Cool Shandalar enemies deckpack! FREE!
Posted: 05 May 2011, 16:10Hey everyone,
if you play Shandalar, but have a feeling many of those wondering enemies' decks are bad, like not themed enough, or variety of used cards is too limited, or they are annoying to battle against, here is the salvation: the result of 3 months of building and testing, a nice deckpack from myself. It is designed to substitute original Shandalar decks (Manalink versions 1.32 or 2.0).
Main goals of the deckpack
- decks are designed in a way their power gradually increases with the enemy level. E.g. all those level 1 mobs have pretty weak decks, in a sense they can't "crush". The cards are still strongly complement each other.
The higher enemy level is, the more powerful cards combinations constitute his deck. This makes low level creatures no match for you later in the game, but IMO it should be so.
- decks comply every enemy's theme as close as I can make with the selection of cards available. Often I replaced some cards with their weaker analogs, like one or two "Black knight" cards replaced with "Headless horseman" in Undead knight's deck. Usually it makes the deck a little bit weaker, but more interesting.
- decks are very "tight", so there are no bullshit/excessive cards that don't complement the main idea of the deck or can be spammed by AI and frustrate the player. Most of the decks have no more than 45 cards, so their 'work' is more stable. Also, it was quite tough to design some decks to force AI use everything properly. It has insane problems with some cards, like "Phantasmal Terrain" and some others really.
- decks are fun to battle against. No annoying stuff like 4 "Wrath of God" or 4 "Swords to plowshares" again and again, when it's boring to wait till AI exhausts it's vaults. Everything is balanced in a way that AI strategy is challenging enough, not frustrating and quite diversified.
- I tried to make use of as many available cards as it seemed reasonable. I think about 80% of cards are used in one or another enemy's deck (and at least half of unused cards are totally useless). Compared to original decks, I've found a use of many additional cards, it's always pleasant to feel the "fresh air" you know))
To name a few: Cuombajj Witches, Hasran Ogress, Banshee, Stone-Throwing Devils, Mold Demon, Raging River, Rukh Egg, Two Headed Giant of Foriys, Blood Moon, Hyperion Blacksmith, Thunder Spirit, Moat, Argivian Archaeologist, Witch Hunter, Ashnod's Transmogrant, Fountain of Youth, Weakstone, Moss Monster, Hidden Path, Gaea's Avenger, Force Spike, Reconstruction, Drowned, Serendib Djinn and many others.
- decks are made up from Manalink 1.32 cards.
- there is no Uber Fiend's aka Arzakon deck, I'm just not interested in this final battle.
Installation
- download the decks. Some decks were updated (Sep 2013), now it's v1.3
- extract the contents of the archive into your MTG folder, overwrite the original "DECKS" folder
- play
NOTE
this deckpack is better be used in conjunction with Tapani's Mod, or there will be 10 decks with inadequate power for their level (see my post about this below)
A bit history of myself
I had been playing Shandalar in 1997, loved it very much and consider myself quite an expert of the game, but for older card revisions. Recently I decided to play it again (nostalgia), but very soon realized it's no fun to battle against existing enemies. So I doubled my joy by designing enemy decks in addition to normal play process.
if you play Shandalar, but have a feeling many of those wondering enemies' decks are bad, like not themed enough, or variety of used cards is too limited, or they are annoying to battle against, here is the salvation: the result of 3 months of building and testing, a nice deckpack from myself. It is designed to substitute original Shandalar decks (Manalink versions 1.32 or 2.0).
Main goals of the deckpack
- decks are designed in a way their power gradually increases with the enemy level. E.g. all those level 1 mobs have pretty weak decks, in a sense they can't "crush". The cards are still strongly complement each other.
The higher enemy level is, the more powerful cards combinations constitute his deck. This makes low level creatures no match for you later in the game, but IMO it should be so.
- decks comply every enemy's theme as close as I can make with the selection of cards available. Often I replaced some cards with their weaker analogs, like one or two "Black knight" cards replaced with "Headless horseman" in Undead knight's deck. Usually it makes the deck a little bit weaker, but more interesting.
- decks are very "tight", so there are no bullshit/excessive cards that don't complement the main idea of the deck or can be spammed by AI and frustrate the player. Most of the decks have no more than 45 cards, so their 'work' is more stable. Also, it was quite tough to design some decks to force AI use everything properly. It has insane problems with some cards, like "Phantasmal Terrain" and some others really.
- decks are fun to battle against. No annoying stuff like 4 "Wrath of God" or 4 "Swords to plowshares" again and again, when it's boring to wait till AI exhausts it's vaults. Everything is balanced in a way that AI strategy is challenging enough, not frustrating and quite diversified.
- I tried to make use of as many available cards as it seemed reasonable. I think about 80% of cards are used in one or another enemy's deck (and at least half of unused cards are totally useless). Compared to original decks, I've found a use of many additional cards, it's always pleasant to feel the "fresh air" you know))
To name a few: Cuombajj Witches, Hasran Ogress, Banshee, Stone-Throwing Devils, Mold Demon, Raging River, Rukh Egg, Two Headed Giant of Foriys, Blood Moon, Hyperion Blacksmith, Thunder Spirit, Moat, Argivian Archaeologist, Witch Hunter, Ashnod's Transmogrant, Fountain of Youth, Weakstone, Moss Monster, Hidden Path, Gaea's Avenger, Force Spike, Reconstruction, Drowned, Serendib Djinn and many others.
- decks are made up from Manalink 1.32 cards.
- there is no Uber Fiend's aka Arzakon deck, I'm just not interested in this final battle.
Installation
- download the decks. Some decks were updated (Sep 2013), now it's v1.3
- extract the contents of the archive into your MTG folder, overwrite the original "DECKS" folder
- play
NOTE
this deckpack is better be used in conjunction with Tapani's Mod, or there will be 10 decks with inadequate power for their level (see my post about this below)
A bit history of myself
I had been playing Shandalar in 1997, loved it very much and consider myself quite an expert of the game, but for older card revisions. Recently I decided to play it again (nostalgia), but very soon realized it's no fun to battle against existing enemies. So I doubled my joy by designing enemy decks in addition to normal play process.
Also, Necromancer's deck is insanely weak for 8th level. And, it will be really sad to nerf Merfolk deck to a puny 2nd level, and it will be hard to make Paladin deck in a way that AI can play it according to "level 5" (AI sucks)