Improved Shandalar General Playtesting & Feedback Thread

[lujo]

Thank you so much!

I did my best to try to make the decks as foolproof as it is currently possible (which can have a high sanity loss qoutient, believe you me XD). I'm so glad to see positive feedback on that front!

You don't mind me mining you for some specifics - most folks are either working on development or too busy IRL to playtest these.

How did you find the Djinns? Did you fight any dragons? Did any of the non-starting opponents feel overwhelming? How about underwhelming?

As for the difficult start - that's important feedback. That wasn't the plan, but numerous problems converge in the early game to cause this effect. You playing a random pile against 60 card decks which just have a plan means that a mediocre-looking deck on paper can be downright brutal to play against. The sheer consistency of opponents decks can kill you, it's all fighting uphill. Having only ten or so life while the opponents use cards for a game balanced and developed under the assumption folks have 20 life. The AI only being comfortable with well rounded linear decks with pump and evasion and a well thought out and tested curve is also a big problem - it's difficult to make decks for it which aren't stressful to play against.

But i'm working on that right now. I can actually now tweak individual things that weren't options before and the opponents often ended up with more overwhelming cards and strategies than was advisable simply because more appropriate things couldn't be executed. Also, it's my fault for occasinally giving it too much consistency out of sheer frustration and also operating on the assumption that the AI needed help winning, which isn't the case, it needs help PLAYING, which is different.

What would help is any info on any early opponents you found particularly stresfull.

[FadedSentry]

Ugh, I didn't plan on being so descriptive so I don't really remember who's decks were who's...

However, since you mentioned the early opponents. I restarted the game a couple times with differnet colors and faced them again just to see. To be honest, they didn't seem as brutal as I remember them, so I'm guessing the first time I played the game just gave me a really awful deck. In fact...I eventually ditched my starting deck and just made a new one instead of trying to improve on it because of how bad it was. So uh, as long as the game doesn't outright screw you over on a starting deck, the early opponents are just right on difficulty.

I did face just about every enemy in the game, but I obviously tried my best to avoid the dragons. I did manage to beat them a couple times but more often than not I lost.

[lujo]

Thank you!

That's fine as info goes, and it also coincides with what I've seen. I've noted that the starting pool card type distribution needs tweaking as it can give you very uneven pools in various regards, and the game mandates a different equation than the one currently in place (and I think I know exactly what it should look like to just give you a fair chance to consistently enjoy the early game). I just need info from more tech savvy / informed folks on where/how I can experiment with that.

Oh, and I overdid some of the dragons, too XD They need revisiting

Thank you very much, and I'm very glad you had a good time. It's only going to get better, becuase Korath ported way more stuff than the AI is currently using and plenty of it just needs some fiddling with the file that determines in which phase the AI plays it to actually work. I already got the Witch, for example, to properly use her spirits here on my end, which she can't do otherwise.

[FadedSentry]

Ok, just a little something I noticed messing around with the game today.

I was dueling a Druid, and for some reason he likes to cast Hail Storm on his turn. This obviously only hurts himself and not me at all. I'm pretty sure he did it to activate Hornet Nest, but he killed some of his creatures in the process.

[lujo]

XD That deck is a very nice illustration of just how retarded the AI actually is, and what sort of effort it takes to try to work around it. It's an experiment in trying to get the AI to work through systemic errors.

The only creatures it can kill with a misplayed Hail Storm are the tokens it gets from Hornet Nest. It's also got Spidersilk Armor and Kaysa to buff it's creatures so that it wouldn't do this (really, that's why those are in there primarily). Everything else has 2 toughness, and one of it's potential "plays" is letting you attack into his 1/2 creatures and messing you up with Hailstorm and blocking with them. It's also got the life-gaining artifact to tone down the loss of life.

But it WILL still mess up. If it has 2 Hornet Nest in hand and 1 Hail Storm it will cast one Hornet Nest and then Hail Storm and then the other Hornet Nest. If it has 2 hailstorms it will cast the Hornet Nest, then Hail Storm, then other Hail Storm killing the first hornet.

It will also cast the Hail Storm during it's turn at the slightest provocation, but if you set it to only cast Hail Storm during combat - it will probably attack with something and cast Hail Storm just so it can trigger the Hornet Nest. I doesn't seem to have a grasp on "it's turn" or "opponents turn". You should see it try to play faeries.

