Collectible Card Game Headquarters

I'm looking through the "Remove AI" or "Remove Random" cards in M13. I thought I'd ask about a few -- often I don't know the limitations of the AI so I have to ask to see if I'm missing something.

- Chandra's Fury - this one seems pretty straightforward (deals damage to player and creature). Chandra's Outrage was not marked as RemAI so is it correct to mark this one?
- Diabolic Revelation - this one might be AI playable with some of the recent improvements to fetching?
- Downpour - I think the AI should handle this well now, only casting it to tap less than three creatures if it is desperate.
- Elvish Archdruid - Seems like it should be a RemRandom instead of a RemAI? It needs Elves in the deck but the ability should be OK?
- Omniscience - Wow, what a crazy card. I can't think of a deck that this wouldn't be good in, if you can survive long enough to cast it. I guess maybe the thought was it's just never going to be playable in most decks.

mcrawford620 wrote:I'm looking through the "Remove AI" or "Remove Random" cards in M13. I thought I'd ask about a few -- often I don't know the limitations of the AI so I have to ask to see if I'm missing something.

- Chandra's Fury - this one seems pretty straightforward (deals damage to player and creature). Chandra's Outrage was not marked as RemAI so is it correct to mark this one?
- Diabolic Revelation - this one might be AI playable with some of the recent improvements to fetching?
- Downpour - I think the AI should handle this well now, only casting it to tap less than three creatures if it is desperate.
- Elvish Archdruid - Seems like it should be a RemRandom instead of a RemAI? It needs Elves in the deck but the ability should be OK?
- Omniscience - Wow, what a crazy card. I can't think of a deck that this wouldn't be good in, if you can survive long enough to cast it. I guess maybe the thought was it's just never going to be playable in most decks.

The only one I can shed any light is Elvish Archdruid. The AI cannot uses mana abilities that produce more than one mana.

- Chandra's Fury - Should be ok.
- Diabolic Revelation - It's very likely that the AI will play this with X=1, making this a very bad card.
- Downpour - Should be ok.
- Elvish Archdruid - The AI will always treat this as generating only one mana, but that's not really terrible. Should be ok.
- Omniscience - This will most likely be the most expensive card in a random deck, so where's the benefit in casting for free when you have 10 mana available?

Sloth wrote:- Chandra's Fury - Should be ok.
- Diabolic Revelation - It's very likely that the AI will play this with X=1, making this a very bad card.
- Downpour - Should be ok.
- Elvish Archdruid - The AI will always treat this as generating only one mana, but that's not really terrible. Should be ok.
- Omniscience - This will most likely be the most expensive card in a random deck, so where's the benefit in casting for free when you have 10 mana available?

Say there's a bunch of Howling Mine cards out. Computer can play the cards drawn without having to worry about spending mana or discarding.

Sloth wrote:- Diabolic Revelation - It's very likely that the AI will play this with X=1, making this a very bad card.

Ha-ha, good catch. It's Diabolic Tutor for 2 more mana.

- Omniscience - This will most likely be the most expensive card in a random deck, so where's the benefit in casting for free when you have 10 mana available?

I see your point. It needs some way to get a bunch of cards into your hand after you cast it.

M13 seems to have several of these cards that won't be very good in regular play but might be good in Commander decks.

ArsenalNut wrote:The only one I can shed any light is Elvish Archdruid. The AI cannot uses mana abilities that produce more than one mana.

I can't even follow the code that allows the AI to play Llanowar Elves. I see in AbilityFactoryMana:

Code: Select all

public static boolean manaCanPlayAI(final AbilityFactory af) {
        // AI cannot use this properly until he has a ManaPool
        return false;
    }

So how does the AI even use these cards for 1 mana?

mcrawford620 wrote:

ArsenalNut wrote:The only one I can shed any light is Elvish Archdruid. The AI cannot uses mana abilities that produce more than one mana.

I can't even follow the code that allows the AI to play Llanowar Elves. I see in AbilityFactoryMana:

Code: Select all

public static boolean manaCanPlayAI(final AbilityFactory af) {
        // AI cannot use this properly until he has a ManaPool
        return false;
    }

So how does the AI even use these cards for 1 mana?

For mana abilities the AI doesn't call the CanPlayAI method to see if it can use a source or not. Instead it uses forge.Card.getAIPlayableMana() which in turn relies on forge.card.spellability.AbilityMana.isBasic() to decide if a mana ability is playable.

For spell abilities that create mana, e.g. Dark Ritual, CanPlayAI is called and always returns false so the AI will never these types of spells.