UI enhancement requests

[Xyx]

General | Open

It took me a while to discover the "Download LQ Set Images" button, and I've spoken to several people that didn't even know Forge supported card art at all (which was obviously a bit of a turn-off for them). I understand you can't ship Forge with art included, but perhaps some sort of reminder could pop up whenever someone boots Forge without card art, like "Hey, try going to Game Settings -> Content Downloaders and click on Download LQ Set Images to get all the card art!"

Why does Forge.exe have two different icons? The file itself uses an icon of a green sphere with the word "FORGE" written in it, but while it's running it's showing an anvil and hammer icon.

The main tabs are what seems to be exactly 1 pixel below the top edge of the screen. Unfortunately, when trying to click a tab it's very easy to position the mouse cursor on that 1-pixel top row that doesn't do anything.

Counting hybrid mana as both colors when determining a deck's colors is misleading. Mono-Red is listed as a 5-color deck because it contains Boros Reckoner, Frostburn Weird, Rakdos Cackler and Burning-Tree Emissary. The same applies to phyrexian mana (Vault Skirge, Dismember).

Gameplay | Open

Is it really necessary to ask for confirmation when I need to pay costs with zero choice, like paying 1 life and saccing my Misty Rainforest (which even asks twice; once for the life and once for the sacrifice)?

Optional triggers with a cost ("when X, you may pay Y", for instance Mind's Eye) have to be verified twice. Since the payment has a Cancel option, the "would you like to put this on the stack" question could be bypassed. In fact, I don't think putting the trigger on the stack is optional anyway. Paying the cost is optional, but the trigger is mandatory.

I would like an option to automatically accept all beneficial triggers such as card draw and life gain.

I would like an option to "always yield to" specified triggers, as per Magic Online. My spacebar is wearing out.

Whenever I get the option to pay mana for a triggered ability but can't actually pay, maybe it'd be better if Forge didn't even ask the question; it obviously knows the answer already since the "Auto" button is disabled.

If I enter my Declare Attackers step, select a planeswalker to attack and then press Ctrl+A to alpha strike, that planeswalker will not be attacked. This is not intuitive.

I would like an option to always auto-assign damage when my attacker is multi-blocked or has trample. I've been playing Magic for almost 20 years now and I can't remember EVER assigning more than lethal damage. It's bad enough that I have to order the blockers when it's clear they (and my opponent) are all going to die anyway.

Playing cards from the top of my library is way awkward. It also takes up a lot of screen space because I have to keep the Card Detail panel visible at all times and at such a size that I can see its entire contents on wordy cards like Oracle of Mul Daya. It would be nice if there were a separate panel showing the top card whenever that's relevant. I could position it next to my hand or something.

It would be nice if the list of cards to choose from when searching the library were sorted. Casting Demonic Tutor can be a bit messy.

It would be nice to see pictures when looking at cards in library or graveyard. It would also be nice to be able to sort (like Cockatrice does).

I really don't care enough what color the AI chose for Birds of Paradise (or City of Brass) to ever want to see a pop-up message about it. Similarly, I get a popup message explaining what color the AI picked for Command Tower (in rather poor grammar at that). Does that really warrant a popup? I don't get a popup explaining that the AI chose W for a dual land, so why should I get one for a 5-color land?

If I manually assign some or all of the combat damage to my band and then click Auto instead of OK, Forge will completely redo damage assignment. I would expect it to only Auto-assign the remaining damage.

It might be practical if moving the mouse over a player avatar showed that player's details (such as active damage prevention shields) in the Card Detail pane.

It would be nice if I could see color change effects on the battlefield.

The dredge UI is awkward. If I have three dredgers in my graveyard but don't want to dredge (it happens), I have to...
1: Select a dredger.
2: Say no to the replacement effect of that dredger.
3: Select one of the remaining two dredgers
4: Say no to the replacement effect of that dredger.
5: Say no to the replacement effect of the last dredger.
I would prefer there to be an option such as "Draw a card" for when I want to actually draw a card.

Match layout | Open

Tokens being put into their own row makes the cards really tiny and wastes a lot of horizontal screen space.

The layout switching to a single row when there are only lands out is unnecessary. It should always be two rows. Between the Card Picture, my Hand, and both Field areas, it's quite possible to end up looking at four different sizes of cards. I would prefer cards to only ever be one size on the Fields; the "two rows" size.

