Shandalar - Program Bugs

[Korath]

It's flagged to be cast at any time. I'll change it to only be after-blockers next time I'm working on the TH branch.

As an aside, it's already been rewritten in NB to get its current Oracle text, but that (mostly) won't impact this aspect.

[Korath]

commit 38e2f3060132ed9558d4e90223b73c054e766340
Author: Korath <dgk@Dirge.none>
Date: Sat Oct 17 00:31:49 2015 -0400

ct_all: Blood Lust: remove Play before Blockers, Play before/after Combat

See Shandalar bug #773. This prevents the AI from turning it into a four-point
damage boost when combined with direct damage, but makes it work better in its
primary role as a combat trick.

[Korath]

commit df495755ee09b9ff1970929321e714a00ca8909e
Author: Korath <dgk@Dirge.none>
Date: Sat Oct 17 00:35:08 2015 -0400

[TH] FIX #773: reflag Blood Lust ACT_PHASE_PLAY_AFTER_BLOCKERS only at runtime

Per commit 38e2f30. Stopgap until there's a new Manalink release.

Blood Lust was set to be cast at all times and that is also correct as many times it can be used to trim down a fat opponent's creature to kill it with another instant (before combat) and then AI can attack unblocked or against a smaller humans creature which is a situation that do comes up instead of killing it in combat but getting blocked by it.Also we kind of cripple a way to deal with indestructible creatures as I have seen Manalink AI use it in comparison with a simple -1/-1 to kill my indestructible creature or a way to deal with Ulamog's Crusher as you don't want to really attack you and trigger it's Annihilator 2 ability and then kill it if you can do it before it attacks.

I don't know about Shandalar but in Manalink Giant Growth the original card was only set to be played after blockers and AI mostly did that but AI could cast it at other times too,especially to protect it's creatures,to use with Arena. I tried to just set others like that but then AI wasn't attacking with creatures that would be killed- AI didn't get that could boost his creatures with them,so I guess Giant Growth had more code to it unless Giant Growth values weren't imported correctly to csv when first one was made and in magic.exe indeed it was set to be cast at all times.Maybe like original White Knight for instance which you couldn't remove his first strike ability just by removing it from csv.

[Korath]

The AI ignores they play/activate columns entirely when it's responding to something (and also in the discard phase), so long as at least one is turned on.

It can still do the same with Blood Lust, by casting it in response to its own Lightning Bolt to kill a Lord of the Pit or whatever; but that was unusual for the AI to do to begin with, and it'll still find these combinations. Perhaps less often since it won't consider casting the Lightning Bolt in response to an initial Blood Lust, but that's worth preventing the much-more-frequent misplay of casting Blood Lust and then not following up on it.

I believe it's White Knight's protection ability you're thinking of, not first strike. There's still lots of cards in Manalink with protection from black or red hard-coded instead of being in the csv, so that they can make auras zap off; I have to check for the ability on every single one when importing to Shandalar.