World Deck Development thread

[Fizanko]

the 11 tier 2 AI decks are now having no "AI can't play card well" .

Now that tier 1 and tier 2 AI decks are 100% AI friendly
Left to do are the tier 3, and will be complicated as getting weaker cards isn't that good for a supposed "hard" AI deck.
On the 9 "hard" AI decks, here are the ones with problems :

Demonist 3 - AI can't play 1 card well
Necro 3 - AI can't play 1 card well
Priest 3 - AI can't play 2 cards well
Slayer 3 - AI can't play 1 card well
Warlord 3 - AI can't play 1 card well
Zombie 3 - AI can't play 3 cards well

And i'll have to check the challenge decks, they're using Event Decks that came with all the innistrad sets, but i bet several cards are in that "AI can't play card well" list too .

[Sloth]

Civilized Scholar , really great one that can transform into much stronger creature for the card 3 mana low cost while provide some card picking in the same time, you'll need to discard a card after the card picking but when you have a bad hand, it's very helpful

The AI is not capable of improving its hand with looters. The card would be a complete waste.

Emancipation Angel , a very good 3/3 angel + flying (and so that has some synergy with some angel-boosting cards) for a small 3 mana white cost. It will eject another of your deployed creature back to your hand as a balance, or if you have no creature deployed and didn't paid attention it will eject itself back to your hand

The AI can do stupid things with this like bouncing itself turn after turn.

Fettergeist , 3/4 + flying spirit for only 3 mana, a very strong card that require you to pay 1 mana each turn for each other creatures you have on the battlefield. Very powerful if you can land it early.

The AI can do stupid things with this like playing it without being able to pay the upkeep or play small creatures until it has tied all its mana.

Fiend of the Shadows , a vampire with Flying that can force a player hit by it to exile cards from his hand (that you can then play from their exile), and it can regenerate if you sacrifice a human type creature.
Its cost is a bit high for 3/3 (5 mana) but the flying and exile cards makes up for it to hit the opponent hard.

Grimgrin, Corpse-Born , powerful dual colored card that get +1/+1 by automatically destroying a targetted card blocking and can get +1/+1 from sacrifying another creature.

Skirsdag Flayer , a 1/1 for 2 mana that does not sound good of course, but it has an ability to destroy an enemy creature by sacrificing a human-type (or itself as it's human type) and paying a mana cost, very useful

The AI will only use abilities with sacrifice costs when it has something which is marked as meant to be sacrificed like Doomed Traveler. These cards are borderline ok.

Selfless Cathar , a 1/1 with cost 1 white, useful in early game to have early attack/defense, but the main good point is that you can sacrifice it anytime to give +1/+1 to everyone on your side until end turn

The AI will sac it and sometimes not attack. So please no.

Treacherous Pit-Dweller , a powerfull ( 4/3 ) for its cost (2 mana) with a twist : it's undying but when it comes back from graveyard due to it, it will then play for the opponent side.
It's then a big risk , but for its cost it can be very rewarding when it land early.

The AI will chump block with it, thinking it will come back on his side. So no.

[Fizanko]

Yes, that's why i replaced those cards in tier 1 and tier 2 (haven't looked yet in tier 3 and challenge), they're really very powerful and useful, but from what i tested it's only in the hands of the player, as the AI can (and so very likely will) lose a round by using them unappropriately (i saw the Emancipation Angle bouncing itself several turns in a round, very funny, but it made the AI lose despite the deck i gave it was good).

Hopefully, the fact that the AI will be able to play all the cards it has will balance the fact the replacements are a bit weaker.

[Fizanko]

the 9 decks of the tier 3 AI are now 100% AI friendly.
So there are no more "ai can't play well" card in the easy, medium and hard ai decks for the world.
Hopefully my changes will not have weakened the decks too much, the cards that weren't fully ai compatible were very powerful and without any other equivalent ai compatible, so i had to make different choices.

I'll now check the 6 challenges (the 6 innistrad event decks), hoping it will not be too broken by the "ai can't play well" cards.

[Fizanko]

And ... i'm done, Innistrad is now having 100% AI friendly card, no "ai can't handle well" one anymore, duels and challenges included.
I added the last medium deck i needed and here it is.

