other effects
Throughout the investigation, it was implicitly assumed that Chain Disappearance will not be removed by effects before its activation. Logically, if it exist the chance that it would be removed, then the probability of it being activated on the first turn will also be lower.

Assumption Investigation 3:  Opponent makes Venus play immediately once available
In the investigation held, it was assumed that opponent would play their Venus once there was an opportunity to do so. There exists the possibility that they might hold back this play despite having Agent of Creation – Venus in hand. One might think that there is no big deal about this. However, one of the most important concept in this game Is to not draw dead, or to draw resources which would not be helpful to improve the situation. Having a Chain Disappearance setup but not being able to utilise it meant that you are having “artificial” resources no better than a bluff. Looking from opponent’s perspective, even if they summon Venus, they may not declare to use its effect and still have a monster with a reasonable attack of 1600 on their field. They may also choose to banish it to special summon Master Hyperion. In short, Chain Disappearance being a dead card is more likely than Agent of Creation – Venus being a dead card.

Assumption Investigation 4: Why first turn?
As a side deck material, you want to see it being played at the first opportunity at the scenario which it was intended for. Once you miss this opportunity, the likelihood of it being a dead draw increases with every turn passed. The first opportunity of special summoning Mystical Shine Ball with Agent of Creation – Venus is on the first turn, hence the focus on it.

With every investigation, there would be counter arguments to it

Counter Argument 1: I can set it as a bluff until my opponent falls for it
This is the typical argument for side deck cards, which commonly works, but not in this case. As mentioned previously, the copy of Agent of Creation – Venus in opponent’s hand can still be utilised for other plays while your copy of Chain Disappearance remains passive on your field. If you are looking for a bluff, then probably Dust Tornado, or most other spell or traps with less stringent activation requirements would be better at serving the function.

Counter Argument 2: If my opponent refuse to special summon Mystical Shine Ball and draws into it later, the purpose is served
To simply answer this, Mystical Shine Ball may still be used to activate Herald of Orange Light’s effect, preserving other Fairy monster with better stats.

Counter Argument 3: I can use it on Agent of Mystery – Earth as well
To answer this, we have to look at various scenarios.

The first would be Agent of Mystery – Earth being played prior to any copies of Mystery Shine Ball being summoned. In this scenario, you would suffer a net loss of 1 resource as Chain Disappearance is used on Agent of Mystery – Earth, which nets another copy of Agent, typically Agent of Creation – Venus. In addition, you would have served to help opponent reduce his deck count by 2, further improving his draw chances. The most card advantageous play of Venus – Shine Ball would follow on the next turn, making the move weird to carry out. For the rest which feels that Master Hyperion is going to have fewer Agents to banish for its summoning condition, do note that Agent of Creation – Venus is already in opponent’s hand.

The second scenario would be playing it on Agent of Mystery – Earth after Mystical Shine Ball is summoned previously. In this case, you are probably activating the trap at the last opportunity available, where opponent is carrying out what I call a Resource Risk Free Move (RRFM). RRFM refers to a move which does not involve much resources loss should it fail, for e.g. summoning a Green Gadget when there are still copies of Red Gadget in deck. In this scenario, opponent is probably trying to filter away the remaining copies of Agent of Creation – Venus in hope of drawing into their bigger monsters. By removing all possible remaining copies of Agent of Mystery – Earth, you are probably helping you opponent to achieve what they are aiming to.

Conclusion
To conclude, Chain Disappearance is a mathematical unwise card to side against Fairy Agents due to its stringent activation requirements. The lack of consistency, as well as versatility, meant that the card would be inefficient against pure Fairy Agents. However, this is not the case as with T.G. Agents. The two decks, while similar, run differently from one another.

Update (09/21): Duelist Codex has provided invaluable discussion towards this post. Please read the comments on top of the article for a more complete understanding of the post.

8 comments:

  1. The argument against activating Chain Disappearance on Agent of Mystery – Earth works on Agent of Creation – Venus/Mystical Shine Ball as well. In both cases, the Chain Disappearance is a -1.

