Mind you, I'm not arguing that I know a 61 card deck that can't be made better by removing a card. I'm just trying to say that that deck could exists. And that the burden of proof is on the person who says that something is *always* better than something else.

And if I'm allowed to construct fake cards, I could show an example. But that's just an effort in futility, as we're not playing in an imaginary world. In addition, I could most likely construct a deck with real cards that would have this property as well. However, that deck probably wouldn't be competitive, so would it really matter?

In addition, this is all just silly. If we can show that one deck is better than another, then that implies that there is exactly one best deck for each tournament. And what fun would that be?

Let's face it. No one can prove that 60 cards is always better than 61. No one can prove that there's a 61 card deck that can't be made better by cutting a single card. Everyone accepts that 60 cards is typically better than 61. And I think everyone would acknowledge that if you go with a 61 card deck instead of a 60 card deck, your chances of winning go down so little that it might affect you losing an additional game once every 100 or so tournaments. So people, just do what you want, and stop saying you can prove one thing or another!