Duplicate cards on the battlefield are put in piles of 5. Piles of 4 would be more intuitive (and more like Magic Online). At least it's not piles of 3 like in Cockatrice.

It would be nice if bands were indicated with arrows.

When a player dies in a multiplayer game, their battlefield does not get cleared.

Quest Mode | Open

The huge piles of basic lands in the Spell Store break up the layout. I understand the player should be able to buy basic lands, but they really clog up the stores. Maybe make a separate store for essentials like basic lands, like one of the substores of the Bazaar? Or maybe even just make them free as per Magic Online's Add Land button.

"Credits" is such a flavorless term. Couldn't it be called "Gold", like in Shandalar?

I would like to be able to select easy or medium quest opponents even at higher levels. I can't really try another deck if I'm limited to playing against (very) hard opponents.

I would like parts of the Bazaar to be available in non-Fantasy Quest Mode. The familiars (and to a lesser extent life increments and free mulligans) in Fantasy Quest Mode are so unfair that they make me feel I'm not playing actual Magic, but I would still like to be able to use the Bazaar for "metagame" upgrades like the Haggler's Coin and other things that do not influence the games directly.

The Start a new Quest UI is too cryptic. I have read the "Quest Mode: Guide to Formats, Worlds, and everything" several times now and I'm still not entirely clear on how worlds and format restrictions and whatnot interact. I also took me a dozen quests before I found out what the Difficulty setting does. It's no good giving people options that they don't see or understand.

When winning a booster, the most important card in the booster (the rare) is at the bottom of the list, off-screen. Seeing what it is requires both scrolling and clicking. The card at the top of the list is showcased, but that's just a common. It would be nice if the rare was showcased instead.

Why are there range checks on the Quest Preferences settings? I know I can set these values to whatever I want in quest.preferences, but why allow people to alter the values at all if you're going to enforce arbitrary limits anyway?

If I choose Save As for a Quest Deck, the dialog does not begin at the constructed decks folder, and the deck won't show up in the (non-Quest) Deck Editor.

I can load a deck in the Quest Deck Editor that I made in the (non-Quest) Deck Editor. A bit of an exploit, but handy when developing a Quest World.

Deck Editor | Open

I would like an "Add another copy of this card" button in the Deck Editor in Image View (so that I won't have to switch to List View, click the + button to add the copy, and switch back to Image View).

The color/type/CMC filter grids won't stay away. The filter is occasionally useful in the Card Catalog but I really don't need it for the Deck. These filters take up a lot of screen space. I can remove the individual rows but they'll be back when I restart Forge.

I would like to be able to filter basic lands out of the Card Catalog. They take up a LOT of space.

If I click Save As in the Deck Editor, I am taken to the My Documents folder rather than the decks\constructed folder. It's kind of annoying having to browse to the decks\constructed folder because that's inside the AppData folder, which is a hidden folder and thus a bit awkward to open.

I would like to see something of a Comments area for decks. I frequently find I have to include notes such as a url to where I found the deck, a quick explanation of obscure workings or even "Card X is supposed to be in the deck but Forge currently doesn't support it."

Specific cards | Open

An-Zerrin Ruins should list the chosen creature type in the Card Detail pane.

The AI cast Inquisition of Kozilek and saw only lands. Forge said "There are no cards in the named location." This is techically incorrect; there were cards in the named location, just no valid ones.

Stangg's Stangg Twin token has no picture.

When I activate Sentinel's ability, the stack reads "Sentinel becomes ."

Curse Artifact's prompt reads "Select 1 Artifact.EnchantedBy(s) to sacrifice"

Wand of Ith's texts are messed up:
On the Stack it reads: "Wand of Ith (<ID>) - <target> reveals a card at random from his or her hand. <controller> discards (1) defined cards. <controller> discards (1) defined cards." It's redundant, refers to the wrong player and is unclear. It should read: "Wand of Ith (<ID>) - <target> reveals a card at random from his or her hand. If it's a land card, <target> discards it unless he or she pays 1 life. If it isn't a land card, <target> discards it unless he or she pays life equal to its converted mana cost."
The Prompt reads: "Do you want to pay <n> life? (or: <controller> discards (1) defined cards.)" It refers to the wrong player and does not explain which card was revealed. It should read: "Do you want to pay <n> life? (or: discard <the card>.)"