So, very often, no matter how hard you try to make it semi-impossible for the AI to misplay something, it just gets creative. This is also a big part why early decks tend to turn out too difficult when folks make them - the AI can execute a very narrow number of things. These things usually boil down to "always being able to play in ways / with things even someone who can barely play Magic at all and doesn't have an idea what it's deck is about can see at a glance are overwhelmingly strong and can't fail getting advantage from them even if it misplays them". Really, it's actually that bad. So it either has an overwhelming deck, or a deck which doesn't work at all (or is at least missplayed very often).

But I'm reworking that particular deck anyway in the coming tweak round - it's too difficult to overcome with green. Green has a lot of non-evasive ground troops and Hornets nest just stops it from attacking, misplays or no misplays. Also the AI doesn't seem to realize how deathtouch works when it's defending ATM so it will make very strange gang blocks when just blocking with a deathouch guy would do (which is why Deadly Recluse, who was in the deck got taken out).

[lujo]

I've got a bit of a status update, as I'm in the middle of a largeish white enemy pool rework. The reason I'm not putting anything up is that I've hit a snag (err, quagmire) with a few mechanics, and that I'm holding off putting up decks which require tamepered-with files other than decks. I'm also going to attempt to swap Winged Stallion and Paladin in their global positions (making the pegasus straight-up white and the paladin blue-white). If that happens to work, that would allow for stuff to happen.

Otherwise:

I've revised white top-to-bottom, drawn a few conclusions from testing and made a few decisions (some of them to experiment). I've overdone threshold, skipped through a few decks and made the color quite uneven so far.

Before any tampering, I decided to rework Paladin, Winged Stallion and High Priest. I've got to test the new High Priest, it's a deck with non-threshold weenies and Mystic Crusaders, Mystic Zealots, Divine Sacrament and Ankh of Mishra and Armageddon (currently).

I've decided that the white4 enemy is going to be white, and that the UW enemy is going to be UW, no splashing in the baseline pool. So I've made Winged Stallion a deck with several themes running through it. It's a Shifting Sky deck centered around hating on Red, and the hate consists of Silver Knight, Southern Paladin, Knights of Thorn, Tivadar of Thorn and Blue Elemental Blast. Since all those guys are non-evasive humans, it's got Cavalry Pegasus to lift them up, and Concordia Pegasus to help with banding. It's an annoying and mostly functional deck, simmilar to the current Paladin, but with no threshold engine and much more straightforward cards. I'm not too happy with it as it can be very obnoxious power-wise and is a color-hosing deck, but what can you do. I could even upload that one, but that means 2 shifting sky decks and the point is to make the enemies more diverse then in the preliminary cycle of tweaks. In other words I need the Paladin working first.

The Paladin rework (before I go experiment with swapping them) was supposed to be an Exhalted - Bushido - Distorting Lens + Nothern Paladin + Celestial Purge - Exhalted + Hand of Justice deck. The complicated looking stuff isn't being the problem, the AI spams Distorting Lens madly, but it does mess you up with what's it's supposed to mess you up with afterwards. The AI can use Hand of Justice fair enough. It can lock you out and all that.

The problem is that it's got issues with baseline Bushido, Exhalted and combat math. It'll refuse to block a 2/2 first striker with a 2/2 bushido 1 guy, it will attack with several creatures for less damage than it would do if it attacked with just one, and all the general issues the AI has with attacking (namely it got no grasp of using attrition to it's advantage).

Also that the Exhalted - Bushido theme was chosen because it would let me have Knight of Glory and Hand of Justice in the same deck as Distorting Lens, but the AI is more interested in changing the color of my lands and it's creatures into blue or green than timing it in a way that makes sense. It still works pretty well with the other things, but the decks needs to run 4 Distorting Lens and would really appreciate creatures which interact with it but can't really handle the interaction when I give them to it.

Well, Korath did say that the current implementation of Flanking, Bushido (and possibly exhalted?) is basically a hack, and he must be rolling his eyes at my reporting them and going "doooooh" at me.

Another thing is that several things are missing - the cheaper bushido legendaries, Angelic Benediction and some other things, too. A lot is in, though, it's appealing to try to build with the stuff that's here, but tricky.

Other things that concern white is that I need to retweak Cleric to smooth him out, finally decide what the Priestess is going to be about (walls are problematic for several reasons, especially the way I left them), and tone down the Crusader. And put together a Sainted One.

