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DennisBergkamp wrote:

I am beginning to wonder if the tinkering with the land smoothing has done something odd to the shuffler. I just played 2 games in a row where I drew all 17 lands and 2-3 nonlands before losing. I don't mind losing because I made an error and paid for it...but land flood is damned near unpredictable normally and can be quite frustrating as one waits to top deck an answer to a threat or a bomb to break a stalemate, etc. Certainly one does not expect to get totally hosed twice in a row. Yes, I have experienced that in tournament but afterwards I was told by several very knowledgable players that my opponent was an expert slight of hand artist and that he was known for "unshuffling" decks. The trick of course is to catch such a cheater, because you really don't want to accuse someone unless you have some kind of proof. Losing isn't proof. Anyway, is the shuffling mechanism suddenly broken?

Hmm, it shouldn't. All I did was change the way the variable smoothLand is set... This only affects the AI, and basically if it's left as the default (checked), then it should be exactly the same as in the previous version (enabled). Is anyone else noticing anything funny?

On a different subject, I figured I'd take a look at this Draft saving bug you guys were talking about. So I click on Booster Draft, New Draft, then start going through the booster packs and building my deck (this is a lot of fun by the way!). It then asks me to name my deck. So I give it a name, and click save (or "OK" or whatever). When I select the deck I just created in the Main Menu, and click Start Game, my hand and library size are 0. Help! Am I doing something wrong here, or is this exactly the bug you guys are talking about?

EDIT: Another different subject, is it correct if I have a Flagstones of Trokair in play, and I play another (they both get destroyed), I get to search for two plains ?

Different but related bug. If you don't build your deck first your deck will have nothing in it. Ill explain more since after rereading your message it is clear an explanation is needed.

Drafting the cards for your deck is not the same as building it. To do that you have to enter the Deck Builder. (Which sometimes can't remember your last draft deck or rather overwrites Alldecks2 with a previous save I think. Thats the effect anyway. No draft deck built and saved under the name you chose results in no cards in your library. The bug I reported is intermittant and I can't figure out exactly what is causing it, though it is tempting me to go get a java compiler and do some debugging myself. (Not really what I want to do.)



Yes Two flagstones in play = both sacced* to search for plains cards.

*Though its not an actual sac it seems like one because you generally do this deliberately. For instance draw a card, main phase cast something including a white mana from flagstone, then play another flagstone and do your search.

Different but related bug. If you don't build your deck first your deck will have nothing in it.

Yes Two flagstones in play = both sacced to search for plains cards.

Ahh, alright, thanks! That makes that card a lot more powerful by the way. I'm messing around with the land threading for the AI, I will make sure it mixes in the Flagstones as well

Hmm, call me stupid, but how do I "build" my deck first? I've gone through it like three times now, I end up with 0 cards everytime

DennisBergkamp wrote:

Different but related bug. If you don't build your deck first your deck will have nothing in it.

Yes Two flagstones in play = both sacced to search for plains cards.

Ahh, alright, thanks! That makes that card a lot more powerful by the way. I'm messing around with the land threading for the AI, I will make sure it mixes in the Flagstones as well

Hmm, call me stupid, but how do I "build" my deck first? I've gone through it like three times now, I end up with 0 cards everytime

Edit Deck button to the right of the main menu area.

Edit Deck button to the right of the main menu area.

I don't see an Edit Deck option, but when I go into the Deck Editor, I can click Open Draft? Is that how it's supposed to be done?
And yes, I can build a deck from my selected cards

DennisBergkamp wrote:

Edit Deck button to the right of the main menu area.

I don't see an Edit Deck option, but when I go into the Deck Editor, I can click Open Draft? Is that how it's supposed to be done?
And yes, I can build a deck from my selected cards

Yes open Draft in the deck editor. It should probably say "Load Last Draft" to be more accurate and informative.

The tokens created by Elspeth are apparently not included in the Ultimate ability of that planeswalker. Imagine my surprise when after using the ultimate ability my tokens died to combat damage.