Amnesia's text is messed up.
On the Stack it reads: "Amnesia <ID>: <target> reveals his or her hand. Discard (All) of type: Card.nonLand." It should read: "Amnesia <ID>: <target> reveals his or her hand and discards all nonland cards."

Gaea's Touch's text is messed up:
On the Stack it reads: "1. Gaea's Touch (<ID>)- - <controller> puts 1 Forest.Basic+YouCtrl card(s) fromhis/her hand onto the battlefield." (missing spaces and all). It should read: "1. Gaea's Touch (<ID>) - <controller> puts a basic Forest card from his or her hand onto the battlefield."

Goblin Wizard's text is messed up"
On the Stack it reads: "1. Goblin Wizard (<ID>)- - <controller> puts 1 Permanent.Goblin card(s) fromhis/her hand onto the battlefield." (missing space and all). It should read: "1. Goblin Wizard (<ID>) - <controller> may put a Goblin permanent card from his or her hand onto the battlefield."

Icatian Priest's text is messed up.
In the Log it reads "<controller> activates Icatian Priest targeting ." Doesn't list the target.

Elvish Scout's text is messed up.
On the stack it reads "<controller> activated Elvish Scout targeting ." Doesn't say what it targets.

Breeding Pit's text is messed up.
In the Card Detail pane its mana symbols are displayed as "B B" (space and all) instead of proper black mana symbols. The period is also missing at the end of that sentence.
On the Stack it reads: "1. Breeding Pit (<ID>) - Sacrifice Breeding Pit (<ID>)" (no period). It should be: "1. Breeding Pit (<ID>) - Sacrifice Breeding Pit (<ID>) unless you pay {B}."

Genesis' text is messed up.
The popup message is titled: "Select target Creature.YouCtrl". It should read: "Select target creature card in your graveyard."

Scavenging Ooze's text is messed up.
On the stack, it reads: "1. Scavenging Ooze (<ID>) - Scavenging Ooze - Exile <target card> (<target ID>) from the graveyard. Put a +1/+1 counter on Scavenging Ooze (<ID>). <controller> gains 1 life." That's one "Scavenging Ooze - " too many, and the +1/+1 and life gain should only happen when it's exiling a creature card (but it happens when exiling other cards as well).

Vendilion Clique's text is messed up.
The prompt reads: "Select a card from [Hand]". It should read "Select a nonland card from <target>'s hand."

If the AI activates Pernicious Deed, I can't see what the value of X is.

Goblin Warrens makes phyrexian goblin tokens. That looks really out of place. It should make the Unglued goblin tokens.
When using Fatestitcher on my own permanents, it would be convenient if the default choice was Untap rather than Tap (so I could just hit Space).

Sun Titan's text is messed up.
The popup message reads: "Select target Permanent.YouCtrl+cmcLE3". It should read: "Select target permanent card in your graveyard with converted mana cost less than 3".

[drdev]

Thank you very much for this very detailed feedback. As the primary UI guy right now, I'll see if I can incorporate some of these suggestions and fix some of the bugs.

I am primarily working on getting the mobile game going right now, which is why UI updates have slowed down a bit recently, so if anyone else wants to tackle some of these (particularly the card-specific ones), that would be great.

Also, to help with your filters staying away concern, Forge will remember if you click on Filters > Hide Filters for any given ItemManager. It just doesn't currently remember the specific filters you set up (or remove).

[friarsol]

I'll comment on some of the things that I'm more familiar with.

Download Images - It would be annoying for someone who for some reason doesn't care about the art to be prompted every time. Maybe we could get someone to spruce up the User Guide in the Wiki (http://www.slightlymagic.net/wiki/Forge_User_Guide) to be a true User Guide, and we could offer to Launch it if a new profile is created on first launch? That way we could cover things like "First time to Forge, make sure you do XYZ, and post bugs to release threads" of course noone will RTFM, so it's hard to be motivated to add it.

Different Icons - I think the one inside Forge is based on the theme? And the first is just baked into the .exe. Maybe I'm thinking about a different icon than you are referring to.