Funnily enough the only deck which seems to be properly obnoxious and functional is the Arch-Angel which looks godawful on paper.

---

Ok, here's something for anyone not busy with all the cool new games out right now to find when they come around here again

This is the current Winged Stallion I'm testing. If you're bored with getting run over by sacred mesa and karma nonsense that was up so far and feel like playing vs some red hate (and 2 shifting sky decks, lol), feel free to pick it up. It also has no duals in it

New Winged Stallion | Open

.126 8 Island
.188 8 Plains
.1847 4 Adarkar Wastes
.1146 4 Shifting Sky
.22 4 Blue Elemental Blast
.13400 4 Cavalry Pegasus
.12688 3 Concordia Pegasus
.3041 4 Southern Paladin
.9986 2 Hindering Light
.338 4 Knights of Thorn
.1352 3 Repulse
.1238 4 Silver Knight
.8705 2 Tivadar of Thorn
.1324 2 Kiss of the Amesha
.11356 4 Seachrome Coast

It's got pegasi to help lift / band with humans who are red-hating militant xenophobes, the rampant xenophobia is backed up by Shifting Sky, and there's Repulse to bounce stuff, Hindering Light to keep stuff alive and Kiss of the Amesha to draw some cards and gain some life.

No clue if it's too tough to deal with, yet, but when I'm done with the paladin this is going to be the UW deck, or something along those lines.

The new High Priest should be something along these lines - it could be too strong right now, but that's mostly the matter of which creatures it's packing. Or it might be too uneven, not sure about that yet. It's a bit hard to test - the AI is very strange with colorless lands (which is why the mana base looks the way it does), and the AI is always either mana screwed or mana flooded with it (which just means there's no mulligans).

New High Priest | Open

.8545 4 Flagstones of Trokair
.6 4 Armageddon
.11900 4 Champion of the Parish
.5544 2 Divine Sacrament
.10001 4 Knight of the White Orchid
.8803 4 Mana Tithe
.12022 1 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
.240 4 Swords to Plowshares
.11190 3 War Priest of Thune
.188 20 Plains
.5630 4 Mystic Zealot
.5629 3 Mystic Visionary
.2768 2 Retribution of the Meek
.10 1 Balance

Flagstones of Trokair are there for both Threshold, Armageddon and Balance.

The dudes are Champion of the Parish, Knight of the White Orchid, War Priest of Thune and Mystic Zealot and Mystic Visionary fly up when Armageddon hits (or at least that's the plan).

Mikaeus, the Lunarch is the long term plan if Armageddon results in a stalemate (it happens). It suffers from the omnipresent "use at EoT means s**t because the AI uses it at it's EoT instead of opponents", but wth. I'd add another one, but let's have it like this for now.

Swords to Plowshares are in because the deck is mana screwed all the time despite having 24 lands (which don't mana screw other decks). And the deck likes being able to play stuff post-Armageddon, too. Mana Tithe is just priceless in this kind of deck, lol.

Divine Sacrament is another attempt to have the deck not just sit there doing nothing because it's dudes don't fly. Retribution of the Meek is sneaky ole overkill, because only Champion of the Parish, Mikaeus and Divine Sacrament can actually get it's dudes up to 4 power so it's often a rather one-sided wrath.

I can't say how well it works because of the constant mana screw - flood that kept plagueing the testing, and I suspect it's in fact quite nasty. Or at least should be on paper, there's serious power in there. But it's not nasty in a "Armageddon does a million damage to you - you're dead" way, there's gameplay besides armageddon in it.

Do pick this one up, the previous rework was a bit of an intentional sabotage because I was tired of Gramps chasing me around to beat me up with a too strong deck and take my stuff. It was also a Personal Sanctuary deck and there's already too many of those around in my tweak pack, and the way things are going Sainted One needs that thing in it's deck, too.

Enjoy (unless they're too damned brutal in which case holler XD)

[Aswan jaguar]

I bet you mean Distorting Lens instead of Prismatic Lens.

