DotP 2013 another Deckcreator

[Lirave]

Hi Community,

i have programmed a deckcreator and want to share it with you.
It let you search cards by searching all "LOCALISED_TEXT" sections in all xml-files located in the "xmls" directory. You can create your deck and a cardbox image afterwards.

It uses the Gibbed Tools I've found here and added to the "Magic Card Search - DotP2013.exe". It also needs "gdiplus.dll" and an internet connection, to gather fullcardimages from "http://magiccards.info/"
I could only test it on my old Win XP, so I apologize for any errors.


Within the "Magic Card Search - DotP2013.exe" I've added one cardimage and the correspondending .xml-file, so you can try it out hitting the search button.
You can add your own xml-files in the "xmls" directory, and images in "crops"-directory (both could be changed in the "data\ini.txt" , you have to restart afterwards).
You can add/change images you see, if you drag&drop an image on the right location.

You can found your exported deck in the "out Magic Card Search" directory.

Previewimages:


Download:
Magic Card Search - DotP2013.exe
MD5 - EB66CA85835896D85146BD40D6CC49D9

Suggestions are welcome.

Changes:
* You can now drop various *.wad files onto the programms window which will be extracted (cards and cardimages)
* Added support for AI Avatar images
* Added Unlocklist

[alexandreonly]

This program is great, it's easy and fast to use. It could be perfect if in a future version the program allow to edit land pool, unlocks, and create AI avatar images from cards too.

Also, could be very helpful if someone gather all cards and pics from dotp 2013 and mods and put in folder to use with the program, uploading a pack with the program and all cards and pics, so it will be a complete and easy to use tool to make decks.

[Lirave]

Greate idea, is it possible that you or sombody else upload a *.wad file were i can see how unlocks and AI avatar images are managed there.

[alexandreonly]

Greate idea, is it possible that you or sombody else upload a *.wad file were i can see how unlocks and AI avatar images are managed there.

There are lots of wads to download in the forum. Anyway, here is my mod: http://www.2shared.com/file/NQ_10NO8/Gr ... llies.html

[Dras]

Hi,
I built my own deck using your editor, but when I choose the number of lands, only 60-X lands are actually available in the game. X is the number of non-land cards in my deck.
What am I doing wrong?

[thefiremind]

Hi,
I built my own deck using your editor, but when I choose the number of lands, only 60-X lands are actually available in the game. X is the number of non-land cards in my deck.
What am I doing wrong?

I have never tried this editor but looking at the screenshots I can answer this question. That's how the game works and you cannot change it. The number of lands that you choose here is called "min Lands" because it's a sort of tweak that lets you insert more copies of a land type than the predefined number. I'm still not sure about how it works in detail, but if you have a deck that normally has 12 Forests and 12 Mountains, setting the minimum number of Forests to 2 should result into 14 Forests and 10 Mountains (but the total is always 60-X as you noticed).

[STKL]

I've tried this when I first came to the forums, and my gui kept crashing, and wouldn't work. So I deleted it. But now I think I had the wrong dll. I already had the gibbs stuff, but where do I get gdiplus.dll?
Also I clicked and dragged wads up to the screens and it did nothing, at least now I can get "Search" to find some cards, the first time I tried it search didn't even work.

[nvmreaper]

when i tried to add cards to it they would show up but i could only put them in the unlocks section and not add them to the deck. Can i get some help please?

[Kieran]

I'm not sure if this topic is dead but I've recently started using this program to make my Artful Assassins decks and I wanted to note a few things and submit some suggestions. I'd like to start off by saying that this program is proving very useful. Especially insofar as it allows me to easily use it in conjunction with the Paint.net software to easily change the art of any card (Of course there are other ways but this is pretty straight-forward).
Being able to change the artwork of cards I've seen numerous times is a pretty rewarding experience and helps to refresh my gaming adventure.

I can only add 4 of any card type due to the imposed limit.

