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![A long, long time ago I posited that you could remove the potential "cheat" of pile shuffling, at least in EDH, by having an opponent decide how many piles you'll use, possibly even by rolling a d12 (re-rolling less than 5 piles) to increase randomness of pile number; and the “top” pile could be chosen by an opponent or randomly as well in a similar fashion, followed by a random cut.
Then I wondered if mathematically speaking you could set up a decklist in such a way that regardless of the number of piles within reason (ie 1 and 99 piles would yield no discernible change to the order), you could rig an ideal hand in singleton
I believe this would require enough redundant effects across the cards, especially draw/tutors, and a land base/ramp strategy that would be flexible for your color identity
Creature abilities, Modals, & MDFCs would help as well but complicate analysis
I'd like to figure out a unified version of this, such that it would function regardless of color identity, but availability of ramp outside of fetches and rocks will vary by colors (read: based on inclusion of green)
An imperfectly worded version might look something like:
Let n = a number of piles between 5 and 12 inclusively
Let R = a ramp card
Let L = a land
Let T = a tutor
Let A = a card advantage card
Let M = a Modal/MDFC card
Let E = a removal card
Let C = an ability creature that can substitute a type above
Posited Theorem: There exists a pattern of cards in a 100 card singleton deck and arrangement thereof that when split into n piles determined randomly will always yield a so-called reliable opening hand, defined as three [L or MDFC], one [R or Modal], one C, and two of any listed type
Assumption: by the nature of the inclusion of tutors one puts this deck at bracket 3+, thereby we may assume an optimized mana curve](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hgogoybtmxy6ywrlqnsibdx4/bafkreidkkrkbcjyqa6jkmjpittpjgwlfxzfuai3ptlvbhs2b4rjyvlzzma)