[lujo]

Oh, yes, thank you, I always keep confusing the names on those two XD

EDIT: It's because the damned thing is temporary Prismatic Lace on a stick, and also because the naming convention of things which change/affect color to anything being prismatic so what I'm trying to say is "those prismatic lens thing" and forget that it's actually called differently (how flavorful the actual name when given to a paladin isn't lost on me, though - the guy hates black with a passion... and also looks at the world through glasses which show everything as black. How convenient and utterly monstrous. Other colors flirt or openly embrace insanity, but white can really blow it out of the ballpark. If it can fit into white's MO by way of rules lawyering , being batshit insane becomes pure upside. )

[FadedSentry]

Hey I thought I might update you on something else I just noticed this morning. I was in one of the random dungeons for rare cards and I came across an Arch Angel, and during the duel she never played a single card even though she continuously discarded land after land. I think it was some strange occurance, but I had it happen again to me just now.

Also, I know this has nothing to do with your deck packs, but there's a particular card I tried using called Blightsteel Colossus, it's an 11/11 with Trample/Infect yet it's killed opponents by itself when they've had more than 11 life and without other cards on the field to affect it.

[lujo]

Hmmm, the Arch Angel thing is something which is sort of a known bug afaik. Not sure if anyone's sure what's causing it, but I've seen it happen plenty of times with other decks. Did you by any chance have anything with protection from white?

As for the Collossus - do you mean it killed them after attacking? Because infect adds poison counters instead of damage and if a player has 10 of those they just die. So technically that thing kills you if it just hits you once for full damage.

[FadedSentry]

I was not using anything with protection from white, no.

As for the Colossus, I didn't know infect gave poison counters, the card didn't say what infect did. I had read that it deals damage in -1/-1 counters but I was not aware it also counted as poison counters if it dealt damage to an opponent.

[lujo]

Hmmm, well, maybe that should be reported using the bug tracker? The colosus missing the reminder text thing, I mean.

some rambling on infect, shandalar and a small and probably dissapointing status update | Open

Also, that's why I'm not using infect to make decks. While I can list a number of reasons why the scaling life on enemies and the whole mechanism of acquiring aditional lives is quite incompatible with mtg in general (which can come as shock and blasphemy to someone used to taking Shandalar design decisions for granted), it's there and it doesn't really work with infect.

Or rather, works too well, as you've seen. If you make a deck full of infect guys, the enemy simply has 10 life and that's that, no scaling. If the enemy has a deck full of infect - you have 10 life and that's that. And since the AI has trouble attacking without a way to pump creatures or make them unblockable anyway, it's likely to attack you with poisoning creatures you can't block or pump unblocked creatures who's poison scales with their power.

It's not that the mechanic isn't problematic even in a 20 life format, but it's quite bizzare in a varying life format.

Eh, I'm capable of getting frustrated enough to flame someone for defending the scaling life system and make everyone mad at me, but it's hard to see how much I do my best to follow it's specific rules because it's there, and how much those rules are actually alien and at odds with the core mechanic of the game. Considering that the game absolutely wasn't meant to be played like that, coupled with the general AI limitations which narrow down it's potential playstyles to ones considered overpowering in general, the life of someone trying to make shandalar decks and enemies work can be quite a miserable and stressful one. The idea of never even privately having a Shandalar where things can be done in a way which gels with MtG properly sends me into a panic strong enough that I'd go and teach myself to code.

But as long as it's there, I'm making decks for that, even if it drives me mad. EDIT: It's a bit difficult to compose myself, though, and I appologize for that, when I see the same people react to, say, the idea of fixing lives at the default 20 while in another place praising the AI ability to use the infect mechanic. That mechanic just fixes lives at 10 If there was enough of Infect stuff to make all enemies in Shandalar use Infect/Poison decks you could effectively remove the manalink system altogather with no programming, just by giving the AI those decks.

Status Update: I'm sort of stuck on the Sainted One rework. It's not a rework, lots of folks have fond memories of the original Sainted One deck, and despite what it may look like I try to keep original stuff somewhat intact unless it was rather generic or simply never ever truly worked. Which, incidentally, is why people remember Sainted One - his was one of the few decks which actually really worked and were somewhat honest about it from the design prespective.

Problem is - Armageddon Clock is bugged, and while a lot of the more generic filler stuff from it is easily replacable / upgradeable to something more interesting (while being on point with the flavor), that isn't. It's been reported and reviewed, it might even be fixed allready or by the time of the next update. If it did work it'd be done in 5 minutes (+ testing). I'm more flexible than "It has to be an Armageddon Clock deck", but I thought maybe I'd wait in case it works after the update.

