June Tournament (tournament complete; scherbchen1 wins)

[aww1979]

The rules:
1) All decks must be legal in LEGACY
2) All decks must be PMed to me (aww1979) by the end of Friday, June 4.
3) Deck name should be in the format "Legacy_YOURNAME_DECKNAME"
example: Legacy_aww1979_affinity
4) Only use cards that are in the main version of manalink. (not limited or custom) You can use cards from the most recent patch (the one that has Wall of Omens) if desired. If any cards are coded after that, they may not be used for the June tournament.
5) In addition to normal Legacy deck construction rules, the following cards are also BANNED: (due to being able to wish for other banned stuff or 5th copies of stuff)
Burning Wish
Cunning Wish
Living Wish
Ring of Ma'ruf

Format:
1) I will set up pairings randomly, and all players will play both sides of that pairing in a best of 3 duel. For instance, if one pairing is Yggdrasil and Salbei, then *everyone* will play a best of 3 duel, once where they play with Yggdrasil against an AI salbei, and once where they play with Salbei against an AI yggdrasil. Once all players report their match results, I will determine who advances to the next round, and new brackets will be set up between the winners of the previous round. Other decks will be eliminated from the tournament, though all players may continue to test decks. This process continues until only two decks are left; they will play in the final, and the winner of this match wins the tournament.

Scoring: (quite a bit different from last time)
-if you win the gauntlet with a 2-0 match score, the winning deck gets 2 points
-if you win the gauntlet with a 2-1 match score, the winning deck gets 1 point
-if you lose the gauntlet with a 1-2 match score, the AI deck gets 3 points
-if you lose the gauntlet with a 0-2 match score, the AI deck gets 5 points

Therefore, suppose I play with Yggdrasil's deck in a best of 3 (against an AI salbei) and I win both games. Yggdrasil receives 2 points from my testing. Then I play with Salbei's deck (against an AI yggdrasil) and I lose the match 1-2. Yggdrasil's deck gets 3 points from my testing. So the total for my testing would be 5 ponts to Yggdrasil and 0 to salbei. This would be added to everyone else's scores, so that the final total might be something like salbei 15 yggdrasil 10, and salbei's deck would advance.

All players who test will have their matches scored, and the higher scored deck advances, while the lower scored deck is eliminated. If there is a tie in a bracket, I will duel the decks against each other in a sudden death format style.

Prizes:
1st Place: 3 coded cards by jatill
2nd Place: 2 coded cards
3rd Place: 1 coded card
4th Place: 1 coded card
Therefore, if you get to the semifinals, you are guaranteed SOMETHING

Other:
-You MUST play best of 3 matches; best of 1 or best of 5 reports will be IGNORED. (different from last time)
-a minimum of 5 decks must be received or the tournament will be cancelled
-if a number of entries is received that is not a power of 2 (i.e. 8, 16, 32, etc) I will fill the rest of the slots with extra decks of my own creation and/or give byes to random players, where they will automatically advance to the next round without playing a match. Exactly how I will do that will depend on the number of entries. (For instance, if I get 15 entries, I'll just add one of my own decks, but if I get 9, I will add a couple decks and then some byes for people, because adding 7 decks myself is stupid)

The scoring system could be negotiated before the tournament begins, but I thought the system was fair, since it rewards decks that the AI plays well, and also rewards decks that go 2-0, as opposed to 2-1.

If you don't quite understand what I'm doing with this format, the bracket idea is the same as professional sports playoffs work, except that the brackets are randomly chosen. (in sports, it's chosen based on season standings)

[Stroggoii]

Well, I think this will be fairer than the gauntlet.

One question, I'm using Street Wraith in my legacy deck because it's exactly the same deck I have in cardboard and it works very well, but I don't have Street Wraith unlocked in manalink, can I get a patch to test it or something, so far I've been playing it by using the debug mode.

[Yggdrasil]

Salbei gave great advices for deckbuilding here.

The decks of the previous tournament are available here. The format wasn't the same but they could be interesting for testing purpose.

Good luck everyone.

[Salbei]

Pm´d you my list. Since i had my place in the spotlight this one is less win oriented and more fun to play with/against.
Once again i had to cut superior cards cause the AI won´t use them.

With enough players participating this system should be great and we give more people the opportunity to submit their decks.

[monopoman]

Sounds cool I will be PMing a deck list shortly.

[scherbchen1]

still trying to get behind tha AI mindset. it is just so infuriating at times when you debug to show the AI hand. I'll come up with something I guess but I am just about to go back to "screw the AI" mode and claim 8th place

[monopoman]

Simple decks work best since the AI winning is so much more valuable then the player winning.