Hybrid/Phyrexian Mana - It's not really incorrect either though, even if you find it misleading. What would your solution be? Just ignore it altogther? What about 0 mana cards from Time Spiral block? Do deck editor websites handle it better? Since those cards you mentioned would be illegal from a Color Identity standpoint, It'd be hard to convince me it's wrong.

Undoable Costs - Each sub-cost is handled individually. Sacrificing cards is asked because Forge currently can't undo them and we want to prevent people accidentally sacrificing cards by misclicking or killing themselves with pay life costs.

Optional Triggers with a Cost - This is the same thing as your triggers with targets you mentioned the other day, although I thought there wasn't any popup when you had to pay the cost. Maybe it's something specific about Mind's Eye?

Optional Triggers - Right click on the trigger and say always accept etc. (Although this is once per game not once forever)

"Always Yield To" - You may want to be more specific on some of your requests especially when referencing Magic Online, as many of us haven't played it. We have an "End Turn" button in the Dock that may do something similar? I have no idea, because you say "yield to" and then mention triggers, so I'm not sure exactly how you expect things to happen.

Can't pay for triggers - "obviously knows the answer already" this is a false statement. The auto button has only been around for a handful of releases, and it's still possible you can pay for things that the AI doesn't know how to pay for. Just because the AI doesn't know how to pay for something doesn't mean that it's not possible.

Assault on Planeswalker - Yea, I'm not sure if the "active" defender is accessible from where the Alpha Strike code is. But it definitely is unintuitive.


Always auto-assign - "I've been playing Magic for almost 20 years now and I can't remember EVER assigning more than lethal damage." The main reason it's there is to add more damage to creatures with damage prevention bubbles on them? Since lethal damage is toughness based, not toughness+damage prevention based. The AI isn't quite smart enough to use Samite Healer and friends yet, but when he is, you'll probably need to be more careful about assigning damage.
"It's bad enough that I have to order the blockers when it's clear" there are plenty of combat tricks to make this not true in a deterministic way. Isn't there already an auto button that you can click for both of these dialogs? I think they even hold focus on that window.

Sort Library on Search - That's a tough one, it IS already sorted, it's just sorted by library order, not by alpha. We'd probably need to redo the dialog with sort toggles for full library searches (as opposed to Hermit Druid "digs" where the order matters).

Popup for color choice - Yea I don't know when this got added, but it was fairly recent and needs to go. I'll try to find it, because it's truly useless information and slows down the interface tremendously.

Piles of X vs Y "More like Magic Online" - Comparing things to MTGO always annoys the hell out of me, ask drdev. Everyone I know who talks about MTGO complains about it. Why is X better than Y? Aren't these numbers subjective? Is there an explicit reason that you think X is a better number? You are probably more accustomed to how MTGO does it, but I'm more accustomed to how Forge does it. I never want to be changing things "just because the other guy does it that way", what's the actual reason behind the change? What does it improve?


"Bazaar in non-Fantasy" - I'm not sure what the issue is here. None of those fantasy elements that you mentioned are required, the only requirements are that you start with 15 life, and if you want to get to 20, you have to pay.. $250*5 (I think? I can never remember the costs). If you don't want to play with pets, or mulligans or anything else, you don't have to. I promise, I won't judge you because you don't like them. We try to make it fairly flexible to allow people to customize things a whole bunch. You have already mentioned in other threads you don't do other things that are available in Quest Mode (like traveling) how is buying Pets any different?


New Quest UI - The World stuff definitely made it way more complex than it used to be. I'm not sure how much could really be done about what the difficulty setting does, if you jumped into Quest Preferences it would show you what the differences are. Hard to make things less complex, and provide more information at the same time. A User Guide would be a better place for that type of stuff than cluttering up the UI even more.

Quest Loading an Outside Deck - This was actually a requested feature a while back. This type of "exploit" seems pointless in a single player game. Why even bother to play if you're just going to cheat this blatantly? You can also start a new quest with a deck of your choice, which is basically the same as doing this.

[Xyx]

Download Images - It would be annoying for someone who for some reason doesn't care about the art to be prompted every time.

The message could have a "Stop reminding me" checkbox.

of course noone will RTFM, so it's hard to be motivated to add it.

Indeed, and, ideally, applications shouldn't require people to RTFM in the first place.

