So basically, I'm wondering here. Assume that the following things are true:

+My deck already has 50 cards
+ I am not cutting it down any further.

Now then, is it worth going above the 50 card minimum to add in cards that effectively replace themselves? For example, a lore deck with 50 cards: should it go up to 53 cards to add 3x Daeron's Runes, or stay at 50 cards?

Leadership is another sphere that has to make this choice a lot. A deck with Ld at 50 cards, should it go up to 52 to include 2x Valiant Sacrifice? If playing with 2 players, should it go up again to include 3x Campfire Tales?

I know the wisdom is to keep the deck small, but is card draw more important than having exactly 50 cards?

50 card decks are known to be more "Optimized" but it might not have all the pieces you want in it. Decks that use Erestor use decks over 50 card to better use as you are digging deeper into the pile for options. I think 51+ is fine as long as you have enough card searching so you get what you need when you need it.

a 53 card deck with Daeron's Runes pretty much is a 50 card deck considering Daeron's instantly replaces itself and does not cost resources and instead costs you a discard. So long as you have a handful of unique cards you run multiples of and have cards you can discard without too much drawback it is almost always worth including Daeron's Runes.

If you already have plenty of card draw through other means or have very few cards that you could actually see yourself discarding if you had to though then it might not be worth it.

But yes because it more or less instantly replaces itself and draws you a second card and costs no resources I think it is definitely worth including it even if it means going past 50 cards. If anything it will increase your chance of seeing certain cards rather than decrease it.

With Elven Light, Galdor ally etc shenanigans it isn't really necessary or even that good though because you will already be drawing a ridiculous amount of cards purely because of Elven Light. You also cannot afford to discard just any card either so you need to have a manageable and beneficial amount of discard triggers. Silver Harp does negate the drawback however and turns it into a power card that draws you 2 cards with no drawback.......... hmmmmmm I think I have convinced myself it is worth including even in Noldor discard decks!!!!

If I couldn't take cards out but could add more card draw in, I'd do it, but generally I have the staple cards in already (like Daeron's Runes) so I don't know about the specific cards you mentioned. Daeron's Runes, is probably add, and maybe Valiant Sacrifice, but unless it's 3 players or more I wouldn't add in Campfire Tales, and even then I'm not sure if I'd add it on to of a 50 card deck.

Yeah nah I honestly think only Daeron's is an auto include over 50 only because it literally costs nothing and not only replaces itself but draws you another card as well and the only drawback is discarding a card which in many decks is not a drawback at all and is of no consequence or for some decks is in fact a positive effect. Any card draw that actually has a proper cost or certain trigger to go off I would not include on top of a 50 card deck but would rather just consider including within those 50 cards.

I stick to the limit of a pack of art sleeves as much as I can

If I happen to ruin a sleeve I'll just have to get another pack, and then suddenly 53-card decks will be the norm because of all the spares. But until then a harsh 50-card limit. I play on medium difficulty!

The only time I go over 50 cards is when I put a sidequest into my deck. Try to stick to 50 cards and maybe put only 2 copies of cards that you can only afford later in the game or that could not be useful in the first few turns.

Yeah, Daeron's runes seemed the easy one, I was more wondering about the others. Valiant Sacrifice, Campfire Tales, Foe Hammer, Knife Work (upcoming), and the like. Basically 1 cost cards that allow the player or team to draw at least 2 cards. Deep Knowledge is another one that I was wondering about, although it's a bit different.

Think it's worth it?

Yeah, Daeron's runes seemed the easy one, I was more wondering about the others. Valiant Sacrifice, Campfire Tales, Foe Hammer, Knife Work (upcoming), and the like. Basically 1 cost cards that allow the player or team to draw at least 2 cards. Deep Knowledge is another one that I was wondering about, although it's a bit different.

Think it's worth it?

Deep Knowledge, yes. The others, no.

In general, I think you should remove other cards from your deck to add the draw cards into your deck but still not exceed 50 cards.

50 cards has the most consistency and predictability because it's the smallest permissable size. But the mathematical difference between having 50 cards and 51 or even 55 cards is not at all dramatic. Reducing from 3x to 2x will have a much more dramatic reduction in whether you see a card than bloating from a 50 card to 60 card would.

Of course, if you're not focused on having a consistent deck and don't have a few "key cards" that your deck must have, you can bloat dramatically and give yourself variety at the expense of consistency. Does it make your decks worse? Of course! Does it make your decks play differently? It certainly can. Especially when playing solo, there's no need for efficiency uber alles. Want to try a card out? Slap it in and see how it works, or doesn't. While playing through all the quests with my Beorn's path-derived decks, I'd just add new cards that looked like they might fit, and only trimmed down when I hit a tough quest and needed a more efficient deck just to win.

Decks with massive card draw might need more cards (or Will of the West) just to avoid running out of cards. Also, quests that attack the player deck justify some bloat and Hidden Cache.

If you want to know your chances, there's this tool: http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx

Population size: The number of cards in your deck

Number of successes in population: How many copies of the card you're looking for there are in the deck

Sample size: How many cards you draw

Number of successes in sample(x): Your target number

To find the chance of getting a specific card in your starting hand, enter 7 and 1 for the last two. Enter 3 for the last to get your chance of getting all the copies.

The first result is your chance of getting exactly one of those cards, but the one we're most interested in is P(X > 1), or the probability of getting one or more of the card.

That calculator is hours worth of entertainment

For drawing, the new Heed the dream is simply amazing, like if Galadhrim Ministrel and Master of the Forge had a child together.