[aww1979]

Heh, yeah, I'm still trying to figure out the AI, too. I just lost with a legacy deck *0-3* in a best of 5 duel against another legacy deck I made, and I'd had good hands, too. Then I switched my deck, leaving the AI with the same one, and it played horribly :p I beat the hell out of it with a 5/6 Tarmogoyf and it could have cast Terminate on it the whole time, lol. Game 2 I hit it with Gerrard's Verdict and it threw away two Terminate. I'm thinking the AI values terminate very low because it doesn't seem to want to do anything with it!

[scherbchen1]

it appears to be very terrified of counterspells as well. it'll throw the first FoW at anything that moves if it is manascrewed (which can be argued to be reasonable) but hold them forever (as well as any other spell that might actually win the game!) in its hand once the game comes to a creature stand-off.

is there any way to get the AI to mulligan? or at least give them 2-3 lands? not for the next tourny but in general.

[discoransom]

Heh, yeah, I'm still trying to figure out the AI, too. I just lost with a legacy deck *0-3* in a best of 5 duel against another legacy deck I made, and I'd had good hands, too. Then I switched my deck, leaving the AI with the same one, and it played horribly :p I beat the hell out of it with a 5/6 Tarmogoyf and it could have cast Terminate on it the whole time, lol. Game 2 I hit it with Gerrard's Verdict and it threw away two Terminate. I'm thinking the AI values terminate very low because it doesn't seem to want to do anything with it!

I've peeked at a bunch of AI discards and I'm convinced it throws away the cards at random even when it has a choice

[Serbitar]

I am often under the impression, as the game goes on, that the AI just 'concedes' at some point. It refuses to play spells (even spells it usually casts, like Wrath, Oblivion Ring etc.) and you can win really strange games, in which your Tarmogoyf can attack for 5 or so turns, even though the AI is holding Wrath, O-Ring, and a bunch of other removal...

[Yggdrasil]

This situation happens sometimes. AI just ceases to play.

In the june's tournament, AI's victories will be the key. I just designed a highly consistant deck, but AI plays it like a noob. It's really frustrating.

Guess there's one thing to do : testing, testing and testing again.

[aww1979]

is there any way to get the AI to mulligan? or at least give them 2-3 lands? not for the next tourny but in general.

The AI will mulligan if it has zero lands; I've seen it start with a hand of six before. It doesn't mulligan if those six have no land, either, though, which is probably a relic of the old mulligan rules. (it won't mulligan if it has stuff like moxes, black lotus, etc, though; it treats them as land)

Also, in challenge mode, the AI 'cheats' and always starts with a minimum of (I think) 2 lands. Incorporating that into a tournament would be quite difficult, though, if not impossible.

[aww1979]

A word of advice:

I was testing out a deck and I am finding that the AI *always* hesitates one turn to play a land (usually on turn 3 for some reason) if it has one of the 'triple-lands' (Savage Lands, Arcane Sanctum, etc)

The other thing I'm finding is that the AI sometimes doesn't cast spells it could (like the Terminate thing I described earlier). I think I know why this happens; I'll explain with an example.

AI has Badlands and Bayou in play, and Terminate in hand. It can obviously cast Terminate by tapping badlands for red and bayou for green. However (and think about how it would work if you had this instead) if you doubleclick on Terminate, it will often ask you what colour to tap Badlands for, even though it's obvious there's only one way to do it. I think there is an AI flaw in this situation somehow. If the AI had had two Badlands instead of Badlands and Bayou, I think it would cast the Terminate every time. (or mountain and swamp, or mountain and bayou, etc)

The last thing I'll say is that while fetchlands are amazing, the AI usually activates them during its end step, which has the net effect of making the land fetched for useless that turn. It might as well come into play tapped. Sometimes this isn't a problem, but in the early game, it can be crippling.

edit: Just had a good example of what I meant. Both sides had Tarmogoyf in play. AI's lands were Badlands, Forest, Swamp, Swamp, and had Terminate in hand. It didn't play Terminate, even though it could have attacked if it had. It then played Taiga next turn and immediately Terminated my Tarmogoyf.

[aww1979]

Lots of decks have been submitted so far. I haven't counted them yet; haven't looked at them, either, but there's probably 6 or 7 already. I've been having some fun testing my own decks, too. Made one deck specifically to pwn the metagame last time, and it did very well, until I made a second deck that dominated it and everything else. (even in the hands of the AI)

I thought that would be my final deck until I just made a third deck that beat the second one 1-3 in a best of 5 match! The wins weren't even close... The first deck had a dozen answers to the third one, so I'm modding the second one to handle anyone who does the third deck style, by incorporating one of the cards in the first deck. (and I know one of you did, even though I didn't look at it, because of what they named the deck :p)

I'm finding the AI is playing a lot better if the only lands I use are alpha duals and basics. It's amazing how badly it can screw up by fetching during its own end phase, or waiting to play tapped lands on a turn when it is an inconvenience, rather than when it is not. (or not playing them at all...) Other than duals/basics, I've also put Wasteland into some decks, and the AI isn't too bad with those.

edit: counted the decks, there are 6 submissions, not including mine.