Different Icons - I think the one inside Forge is based on the theme? And the first is just baked into the .exe. Maybe I'm thinking about a different icon than you are referring to.

I don't know how it is on other OSes, but on Windows it's like this:
In Windows Explorer, the Forge.exe file shows a green sphere with "FORGE" in it.
While Forge is running, on the taskbar, it shows a black "hammer and anvil" icon (with a white outline). It's titled "Forge: 1.5.15-r252..." (it gets cut off due to length).

Hybrid/Phyrexian Mana - It's not really incorrect either though, even if you find it misleading. What would your solution be?

It's not technically incorrect but it does deviate from expectations. A deck containing only Mountains is commonly considered "mono-red" regardless of the presence of hybrid cards.

Perhaps some sort of comparison could be made to the colors of mana the deck can produce. I don't know how easy or hard it is to check a deck for cards that can produce a certain color mana, so it might well be more trouble than it's worth, but perhaps if a deck can't make blue mana, Frostburn Weird could be treated as a red card instead of a multicolor card for the purposes of determining the deck's color(s).

Undoable Costs - Each sub-cost is handled individually. Sacrificing cards is asked because Forge currently can't undo them and we want to prevent people accidentally sacrificing cards by misclicking or killing themselves with pay life costs.

There's no way to group these together? As in "Pay 1 life and sacrifice Misty Rainforest?" all in one?

Optional Triggers with a Cost - This is the same thing as your triggers with targets you mentioned the other day, although I thought there wasn't any popup when you had to pay the cost. Maybe it's something specific about Mind's Eye?

Not a popup but a prompt.

When Mind's Eye (or something similar) triggers, it goes like so:

1. The trigger appears on the stack.
2. I click OK to pass priority.
3. Forge asks "Use triggered ability of Mind's Eye (<ID>)?" [Yes][No]
4. I click Yes.
5. Forge says "Pay Mana Cost: 1" [Auto][Cancel]

Obviously not every trigger has a cost, but those that do have a cost can be canceled out of at not one but two different stages, so in the interest of not wearing out my spacebar/mouse button/fingers/patience it would be nice if these two-stage confirmations got rolled into one.

"Always Yield To" - You may want to be more specific on some of your requests especially when referencing Magic Online, as many of us haven't played it. We have an "End Turn" button in the Dock that may do something similar? I have no idea, because you say "yield to" and then mention triggers, so I'm not sure exactly how you expect things to happen.

Magic Online has this feature where you can right-click a trigger on the stack and say "always yield to <card name>", meaning that, from then on, you will automatically yield priority when that card's trigger is on top of the stack. This is ideal for something like Soul Warden, where you otherwise have to constantly click OK/hit the spacebar to gain the life.

Magic Online also has the option "Undo auto-yields" that turns all those auto-yields off in case you want to start responding to something again.

I like building decks that do crazy things and occasionally that involves over a hundred triggers going onto the stack, but even in an average game of Magic there's probably one or two cards with triggers that the average player wouldn't want to have to explicitly pass priority for every single time.

Can't pay for triggers - "obviously knows the answer already" this is a false statement. The auto button has only been around for a handful of releases, and it's still possible you can pay for things that the AI doesn't know how to pay for. Just because the AI doesn't know how to pay for something doesn't mean that it's not possible.

Fair enough.

Always auto-assign - "I've been playing Magic for almost 20 years now and I can't remember EVER assigning more than lethal damage." The main reason it's there is to add more damage to creatures with damage prevention bubbles on them? Since lethal damage is toughness based, not toughness+damage prevention based. The AI isn't quite smart enough to use Samite Healer and friends yet, but when he is, you'll probably need to be more careful about assigning damage.

Fair enough, but do I really need to be asked even if there are no shields?

"It's bad enough that I have to order the blockers when it's clear" there are plenty of combat tricks to make this not true in a deterministic way. Isn't there already an auto button that you can click for both of these dialogs? I think they even hold focus on that window.

The Auto button is focused in the (untitled) assign trample damage popup but not in the "Choose Damage Order for <creature>" popup.

Sort Library on Search - That's a tough one, it IS already sorted, it's just sorted by library order, not by alpha.

I understand, but to the human eye that's unsorted.

