Introduction to Modding 2013

Prelude

This guide aims to teach you how to mod custom cards and decks into Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 in a local, simple, and easy-to-follow manner. The following will hopefully get you on your feet and into the world of card-coding.

Getting Ready to Modify

Before you start, you'll need some tools to work with, and to tweak Duels of the Planeswalkers to allow your custom content to be run. All of the necessary files can be found here.

Download the tools and extract them into a folder. I created a folder on my Desktop to put them in.

Next, download the patcher DLL and put it in the game directory where DotP_2013.exe is. This could be C:\Program Files\Wizards of the Coast\Duels of the Planeswalkers, or C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\magic 2013.

Using the Tools

The two tools you'll be using the most are Gibbed.Tools.Pack.exe and Gibbed.Tools.Unpack.exe.

Open up two windows; your tools folder in one, and your game folder in the other.

Drag-and-drop Deck_0001_ST.wad onto the Unpack tool. You should see a console window open and flash some text at you, and when its done you will have a folder named \Deck_0001_ST_Unpacked, which contains all of the content contained in that particular deck, (Ajani's deck, in this case).

Packing a folder works exactly in reverse, but we'll get to that soon.

Your First Card

Rename the \Deck_0001_ST_Unpacked folder to \MY_SUPERAWESOME_DECK, then open it up and click through past \DATA_ALL_PLATFORMS until you've found the "main" section of the folders, with \CARDS and \DECKS, etc. Open \CARDS and delete everything there. That's right, you don't need any of it right now. While you're at it, delete everything in \ART_ASSETS\ILLUSTRATIONS.

Now before we actually get started, I'd like to recommend that you download Notepad++. Its a wonderful text editor and you will have a much better time with it than if you try to write these in Windows' default Notepad.

Back to the task at hand, make another folder for you to keep all of your custom cards in a centralized place. I have a \Custom Cards folder in my tools folder. This isn't necessary, but makes organization a lot simpler. This is where you will save the cards you write. Open Notepad++ or your favorite text editor and we'll get started.

A Simple Example

The following is not an existing Magic card, but it will show the basic structure of a card file. Most of the tags are self-explanatory, but the details will get filled in later.

FLYING_MAGIC_BEAR_12345.xml

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<CARD_V2>
  <FILENAME text="FLYING_MAGIC_BEAR_12345" />
  <CARDNAME text="FLYING_MAGIC_BEAR" />
  <TITLE>                              
    <LOCALISED_TEXT LanguageCode="en-US"><![CDATA[Flying Magic Bear]]></LOCALISED_TEXT>
  </TITLE>
  <MULTIVERSEID value="12345" />         
  <ARTID value="A12345" />              
  <ARTIST name="Joe Cool" />
  <CASTING_COST cost="{G}" />          
  <TYPE metaname="Creature" />           
  <SUB_TYPE metaname="Bear" />
  <EXPANSION value="DPG" />             
  <RARITY metaname="M" />               
  <POWER value="1" />                    
  <TOUGHNESS value="1" />
</CARD_V2>

Once again, I want to assert that this is not an existing Magic card. This is what a barebones creature file looks like. Look it over a few times, sleep on it, then look over it again. Save this file into your centralized cache, then copy it into the \CARDS folder.

Deckbuilding 101

Find that \DECKS folder we talked about earlier, and open up DECK_AJANI_GOLDMANE.XML with Notepad++. Here you will find everything that defines the loadout of the deck. Now to bend it to our needs.

In the very first line, find uid="1". As you can see, Ajani's deck is using a uid of 1, so we can't use that for MY_SUPERAWESOME_DECK. Change it to something unique but reasonable, such as your birthday (mmddyy) or the next sequential uid after the in-game decks (79 is the highest used uid).

Next you have a list of cards in the deck. Change all of the name fields to FLYING_MAGIC_BEAR_12345, and voila! you've edited a deck. We're going to ignore the only-four-of-a-card-in-a-deck rule for a bit.

From here all you have to do is get back to the \magic 2013 folder, drag \MY_SUPERAWESOME_DECK onto Gibbed.Tools.Pack.exe and you'll have a lovely new .wad file. Launch DotP_2013.exe and see if it works.

[Note: This deck will be using Ajani's art, deck box, and deck name, so the first time you find it may take some guesswork.]