Deckwars: the comments

[Mr.Chaos]

I wanted to comment on the deckwars, but felt that the original tread should be kept for just the play-by-plays from Gando.
So any comments on those matches should go here.

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Nice matches you got there. You still have a lot of matches left to play though.
Respect for giving us the play-by-play. that takes time.
Do you write it all down as you play?

Kind of wondering how my other elf decks will hold up in there.
And of course the kikidoll deck.

You will always run into awkward plays by the ai.
I have seen it play Flowstone Hellion 3 times in a random deck. and 3 times it pumps it from a 3/3 to a 4/2, 5/1 and... (yes, every time!) finally pumps it to 6/0, killing it.
That random weak play by the ai means it is hard to get a real sense of what deck really is the best, especially with the ai not being able to cast Counterspell and the likes.
Plus, there is always the luck (or lack of it) of the draw.

Ok, I will try a few of these matches myself. Lets see if I get the same results. Besides, I've got nothing better to do.

[GandoTheBard]

Thanks for commenting separately

Yes I try and take notes (in notepad) as Im playing...though sometimes I go back through after a few turns and write down what transpired..hence some of the notes are terse.

Yes the AI is terrible... compared to a human player...the fact that it can win randomly at all is a miracle imho. I am not a world class player (though Ive played quite a few pros and been friends with some) so beating me isnt necessarily a huge challenge for the average human but I still see the computer playing things that rank beginners would not. Because the computer lacks "discretion". It cant tell intuitively whether something is bad based on experiential impressions. The logic that tells it whether a play is good or bad has to be written into its code first. So for now we suffer with an idiot opponent. HOWEVER that does give us a nice benchmark for testing which decks work well in Forge. You know if Forge can beat a decent player with a deck, that deck is not bad. It might need tuning but it defintely has strength.

There isnt a real purpose to the deckwars except to stimulate ideas for further finding strong decks in Forge. I figure also it might draw in a few others to the discussion of why certain decks rock and others not so much.

I look forward to seeing your results.

[Mr.Chaos]

I played 0-Chaos-greensteel vs Blackwhite and won 2-1
The first game got hairy because the ai used Hymn to Tourach to put a Darksteel colossus in the graveyard and then used Animate Dead to grab hold of it.
Note: this play is impossible with the real cards, as the Colossus is shuffled back into your library when it goes into the graveyard from anywhere.
This makes playing these 2 decks against eachother a LOT more nerve racking, because normally, those discard spells just delay you getting the Colossus, now they can help STEAL it from you!
Anyway, managed to piper 2 colossus on the table and the ai, facing 2 colussus, decided it was smart to attack with the animated colossus, which I block and then attack a defenceless ai for 22 damage on the next turn, winning the game.

Game 2 went to the ai. Mainly because the Hymn dumped 2 Colossus in the graveyard, which both ended up animated. O-U-C-H!!! Let's quickly forget that one.

Game 3 was a walkover. I played a forest, mox and 2 mana elves on turn 1.
Elvish Piper on turn 2, Darksteel Colossus on 3 while the ai killed off my mana elves.
Turn 4 saw another colossus and a attack with the other colossus, unblocked since ai had nothing on the table yet.
It then played a turn 4 Highway Robbers, which failed to impress my 2 colossus and by turn 5 it was all over for the ai.

Reversing decks, Blackwhite vs greensteel: 2-0
The ai makes dumb plays, (activating the disk while it is the only one with creatures and it only has elves (of which 2 are pipers ), no colossus) I eagerly abuse the "colossus to graveyard" bug and never was in any danger what so ever.

Again, the ai's "intelligent" plays weaken it, but while playing the BW deck, it gains a serious advantage due to the wrong way Darksteel Colossus is programmed.
And that was the only reason the ai won with the BW deck.

[GandoTheBard]

Not surprising that the BW was stronger a little than the Green Steel in AI hands... the AI cant really deal with combos at all...Green Steel is all about the combo. Interestingly It played fairly strongly against GS with RedBlack if I remember correctly. Ill have to go check the game notes again to be sure. I do think it is possible with a few of these decks like GS to get very strange results because you get extreme draws in any deck occasionally. getting the whole combo in your starting hand with GS is a good indication that you may win. Tell me how you do with RedBlue Control vs GS.