To install open the worlds.txt ( in ..\YourForgeDirectory\res\quest\world\ ) and add

Code: Select all

Name:Innistrad|Dir:innistrad|Sets:ISD, DKA, AVR|Banned:Chaos Orb; Falling Star

Then put the "innistrad" folder from the download attached to this post into
..\YourForgeDirectory\res\quest\world\

Finally if you want the challenges and quests opponents to feature their icons, put the jpg files of the icons folder from the attached download into
..\whereverIsyourForgeuserdata\Cache\pics\icons\

Included with Innistrad are :

- 15 "easy" AI opponents (using intro decks of the Innistrad blocks)
- 12 "medium" AI opponents (using self-made decks i build over my own innistrad quest stockpile with hundred of duels worth of awarded boosters and spellshop purchased cards)
- 9 "hard" AI opponents (using various pro-tour 2012 decks)
- 6 challenges (using the event decks of the Innistrad blocks)

Have fun
i believe it's complete and fully forge AI ready now, if someone spot an error (there should be none, played so many duels to make sure of this) , feel free to report it here.

[Sloth]

i believe it's complete and fully forge AI ready now, if someone spot an error (there should be none, played so many duels to make sure of this) , feel free to report it here.

I went through the decks and this is what i found:
Cultist 1, Necro 1, Warlord 2: Demonmail Hauberk has to go. (It is now marked as not AI playable).
Demonist 1: The deck has no theme at all. It's just a pile. Homicidal Seclusion and Demonic Rising will be useless most of the times.
Guards 2: Delver of Secrets and only 2 Instant/Sorceries? Bruna, Light of Alabaster and Infinite Reflection?
Witch 3: Has exactly the same decklist as Ghost 3.
Army (challenge): Vedalken Certarch and only 1 Artifact?

I found it confusing that some of the medium or hard opponents have nothing in common with their easy versions.
A lot of decks could have their theme improved. There are a lot of decks that look like human tribal, but none of them really goes all the way.

[Fizanko]

I went through the decks and this is what i found:
Cultist 1, Necro 1, Warlord 2: Demonmail Hauberk has to go. (It is now marked as not AI playable).

in the snapshot i've been testing it's not triggering the "AI can't handle well" message. Do you mean that in the coming release, the AI become unable to play it ?
I can't see another equipment artifact for the same mana price that would give something as good as +4/+2
So i guess for another artifact with an evil-tone, i guess it could then be the cheaper Butcher's Cleaver, that unfortunately does not match the power of Demonmail Hauberk, and on top of this require an Human to have its full potential.
Oh well.

Demonist 1: The deck has no theme at all. It's just a pile. Homicidal Seclusion and Demonic Rising will be useless most of the times.

Demonist 1 original problem is that the intro deck used by it was full of "AI can't handle well" cards with useful themed one, i didn't have much choice while trying to keep the deck with different enough combinations in comparison to the other decks for player variety.

Feel free to redo the whole deck if it's not good enough for you as an "easy" deck while avoiding having too similarity with another deck, i'm out of idea for them by now with all those AI problematic cards.

Guards 2: Delver of Secrets and only 2 Instant/Sorceries? Bruna, Light of Alabaster and Infinite Reflection?

Delver of Secrets is mostly there because i needed a 1 blue mana creature, and the only 1 blue mana alternative was Wingcrafter that would have been too good for this deck (and the only other 1 mana blue guy of the Innistrad block has a "AI can't handle well" problem so out of question)

What's the problem with Infinite Reflection ?
Having all your creatures suddenly becoming Bruna, Light of Alabaster is a big gun of the deck (assuming you're lucky enough to have both card in your hand), and another reason i didn't put Wingcrafter for the 1 blue mana slot so it still kept the medium difficulty.

Witch 3: Has exactly the same decklist as Ghost 3.

Looks like the pro tour decks can call a same deck with different name
Witch 3 is Hexproof Bant
Ghost 3 is Blouse
Damn. Will have to check another protour deck, hoping it's not going to end into another duplicate as i can't count anymore on those deck names anymore.

Army (challenge): Vedalken Certarch and only 1 Artifact?

This one is again a consequence of the "AI can't handle cards well", i needed a 1 mana creature to replace Nephalia Smuggler that isn't AI friendly.
The alternative of the 1 mana blue with the sets corresponding to that event deck were :
Delver of Secret, considering there's many sorcery/instant it would make the card too good as a replacement
Phantasmal Bear, too strong for a replacement
Wingcrafter

A lot of decks could have their theme improved. There are a lot of decks that look like human tribal, but none of them really goes all the way.

Certainly, but a lot of decks would have been better if i didn't had to deal with the "AI cant handle well" problem and the difficulty in finding some card +/- equal in either usefullness , or power and still trying to make a deck a bit different from another makes it a big challenge.
Remember i'm dealing with Innistrad block, when you remove all the "ai can't handle well" cards, i don't have that much choice to make AI compatible deck.

