Provision costs should be thought of as 4 lower

Hi,

I have yet to see a post or video talking about this, so I decided to do it. Basically, I believe people should think of provision costs as 4 less than the printed number when deckbuilding. Assuming that:
1- You want a 25 card deck and no more, and
2- You are mostly indifferent about adding or removing 4 prov cards (think of them as padding to fill the deck, with mostly swappable cards that won't make or break a deck)
Then a 10 prov card is effectively a +6 marginal prov cost.

Example: If you decide to remove a 10 prov card, you don't replace it with 2 5 prov cards. You also remove a 4 prov card and then have access to 14 prov total, meaning you could get 2 7prov cards. Or better yet, you interpret the 10 prov card as a +6 marginal prov, enabling you to get 2 +3 marginal prov cards (7 prov cards).

Why is this relevant? Because it changes how you compare provision costs. 14 vs 10 prov seems like 40% higher, a reasonable but not huge difference. However, it is more relevant to see this as +6 marginal prov vs + 10 marginal prov, which is a much more significant difference (67% higher).

In other words, very high prov cards are even costlier than you think and prov costs close to 4 are cheaper than you think. Removing a single 10 prov card (+ 6 marginal prov) enables you to get 6 5 prov or 3 6 prov cards for instance (since they are +1 and +2 marginal prov).

Now I'm not saying that you should stop getting very high prov cards. These cards are usually worth they prov cost, even considering them properly as marginal prov cost. However it is more accurate to think of prov costs in the marginal sense (4 lower than actual cost) and it makes for a better understanding of real costs and costs of opportunity when deck building.

I hope this can help some folks in their deck building and balance discussions!

Edit: I forgot, but this concept also allows you to properly evaluate cards on their own! Basically, since the worst 4p you'll include in a deck usually plays for at least 6 points, a 12 point for 12 prov card is in fact a +6 marginal point for a +8 marginal prov, which is bad. In comparison, Fucusyah as a ~20 point for 14 prov is a +14 for +10 and is very good. The blightmaker + mage assassin combo is now a +5 point (11 – 6) for a +3 prov, which is also very good but less broken than before (since it plays as a single card, I count it as a single card in the marginal point calculation, but there may be some draw and mulligan considerations that I am ignoring).

You can also use 7 instead of 6 if your 4prov cards play for 7 most of the time.

Conclusion: to evaluate a card, don't look at point vs prov cost. Look at marginal point vs marginal prov (point – 6 or 7 and prov – 4). It is a more relevant and fair metric.