[Mr.Chaos]

Alrighty, Greensteel vs Redblack. Result: 2-1
The wins for greensteel were hard fought victories. The last game came down to a stroke of luck on my part.
Most of the time, the elves were blown away as soon as they hit the table, or Threaten took the Darksteel Colossus for a walk right after I piper-ed it.
Winning therefore was hard and took patience. No quick games this time. but rather long dragged out matches were both decks looked for a way to finish the other.
Liliana Vess was the worst to face, greensteel lost valuable cards to her.

But the 2nd game (won by redblack) was the worst, as BOTH plainswalkers, Liliana and Chandra Nalaar hit the table while greensteel had only 2 mana elves out and no piper in sight to help with the 3 Colossus in hand.
Don't remind me of that match. just don't. Traumatic experience, at best.
Don't laugh! Being trampled to death by 3 Darksteel Colossus is not funny! Especially not if they are YOUR DC's!

However, the last game made up for it, lasted an eternity, with the ai playing the same Damnation card 3 times!
How? Simple. Damnation. (bye-bye creatures) Animate Dead on my Eternal Witness. The Witness's ability activates and ai takes back the Damnation. A few turns later the scene repeats itself. and again.
Luckily, by then I was the only one with creatures on the table (the last Damnation went off 2 turns after I finally managed to keep an Elvish Piper alive long enough to activate it twice.), 2 Colossus and the ai had only Liliana Vess so the matter was settled in a single attack.
Victory, at last, to greensteel.

The reverse match up: Redblack vs greensteel. Result: 2-1
Redblack had it easy in the first match with everything going as planned and greensteel got hammered by its own Colossus.

The 2nd game was bad news all the way. I took 2 mulligans before getting any land at all and kept a hand of 2 mountains with black cards.
Naturally, it would be 4 turns before another land, a mountain of course, showed up. I did get 2 Lightning Bolt, allowing me to kill the first Elvish Piper as it hit the table.
The game dragged on, but it just took too long for redblack to get the desperately needed 2nd black mana and eventually, greensteel trampled me with a single colossus.

The 3rd game was another case of mana shortage for redblack, but this time at least I had 2 black and a red mana to work with so the ai ended up discarding 3 colossus. (Yeah, that was lucky.)
Of course, two consecutive Eternal Witness on a single turn somewhat dimmed the enthousiasm, as 2 colossus went back into ai's hand.
But ai lacked the mana to hardcast them and, strangely, pipers were made to feel VERY unwelcome and left as soon as they came, so when Liliana joined the party, the colossus cards quickly returned to the graveyard.
Sengir Vampire kept the ai from attacking Liliana with it's little elves, so she soon had 8 counters and...
Well, you can guess the rest. The next turn was the last.
But this too, had been a long match.

So, again the human factor is all important in which deck wins.
Compy is just too weak to work out the combo's in each deck but sometimes get lucky. (both plainswalkers on the table in redblack, both!)

Greensteel basically is a rush-deck. Get the needed cards out quickly and finish the opponent before he can get his game going.
Redblack manages to wreck that strategy pretty well, but its succes depends on who plays which deck.
Although, 2 of the games I played with redblack were slow due to mana problems, showcasing why I prefer monocolored decks.

Next up: Trying to make some friends with blackwhite and redblack.

[Mr.Chaos]

Makefriends vs whiteblack. 2-0
Easy wins. Too many elves, too little the ai could do about them.
Never got to win with "Klaas, Elf Friend" I just pummeled the ai to death both times.

Whiteblack vs Makefriends 1-2
Lets face it, the ai likes the friends deck. Why? Because it is perfect for it.
The deck is all about playing creatures, attack when you can and if the ai gets lucky it plays "Klaas, Elf Friend" at just the right time.
Again, whiteblack got pummeled to pieces.
The only win, game 1, came from a slow start on the elf deck and getting a 5/5 flyer out to beat the groundbased elves.
The main difference was that the games were longer this time, but the result was inevitable.

A case of numbers. Makefriends has more elves than Whiteblack has creature destruction, so it always fights an uphill battle.
Plus, the elves have life-gain a plenty, making the few creatures whiteblack brings mostly just too little, too late.

So there you have it, better keep on the elves friendly side as they have a real meanstreak over them.

[GandoTheBard]

Yeah Ive attempted to keep the decks legal...Klaas is not merely illegal but imho is a game breaker because of the myriad of ways to obtain 10 elves quickly. It isnt as game breaking Forge as it would be irl but it is still not a card Id play with intentionally. Try the deck without Klaas and see how the computer does. Im curious what your results will be.