June Tournament (tournament complete; scherbchen1 wins)

[monopoman]

Certain decks need fetches though so kind of tough to say oh no don't use em.

[aww1979]

That's definitely true, but what I'm saying is be aware that the AI does not play them optimally. Some decks can survive that, some can't.

[Yggdrasil]

Aww1979 only explained why AI used fetches badly.
You're still free to use them if they make your deck better.

I made several attempts to build a 3-colours decks with fetches, trial lands and non-alpha duals, and AI indeed played them awfully (each time). Now I know why and this report gives me ideas on what I can change.

[thedrigo]

Yeah... I don't think Jund is a very good idea. The AI is effing HORRIBLE with that deck, I also discovered that it doesn't play Propaganda or Collective Restraint, thinking it will hamper its own creatures... It also had a Terminate in its hand, which it played on my turn AFTER the attacker damaged it.

This snapshot shows the AI's hand holding creatures that woulda won it the game, since it had approx. 7 lands in play. Wildfire Emissary was a metagame test. Check it out.

[aww1979]

Yeah, I've been thinking of Wildfire Emissary. It was very useful back in its day, because it survived Lightning Bolt and Swords to Plowshares, plus the creatures and removal at the time in Type II were a bit weaker than other blocks. If memory serves, most of the winning decks back then were '187-style'.

[aww1979]

So far I have decks from:
Taron Juzamjedi Monopoman Brandon822 Cognis Salbei Jatill
edit: Serbitar and Scherbchen1 submitted decks last night.
edit: Yggdrasil submitted a deck. Remember that tomorrow (Friday) is the last day to submit a deck for this tournament!
edit: Nyktorion, Shantak, thedrigo submitted decks

[discoransom]

hope i made it under the wire. list incoming sir

[aww1979]

Yup, you made it You also nearly duplicated one of the ten or so decks I prepared in case I need to fill a few slots in the tournament :p

[aww1979]

Okay, I picked the deck(s) I'll use (number dependent on how many more entries we get, I'll add until we have 16 total) and downloaded everybody's decks and looked at them. (I realized I'd better make sure they are all legal first; they all are)

You all have until I wake up Saturday morning to submit/change decks; I'll accept anything I see at that time and reject anything after that. (I'll post when this occurs) 13 decks have been received, plus my own. If less than 16 decks are received, I will add my own until 16 is reached. (since 16 is a very nice number for elimination style) If 16 or more are received, not including mine, I will probably add either 2 or 4 decks, and some people will get byes at various points in the tournament.

[aww1979]

Taron
Juzamjedi
Monopoman
Brandon822
Cognis
Salbei
Jatill
Serbitar
Scherbchen1
Yggdrasil
Nyktorion
Shantak
thedrigo

No submissions were sent last night, but one revision was, which I got in time. I'll put in three of my own decks to make the total 16 decks so nobody gets byes. The brackets will be up soon.

[aww1979]

Attachment includes all decks, the brackets in txt format, and Jatill's patch to unlock challenge cards. Brackets were determined randomly by rolling dice.

Since I put in three decks, if I happen to win a prize with jundinator or malcolmx, I will give the prize to someone else. I think Cuddles.dck has the best chance (as shown by my testing) and if I win with that one, I'll take my prize as normal.

You have until Saturday, June 12 to complete playing out Round 1. After that, scoring will be tabulated and those who advance to Round 2 will be announced. One week will be given for that round (since it should take half as long) and so on.

When posting results, please put the match results at the top, and then any commentary regarding your matches afterward; it makes it easier for me to add up the results later on.

Example:

Match A:
Finkel defeats Budde 2-1 (human playing Finkel's deck)
Budde loses to Finkel 0-2 (human playing Budde's deck)

Blah blah budde got manascrewed blah blah... finkel topdecks like a maniac... end comments

(edit: NOTE that I changed the end date for Round 1. After playing Bracket A, I realized this will go really fast, and you don't need 2 weeks)

(2nd edit: Updated serbitar's and brandon's decks so that their file name matches their internal name description. Otherwise, the deck is unplayable. If you don't want to redownload this, edit their decks so that the first line of the file has a ; followed by the file name without the extension)

[aww1979]

In case anyone is confused by how to run their matches, I'll do Match A right now and upload it as a video.

[aww1979]

Oh yeah, and a brief commentary about how to run my own decks and their design:

Cuddles.dck:
Originally this deck had blue for 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder and 4 Mystical Tutor, as well as a few other cards like 4 Coiling Oracle. However, the AI didn't know wtf to do with them, so I took them out for Concordant Crossroads, Drop of Honey, Nimble Mongoose, Naturalize, and another Progenitus (since you might get one in opening hand, and no longer have Brainstorm etc to shuffle it back in) Nimble Mongoose combos well with Drop of Honey due to shroud; in addition, the mongoose is more likely to still be alive so that you can sac it to Natural Order. Magus of the Vineyard is sweetness, as you can have Progenitus out by turn 2 (even AI does this right) and win on turn 4.

Jundinator.dck:
Not much to say on this one. I experimented with a few other cards, like Blazing Specter, Putrid Leech (which AI sucked with), Lord of Extinction, and a few others, but settled on this list as being the most AI-friendly. Diabolic Edict used to be something else (I forget what) until the AI using Cuddles.dck roflstomped Jundinator hard. Occasionally it gets manascrewed due to all the stupid basics I used (since AI playing shitty basics is still better than holding nonbasics in hand) but otherwise it did pretty good in testing.

MalcolmX.dck:
This deck was meant to fight what I anticipated the metagame to be. Twelve protection white creatures will laugh at plowshares and path to exile. Gatekeepers and Nekrataals will kill stuff, and I have 8 other creature removal spells, too. Meekstone will deal with phat creatures, and won't do anything to any of mine. Jitte is useless in AI's hands, but was too good not to use.

[aww1979]

Sorry, something was wrong with this file; it wouldn't load in magic, so here it is properly done. (there was a messup in the naming of the file)

Edit: same thing happened with brandon's deck. The file name and first line of the file were different, so it was unplayable. This happens when you rename the file but do not change that line as well. The playdeck.zip has been updated to include both of these revised files.

[aww1979]

Bracket A:
juzamjedi defeats serbitar AI 2-0 (juzamjedi +2 pts)
serbitar defeats juzamjedi AI 2-0 (serbitar +2 pts)

http://rapidshare.com/files/395645502/BracketA.zip.html

Match 1: (human juzamjedi, AI serbitar)
Game 1: I kinda misplay this one by not immediately using my Wasteland and relying on Aether Vial to get everything out, but it works out in the end since the AI didn't get much. 1-0
Game 2: AI gets lots of Wrath of God, but I get lots of Goblin Ringleader and Goblin Matron and so my card advantage is bigger, which means I win. 2-0

Match 2: (human serbitar, AI juzamjedi)
Game 1: I take a mulligan (had only 1 land) and play at 6 cards. I have removal for the AI's earliest stuff, and Baneslayer Angel races with a bunch of later goblins. On its last turn, AI plays two Goblin King and almost kills me, but I win the next turn. I'm left wondering wtf it didn't play the first one earlier, as I would have lost, or at least had to Wrath or keep baneslayer back. 1-0
Game 2: I take a gamble that I will topdeck a 4th plains, by letting some goblins hit me, hoping that I'll be able to Wrath them all away instead of using my spot removals. I get the plains, and the AI cannot recover as Baneslayer pwns it. (had I missed that plains, I'd have had to use the spot removals, and likely would've won anyway, as long as plains had shown up in a turn or two after that) 2-0