[Fizanko]

I went through the decks and this is what i found:
Cultist 1, Necro 1, Warlord 2: Demonmail Hauberk has to go. (It is now marked as not AI playable).

I Just tested the latest snapshot from Chris H. that got released and Demonmail Hauberk is still not leading to "AI can't handle well".

Anyways, i replaced Ghost3 "Blouse" deck by the "Lingering Spirits" from there
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=976653

And looking further on pro tour decks i noticed some having the same name but having different cards. I guess decks names can't be relied upon to know which one is different

I replaced AI "can't handle well" cards by other ones.
I'll wait a day to see if someone think some decks should be changed (propose one in that case) and i'll make it final on my side.

[Sloth]

A lot of decks could have their theme improved. There are a lot of decks that look like human tribal, but none of them really goes all the way.

Certainly, but a lot of decks would have been better if i didn't had to deal with the "AI cant handle well" problem and the difficulty in finding some card +/- equal in either usefullness , or power and still trying to make a deck a bit different from another makes it a big challenge.
Remember i'm dealing with Innistrad block, when you remove all the "ai can't handle well" cards, i don't have that much choice to make AI compatible deck.

It's not that hard. Just try not to use any preconstructed or tournament decks as a starting point.

Possible deck themes for innistrad, with the important cards:
BR Vampires: Stromkirk Captain, Bloodline Keeper, Rakish Heir
B Zombies: Endless Ranks of the Dead, Ghoulcaller's Chant, Ghoulraiser, Gravecrawler, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Unbreathing Horde, Zombie Apocalypse
UB Zombies: + Diregraf Captain, Havengul Runebinder, Rooftop Storm, Undead Alchemist, Call to the Kindred
WU Spirits: Battleground Geist, Drogskol Captain, Gallows Warden, Call to the Kindred, Moorland Haunt
WG Humans: Champion of the Parish, Hamlet Captain, Riders of Gavony, Descendants' Path + 6 Equipments
WR Humans: Champion of the Parish, Kessig Malcontents, Riot Ringleader, Riders of Gavony, Vigilante Justice + 6 Equipments
W Angels: Seraph Sanctuary, Scroll of Avacyn, Defy Death
W Angels + Humans: Angel of Glory's Rise, Angelic Overseer, Herald of War, Voice of the Provinces, Bladed Bracers
RG Werewolfs: Immerwolf, Full Moon's Rise, Kruin Outlaw, Mayor of Avabruck

WB Sacrifice: Doomed Traveler, Blood Artist, Skirsdag Flayer, Harvester of Souls
WB Reanimator: Unburial Rites
WB Tokens: Intangible Virtue, Lingering Souls, Cathars' Crusade
WU Auras: Geist of Saint Traft, Invisible Stalker, Lone Revenant, Bruna, Light of Alabaster, Spectral Flight
UR Flying: Favorable Winds, Rolling Temblor
BR Curses: Curse of Misfortunes, Curse of Thirst
G Full Graveyard: Mulch, Tracker's Instincts, Boneyard Wurm, Ghoultree, Grim Flowering, Kessig Cagebreakers, Spider Spawning, Splinterfright, Wreath of Geists
U Graveyard Ressource: Armored Skaab, Chill of Foreboding, Deranged Assistant, Havengul Runebinder, Headless Skaab, Screeching Skaab, Skaab Ruinator, Stitched Drake
UB Mill: Cellar Door, Chill of Foreboding, Curse of the Bloody Tome, Dreadwaters, Dream Twist, Geralf's Mindcrusher, Ghoulcaller's Bell, Increasing Confusion, Nephalia Drownyard, Shriekgeist, Thought Scour, Trepanation Blade, Undead Alchemist
UR Flashback: Burning Vengeance, Secrets of the Dead
UR Instant and Sorceries: Charmbreaker Devils, Delver of Secrets, Mystic Retrieval
BR Undying: Flayer of the Hatebound

[Fizanko]

I disagree with not using prebuilt decks as basis, for simple reasons :
My choice of using intro deck for easy made sense in the way that intro deck are built as introduction, they're not strong decks and fit easy tiers perfectly.

For the hard tier, i just went for the pro players, i assume if those guys play certain decks it's because they're strong, and so it makes sense to use those as basis for hard tier.

Now for the medium decks, i made them with my stockpile of cards earned from hundred of duels in that world, as soon as one of my deck was regularly beating the "easy" tier one, i knew they would be good for "medium" tier.
Etc... until i built the 12 ones i had.