    If you do manage to remove all 3 Agent of Mystery – Earth with Chain Disappearance, then Master Hyperion would only be left with only 3 Agent of Creation – Venus (assuming standard build) to use for its special summoning condition. With Bottomless Trap Hole and Dimensional Prison, locking out Master Hyperion doesn't seem that far-fetched. Tempo play cannot be justified with probability and card advantage.

    I would have to say Chain Disappearance is not the perfect card to stop Agent, but there is simply nothing better. Similar to the siding Gozen Match against Six Samurai argument; Gozen Match doesn't stop Kagemusha/Kizan/Grandmaster from flooding, but still it prevent Shi En play, which is a great tempo gain.

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  2. Indeed, the analysis does not cover the tempo aspect of the play. It focus on the mathematical aspect of using Chain Disappearance against Fairy Agent, with bulk of the arguement relying on the efficiency of the resources.

    Tempo play is hard to be analysed due to the sheer amount of variables during the proceedings of the game. Bearing that in mind, I did not include much of tempo play into the analysis, for that would take eons to come up with a solution.

    The article serves to act as an insight to help players recognise the flaws of using the card against Fairy Agent, for it is only after recognising the limitations that you are able to play to its strength. Like you suggested, Chain Disappearance needs other conditions to be fulfilled subsequently to be effective. That is to say Chain Disappearance on Earth and other Banishing mechianism on Venus to block out Master Hyperion.

    Discussion facilitates improvement. I'm glad you took the trouble to point out the limitations to the assessment. =D

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  3. love the incorporation of mathematical statistics in the post =)

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  4. One of the best post I have ever read

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  5. I would like to point out two fallacies found in this article.

    False Dilemma
    Quote:
    This meant that by including 2 copies of Chain Disappearance, and going first in the game, there is an 11.07% chance of activating it on Mystical Shine Ball on opponent’s inaugural turn.

    The 11.07% only accounts for having both Chain Disappearance and Agent of Creation – Venus on the first turn. This bring about a false illusion of the Chain Disappearance being a dead draw for the other 88.93%. The 11.07% fails to account for the scenarios where the player have drawn Chain Disappearance and the Agent player have yet to draw into his Agent of Creation – Venus.

    Perhaps a more accurate depiction to portray Chain Disappearance being a dead draw would be to calculate the probability of the player not having Chain Disappearance on the first turn while the Agent player already have his Agent of Creation – Venus on his first turn.

    Let A be Opponent drawing Agent of Creation - Venus in their opening hand

    P(A) = 0.3943

    Let B be myself not drawing Chain Disappearance in my opening hand

    P(B) = 1 - 0.2807 = 0.7193

    By combining the 2 probabilities above, we can obtain the conditional probability of not having Chain Disappearance on opponent’s first turn (assuming you go first), while Opponent having his Agent of Creation - Venus. Thus resulting in Chain Disappearance being a dead draw.

    P(A|B) = P(A) * P(B) = 0.2836 (A & B are statistically independent)

    Conclusion: There is a 28.36% chance of having Chain Disappearance being a dead draw.

    Post Facto Fallacy
    Quote:
    To change a way to look at this, it means that for every 10 games where you go first, there would be one game where you get to activate Chain Disappearance on Mystical Shine Ball on opponent’s opening turn.

    Each game is independent of any other games. Having activated Chain Disappearance on Mystical Shine Ball on opponent’s opening turn in my first game does not imply that I'll not be able to perform said action again for the following 9 games.

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  6. False Dilemma:
    I do agree that the manner which your presentation was brought out makes perfect sense, and is indeed better than the manner which was presented in the article. Looking back, the article was indeed lacking in that aspect of the discussion.

    Post Facto Fallacy:
    I think I should have phrased it better by using "on average" in the sentence. It would probably be more accurate like this:

    To change a way to look at this, it means that for every 10 games where you go first, on average there would be one game where you get to activate Chain Disappearance on Mystical Shine Ball on opponent's opening turn.

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  7. Bait the summoning of orange light as a tuner. Chain Disappearance to its summoning. Good life.

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