World Deck Development thread

[serrasmurf]

Hi,
This is a topic for developing the Ravnica World, with the new world creation functionality in Forge:
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=9258
This topic is to make sure that we are not creating several Ravnica Worlds at the same time and to get input to make it as awesome as the real Ravnica. (and it’s quite some work and I have limited time).

These are my idea’s for the Ravnica world:
- the setting is of course the Ravnica Plane, so all cards from both Ravnica blocks are in, all other cards (including core sets, which have more to do with Dominaria) are out
- Ravnica is all about the guilds, so a good part of the decks and challenges should be too. Maybe the precon decks (already in forge) are suitable for some for very easy opponents. The 10 guild champions could be opponents for decks in the guilds colours, from easy to hard. The 10 guild leaders can be met in the challenges. The challenge setting will make it possible to make these very hard opponents who are still using only ravnica cards and guild colours. Maybe starting with them in play like a commander and if needed something along with it to keep it at bay for 2 turns.
- A plethora of powerful 3/4 colour decks can be developed. That format is wide open because ravnica-block constructed was never competitive and we now have already a lot of new cool new ravnica cards to add

I started with the Selesnya Guild, because it’s a pretty straightforward guild. (A bit underpowered but easier for the AI

Opponent: Tolsimir Wolfblood
Theme: Glare of Subdual

| Open

8 Forest
8 Plains
4 Selesnya guildgate
4 Temple Garden
4 Birds of Paradise
2 tolsimir wolfblood
2 gatecreeper vine
4 glare of subdual
4 call of the conclave
2 Selesnya Charm
4 fists of ironwood
2 scatter the seeds
2 seed spark
2 leyline of the meek
2 collective blessing
2 hour of reckoning

Opponent: Tolsimir Wolfblood
Theme: Creature Tempo

| Open

10 Forest
10 Plains
4 Temple Garden
4 dryad militant
4 giant growth
4 tolsimir wolfblood
4 call of the conclave
4 Watchwolf
2 centaur healer
4 loxodon smiter
4 Loxodon Hierarch
3 armada wurm
3 Selesnya Guildmage

Opponent: Tolsimir Wolfblood
Theme: Ramp

| Open

10 Forest
8 Plains
4 Temple Garden
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Farseek
2 tolsimir wolfblood
4 Selesnya Signet
4 condemn
4 civic wayfinder
4 Carven Caryatid
4 faith's fetters
3 armada wurm
3 angel of serenity

The Challenge opponent is Trostani, Selesnya's Voice and the opponent can start with her in play.
Any feedback is welcome.
TBC..

[Hellfish]

Vorthos question : Will the new/old/both guild leaders/champions be challenges? If old, remember that Momir Vig and Lyzolda (among many others) died at the end of Dissension.

[serrasmurf]

Vorthos question : Will the new/old/both guild leaders/champions be challenges? If old, remember that Momir Vig and Lyzolda (among many others) died at the end of Dissension.

And they will die again multiple times in Forge!
The Vorthos in me is not that strong, but I'll try to adhere to the most important stuff.
Storylines however are to be followed in a "creative" way, otherwise we could only battle Phyrexians on the Mirrodin plane

[timmermac]

I've stickied this and turned it into an overall World Deck Development thread.

[RumbleBBU]

Replying to some comments by Sloth from the sticky Quest Mode documentation thread ( viewtopic.php?f=26&t=9258&start=15#p108657 )...

- Finetune the decks for AI performance. Even when a card is supported by Forge, the AI might not know how to play it properly. In such cases, you might want to swap a card for another relatively similar card.

I took a look at some of your quest world decks and found some cards the AI cannot use.

Shandalar decks: Black Lotus, Lord of the Pit, Timetwister, Mana Vault, Apprentice Wizard, Dark Ritual, Mana Flare, Ley Druid, Mana Short, Unstable Mutation, Coral Helm, Balance, Demonic Tutor, Fellwar Stone, Siren's Call, Time Elemental, Winds of Change, Channel, Twiddle, Conversion

I should probably mention that Shandalar was not exactly 'developed' in accordance with the guidelines I posted in the original thread...it was a conversion, of sorts, of the Microprose game, done long before I even thought of the 'quest worlds' concept. It never went through a proper deck doctoring process. My Shandalar decks were improved a bit from their first incarnation to the one that was used as a quest world PoC but I do acknowledge there's still room for improvement. I would rank the cards you listed into three categories:

1) Cards the AI uses plausibly enough
The AI might not have a clue how to use these cards optimally (e.g., Time Elemental as part of a Stasis combo) but it will use them well enough to kick your backside if you are not cautious. It will, for example, keep bouncing back your permanents with the Time Elemental (very disruptive - and annoying as heck!), or trampling you with the Lord of the Pit for a lot of damage before it runs out of sacrificiable creatures (even though it doesn't know how to use The Hive to this end). In other words, I haven't experienced any significant problems with how the AI plays the following cards in the Shandalar decks (other than losing matches to the AI because of them!):
Balance
Black Lotus
Lord of the Pit
Mana Vault
Time Elemental
Unstable Mutation

2) Cards the AI uses somehow...but not very efficiently
The AI will cast these but suboptimally - typically it will just cast them or use their abilities as soon as it can, no matter whether it has anything to gain from doing so. For example, when it casts Demonic Tutor, it seems to just get its most 'valuable' card (e.g, highest casting-cost creature). Or it will blast off its Timetwister as soon as it has the mana. These cards and their functionality could perhaps be replaced with something else in the Shandalar decks:
Demonic Tutor
Ley Druid
Mana Flare
Mana Short
Siren's Call
Timetwister
Twiddle
Winds of Change

2) Cards the AI cannot use at all
These are the cards that are just dead weight and will sit in the AI's hand. These should be replaced with something else - but with what?
Apprentice Wizard - the AI sees this card as a plain 0/1 creature. A bit expensive for that...
Channel - never seen the AI cast this one.
Conversion - never seen this one either, I think.
Coral Helm - not sure about this one. I don't think I've ever seen the AI activate it.
Dark Ritual - what other source of fast black mana could there be in the format to replace this with? 4 Mox Jets seems a bit overkill to me.
Fellwar Stone - not sure about this one either.

