The Art of Things to Come

[Sonic]

OK here's the list of new C15 cards. Although, I'd better point out I have yet to find any reasonable quality card art for the set. So it might be worth holding off activating the set until we do.

Æthersnatch
Anya, Merciless Angel
Arachnogenesis
Arjun, the Shifting Flame
Awaken the Sky Tyrant
Banshee of the Dread Choir
Bastion Protector
Blade of Selves
Bloodspore Thrinax
Broodbirth Viper
Caller of the Pack
Centaur Vinecrasher
Command Beacon
Corpse Augur
Dawnbreak Reclaimer
Daxos the Returned
Daxos's Torment
Deadly Tempest
Dread Summons
Dream Pillager
Ezuri, Claw of Progress
Ezuri's Predation
Fiery Confluence
Gigantoplasm
Grasp of Fate
Great Oak Guardian
Herald of the Host
Illusory Ambusher
Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas
Kalemne's Captain
Karlov of the Ghost Council
Kaseto, Orochi Archmage
Magus of the Wheel
Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest
Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Meteor Blast
Mirror Match
Mizzix of the Izmagnus
Mizzix's Mastery
Mystic Confluence
Oreskos Explorer
Pathbreaker Ibex
Righteous Confluence
Rite of the Raging Storm
Sandstone Oracle
Scourge of Nel Toth
Scytheclaw
Seal of the Guildpact
Shielded by Faith
Skullwinder
Synthetic Destiny
Thief of Blood
Thought Vessel
Verdant Confluence
Warchief Giant
Wretched Confluence

I've got the main card art for BFZ, so you can have that in a few days. But I'll wait until you finalise the 'big list' for the remaining old cards you want to add before I crack on with those.

[Korath]

I knew what the genuinely new cards are - they're already in my work-in-progress checklist a couple posts up.

The question I was asking was which of the old cards in the set (#57-#342) don't already exist in Manalink. Karmic Justice, for example, is the first one, at #72. If I do program the C15 cards, it would make sense to fill in any blanks so the entire decks can be put in.

[Aswan jaguar]

These:
87 Blatant Thievery
125 Fallen Ideal
128 Grave Peril
198 Primal Growth
214 Counterflux

[Sonic]

These:
87 Blatant Thievery
125 Fallen Ideal
128 Grave Peril
198 Primal Growth
214 Counterflux

Aye, my bad.

The same with their current Manalink ID numbers

ID Name
5282 Primal Growth
5589 Karmic Justice
6068 Blatant Thievery
8540 Fallen Ideal
8936 Grave Peril
12691 Counterflux

[Sonic]

Manalink Battle for Zendikar card art. Grab it while its hot!

http://www.mediafire.com/download/k32a3 ... rtwork.zip

All the best... Sonic

[Korath]

I'm seeing two different Evolving Wilds (2).jpg's among the dtk/ori/bfz packages. (And the DTK package is down.)

[Sonic]

I'm seeing two different Evolving Wilds (2).jpg's among the dtk/ori/bfz packages.

Sorry about that.
Just rename the image file in the BFZ package to 'Evolving Wilds (3).jpg' - problem solved.
I've updated the jpg file in download BFZ archive as well.

Not sure what gives with the DTK archive. All three card art zips download fine here.
Is anybody else, apart from Korath, having problems downloading the links?

[Korath]

False alarm; I was trying to redownload from the DTK thread.

[Korath]

First pass through DTK done. Of the remaining cards:

1. Display of Dominance, Dragon Hunter, Haven of the Spirit Dragon, Icefall Regent, Qarsi Deceiver, and Shaman of Forgotten Ways can't be done in this engine without unacceptable amounts of approximation. Someone else may be willing to make new cards that share their names and art and have effects that sort of resemble theirs, but I'm not.
2. Narset Transcendent, Qal Sisma Behemoth, and Tapestry of the Ages can be done, but only with objectionable amounts of hackery. (Qal Sisma Behemoth's effect would work just fine in the base engine, but Propaganda's implementation breaks it.)
3. Commune with Lava, Hedonist's Trove, Ire Shaman, Living Lore, Risen Executioner, Silumgar Spell-Eater, Stratus Dancer, and Thunderbreak Regent can be done, but the interfaces are irritating enough that I wasn't willing to jump through their hoops.
4. Collected Company, Corpseweft, Deathmist Raptor, Descent of the Dragons, Hardened Berserker, Salt Road Ambushers, and Swift Warkite can be done, but were more effort that I was willing to expend at the time.

I'll probably revisit C and D in a later pass, but no promises.

Of the old cards whose art I requested, and the cards in DTK, ORI, and BFZ, I've got 437 implemented, 523 not, and 13 stray other cards implemented done so far. Given that I didn't actually plan to get through all the old cards, I'm about halfway done. Progress tracked here.

(Edit: struck completed)

[Sonic]

Good decision not to bother with cards which end up as approximations of the original. Approximations have never worked in the past and simply attract more repetitive posts and bug reports than they are worth. No matter how many times you post the answer "IT'S AN APPROXIMATION!".

Nope, definitely not worth the effort.

[Korath]

The first pass through Origins was considerably rockier. There's a surprising number of complex cards and never-or-rarely-done-before mechanics in the set, especially for a core set. Most of the cards I skipped were because they demanded more effort and attention than I wanted to devote to them in a first pass through, and I'll definitely be revisiting the set.

I'm not going to give thoughts on every skipped card, like for DTK, just the impossible and especially problematic ones. The others I mostly plan to get back to when I'm less distracted.