Arch Angel has been tweaked, Paladin is still somwhat up in the air, but I've done some work on other white decks. If I didn't spend most of my free time on trying to get manalink to compile and familiarizing myself with both C and the whole program, white would've been redone allready (will be in a few days, though).

[jiansonz]

Infect is even nastier than seeing it as if the enemy has only 10 life, since there is no way (or is there?) to remove poison counters, whereas you can easily heal/gain lots of life.


Been playing with your deck setup for almost a full campaign now, and I must say I really like almost all of them! I haven't kept any sort of detailed or structured notes, so here are just some ramblings from memory.

FYI, my deck is a creature deck, mostly green/white, with a splash of black. Some mana acceleration critters (2x Birds of Paradise, a Gold Myr and an Alloy Myr), full sets of Qasali Pridemage and Armadillo Cloak. Some assorted spells (2x creature removal, a Lose Hope, two board wipers, a few more creature enchantments), some boosts (one each of Spear of Heliod, Gaea's Anthem and Trusty Machete). Some other critters with diffent costs (including two with the Extort ability). The heavy stuff consists of two Serra Angels, a Teysa and an Ulamog.

I haven't fought more than a few djinns or dragons, but the ones I have fought seem solid and interesting enough. With Aga Galneer, I noticed that several of the original cards are still in. The enchantment that protects the AI from taking damage on its turn (forgot the name) is very strong for him (most of his powerful stuff costs life). Nice touch.

One major thing that has made me enjoy this deck pack a lot is that for me, who prefer creature decks, your pack has a lot less annoying creature removal, -bouncing and counterspells than some other packs that's been presented. I usually get to play my critters and keep them, until I decide which of them need to give their lives in battle.

Paladin: just love it! Especially when Shifting Sky is cast, it can get so crazy.

I very much like the tier 1-2 enemies overall. Solid decks but far less overwhelming than most of the other suggestions in the overhaul thread. Very nice. I'll keep using most of them.

I am 1-1 against Conjurer. The time he owned me, he didn't even need his large aquatic creature shananigans. Mawcors (vs no aerial defense because I had a bad start) and pingers did me in quickly.

Vampire Lord disappointed me, or maybe I haven't gotten to see/understand it well enough. I want him to have more Vampires, now that there are a host of really cool ones in the game. For now, I prefer the version in the overhaul thread that splashes a little red for Stromkirk Captain.

Warlock: how difficult he is depends a lot on how many Swamps he manages to draw. If he gets out four or more quickly, my creature deck has a very hard time against him!

Centaur Shaman: very nice upgrade of the original idea of hurting over time. Well done!

Tusk Guardian: I really need to get the defense up quickly against him! But if I do, it's usually an easy win. Well-balanced in terms of difficulty.

Arch-Angel: nicely on theme but imo, not badass enough (or I've just been lucky?) for the largest non-boss white creature. I think I am 5-1 or so against it (and the loss was mostly because of an astonishingly awful draw). This deck in no way scares me as my own version does, but I love two things you put in it, that land that adds life when an angel is cast, and the Scroll of Avacyn cards.

Nether Fiend: an intersting deck, you made him the Rat Guy (someone else did that for the Warlock). But it will take something really special to replace the deck from the overhaul thread I used last time, as that's proabably my favourite AI deck of all time with all the goofy demon stuff (and my little tinkering with that deck made it reasonably competitive as well).

Elementalist seems well-balanced, fun and interesting. I haven't lost to it yet, but it's been close twice.

Sedge Beast: Deceptively brutal with the land destruction (even if that part isn't as brutal as it could be). I like this deck well enough that I'll keep using it instead of the deck I built myself for the new overhaul. Mostly because the AI so rarely plays that deck well.

Troll Shaman: Whoa, super cool with the Caldera of Hellion, dragon eggs and whatnot. Awesome.

Hydra: Cool, not too strong and fun to play against.

Necromancer: nice update of the original idea.

Winged Stallion: flying horsies, what's not to love...

(Hmm, several cretures missing. Don't think I've fought any Ape Lord, Centaur Warchief, Beast Master, Thought Invoker, High Priest or War Mage yet. Maybe one Fungus Master but I have no memory of what the deck had.)

[lujo]

Infect is even nastier than seeing it as if the enemy has only 10 life, since there is no way (or is there?) to remove poison counters, whereas you can easily heal/gain lots of life.

