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Hello everyone! I'm new to the site and to DOTP. First, I want to thank all the modders for their hard work producing this awesome custom content.

I've nearly completed my first custom deck and plan to submit it. I've got one thing holding me back, though. How do you change the name of the deck displayed over it as you're scrolling through them? I assumed it was in the permanent_text deck file, but after editing all the fields I thought might have something to do with that, it hasn't worked. The best I can do is change the deck.xml file name. It will display what I've entered, but always within brackets, which I don't want. I assume the solution is simple.

Also, I plan to include all the card files and appropriate .tdx files to ensure there isn't anything missing. There are no new cards, so while probably not necessary, this would ensure it works with or without other folks' data. Is this correct?

Finally, is the "legal format" for deck construction unique to this game, or does it follow one of the official ones?

Again, thank you all for your efforts!

Astyanax wrote:I assumed it was in the permanent_text deck file, but after editing all the fields I thought might have something to do with that, it hasn't worked.

That's exactly how it's done, but you don't have to edit a lot of fields, just the one that has the same name as your deck... so if your deck XML is called DECK_TEST.XML, find DECK_TEST in one of the TEXT_PERMANENT XML files. If it isn't there, add it.

Astyanax wrote:Also, I plan to include all the card files and appropriate .tdx files to ensure there isn't anything missing. There are no new cards, so while probably not necessary, this would ensure it works with or without other folks' data. Is this correct?

If you are using cards from other people's mods, and you want to make your WAD totally independent, you could also need to include some LOL files from the FUNCTIONS sub-folders of the original mods. As it's been long discussed here there's no easy way to find out exactly which LOL files you need for the cards you are using, so your best bet would be to include all the LOL files from all the mods you are relying on.
That's not all: you would also need the XML files from the TEXT_PERMANENT sub-folders of the original mods for the text of the queries.

Astyanax wrote:Finally, is the "legal format" for deck construction unique to this game, or does it follow one of the official ones?

There's no legal format, you could even make a deck with more than 4 copies of the same card (otherwise the encounters wouldn't work). It's up to you to maintain the rules for deck construction.

Thanks, thefiremind! It seems I've still got a bit of organizing to do, then.

Perhaps I should have worded my last question differently. My intent is to balance my deck with, at most, the power of the revenge campaign decks. Aside from Nicol Bolas, the AI decks appear to have a rather limited selection of cards from the most recent sets. Specifically, my questionable selections are Counterspell and Lightning Bolt. Counterspell has been reprinted many times, but I believe Lightning Bolt became -1 damage or +1 colorless cost pretty quickly. The dual lands with requirements for coming into play untapped seem like fair game.

Astyanax wrote:My intent is to balance my deck with, at most, the power of the revenge campaign decks. Aside from Nicol Bolas, the AI decks appear to have a rather limited selection of cards from the most recent sets. Specifically, my questionable selections are Counterspell and Lightning Bolt. Counterspell has been reprinted many times, but I believe Lightning Bolt became -1 damage or +1 colorless cost pretty quickly. The dual lands with requirements for coming into play untapped seem like fair game.

There are no specific rules: decks contain cards from any set in the Magic history. Very powerful cards are usually inserted as singletons in the players' decks, maybe with more copies in the revenge decks.

In newer sets Counterspell was replaced by Cancel as WotC decided to counter any spell was too powerful. Lightning Bolt was reprinted in Magic 2011 Core set, though in the Magic 2013 Core set it was replaced by Searing Spear.

DotP will accept just about any deck (it doesn't really like decks larger than about 110 or so cards and may crash), even if the deck is basically unplayable (like no land or all land), and will accept any properly constructed card whether it really exists or not (think of deck construction in DotP as freeform but with 60 card minimum decks). If you are looking for official rules as to what cards would be acceptable in tournament formats then you can check out the official banned/restricted lists:

Banned / Restricted Lists for DCI-Sanctioned Magic: The Gathering Tournaments

For example Counterspell would be banned in Standard, Extended, and Modern formats while Lightning Bolt would currently be acceptable in Modern and Extended, but not Standard. Cancel is acceptable in Standard, Extended, and Modern as is Searing Spear.