LOWER LIMIT CARD TEST

What confounds me though is the enforced limits imposed on adding cards. For example, I tried to add 24 Swamps to my deck but I was only able to add 4 because the program wouldn't allow me exceed that limit. The work around I used to circumvent that enforced limit was to create 5 more Swamp XMLs with unique File Names. I created 6 Swamp XMLs in total just to establish my land base of 24 Swamps.
(And yes I am aware that there are other Swamp XMLs already created but I just wanted to try my hands @ card creation and give my Swamps custom art from various artist on many different websites. Especially deviantART.)

Here is a pre-battle screenshot. Such a towering library. Lol!

UPPER LIMIT CARD TEST

- Aggressive Angels (292 cards)
- Primalcrux (256 cards)

It's obvious to me that this utility was meant to create only 60 card decks but since I'm an upper limit hobbyist I created an Aggressive Angels decks (lead by Aurelia, the Warleader) composed of 292 cards. Lol! If you look @ the screenshot of this deck in the deck manager you'll noticed that although it's an excessive amount of cards I'm still able to go the battlefield and use the [You can keep this hand or draw a new hand of 7 cards] option without the game crashing. Ironically, I used this same program to make my Primalcrux deck composed of the same amount of 256 cards as the aforementioned one and although I do have the same amount of cards as Aggressive Angels whenever I chose the [You can keep this hand or draw a new hand of 7 cards] for Primalcrux the game crashes. I have no idea why but I do want to note that if I add any amount of cards more than 256 (this includes 257) the game will crash upon going to the battlefield. Perhaps if there is a way to force the game into believing there are only 60 cards in the deck it wouldn't CTD (crash to desktop).

Edit: I noticed that my Aggressive Angels deck actually has more cards in the XML blocks than my Primalcrux deck (292 cards to be exact) but for some reason the Primalcrux deck is giving me the above-stated problems when adding any card past the 256 limit I tested. I'm of course unsure what's going on but that leads to my next mini-topic.

I still don't fully understand the min. Lands aspect.

MIN. LANDS QUANDARY

As far as the [min. Lands] options I'm not sure what to make of it. I always leave my decks min. Lands on [0] for every land type but I'm starting to think it's having an affect on my Primalcrux deck because it's mono-colored Green?

Notice that the Primalcrux deck is displaying a count of 2596 cards yet it has less cards than Aggressive Angels.

Although this deck has far more cards than the Primalcrux deck it is still reading as only 60 cards. Strange...

MY QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
So, rounded up here is my question and suggestion feedback that I'm hoping will help improve this programs potential.
(I'll edit this post with more feedback as I use it more)

These are my questions:
-Why must I be connected to the Internet for the [Export current deck] button to work?
-Why is there an imposed limit of adding only 4 of any card, including lands?
-Why can I only create a 60 card deck using this utility?


These are my suggestions:
- If possible, permit the tool to be used offline.
- Allow the user to add more than 4 cards of various types, especially the land cards.
- Allow the user to create a deck composed of more than 60 cards.

Here is a pre-battle screenshot. Such a towering library. Lol!

[RiiakShiNal]

You can have 24 swamps in a deck fairly easily, just create a mono black deck with 36 cards. The game will automatically add basic land until the deck reaches 60 cards in size. There is no need to manually add basic land to a deck unless you are making a deck larger than 60 cards. If you want to give the user deck customization options then give the deck "unlocks" instead of making the base deck larger.

The reason you are experiencing issues with a large number of cards in the deck is due to the way the game indexes and handles cards in a deck. The game uses a BYTE (8-bits) for the deckOrderId and of those 8 bits, bit 8 is reserved for use as an indicator as to whether that card is actually in the deck or not. As such if you go above 128 cards (deckOrderIds 0-127) then the results are undefined, meaning it could result in showing a huge number of cards, crash, or for an unknown reason may work.

