combat .. what ?

[Fizanko]

Hello,

During a battle with an AI i ran into a situation i can't understand.

I had an attacker that was a Juggernaut , 5 power and 3 thougness , card that says it can't be blocked.

The AI deployed a blocker, that was a Ironclaw Orcs that had 2 power and 2 thougness, and that card said it can't block creatures with power 3 or greater.

So 1st thing i really don't understand is why the AI was able to move that card as a blocker, because according to both card, the Ironclaw Orcs can't block a Juggernaut.

Then came the 2nd oddity, the most puzzling one to me.
As a result, the AI lost NO lives , and my Juggernaut ended into my graveyard.

The thing is that the AI had no enchantment or artifacts around, the only deployed card out of the lands ones was a basic Frozen Shade ( 0 power and 1 thougness, so not upgraded with any black mana).

So i'm at a complete loss to understand this, i thought i figured out most of the game rules since the time i play but obviously there's something then that escape me there.

The only thing i can think about is about the possibility that the AI played a card but that somehow it occured so fast without any animation or pause ingame that it was then completely invisible to my old eyes, something i didn't noticed yet in my previous games with AI, and without any kind of game log to check the game events i can't say if that possibility is what happened or if there's something else at play.

Can someone more experienced in Manalink explain what am i missing ?

additional question so i don't create another thread about it :
Is the AI cheating in Manalink or am i that unlucky sometime with the cards i'm given in hands by my decks ?
I mean there are often occurance in which the AI has some rather amazing cards in hands that convenientely play together extremely well as if it was really handpicked, while when using the same deck i often struggle with some much less interesting hand than the AI had .

[crazy9000]

Is your game up to date? I tried giving myself a Juggernaut and the AI a bunch of Ironclaw Orcs, and it never blocked with them. I also did the reverse, and I can't block the AI's Juggernaut with Ironclaw

Also, I think you mis-read Juggernaut. Juggernaut says it can't be blocked by walls- this means "Can't be blocked by creatures with defender" under current rules. Ironclaw Orcs isn't a valid blocker, but only because it can't block creatures with power 2 or greater.

Another possibility is if you were hitting spacebar too much, the AI could have played an instant that gave your Juggernaut -3\-2 or more, thus making Ironclaw Orcs a valid blocker, and able to kill Juggernaut.

If it happens more, you could save the game before he blocks, and post that in the bug reports section.

[Fizanko]

Thank you for the precision about the Juggernaut, i didn't thought it could be still blocked in some conditions.

I didn't knew about spacebar, so i don't think it would have played a role, i just use the mouse to play there.

Your mention of an instant card depowering the Juggernaut could explain this, but as said i didn't see the AI play anything else.
So i'm still wondering if the AI (due to better CPU horsepower, though it's only a dual core i have, now than in 1997 when it was the Microprose version) is able then to play some cards so fast that the game simply does not pause long enough for the player to see the card being played.


I wish i would have thought about saving before making the move, as it was a tournament i will not be able to reproduce the deck the AI was using, but i didn't imagined what would have happened by then.

Next time i see the AI having a and me a Juggernaut, i'll think about saving first.
Anyways, thanks for the precision about the card, i'll be less surprised next time i see blockers to it then

[Aswan jaguar]

As you have been told already in your other post first of all go in the patches forum to download the latest patch and follow orders to install it.
viewtopic.php?f=85&t=13188

[Fizanko]

I had already updated since my last post, thank you.

I played several duels with the AI and used the Juggernaut several time but still haven't managed to get into the same situation, so either it's been fixed or the conditions that played there weren't evolving in the same ways despite using same decks.