At least half of the fish in the illusionary pool of the projected environment consisted of duds. That was his conclusion after brushing through most of the fish in the pool with his intuition.
Of course, his intuition might be mistaken, but he had a good feeling that his odds of drawing a consolation prize was truly fifty percent.
"If I didn't rely on any judgement and just caught a random fish, then my chances of catching a better fish is small!"
A considerable amount of fish that fell outside the dud category didn't appear much better. They looked fairly plain and gave Ves the impression of basic and serviceable mechs.
They did the job, but that was it. They didn't excel too strongly in their categories and they didn't bring anything remarkable to the table.
Removing them from consideration narrowed the pool of eligible fish even further.