For example, a couple of decks I used to build the Jamuraa decks had Frenetic Efreet in them. Now the AI is really bad with 0-cost abilities. It tries to use them whenever it can, even when it can't really benefit from them. As a result, its Frenetic Efreet is always phased out (until the AI loses the flip and has to sac its Efreet). So I replaced the Frenetic Efreets in the Jamuraa AI decks with some other creatures - except for one 'Easy' deck where I deliberately left it in so you can have a laugh at the AI's peformance with the card.

I don't think this is a good idea. People will post about this in the "Card AI (Improvements) Requests" forum and expect a reply.

Good point. I may replace it with something else at some stage.

[Sloth]

These should be replaced with something else - but with what?

I can try to fix the decks if you don't mind. The restriction of Shandalar is 2ED, ARN, ATQ, 3ED, LEG, DRK, 4ED right?

[RumbleBBU]

These should be replaced with something else - but with what?

I can try to fix the decks if you don't mind. The restriction of Shandalar is 2ED, ARN, ATQ, 3ED, LEG, DRK, 4ED right?

Thanks, Sloth - that would be greatly appreciated!
And yes, that's the format Shandalar uses. All cards from those sets would be ok (although I personally shied away from giving the opponents any multicolor cards since the original Microprose game didn't do multicolor).

[myk]

Please tell me if there's anything I can do in the deck editor to make world deck creation easier. There already is the "world restriction" filter that will filter out all cards that are not valid for a particular world. It currently also shows reprints from other sets. Is this the correct behavior, or should it not show reprints by default? Note that the "set restriction" filter does have the option to not show reprints, so if the "world restriction" should allow reprints, you can still only show in-set cards by adding a set restriction on top of the world restriction.

[Max mtg]

Please be careful commiting your decks
viewtopic.php?p=109045#p109045

Someone has commited Dancing Scimitar as if it belonged to ARB (Alara Reborn set). Player gets game crash as it starts.

[RumbleBBU]

Please tell me if there's anything I can do in the deck editor to make world deck creation easier.

Thanks for the kind offer, myk!

Please tell me if there's anything I can do in the deck editor to make world deck creation easier. There already is the "world restriction" filter that will filter out all cards that are not valid for a particular world. It currently also shows reprints from other sets. Is this the correct behavior, or should it not show reprints by default?

I have not had the chance to properly test this yet but, in any case, showing reprints is ok - as long as they are in the required format. For example, for Shandalar (format 2ED, 3ED, 4ED, ARN, ATQ, DRK, LEG), the Unlimited, Revised, and 4th Edition versions of Serra Angel could be displayed - but the later ones (Seventh Edition and newer) should not be displayed.
That would give deck builder the option of choosing the in-format edition that is the most appropriate for a given deck.

[beardedinlair]

Hello.
I am new to the forum, been playing forge from the early days.
Is this the proper place to state world projects? I am working toward an early block. I want to make a Legends centric theme. I noticed that Shandalar fills the block category for that efficiently, so, I plan to fill the small gap between it and the Ice Age block. My sets will be LEG, DRK, 4ED, FEM, HML, POR, PO2, PTK. The Shandalar sets are 2ED, ARN, ATQ, 3ED, LEG, DRK, 4ED. So, you can see I am using 4rth edition as a base, and Portal as card filler.I am duplicating the Dark for filler, and then using Fallen Empires and Homelands to complete the block. And of course, Legends.
The main theme will be opponents and challenges based on the Legends characters and dragons. There is not much story, so I get to make up my own. I plan on hand crafting each deck. I will update with progress. In this thread?
And, open to suggestions. Any free or cheap deck building software that will let me filter several sets at once? The forge filter only seems to let me do one at a time.
Thanks!
William

[friarsol]

Hey William,
Welcome to the forums. Once you have the appropriate world definition, you should be able to use that world as your filter to help create your decks. In the deck editor, you should be able to say Add Filter, then Quest World, then the name of your World which will filter your available cards.

[beardedinlair]

Aha, thank you. I just got 1.3.8. Three decks built so far.
Wish I had Library of Leng. Using Anvil of Bogardan instead. Library hasnt been made yet, correct?

[timmermac]

Nope. Library of Leng isn't in Forge yet. It's been requested at various times, but elements of that particular card make it a bit more difficult to script than the other no-maximum-hand-size cards.

[timmermac]

I'm thinking about adding an Arzakon-type challenge to the main world for my own use. Is there a Human Starting Life parameter that can be used for challenges? Also, what is the maximum setting for AI life? My plan was to use my own Revenge of Arzakon deck, give the AI something like 2500 life and the human player something like 500 life to start.