Indeed.

As well as | Open

The whole poison mechanic was pretty much shelved forever, and brought out for a block where it was given to phyrexians. Those are pretty much space aliens in-universe, and the design theme of the whole block was to make them "unfair" and playing them akin to "griefing". They needed a mechanic for something which was completely invasive to mtg as such, and they gave them that. And in that sense it's perfect on flavor grounds, and terrible on mechanical ones. The fact that they also cause attrition in regular combat on top of this doesn't help either.

Now, knowing this, consider the Shandalar enemy/player life situation and where it puts someone attempting to design decks.

Even an overqualified deckbuilder is supposed to build decks out of mtg cards for an environment which plays by "terrible griefing space alien rules" rather than ones which cards were meant to function under, compound it with every other such mind bending decision by the OG designers, and it should be easy to see where my state of semi-permanent neurosis comes from.

And if that's not enough - Infect doesn't stack with burn, so while it effectively reduces opponents life to 10, at least you don't get instant overkill if you mix it with direct damage to the face. Actually fiddling with life totals, like was done with Shandalar, does.

Thanks for info on what you're using! It ties in with this:

One major thing that has made me enjoy this deck pack a lot is that for me, who prefer creature decks, your pack has a lot less annoying creature removal, -bouncing and counterspells than some other packs that's been presented. I usually get to play my critters and keep them, until I decide which of them need to give their lives in battle.

He he he, here's a chance to point something out in a way which doesn't leave anyone feeling bad

It's not just you The way the game is structured, the fact that the player starts with a sealed deck and builds up their collection means that the vast majority of players are always going to end up with "creature" decks. Draft/sealed decks are by necessity such decks, and evolving them into a more streamlined one is what happens naturally, because evolving them into a non-creature one would take more cards and more amulets sunk into buying them. EDIT: Creature decks are also much easier to maintain - you lose a creature, you add a creature. So the enemy decks can't punish playing those too hard.

Understanding this, I knew from the start roughly how enemy decks were supposed to be designed to give matches a somewhat satisfying and rewarding structure. I can't claim enough of them are there yet, some were built as an aversion and there are too many factors which are out of my hands ATM, but it's not a coincidence. Good design isn't low-entry, it's just that even seasoned customers usually have no idea that the things they love even have a back-end.

Eh, what I could give you guys if I had the proper tools / "build environment" for the job, though... Too many unavoidable screwups right now, and too many ways to end up with too many creatures in decks, etc, etc.

The enchantment that protects the AI from taking damage on its turn (forgot the name) is very strong for him (most of his powerful stuff costs life). Nice touch.

He, he, he, that's actually the core of that deck, it's just that other things draw your attention. He can mess you up with Hurricane s you don't see coming, too. With that thing in, WotC finally gave solid grounds for completelly getting rid of Circle of Protection: whatever - it does it's job when the job is clever, and doesn't let anyone abuse the unfun aspects of a CoP.

Wait until Prismat pulls that thing on you

Paladin: just love it! Especially when Shifting Sky is cast, it can get so crazy.

Yep, the "Oh, crap." moment is quite something. I actually moved the Shifting Sky to the pegasus in the latest rework, and made Paladin mono white with Distorting Lens (it's all semi-casual Painter's Servant shenannigans but I can figure why that thing it's in yet).

I very much like the tier 1-2 enemies overall. Solid decks but far less overwhelming than most of the other suggestions in the overhaul thread. Very nice. I'll keep using most of them.

Thank you, but they still need lots of work. They were affected by Shandalar's bizzare rules and AI screwups and pool deficiencies the most. It's possible that your individual approach (or other circumstances) made them fine enough, but I know how much better (not more powerful, just better put togather) most of them can actually be. Glad this didn't ruin your experience, though

I am 1-1 against Conjurer. The time he owned me, he didn't even need his large aquatic creature shananigans. Mawcors (vs no aerial defense because I had a bad start) and pingers did me in quickly.

Well, this is nice to hear - the whole aquatic monster shennanigans are more of a distraction, he's meant to kill you with cheaper beasties and pingers but with the current crippling constraints on deckbuilding it was a pleasure to see a deck able to at least perform something spectacular.

Vampire Lord / Archangel dissapointments - glad you confirmed it. They were the first things that got tweaked and I haven't revisited them properly, and it was mostly about undoing Abes fiddling. They're due for proper reworks.

