Draw vs. Discard

It would be hard pressed to find a card gamer that disagrees with the idea that it is always better to have more cards in your hand than your opponent. I understand that more cards in your hand doesn’t mean you are winning or that you have a good board position, but it is definitely better than having less cards in your hand, regardless of whether you are winning or losing.

But how do you get more cards than your opponent? That is usually accomplished by drawing more cards than your opponent or discarding cards from his hand. While it is certainly possible to do both, World of Warcraft tends to lend itself to players focusing on either drawing or discarding as combining the two makes for some very strange deck constructions.

So which is better?

While there are surely some who will disagree, I strongly believe that drawing cards is better than discarding your opponent’s. For starters, it is generally easier to do and is usually more cost effective than discarding cards.

The Rules of the Game
By the very nature of the rules of the game, drawing cards is far more available than discarding cards. To put it plainly, you get a free “draw a card” effect at the start of every turn. Without playing other cards or abilities, there are no free “your opponent discards a card” effects. With this in mind, drawing cards already has the edge over discarding cards, regardless of what deck you may be building.

Factions
Regardless of whether you are playing Horde, Alliance, Monster, or otherwise, every faction has some sort of way to draw cards built in. Draw is usually found in allies or generic abilities across all of the factions, whereas discard is much harder to find in these areas. There are generally only a few allies in each faction that can provide discard, and they are usually more expensive than similar cards that draw.

Classes
The only classes that are truly capable of discarding cards are the Warlock and the Rogue. These two classes could focus heavily on discarding the opponent’s hand and being successful at it. The problem, however, is that the way to discard cards from the opponent’s hand is to use cards of your own. Since most discard effects only get rid of one card, this generally means that you are trading cards. The advantage, however, is that some discard effects allow you to pick which card to discard, so you do gain the edge in that regard.

Even with this in mind, though, this “discard advantage” really only suits Rogues and Warlocks, leaving the other eight classes without viable discard options.

Quests
For the most part, quests are designed to draw cards or add cards to your hand in some way. There are very few quests that discard cards from the opponent’s hand, and even these are usually geared towards or require a Warlock or Rogue hero.

Cost
In the block format, the average cost of drawing a card is around 3.5 resources. This takes into account the average cost of quests and the requirements to complete those quests. With this in mind, drawing cards may appear to be more expensive than discarding cards as a lot of discard effects cost between 1 and 3 resources. However, discard effects have the extra cost having to play a card to generate them. If you factor in that the average cost of drawing a card is 3.5, plus the cost of playing that discard card, discard cards come in about 4.5-5.5 resources each in the long run.

In contrast, while drawing cards has the average 3.5 resource cost, they have the added bonus of replacing themselves when the draw effect resolves. Also, if the draw effect generates two cards, you actually break even on the resource costs. Any draw effect higher than 2 cards actually causes you to net resources in the long run.

Options
The biggest disparity between drawing and discarding comes when looking at the options that both provide. As I discussed earlier, discarding cards has the extra cost of having to use cards to generate those effects. Usually, for each card of your opponent’s you discard, you are losing one of your own. Even if you have a slight card advantage when you start your discard effects, you’ll usually find yourself floating around 2-3 cards in your hand while your opponent is floating around 1-2. While it is certainly good that your opponent has a low hand size, you are also putting a crutch on yourself because your hand size is low as well.

Drawing cards, on the other hand, keeps your options open. For each card you have in your hand you have at least one option of what you can do during any given moment. This is true even during your opponent’s turn as, barring hand revealing effects, your opponent will have to take into consideration that you have 4-7 cards in your hand and each one of them can be a counter or problem for the opponent. If you’re reducing your hand size to lower your opponent’s, you are reducing your options at the same time you are reducing your opponent’s.

Conclusion
As I hope you can see with my explanations above, drawing a cards is generally a much sounder strategy for your game than discarding cards from your opponent’s hand. While the benefits of discard tactics may seem enticing, the cost of attaining those benefits is simply too high compared to the benefits of drawing cards for similar costs. Also, it is important to remember that drawing cards always creates more options for you than discarding cards does, and those options are what will help you win games.