• Archangel of Tithes is a Propaganda effect, which is irritating but not especially difficult to deal with in the Manalink framework (which only really breaks cards that have costs for just themselves to attack, like Leviathan or DTK's Qal Sisma Behemoth). The global pay-to-block effect, though, hasn't been done on any other card that I can find besides War Cadence; that's not in Manalink either, and I haven't yet researched whether they're even possible.
• Day's Undoing, like Time Stop and Sundial of the Infinite, wouldn't be a problem except that there are many, many cards that implement their "until end of turn" effects with an "at the beginning of any end step" trigger. The former should still happen with end-the-turn effects; the latter shouldn't.
• Mizzium Meddler's a Deflection effect, so no-go. There's no way to query another spell or ability whether something's a legal target or not. There isn't even a way to tell whether something is a target, rather than a non-targeted choice or just random misplaced data storage.
• Gnarlroot Trapper and Pyromancer's Goggles can't be done because they have a restriction and an extra effect, respectively, on the mana they produce.
• Call of the Full Moon, stupidly enough, can't reuse the Innistrad werewolf triggers because they specifically only work for things with subtype Werewolf. Slap a Nim Deathmantle on one, for example, and suddenly it can't transform.
• Outland Colossus' and Bonded Construct's attack restrictions can't be dealt with by the AI combat algorithms. See here and here respectively for what happens when similar effects were tried anyway.
• And the cards that can activate or trigger or be cast from the graveyard, while possible in Manalink, are always still a pain to deal with.

[Sonic]

Forgot to ask. Would you like me to host the card art archive for the next update? Keeping it together with all the previous stuff.

[Korath]

Yes please. (Any interest in doing the same for Shandalar releases?)

I'm most likely not going to do the C15 cards; I want to give some more thought on how to represent experience counters visually. There isn't really room to display them with poison counters. (Plus, shoehorning them into proliferate will probably be painful.)

BFZ is going rapidly, and I don't see anything especially problematic skimming ahead through the other cards. Figure a bit less than a week to finish it off, a bit more than a week to fill in the cards I skipped earlier, and I'm aiming for a release between Christmas and New Year's.

If you're still maintaining your alternate art for counters, I've assigned the next three down from Charge Counters to be Crystal (for Prism Array), Gem (for Briber's Purse), and Isolation (for Quarantine Field) respectively.

[Sonic]

Any interest in doing the same for Shandalar releases?

No problem. Send it on, and I'll return a download link for you to post.

I'm most likely not going to do the C15 cards; I want to give some more thought on how to represent experience counters visually. There isn't really room to display them with poison counters. (Plus, shoehorning them into proliferate will probably be painful.)

Like I said; there's no HQ artwork available for the set at the moment anyway. As it is the patch is gonna be a monster. So I don't think anybody would moan if C15 was saved till the next release. They're gonna have enough on their plates simply playing all the stuff you've coded so far.

BFZ is going rapidly, and I don't see anything especially problematic skimming ahead through the other cards. Figure a bit less than a week to finish it off, a bit more than a week to fill in the cards I skipped earlier, and I'm aiming for a release between Christmas and New Year's.

Whenever you feel it's ready.

If you're still maintaining your alternate art for counters, I've assigned the next three down from Charge Counters to be Crystal (for Prism Array), Gem (for Briber's Purse), and Isolation (for Quarantine Field) respectively.

Thanks for the heads up.

[Korath]

The remainder of BFZ, from least to most likely to happen on a second pass:

• Ally Encampment, Beastcaller Savant, Shrine of the Forsaken Gods: These cards' restrictions on mana use make them impossible. Is it just me, or has WOTC been printing more and more of these lately?
• Deathless Behemoth: Requires the rules engine to activate. Anything involving the rules engine is agony to implement (and you thought just playing the game with it was distasteful), and activation is one of the very worst parts.
• Gruesome Slaughter: The MicroProse MTG engine doesn't have any provision for adding activated abilities to arbitrary cards, and Manalink hasn't stepped in to fill the gap with anything remotely reusable. Previous variants of this sort of effect like Lightning Volley aren't terribly accurate; most of them only allow the controller of the effect to activate his own creatures, and - so far as I know - none of them grant the ability only to creatures controlled when the effect resolves, but instead to all creatures you control any time after the effect resolves.
• Zada, Hedron Grinder: This can't be done accurately in this engine, since, like Deflection effects, there's no way to query another spell whether a card would be a legal target for it. Unlike Deflection effects, though, this should be able to be closely approximated by instead copying the spell for all other creatures, whether they'd be legal or not, and just letting the copies fail to validate at resolution. If it works out ok, I'll throw in Precursor Golem for good measure.
• Bring to Light: Casting spells without paying their mana cost is surprisingly awkward, considering how common an effect that is, and casting them from exile more so.
• Kiora, Master of the Depths: Both of the first two abilities are awkward in Manalink. The second is especially demoralizing since functionality that would have made it easy used to be in Manalink, but was removed for reasons unknown (breaking these cards, probably among others that are harder to grep for).
• Conduit of Ruin: Requires the rules engine to keep track of how many creature spells were cast this turn. As above, the rules engine is unpleasant to program for, but this is at least one of its less intrusive functions.
• Scatter to the Winds: The function I wrote for Awaken works sort-of-painlessly both for targetted and otherwise-untargetted spells, but not for interrupts. This'll need a specific version.
• Titan's Presence: Additional casting costs aren't difficult, just verbose.

At 740/955 of the new cards I have art for (which doesn't match up to the set-completion numbers on my WIP post because of the reprints), so well over 3/4 done.