Automatic deck creator ?

[Gargaroz]

I was wondering : has anyone attempted to make an external utility that converts a csv-like file with a deck list in a standard format to a .dck file ?
I'm planning to add an avatard-like card that would do that in game, but if someone could do it as external program, I wouldn't bother.

[Dave]

Doesn't seem that difficult to me. As long as the csv order of columns doesn't change.
You have an example of which csv to convert?

[Gargaroz]

I was thinking something like this :

Llanowar Elves;4
Forest;56

The program will read a file called "custom_deck.txt" and produce "custom_deck.dck". We could add a graphic shell later.
In this way, one could easily copy a decklist from the net, make some simply arrangements and then directly convert that into a playable deck, without the hassle of making it thru the Deck Editor.

[stassy]

Well, by random google searching you often get this deck sort like this :

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=301005

http://www.magic-league.com/deck/76121/ ... Wins117161

http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/2698 ... e_the_fold

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=985661

http://www.moxdiamond.com/Magic-The-Gat ... Deck-.html

The number is before the card name, and on some case you even get different deck software format, the most useful I see is the printable one.

[CirothUngol]

Hmm... I'm about to release the PDAnalyser v0.2 which already converts Apprentice, MagicWorkStation, OCTaGoN and MtG:IE decks to Manalink's PlayDeck format. I looked at the links that stassy provided and a simple copy\paste provides this:

Code: Select all

2x Sensei's Divining Top
 


2x Elixir of Immortality
 


Enchantments
 


2x Cast Through Time
 


Land
 


4x Underground Sea
 


2x Strip Mine
 


2x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
 


3x Cabal Coffers
 


2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
 


5x Island
 


5x Swamp
 


Spells
 


2x Choice of Damnations
 


3x Glimpse the Unthinkable
 


4x Demonic Tutor
 


4x Dark Ritual
 


3x Extirpate
 


2x Damnation
 


3x Bitter Ordeal
 


2x Profane Command
 


3x Thoughtseize
 


2x Nightmare Incursion
 


3x Sadistic Sacrament
 


4x Counterspell

-----

3 Venser, the Sojourner
 3 Unburial Rites
 1 Ratchet Bomb
 2 Oblivion Ring
 3 Mana Leak
 4 Faithless Looting
 4 Desperate Ravings
 2 Day of Judgment
 3 Sun Titan
 3 Stonehorn Dignitary
 3 Phantasmal Image
 1 Inferno Titan


 2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
 1 Swamp
 4 Sulfur Falls
 4 Seachrome Coast
 2 Plains
 2 Mountain
 2 Island
 2 Ghost Quarter
 4 Evolving Wilds
 3 Clifftop Retreat
 2 Whipflare

-----

2 Leonin Relic-Warder
2 Grand Abolisher
3 Fiend Hunter
4 Hero of Bladehold
3 Mirran Crusader
4 Doomed Traveler
2 Loyal Cathar
4 Champion of the Parish
2 Geist of Saint Traft

Instant [2]
2 Mana Leak

Enchantment [8]
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Honor of the Pure
2 Angelic Destiny

Artifact [1]
1 Sword of War and Peace

Land [23]
11 Plains
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Moorland Haunt

-----

2 Copper Myr
2 Gold Myr
2 Iron Myr
2 Leaden Myr
4 Myr Battlesphere
4 Myr Galvanizer
2 Palladium Myr
2 Silver Myr
4 Steel Overseer
Creatures [24]1 Darksteel Forge
4 Myr Matrix
2 Myr Reservoir
4 Myr Turbine
2 Storage Matrix
2 Temple Bell
4 Thoughtcast
2 Unwinding Clock
2 Voltaic Key
Spells [23]2 Ancient Den
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Great Furnace
8 Island
4 Seat of the Synod
2 Tree of Tales
2 Vault of Whispers

-----

Interrupts






4

Mindcrank









Enchantments






4

Bloodchief Ascension









Instants






4

Lightning Bolt


4

Searing Blaze



4

Incinerate


3

Terminate






Sorceries






4

Sign in Blood


2

Earthquake



4

Bump in the Night


2

Blightning



2

Pyroclasm


1

Demonfire






Creatures






4

Grim Lavamancer









Lands






4

Dragonskull Summit


8

Mountain



3

Terramorphic Expanse


6

Swamp

All but the last one would be fairly simple to add; the second one is already in Apprentice format and the 1st, 3rd & 4th are Apprentice format once you remove the Spell Headers and any trailing "x"'s on the CardQty. Maybe I'll try to add an "Import from TextFile" option for simple NetDecks like this (CardQty<SPACE>CardName, any lines not beginning with a numeral are ignored?)... although this probably isn't what you're lookin' for. My app is written in JustBASIC and is therefore rather slow, ponderous and bulky. If someone could produce a small, fast, compiled executable it'd be much better.

This, however, is a good idea. I'll try to work it in before release.

[Gargaroz]

Yup, perhaps is truly better with the number before the name, something like "number;card name".

@ Cirith Ungol : the problem is that you'll need to import cards.dat (pure raw data) to be able to know the ID of the cards, which is needed for the .dck format. If you're able to do that, just add that feature to your program.

[CirothUngol]

Is this still requested? Is anyone working on it?

I recently discovered the LibertyBASIC Booster that will automatically convert my JustBASIC program to and compile it in BBC BASIC to a single .exe with a packed-in runtime. This reduces the PDAnalyser from 10 files @ 2.9Mb to 1 file @ 158Kb. Nearly all aspects of the program run 2-3 times faster... except for the main "Rebuild Playdecks" routine, which runs 2-3 times slower. However, converting a single PlayDeck should be plenty fast.

