Revisiting Challenge Mode

[jatill]

awww1979 created a walkthrough thread long time ago, but you probably know about it (it's not updated to latest challenge).

The cards bonuses are as follow, though you should be able to plow through the challenge with no difficulty without them, they were supposed to ease a bit the most difficult challenges (that you already beaten):

Black : Terror or Will-o'-the-Wisp
Blue : Wall of Air or Unsummon
Green : Wall of Ice or Hurricane
Red : Wall of Stone or Lightning Bolt
White : Wall of Swords or Swords to Plowshares

Thanks, just what I was looking for. Including the walkthrough!

[jatill]

What do Enchanted and Archenemy unlock?
Any holy hell is the archenemy hard!! No idea how to approach that boss yet other than maybe getting lucky with a quick tinker.

[Korath]

Enchanted Evening makes your enchantments indestructible. Archenemy lets you play a random archenemy scheme once per game.

[jatill]

Archenemy lets you play a random archenemy scheme once per game.

That is a pretty powerful reward. Gonna have to put some thought in how to beat that one... The matches leading up to it are easy enough at least.

[HarlequinCasts]

I recently played through all of the challenges too. Some of them are just brutal. And I remember ARchenemy's Cohort frustrated me to no end. I used a Tinker based azorius splash black deck here. If you're interested, I basically used the Decks, Strategy and Challenges forum and posted my decks and observation in each challenge's thread as I got through them.

The only one I don't think I ever completed was the final stage from Magic the Puzzling. I may need someone to drop me a hint on that one, if its even still doable with the current version. I know it requires some pre-sixth editon logic.

[jatill]

Dear maintainers of the challenge mode, and the rest of the game:
I'm seeing that several challenges were removed or replaced with other challenges.
Is there a list somewhere of ones that were removed?
If they were removed for difficulty, or any other non-technical reason, can we add them back in their own group, and just not make them unlock anything?

[RanDomino]

If anything, I wish there was a way to compromise on the locked cards thing, if only to stop the flood of people complaining about it. Like to make the cards locked only for challenge mode.

The challenges should be deckbuilding puzzles. I think that for the most part they are successful. Onslaught in particular was one of the most fun to figure out- especially when I realized how reliant it was on 2/2s and promptly made a reanimator/Oath deck with Massacre Wurm and Elesh Norn. The Challenge 3 challenges are all great (not only because you have to figure out how to win with only the allowed type, but also how to not die until that point- and, usually, to do it in a way that doesn't result in dead cards during one or the other phase- Instant Gratification was really hard to figure out... my answer was to stall long enough with targeted removal and Starstorm to use Beacon of Immortality to gain sick amounts of life, eventually aiming Beacon of Destruction at the dome four times) but pretty much tapped out (I guess "You may only use Tribal cards" hasn't been used...).

I think challenges should be extremely difficult, as in like a 1/100 chance of winning with a deck which is very good but not necessarily the best for the challenge, or a 1/10 chance with a deck that is highly focused and tuned for the challenge. You should have to earn it!

One thing that could probably be changed is to have more and more varied 'generic' challenge decks for the AI to play- after you've seen them all, they're a lot easier to plan around, which seems like it kind of kills the point. I could probably write up some decks to try to give the AI.

Another problem is that Oath is waaaay too good most of the time. My gameplan for at least half the challenges was "Cast Oath, fetch Sphinx of the Steel Wind or Platinum Angel". This could probably be fixed just by adding some generic decks that have outs.

[jatill]

Challenge decks are coded into the game in this format. So if you wanted to contribute a new deck or 5, and formatted them like this, I suspect someone would be nice enough to add them in.

//_Kaalia_of_the_Vast_WRB_Evil_Angels
CD_KAALIA,
CARD_ID_MOX_JET, 1,
CARD_ID_MOX_PEARL, 1,
CARD_ID_MOX_RUBY, 1,
CARD_ID_BLACK_LOTUS, 1,
CARD_ID_SOL_RING, 1,
CARD_ID_WHEEL_OF_FORTUNE, 1,
CARD_ID_SOL_RING, 1,
CARD_ID_MANA_CRYPT, 1,
CARD_ID_EMERIA_ANGEL, 4,
CARD_ID_BANESLAYER_ANGEL, 4,
CARD_ID_EXALTED_ANGEL, 4,
CARD_ID_ANGEL_OF_DESPAIR, 4,
CARD_ID_PLATINUM_ANGEL, 2,
CARD_ID_AKROMA_ANGEL_OF_FURY, 1,
CARD_ID_AKROMA_ANGEL_OF_WRATH, 1,
CARD_ID_VINDICATE, 4,
CARD_ID_TERMINATE, 4,
CARD_ID_MOUNTAIN, 1,
CARD_ID_PLAINS, 6,
CARD_ID_SWAMP, 5,
CARD_ID_BADLANDS, 4,
CARD_ID_SCRUBLAND, 4,
CARD_ID_PLATEAU, 4,

[Korath]

Posting deck files, or even just deck names from Stassy's playdeck files, is sufficient. Just need to identify ones that the AI plays consistently well.

[Korath]

For my part, I absolutely loathe the challenges that are set up so they can't be won except by degenerate decks - Dredge and Tinker and Oath and so on - that win on turn 1 or 2 against essentially anything.

[stassy]

The deck name is enough if it's in the off playdeck, though I think this is was already in another challenge :

;WRB Evil Angels
;Red/White
;User
;User E-Mail
;02/08/2011
;1
;4th Edition
;

.8738 1 Akroma, Angel of Fury
.282 1 Wheel of Fortune
.1198 1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
.10386 4 Baneslayer Angel
.10534 4 Emeria Angel
.6137 4 Exalted Angel
.1609 4 Angel of Despair
.1471 4 Terminate
.1302 4 Vindicate
.17 1 Black Lotus
.894 1 Mana Crypt
.166 1 Mox Jet
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.1308 2 Platinum Angel
.230 2 Sol Ring
.9 4 Badlands
.189 4 Plateau
.216 4 Scrubland
.164 1 Mountain
.188 6 Plains
.239 5 Swamp

[Korath]

WRB Evil Angels is already in. (Heck, Jatill just pasted its internal def above.) It's the last defined deck, and I know there's been problems with the last one not being randomly choosable; but I've confirmed it can be in dev, at least.

[RanDomino]

hmm maybe it would help if I played Challenge Mode lately, since I didn't know there were already new decks.

[Korath]

What do you mean? Screenshot?

[BAgate]

I think he is a bot. Check his post in the Chords of Calling bug report and see if that makes sense.