Why is mySQL query, left join 'considerably' faster than my inner join

Question

I've researched this, but I still cannot explain why:

SELECT cl.`cl_boolean`, l.`l_name`
FROM `card_legality` cl
INNER JOIN `legality` l ON l.`legality_id` = cl.`legality_id`
WHERE cl.`card_id` = 23155

Is significantly slower than:

SELECT cl.`cl_boolean`, l.`l_name`
FROM `card_legality` cl
LEFT JOIN `legality` l ON l.`legality_id` = cl.`legality_id`
WHERE cl.`card_id` = 23155

115ms Vs 478ms. They are both using InnoDB and there are relationships defined. The 'card_legality' contains approx 200k rows, while the 'legality' table contains 11 rows. Here is the structure for each:

CREATE TABLE `card_legality` (
  `card_id` varchar(8) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `legality_id` int(3) NOT NULL,
  `cl_boolean` tinyint(1) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`,`legality_id`),
  KEY `legality_id` (`legality_id`),
  CONSTRAINT `card_legality_ibfk_2` FOREIGN KEY (`legality_id`) REFERENCES `legality` (`legality_id`),
  CONSTRAINT `card_legality_ibfk_1` FOREIGN KEY (`card_id`) REFERENCES `card` (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

And:

CREATE TABLE `legality` (
  `legality_id` int(3) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `l_name` varchar(16) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  PRIMARY KEY (`legality_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=12 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

I could simply use LEFT-JOIN, but it doesn't seem quite right... any thoughts, please?

UPDATE: As requested, I've included the results of explain for each. I had run it previously, but I dont pretend to have a thorough understanding of it..

id  select_type table   type    possible_keys   key key_len ref rows    Extra
1   SIMPLE  cl  ALL PRIMARY NULL    NULL    NULL    199747  Using where
1   SIMPLE  l   eq_ref  PRIMARY PRIMARY 4   hexproof.co.uk.cl.legality_id   1   

AND, inner join:

id  select_type table   type    possible_keys   key key_len         ref                         rows    Extra
1   SIMPLE  l   ALL PRIMARY NULL    NULL    NULL    11  
1   SIMPLE  cl  ref PRIMARY,legality_id legality_id 4   hexproof.co.uk.l.legality_id    33799   Using where

Answer 1

It is because of the varchar on card_id. MySQL can't use the index on card_id as card_id as described here mysql type conversion. The important part is

For comparisons of a string column with a number, MySQL cannot use an index on the column to look up the value quickly. If str_col is an indexed string column, the index cannot be used when performing the lookup in the following statement:

SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE str_col=1;

The reason for this is that there are many different strings that may convert to the value 1, such as '1', ' 1', or '1a'.

If you change your queries to

SELECT cl.`cl_boolean`, l.`l_name`
FROM `card_legality` cl
INNER JOIN `legality` l ON l.`legality_id` = cl.`legality_id`
WHERE cl.`card_id` = '23155'

and

SELECT cl.`cl_boolean`, l.`l_name`
FROM `card_legality` cl
LEFT JOIN `legality` l ON l.`legality_id` = cl.`legality_id`
WHERE cl.`card_id` = '23155'

You should see a huge improvement in speed and also see a different EXPLAIN.

Here is a similar (but easier) test to show this:

> desc id_test;
+-------+------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type       | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------+------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| id    | varchar(8) | NO   | PRI | NULL    |       |
+-------+------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
1 row in set (0.17 sec)

> select * from id_test;
+----+
| id |
+----+
| 1  |
| 2  |
| 3  |
| 4  |
| 5  |
| 6  |
| 7  |
| 8  |
| 9  |
+----+
9 rows in set (0.00 sec)

> explain select * from id_test where id = 1;
+----+-------------+---------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+------+------+--------------------------+
| id | select_type | table   | type  | possible_keys | key     | key_len | ref  | rows | Extra                    |
+----+-------------+---------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+------+------+--------------------------+
|  1 | SIMPLE      | id_test | index | PRIMARY       | PRIMARY | 10      | NULL |    9 | Using where; Using index |
+----+-------------+---------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+------+------+--------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)


> explain select * from id_test where id = '1';
+----+-------------+---------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+-------+------+-------------+
| id | select_type | table   | type  | possible_keys | key     | key_len | ref   | rows | Extra       |
+----+-------------+---------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+-------+------+-------------+
|  1 | SIMPLE      | id_test | const | PRIMARY       | PRIMARY | 10      | const |    1 | Using index |
+----+-------------+---------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+-------+------+-------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

In the first case there is Using where; Using index and the second is Using index. Also ref is either NULL or CONST. Needless to say, the second one is better.