I wrote some routines a few months ago to read the Pre-2K-limit Cards.dat, with the goal of documenting the DAT format and converting the early Cards.dat to CSV. The new format looks similar enough for me to use those because all I currently read from the CSV is CardID#, CardName, CardColor and CodedStatus. I've found and identified all of the earlier Manalink.csv values except for the CodedStatus. Is this value stored in the Cards.dat? It's quite necessary, since you don't want to use a PlayDeck containing NonCoded cards. Otherwise, this could be very doable. I could insert some commandline options for GUI On\Off, LogFile On\Off, FileName In\Out, etc.

Please let me know if you know where to find the CodedStatus in the Card.dat and if you'd like me to put this together.

[Dave]

Why don't you just read from the csv ? The order of the columns (and their meaning) will not change overnight, otherwise Gargaroz can't create the cards.dat anymore

[CirothUngol]

There is a push to use only the Cards.dat for all operations, as I believe all the current Manalink executables have removed all dependency on the CSV, making it officially unnecessary for the program to run.

I can agree to this, but only if one of the dat files contain the Coded\NonCoded information. Otherwise, no one can do this without the Manalink.csv. Mystery solved by Snako.

[Gargaroz]

As I already wrote in the other thread, ask Mok.
And of course this will be a great feature, even if you cannot get in touch with Mok try to finish it and then add a disclaimer which state clear that you can convert succesfully only deck with all cards coded.

[CirothUngol]

Good news! I found the issue with LibertyBASIC Booster that was slowing down my app, and now the PDAnalyser is a single executable that's 20 times smaller and 5 times faster than the original. Assuming that the info in the new Cards.dat is in the same places as the old one, I'll just need to get some parameters before trying to make this little program.

Where will the executable to located? In the main Magic Program folder? If so, using the entire PDAnalyser might not be a good idea since it makes lots of folders and uses the "PlayDeck" folder for importing decks... it probably shouldn't be ran from the Main Program folder. Have you looked at the PDAnalyser? Check out the "Import NetDeck" option in the menu... I've already built a GUI for this sorta thing. It currently makes a "NetDeck" folder and writes everything in there (original text file, Apprentice.dec, Manalink.dck and a LogFile). I thought I might strip out just the NetDeck Dialog and add some commandline options like I mentioned earlier. Whadda think?

Also, where will the custom_deck.txt be and where should the custom_deck.dck go? I'll leave these as default filenames, but may install an option to name the folder\filename specifically just for forward compatibility. Currently, the NetDeck Dialog uses the format "CardQty<SPACE>CardName", but I can also create a commandline switch to use a different delimeter (eg ";").

Lemme know what you think and I'll start putting it together next week. Go grab the PlayDeck Analyser and check out the NetDeck Dialog to see if I should try to add\change anything.

[Gargaroz]

Yup, a separate folder will be the best. There's already too much stuff in the main Magic folder.
A command line like "pdanalyser -c (as "convert") netdeck.txt" will be great. I also suggest you to copy the original filename and only change the extension (so, "t2_pod.txt" will became "t2_pod.dck"), this will save us the time to rename.
This utility will have a greater usage, as with the upcoming patch the set location in Manalink.csv is slightly altered (especially for recent sets), so probably many user will found their deck screwed.
This was a bitter decision to take, but it'll be an one-time medicine, I promise you (unless we have to "compact" the database for space, but this will happend in a distant future).
When this tool will be stable enough, I want to add it to the standard patch structure, are you OK with this ?

[CirothUngol]

When this tool will be stable enough, I want to add it to the standard patch structure, are you OK with this ?

Sure, I was hoping it would prove useful. I've added a commandline routine that skips the GUI and acts as you describe (currently, the only commands are \? and \c). If you don't provide a path, it will look for the file in the current folder. Either way, it produces the .dck in the same folder as the .txt file. It will load the settings from the .ini file and use whatever settings you had the last time the GUI was used, and it still produces a NameOfDeck.log so you can see what it did.

The "compiled" version is much quicker without the GUI, but it still takes a couple of seconds to load the Cards.dat before processing the PlayDeck, so I might have it produce it's own .vod file to speed-up loading (it would check to see if the Cards.dat has changed, and produce a new .vod file if it has).

Should I keep the folder name as "PlayDeckAnalyser"? It's not too long and places the folder just below the "PlayDeck" folder in the directory listing (which is nice). It also only does 1 .dck file at a time in CommandLine mode... I'm assuming this is the desired behavior. Are there any other commands/switches you think may be useful?

Also, is there any way to determine if a Challenge Card is still locked? If not, can the list of Challenge Cards be found in a DAT\CSV somewhere? With the latest Manalink Update I get tons of PlayDecks with no NonCoded cards (over 2500), but many contain locked challenge cards and I'd like to be able to filter those as well.

Work has been kicking my butt this week so I haven't had any time to play with this, but I hope to finish a few things on it this weekend and start getting it ready for a v0.3 release before I try to tackle a few big issues with the app... like completely re-writing the ignorant way I've implimented the Banned\Restricted\Substitute lists. It'll be quicker, easier, more versatile and make more sense, but it'll take some time.

[Gargaroz]

As for the cards locked, if you're familiar with C code check the "is_unlocked" function in "src\bin\functions\challenge_mode.c".
For the rest, it's all OK for now

[CirothUngol]

I'm actually quite unfamiliar with C and the entire OOP paradigm (although I did use a little Pascal in the '80s), but I understand enough to see how it works. Thanx for pointing me to the right piece of code (I had to install Code::Blocks just so I could read it). ^_^

This is one of several things that'll have to wait until I re-write the Ban\Rest\Sub part of the app... it won't make it into v0.3. Again, thanx for the helpful info.

Edit-
Just a heads-up, the new version of PDAnalyser is available here.