Predictable vs. Unpredictable Decks

Can't sleep tonight, and I definately don't have the patience for finishing my big theoretical thrust. But I did want to jot down some thoughts about decks of cards.

When you want to simulate a variety of effects, its tempting just to assign each to a card and throw them into a deck. Want to make a game where players can attack eachother with fire spells and lightning bolts and mind control? Make a deck with one card for each of those with the details, and let players hold a hand of them!

My trouble is with unpredictable decks. In particular, I have a problem because I'm lately rather taken with the mechanic where the success of a given strategy relies on your opponent not having a given card or type of card. Lost cities is an example, where your willingness to discard a given card or start on a given color depends on what your opponent has. Gin Rummy has a similar dynamic. I like decisions that are nearly-calculable. That is, those decisions where you can derive some heuristic of the expected overall value of a given move, but can't truly know much anything. Your opponent "probably" doesn't have that card, but you likely can't math out the exact odds, much less use them to determine your "best" move. And what has your opponent told you by the way they've played thuse far? Are they playing like they have that card? Are they cagey enough to be actively deceiving you on this matter?

I think its a rich class of effects, and it fits nicely with my own sensibilities as a player, in terms of what kind of games I can play without overanalysing them.

But these rely on some easily considered concept of the deck's makeup, usually summarized in terms of a number range and suit range. As soon as you have a deck of random effects without overriding rules governing them, it gets a little more complicated. The guesses so thoroughly defy calculation as to step outside the realm of reasonable guesses. And furthermore, and perhaps most damningly, your ability to make any kind of guess depends on knowing the deck. Someone can't just tell you what the spread of values are, you have to know the fireball, the mind control, the lightning bolt and the summon: troll. Its difficult to reason with, and the experienced player holds a huge advantage, if this "what's he got" comes into play strongly with decks like this.

(More broadly, this is another of my themes, immediate accessibility of strategy)

I guess my point is, the custom deck, with an effect-per-idea is an easy out, but there's something to be said about a deck with easy description, and easy understanding. Suit-value decks are the obvious answer, but 7-Nimmt and No Thanks! have just-number decks that work. An even better example is Heave Ho! There's a learning curve there, but mostly you just need to know the basic spread, that there's a dragon, and a kill-you-if-you-got-the-dragon card. Knowing about the switch sides card helps to. But my point is, there's a deck that is heterogeneous, but that has a readily describable distribution, and that lends itself to the immediate engagement in the sort of has-he-got-it strategizing that I'm seeking.

Definately a tradeoff, and I think the virtues of a predictable deck are often underappreciated.