The game is tuned to use 60 card decks and that would be where the min land options come into play. Those options are used to edit the LANDCONFIG block in the deck which will determine lands that get added to the deck to bring the total cards up to 60. If you create a mono green deck with 40 cards and specify min swamps of 5 then you should get 5 swamps and 15 forests from the game's basic land autofill.

As for the 4 card limit, according to MtG rules you can only have 4 of any card that is not a basic land in a deck. This has been exempted for a few cards like Relentless Rats. The DotP engine does not care about this restriction.

So for some of your questions:

• Why is there an imposed limit of adding only 4 of any card, including lands?
  
  • Probably due to standard MtG rules.
• Why can I only create a 60 card deck using this utility?
  
  • Probably because that is what the DotP engine is designed to handle.

[Kieran]

Great reply as always RiiakShiNal. And very insightful concerning the min. Lands. So, in a nutshell, I can create a mono-colored deck with 35 cards and not have to worry about adding the lands manually because the engine will [Auto-fill] my mana base until I reach the 60 card mark. Therefore, my only concern should be the core of my deck if it's mono. That's great news! Thanks for that. And I don't want to hi-jack this thread so I'll just ask one more question. It's about your suggestion to give the user customization options by assigning deck "unlocks" instead of making the base deck larger. Would you happen to know off hand how many cards can be assigned to the unlock list before the engine starts to give problems? Is the number 10, 20, 30, etc?

[RiiakShiNal]

I used a mono color deck for the example because the game responds in exactly the way you would expect making it easy to say exactly what the game would add. The game will auto-fill any deck with whatever basic lands if feels is appropriate for the deck up to 60 cards. The min lands options can be used to customize this somewhat so that you as the deck designer can have some control over what lands the engine will auto-fill into the deck. If you do not have a mono color deck like a Green/Black deck and you do not specify any min land options then the game auto-fill in a mix of Forests and Swamps though it may not be half-and-half depending on the costs of the cards in the deck, the percentages of green versus black cards, etc.... The game will even attempt to fill in basic lands for a five color deck, though the chances of it getting the distribution of Forests/Islands/Mountains/Plains/Swamps you want without help from the min lands options is doubtful.

As for how many cards can be assigned to the unlock lists before giving problems. The promo unlock list can only have a maximum of 10 cards before giving problems (only 10 promo unlock codes and re-using deckOrderIds and/or unlockOrderIds can cause problems). As for regular unlocks (which will pretty much require an entry in the APPID_LINKING.TXT file) it seems it can handle quite a few though I would try to keep it below about 40 to 50. If you have a 60 card deck (with no basic land) and no promo unlocks then the theoretical limit is 68 cards (deckOrderIds 60-127). The reason for this is because unlocks are still considered part of the deck by the game (even if they are in the sideboard) and as such are limited to the same 7-bit limit on ids (with 1-bit "in deck" indicator for a total of 8-bits).

Thefiremind experimented with having more than 10 unlocks using the promo unlock method, but problems were found if the deck happened to be one of those saved to the profile.

[Kieran]

I understand. I'll do a test later and post the results in the tread I started.

[Droulee]

Hello! I tried to use this great deckcreator, but couldn`t create my own deck. I use crops from one of the sites and make .xml files from another site (i can`t paste url ) . When i add new cards to this programm, for example, Searing Spear, it`s ok. Well, i create deck, put in my DotP2013 directory and try to play, but in game i can only attack and block, all the mechanics, triggers, shocklands don`t work. It's funny, but i can`t choose targets for my Searing Spear. What's wrong here? Please help me guys!
Sorry for my english

[RiiakShiNal]

If you are simply getting XMLs from a card creator then you haven't actually created the cards. Card creators/generators can only handle very simple card abilities (Flying, Haste, Double strike, Indestructible, etc...) any other abilities have to be manually coded to work. Card creators/generators can't automatically code mechanics, triggers, targetting, etc....