Warlock - yes! He was, in fact, designed as a rare aversion to how most other decks were designed because the Shandalar specific nonsense affects black somewhat more than other colors. It was a bit experimental, and when I revisit black (and possibly after another update or two) I'll probably be able to tweak him to be more appropriate.

Centaur Shaman: Ty for the praise, but he's up for tweaking (not moving away from the concept, even though there's more to BG than that, but just making it actually play better and have a more sensible curve and whatnot)

Tusk Guardian: I really need to get the defense up quickly against him! But if I do, it's usually an easy win. Well-balanced in terms of difficulty.

Hmmm, he might be a bit too damned fast for some, and he's not actually balanced. It's just that the AI's general trouble with attacking and blocking that makes him less dangerous than he would be in the hands of... well, my cat, really. I did do my best to limit what's available to it and what itsn't.

Nether Fiend: an intersting deck, you made him the Rat Guy (someone else did that for the Warlock). But it will take something really special to replace the deck from the overhaul thread I used last time, as that's proabably my favourite AI deck of all time with all the goofy demon stuff (and my little tinkering with that deck made it reasonably competitive as well).

Hmmm, I didn't so much make him a rat guy, as much as that seemed like the only viable way to provide an engine for Lord of the Pit that was actually black (Ratcatcher recruited stuff in a way that's hard to mess up with, but that stuff had to be "rat", and you want Ravenous Rats or an equivalent in this sort of deck anyway). There are several reasons that caused me to end up not using deamons and ogres, but I'd like to take a look at that deck you mention.

Elementalist - I'm glad you think so. It's a very simple concept (took getting there, though), there's hardly a deck to it, really just a choice of mechanics and tweaking so they don't end up fighting each other too much.

Sedge Beast: Deceptively brutal with the land destruction (even if that part isn't as brutal as it could be). I like this deck well enough that I'll keep using it instead of the deck I built myself for the new overhaul. Mostly because the AI so rarely plays that deck well.

He he he, and it's so close to the original deck, too.

Troll Shaman: Whoa, super cool with the Caldera of Hellion, dragon eggs and whatnot. Awesome.

Eh, the deal is that the AI actually misplays it in so many ways... but it still works. And it took more hours even getting it that than you'd believe. One of the prime candidates for rolling up my sleeves and seriously digging into the csv's (also a good deck to run a lot against in infinite duel mode with a piece of paper and write down everything that the AI does wrong).

Hydra: Cool, not too strong and fun to play against.

At least it's clearly different than the War Mage and has it's own quirks and perks. Could use some work, though, I was too conservative.

Necromancer - problem with him is that he's the "necromancer". If he was a "Lich" I'd give him Warlocks deck (boosted up a bit), and give the Warlock (who would then be "Necromancer") this deck, except scaled down a bit. Or something along those lines.

Winged Stallion - i gave HIM shifting sky in the latest update.

---

Lots of work to be done still! Glad you enjoyed it. Oh, and do point me to that Nether Fiend deck you liked.

[jiansonz]

Oh, and do point me to that Nether Fiend deck you liked.

Stassy made it, but it was a little too weak, so I tweaked it a little. I replaced Dark Tutelage with Phyrexian Arena, made place for some Vampiric Link and switched out one of the crappier demon cards for an extra Master of the Feast.

| Open

.151 2 Lord of the Pit
.548 1 Yawgmoth Demon
.131 1 Jayemdae Tome
.239 20 Swamp
.1331 2 Nuisance Engine
.55 4 Dark Ritual
.497 1 Gate to Phyrexia
.68 2 Drain Life
.1440 1 Bitterblossom
.10561 2 Halo Hunter
.11118 1 Elixir of Immortality
.2037 1 Minion of Tevesh Szat
.11839 2 Rune-Scarred Demon
.12386 1 Griselbrand
.7292 1 Kuro, Pitlord
.13931 3 Master of the Feast
.12623 1 Staff of Nin
.246 1 Throne of Bone
.1483 1 Diabolic Edict
.11274 2 Grasp of Darkness
.1299 1 Spirit of the Night
.7368 1 Seizan, Perverter of Truth
.11451 2 Go for the Throat
.410 1 Diamond Valley
.1110 2 Phyrexian Arena
.8872 3 Vampiric Link