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I was directed to Forge through a post on Reddit and after taking a gander at the screenshots, realized that this program is exactly what I was looking for to get my MtG fix as well as help with deck building. I played the original MtG PC game and have wished for another like it to come out for a long time.

I've managed to finally install and get most of the Forge to work, aside from the pictures aspect. Although now that I've done a little more digging on the forums, I realize that I can take a few more steps to getting the pictures the way I want them to be. There are a few things that I've run across that confuse me and haven't figured out how to change or what options to use.

During the quest mode, when I am battling my enemies they have 20 life and I only have 15. Is there a place to change this at? I looked around but couldn't find one. Also, is there a way to change the mulligan rules?

When deciding on how to start a quest, I know that most of those options are personal preference, but I'm suffering from "too many options syndrome." I read through the forum post on what each of the options does but I'm just wondering if someone could give me a few tips on what would be the best options to pick for someone who was always a casual player and not so good at deck-building. Which brings me to my next issue...

I've been playing around with the options on starting a quest as well as building a deck, and I've only managed to build a few so far, but I've only managed to win 1 match against the easy AI. This could be due to my opponent choice, but I will blame it more on my lack of deck building skills. I tried making a R/W deck and a G/W deck, but both of them have come out lackluster, I can't seem to get the mana curve down properly and have managed to mulligan my way to about a 4 card opening hand. Suffice it to say, I didn't win that game. I'm trying to figure out if it's better to have my opening selection of cards be specific colors, or if I should just do better with picking my cards. (I realize that could be answered yes to both questions, lol ) Also, I'd love to know if it's better to have a 40 card deck or 60 in the beginning.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me. Even if you can give me links to read up on and study, I'd be glad to do so. I have played most of the Duels games on the computer and do fairly well against other players and the AI, but I'd actually love to improve my deckbuilding skills

Deonnim wrote:During the quest mode, when I am battling my enemies they have 20 life and I only have 15. Is there a place to change this at? I looked around but couldn't find one. Also, is there a way to change the mulligan rules?

In fantasy quest mode, you start with 15 life. You can purchase more lifepoints in the Bazaar at one of the shops. The first 5 points cost (I believe) 250 gp each. If you don't want to play with the "fantasy elements" (pets/bazaar purchases), don't select fantasy quest mode and you'll start at 20.

Not sure what you mean by change the mulligan rules. We use standard mulliganing in Quest mode. There is an item you can buy in the Bazaar that allows your first mulligan to be free (7->7 instead of 7->6)

Deonnim wrote:When deciding on how to start a quest, I know that most of those options are personal preference, but I'm suffering from "too many options syndrome." I read through the forum post on what each of the options does but I'm just wondering if someone could give me a few tips on what would be the best options to pick for someone who was always a casual player and not so good at deck-building. Which brings me to my next issue...

I'll help. Choose the difficulty you want, I'd recommend Easy or Medium to start, the difficulty alters a few aspects of quest mode: Starting cards, how often you get new cards and how long until you fight the next harder opponents. For your starting pool, choose Format->Modern and for your Rewards choose "Same as starting pool", leave everything else the default.

Deonnim wrote:I'm trying to figure out if it's better to have my opening selection of cards be specific colors, or if I should just do better with picking my cards. (I realize that could be answered yes to both questions, lol ) Also, I'd love to know if it's better to have a 40 card deck or 60 in the beginning.

As someone who starts a lot of new quests, and has to create a lot of decks from scratch I typically just let the randomizer give me whatever cards, because the aspect of deck building I like is trying to figure out if I can make something function. Choosing starting colors is certainly a big crutch, but you still have to figure out what's playable and what's not. A 40 card deck will always be more consistent than a 60 card deck, especially if you don't have 36 cards that are quite playable. The only time you are at a disadvantage is when playing Mill decks. What I've been doing lately is forcing myself to build 60 card decks as soon as I acquire enough cards to handle it (usually within 10 matches or so).

Here are some other tips:

Build the deck out of the cards you have, don't try to force it into something before you start. Visit the card shop after every duel, lots of upgrades can be found cheaply if you are vigilant. Sell cards that you don't plan on using. If you eventually want to switch over to a color (or a focused deck) then hang onto those. Ante is a good way to get cards you can't easily find in the shop. But it's definitely risky if you don't win a majority of the time. If you do play with Ante, there is an item in the Bazaar that makes the cards you lose in Ante available in the card shop after the duel. This helps mitigate some risk, as long as you have the money to pay for it.

friarsol wrote:In fantasy quest mode, you start with 15 life. You can purchase more lifepoints in the Bazaar at one of the shops. The first 5 points cost (I believe) 250 gp each. If you don't want to play with the "fantasy elements" (pets/bazaar purchases), don't select fantasy quest mode and you'll start at 20.

Not sure what you mean by change the mulligan rules. We use standard mulliganing in Quest mode. There is an item you can buy in the Bazaar that allows your first mulligan to be free (7->7 instead of 7->6)

That answered my questions perfectly, wasn't sure what the "fantasy elements" were about, but this explains it. And yes, I was wondering exactly about how to change the handling of mulligan. I'll keep an eye out for that item in the shop, I have a feeling it will be a good investment.

friarsol wrote:I'll help. Choose the difficulty you want, I'd recommend Easy or Medium to start, the difficulty alters a few aspects of quest mode: Starting cards, how often you get new cards and how long until you fight the next harder opponents. For your starting pool, choose Format->Modern and for your Rewards choose "Same as starting pool", leave everything else the default.

I saw all of that by digging through the option and coming on the forums to see what I could find. I am one of those geeks that tends to read the user/instruction after all. But that helps me narrow down card choices and what-not, thanks for the tips!

friarsol wrote:As someone who starts a lot of new quests, and has to create a lot of decks from scratch I typically just let the randomizer give me whatever cards, because the aspect of deck building I like is trying to figure out if I can make something function. Choosing starting colors is certainly a big crutch, but you still have to figure out what's playable and what's not. A 40 card deck will always be more consistent than a 60 card deck, especially if you don't have 36 cards that are quite playable. The only time you are at a disadvantage is when playing Mill decks. What I've been doing lately is forcing myself to build 60 card decks as soon as I acquire enough cards to handle it (usually within 10 matches or so).

I'll keep all of this in mind when trying to build my decks, I think I was trying for more than the cards could give me at first. At least I know it's easy fixable and can continue doing what I've been doing.

friarsol wrote:Here are some other tips:

Those tips are super useful! Thanks a million for the advice, it will give me things to work with once I get home.

There is also a way to give yourself additional help, but you'll have to start a new quest for it to take effect. There is a file called quest.preferences that you can open in a text editor that will allow you to modify numerous settings to give you a boost. You can do things like give yourself more starting credits, more starting cards, more cards in the shop. Again, you'll have to start a new quest for these changes to take effect.

timmermac wrote:There is also a way to give yourself additional help, but you'll have to start a new quest for it to take effect. There is a file called quest.preferences that you can open in a text editor that will allow you to modify numerous settings to give you a boost. You can do things like give yourself more starting credits, more starting cards, more cards in the shop. Again, you'll have to start a new quest for these changes to take effect.

You shouldn't need to edit this file by hand anymore. All the options should be available and uncapped in Forge now (except the ones that require limited values to work) in the regular quest settings section.