My main problem has been and still is the "ai can't handle well" cards that forced me to replay decks until i could find if a card could really fit without suddenly overpowering or weakening the deck strongly. Because i didn't wanted an "easy" deck suddenly becoming of "medium" tier and vice versa, and more difficult as i'm no pro player, how to fix the pro player decks without having them falling into the "medium" tier from the "hard" one.

For you it's easy, you're much more used to this than i am obviously, but for me it's not as simple as throwing cards names around.

So far the world will stay as it is, i've spent already more time than i was willing on it, my work on it is done, unless errors popup i'll keep the decks as they are, they fit with my test play on the world.

[Fizanko]

Noticed that while it wasn't considered like that in the last snapshot before release, in the new Forge version 1.5.25, Demonmail Hauberk is now set to AI problematic ( "AI can't handle well" )

So i replaced it by Butcher's Cleaver for the affected decks.

Same as before , to install open the worlds.txt ( in ..\YourForgeDirectory\res\quest\world\ ) and add

Code: Select all

Name:Innistrad|Dir:innistrad|Sets:ISD, DKA, AVR|Banned:Chaos Orb; Falling Star

Then put the "innistrad" folder from the download attached to this post into
..\YourForgeDirectory\res\quest\world\

Finally if you want the challenges and quests opponents to feature their icons, put the jpg files of the icons folder from the attached download into
..\whereverIsyourForgeuserdata\Cache\pics\icons\

edit : fully compatible with 1.5.29

[serrasmurf]

Using intro decks for easy opponents (and tune them) worked fine for me.
They do contain most of the themes of Innistrad. For the medium decks I would expect (as a quest player) to battle further developed versions of these theme decks, in the direction that Sloth suggested. Then your decks will properly show off the cool themes of Innistrad. Wizards use to have a writer that showcased how to pick up a theme deck and upgrade it (Ben Bleiweiss, building in a budget?), you might want to check that out.
For (very) hard decks it is indeed good to use pro players decks as a basis. But be careful, these are often decks with a lot of play to them, which the AI isn't capable of. The strongest versions of these themed decks (with lots of creatures) are often the best deck you can put in the hands of the AI.

[Fizanko]

The world fits what i wanted it to be.

- playing vs intro deck to introduce the player to the world fitting perfectly the easy settings

- once the easy was cleared, playing against my own self-made decks (that were beating easy setting regularly so were fitting medium difficulty) so i would have fun playing against my own decks instead of tweaked version of the intro ones (that was my original intention, but i found finally more fun to use my own stuff)

- once medium was cleared, the natural way to me was to have the hard difficulty with the innistrad block decks used by pro players in competition, even if it lost the flavor i tried to give to the medium decks (priest with human and angels, witch with transformed/bewitched humans, zombie with well zombies, etc..)

I understand people may not like my choices, MtG has so many cards and combinations that it's not possible to please everyone and i wouldn't try that for that reason.

But in the same time, the decks files are easy to rework with their favorite cards if someone dislike what i did.

I already had to rework them to make all of them 100% Forge AI friendly even if it wasn't then anymore exactly the decks i wanted with the AI limitations, but in its current state i enjoy playing with that world, so for what concerns me, it's how it should be.
If someone have fun with it, i'm happy, if someone does not, well too bad, but feel free to build an Innistrad that correspond to your likings then.

[friarsol]

The world fits what i wanted it to be.

[...]

I understand people may not like my choices, MtG has so many cards and combinations that it's not possible to please everyone and i wouldn't try that for that reason.

That's all well and good, but Sloth was giving you these suggestions because he has a ton of experience working with AI decks for quest mode balancing. Without these types of consistencies, your world probably will never make it into the Forge release. It seems you might be fine with that, since it sounds like you were mostly making it for yourself.

I already had to rework them to make all of them 100% Forge AI friendly even if it wasn't then anymore exactly the decks i wanted with the AI limitations

Unfortunately, that's the first priority for a deck designed to be played by the AI. "Can the AI pilot all the cards in it?" Building AI decks are definitely more time consuming than at first appearances.

[Fizanko]

That's all well and good, but Sloth was giving you these suggestions because he has a ton of experience working with AI decks for quest mode balancing. Without these types of consistencies, your world probably will never make it into the Forge release. It seems you might be fine with that, since it sounds like you were mostly making it for yourself.

So be it, if you don't like the world don't use it, i made it at first to play Innistrad quest and shared it with people wanting to do the same, not to have it included in Forge at all cost.
The world works great from my quest plays with it, i don't see a need to change it completely to fit someone else needs.