Yes, any tokens created AFTER using Elspeth's ultimate will not get Indestructible. Something I should fix probably, but not quite sure what's the best way.

DennisBergkamp wrote:Yes, any tokens created AFTER using Elspeth's ultimate will not get Indestructible. Something I should fix probably, but not quite sure what's the best way.

Not simply after....all tokens created by Elspeth are immune to the indestructable keyword apparently.

Marrow Gnawer does not sacrifice necessarily and does not count itself.

Dark Depths is missing some of the text that it is supposed to display. It is missing:

Dark Depths comes into play with ten ice counters on it. 3: Remove an ice counter from Dark Depths.

I think we may have forgotten to create a token for the March of Souls spell. I think we need one labeled:

w_1_1_spirit.jpg

For those that have the HQ TK archive, I think the jpg to use is

Spirit3.full.jpg

or you can shrink (re-size) the jpg at

http://magiccards.info/tokens/2001-005.jpg

I checked http://www.magickartenmarkt.de and they do not have any of the spirit tokens.

I will create a generic token and upload it to the same forum as where the other tokens were attached.

I think that the March of Souls spell has the same problem as the Hoofprints of the Stag spell. I'm looking at the rectangular old-style representation of the spirit token and this is what I see:

" W"
"Creature - Spirit"
""
"1 / 1"

The computer attacked with a w 5/5 elemental token with flying and I let it through to damage me. At the end of the computer's turn (Stop at End of Turn enabled) I attempted to use the ability of my Giltspire Avenger to

tap: Destroy target creature that dealt damage to you this turn.

It would not let me select the elemental token at the end of turn stop. I'm guess that you need to add a check at end of turn.

The following turns I attempted to use the same ability during the new combat steps. It gets a little confusing. We can click on the Giltspire Avenger and it will ask for a target even when it is at a step where we can not activate the ability.

I attacked with Rafiq of the Many. The computer failed to block since the amount of damage that would be taken in a single strike was not enough for me to win.

The computer should have calculated the incoming damage at 2x since Rafiq of the Many has double strike. As such, Rafiq of the Many was not chump blocked and I won the game.

Nicol Bolas is using it's second (-2: Gain control of target creature.) ability on occasion. I was under the impression that planeswalkers only use there 1st and 3rd abilities when comtrolled by the computer.

When the computer activates the 3rd ability of Nicol Bolas, I'm getting only one list, {permanents to sacrifice} and {cards to discard} combined in a single list. It is a little confusing.

It looks like I can select a card from this list and something I did not choose is instead being sacrificed.


The computer, for some reason has started to discard Lightning Bolt, Tribal Flames, Volcanic Hammer, Lightning Helix, etc. I have a 1/1 Muck Rats in play? The computer will not target it and kill it?

And what about me? Why is the computer discarding and not targeting me with these direct damage spells?

I think the computer would target me if my life < or = damage done. It fails to target me if my life > damage done. It is saving the spell for later or for a creature?

But why discard it if hand size > seven? Hmm ...

I've been sort of busy-ish with real-life stuff the last few days. This afternoon I finally had some time to sit down and attempt to fix some of the bugs reported here, and also add some new stuff. I'm not sure when I'll release a new version, but there should be a lot of interesting things to test once it comes out:

- added in a hack that forces a creature to block a double striker if it would deal lethal damage to the AI.
- a new "search rebel from library and put it into play" keyword.
- computer being able to use more than just the first mana ability of a permanent.
- new land threading algorithm (since the AI only stacks basic lands right now, I've added in stuff so it will attempt to thread all kinds of lands).

Anyway, ugh, yes Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker was such a pain to program, I had a headache after finishing that one. I just looked at the code for its third ability though, and it looks like I completely messed up on one of the variables, which indeed causes random permanents to get sacrficed (and not cards that were actually selected). I'm not sure about the combined list of cards to sac/discard though... I'll look into it some more