Lignify nasty bug

[GandoTheBard]

As we all know there are a number of cards that are buggy but this is kind of nasty in a subtle way.

Instead of modifying the creature's base toughness to 4 and the base power to 0 it makes the creature =2/2 sometimes which (as early pre-reading the basic rules logic would dictate) gives the opposing player +2 life when it attacks. Thats just ugly. Not only is the creature not always the right toughness/power but it gives life!... I think this card needs to either be removed or fixed. For now Im removing it and Sprout Swarm and a bunch of other half functional cards from my draft rarities files.

[GandoTheBard]

In the same vein of ugly bugs. Perhaps damage does not always clean up at the end of turn so that if I have a Loxodon Stalwart and it was damaged previously on my turn but I pumped the toughness to keep it alive...the computer gets to ichor slick (sorcery, target creature gets -3/-3) it on his turn and kill it even after I pump it's toughness again???

...presumably the slick remembers that the Stalwart was hurt last turn?? and should have died but was saved by some bad mojo (tricky ability computer doesnt comprehend) so it makes up for it the next turn by ignoring the pump to toughness...Either that or the computer cheats for no reason at all and can't be relied upon to obey any of the rules. Either way a fix would be nice if anyone is interested in fixing this sort of thing.

Im pretty sure Ichor Slick just ignores any further pumps but knowing how crazy the variables can become in MTG Forge I figured Id put forth all potential ideas I had about the causes. This is an opportunity for you coding mavens to rewrite the way cards like Ichor Slick work so that the creature's power and toughness are actually altered temporarily instead of just being damaged.

[DennisBergkamp]

Ermmm. Ichor Slick is definitely messed up. Looking at the code, unless I'm missing something major here, it looks like it just destroys a target creature. It does nothing in terms of giving that creature -3/-3, and it does nothing in terms of "until end of turn".

The only thing that the AI does check for before casting this, is if the creature in question has a toughness of 3 or less.

Anyway, it would certainly explain what's going on in your scenario, Gando. I will add this to the list of things to do, it doesn't seem like a very difficult fix.
Then again, I wonder if it would still save the Loxodon Stalwart at the end of turn if Ichor Slick itself is correctly coded, since (at EOT) Ichor Slick's +3/+3 might happen after Loxodon Stalwart's +0/-1. Would be interesting to see.

EDIT:
Here's basically what our current Ichor Slick does:

Code: Select all

public void resolve()
{
       if(AllZone.GameAction.isCardInPlay(getTargetCard()))
            AllZone.GameAction.destroy(getTargetCard());
}//resolve()


[Chris H.]

As we all know there are a number of cards that are buggy
...
I think this card needs to either be removed or fixed. For now Im removing it and Sprout Swarm and a bunch of other half functional cards from my draft rarities files.

Thank you for the help in creating the play-balanced rarities files. I recently read through them and enjoyed the comments and reasons that you included. Good job.

[DennisBergkamp]

Yes, thanks Gando!
Keep up the good work, I don't think we should include cards that are majorly bugged (and this includes my cards ).

[GandoTheBard]

Hey Im happy to contribute a little to this project...minor though it is. The thing I see in the near future is me wading in and creating subsets of rarities so that drafts start to take a more realistic approach. One thing that would make sense but would require some recoding would be a 4th rarity (Ultra Rare or whatever WotC calls it) so that cards like Godsire actually show up much less often. And then moxen and ancestral recall and other very powerful cards could also be given rarer status based on their power and exclusivity.

For now I plan to weed through the cards until Im satisfied we are able to draft with 100% playable cards...sometimes I will post reports of bugs to see if they can be fixed but some I know are just a mess and require more radical solutions...those its just easier to remove from the lists.

[Chris H.]

One thing that would make sense but would require some recoding would be a 4th rarity (Ultra Rare or whatever WotC calls it) so that cards like Godsire actually show up much less often. And then moxen and ancestral recall and other very powerful cards could also be given rarer status based on their power and exclusivity.

While working on recent card additions I came across an unfamiliar rarity name, MythicRare. I just pasted the names for these cards into the rare.txt file. I could not think of anything else at that time.

What if we had the name of the normal rares show up twice in the rare.txt file and the MythicRare names show up once in the rare.txt file. It might be worth consideration.

[GandoTheBard]

The difficulty with that approach is that Mythic Rares appear 1 in 8 packs so wed have to post each nonmythic 7x more.

[DennisBergkamp]

I will have a look into the code to see if it would be easy to create a mythicrare.txt file and have it generate boosterpacks correctly.

This would be a good feature to have I realize, especially because we have 3 mythic rares already:
Godsire, Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Hellkite Overlord.

And I was thinking of adding a few more: Sharuum the Hegemon, Sphinx Sovereign, Mayael the Anima, Kresh the Bloodbraided and Sarkhan Vol should all be possible.