Piles of X vs Y "More like Magic Online" - Comparing things to MTGO always annoys the hell out of me, ask drdev. Everyone I know who talks about MTGO complains about it.

I am not accustomed to MTGO (I see it in videos but I only actually used it once) but to paper Magic, Duels of the Planeswalkers and Shandalar. It just struck me that the various digital mediums that I played Magic in use at least three different pile sizes. Cockatrice is the most annoying one with piles of 3 (meaning the fourth card always ends up in a separate pile). MTGO and Duels of the Planeswalkers have piles of 4 and that feels entirely natural. I don't remember how Shandalar did it, but bet it was also piles of 4.

Is there an explicit reason that you think X is a better number? [...] what's the actual reason behind the change? What does it improve?

4 is the most natural pile size in Magic. 4 is the Constructed card limit, so many things will show up as 4-ofs and that carries over to the battlefield. 4 Squadron Hawk, 4 Tundra, etcetera.

I believe that 4 is also better from a usability standpoint. Visual distinction between piles of larger numbers will eventually start to blur, and for me that seems to start between 4 and 5. Piles of 5 often have me looking and counting twice. Just feels awkward. I'm intuitively trying to add up piles of 4 when counting lands or tokens, for instance, and I find myself constantly having to readjust to piles of 5. Now, maybe that's just because of my preconceptions, but I like to think there's more to it.

What's the explicit reason for 5, then?

"Bazaar in non-Fantasy" - I'm not sure what the issue is here. None of those fantasy elements that you mentioned are required, the only requirements are that you start with 15 life, and if you want to get to 20, you have to pay.. $250*5 (I think? I can never remember the costs). If you don't want to play with pets, or mulligans or anything else, you don't have to.

Your answer makes perfect sense from a developer standpoint (and I figured you'd say that), but "not using all available tools" doesn't sit well with a lot of players (even if they possess the required discipline). It's part of the "Spike" mindset that Magic is supposed to cater to. Tying one hand behind your back for additional challenge is fine on a cerebral level but still feels wrong on a visceral level; it's unacceptable from a "play to win" standpoint.

Quest Loading an Outside Deck - This was actually a requested feature a while back. This type of "exploit" seems pointless in a single player game. Why even bother to play if you're just going to cheat this blatantly? You can also start a new quest with a deck of your choice, which is basically the same as doing this.

It's quite practical when building a world, but again there are "user experience" reasons to take away certain options.

[friarsol]

It's not technically incorrect but it does deviate from expectations. A deck containing only Mountains is commonly considered "mono-red" regardless of the presence of hybrid cards.

Perhaps some sort of comparison could be made to the colors of mana the deck can produce. I don't know how easy or hard it is to check a deck for cards that can produce a certain color mana, so it might well be more trouble than it's worth, but perhaps if a deck can't make blue mana, Frostburn Weird could be treated as a red card instead of a multicolor card for the purposes of determining the deck's color(s).

That doesn't work either. One Birds of Paradise or Lotus Petal turns your deck into 5 colors. Also, from a deck editor standpoint, it's not simple. Whereas calling getColor() on 60 cards is. For reference, http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/lifegain-jund/ the white in this deck is from a Kitchen Finks, which is the exact same scenario you are talking about. I honestly don't think there's a way to solve this in an acceptable manner in all cases.

There's no way to group these together? As in "Pay 1 life and sacrifice Misty Rainforest?" all in one?

Not the way it's setup now, and probably not with a lot of mussing around for not very much gain. It goes to each CostPart and resolves it in turn. Especially since only certain costs could be grouped in this manner. Lots of added complexity.


Mind's Eye - Yea this is a script issue. Triggers with costs shouldn't have OptionalDecider. Keep up the card reporting, lots of small things like this can be fixed without any code changes.

I understand, but to the human eye that's unsorted.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. When I cast Demonic Tutor with cardboard, I grab my deck and it's sorted in library order. In Forge, the exact same thing happens. I understand wanting to be able to sort it to more quickly find cards, but there are certainly (albeit rare) scenarios where knowing the order of what is coming is actually relevant to learning hidden information.

Your answer makes perfect sense from a developer standpoint (and I figured you'd say that), but "not using all available tools" doesn't sit well with a lot of players (even if they possess the required discipline). It's part of the "Spike" mindset that Magic is supposed to cater to. Tying one hand behind your back for additional challenge is fine on a cerebral level but still feels wrong on a visceral level; it's unacceptable from a "play to win" standpoint.

I don't think we'll change this. The Bazaar is a feature of the fantasy quest mode. I could make plenty of arguments for the rest of the bazaar items and why they shouldn't be available in non-fantasy quest. There's already a way to do exactly what you want in Forge, and we try to give as much extra control as we can to enable that.

Magic (and therefore Forge) caters to plenty of mindsets, not just "Spikes" who "Play to win". Probably the closest we'll ever get to what you are looking for is having an Advanced Quest Mode where you choose everything you want when starting a new Quest. I'm not saying this will happen any time soon, but in this theoretical scenario, one could disable some of those "available tools" at the start, so you don't have to strain your willpower after you start the Quest mode. Sort of like an "A la carte" for Quest Features.

Edit:

Pile Size - 4 vs 5: Oh I meant to mention this. Personally I don't care all too much about Pile size being 4 vs 5. I just wanted a real argument, not just "someone else does it" I believe the Pile Size has always been what it was, even before I came to Forge. If you only have 4 of a card, then stacking 5 doesn't matter, since you won't accede that amount. So it's only for tokens and basic lands where it does. I could easily see the argument that 5 is better because we have a base 10 number system, and it's easy to turn 5s into 10s. I know that Shandalar only did stacking for lands, and they just stacked ALL of your land, until they ran out of space, than it went to the next overlapping column.

[Xyx]

One Birds of Paradise or Lotus Petal turns your deck into 5 colors.

The idea is to check if a certain color of mana is actually necessary. For hybrid cards, if a card in the deck can produce the "left" color of mana, the "right" color should not be counted for the deck and vice versa. So for Kitchen Finks, if a card in the deck can produce green mana, don't count it as white. And if a card in the deck can produce white mana, don't count it as green. If that means it isn't counted at all, no problem. That only leaves the extreme corner case of the all-hybrid deck.

For phyrexian mana, simply don't count those cards at all. A Dismember in the sideboard of a Merfolk deck isn't going to turn it into a blue/black deck according to public perception.

Actually, for a vastly simpler solution, you'd probably get 99% of cases right if you didn't count hybrid cards at all either.

Keep up the card reporting, lots of small things like this can be fixed without any code changes.

Glad to hear it! Will do!

When I cast Demonic Tutor with cardboard, I grab my deck and it's sorted in library order.

I could see the order being relevant if your opponent fatesealed you a bunch of times with Jace, the Mind Sculptor and you want to know what he didn't want you to have, but the other 99% of the time your library will just be in random order or you will already know the top card(s).

Cockatrice has a very practical approach to this. Its library and graveyard dialogs have two checkboxes; "sort by name" and "sort by type". Unchecking those will cause the cards to be presented in their actual/unsorted order.

[drdev]

I'm actually planning to convert the library and graveyard dialogs to use CardManagers, similar to what you get when you click View Deck (or double click a deck) on the Constructed screen. That will have all the searching, sorting, and filtering support you could possibly want, in addition to supporting both list and image views.

For tutoring, I'm going to make the default to sort by name and pile by CMC, and for selective tutoring (say Rampant Growth), I'm going to add a new default grouping that separates all valid targets from all invalid targets. Changes from these defaults will be remembered the same as in other CardManagers (though in its own set of settings).

[Xyx]

Sounds awesome!

[Xyx]

There's a minor annoyance with Doubling Season, but perhaps easily fixed:

If I have two Doubling Seasons and I make a token, Forge simply gives me four tokens instead. This is great.

However, if I add a counter to something, Forge pops up a dialog asking me in which order to apply the replacement effects. Since they're identical, the order is irrelevant. Also, the OK button of this dialog is not focused (meaning I have to move the mouse to click it).

[Xyx]

Liliana of the Veil's ultimate is a little awkward. On the stack it reads "Liliana of the Veil (<ID>) - Separate all permanent cards <target player> controls into two piles.". Then a dialog pops up titled "Choose a pile", listing two piles. Unless you're quite familiar with Liliana of the Veil, it's easy to pick the wrong pile here. The pile I choose... is that the pile that I get to keep? Or the pile that gets sacrificed? I had to learn the hard way.