Improved Shandalar General Playtesting & Feedback Thread

[lujo]

I'm having problems reacting to that list of cards. And I could write a novel on it. But I'm so greatful for the feedback and I've caused so much grief because of the perspective disparity so far that I'm terrified of how it'd come across.

And hell, if I insult you or hurt your feelings, I'd also insult stassy or hurt his feelings, and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I'm the guy who sits for long workshifts doing my best to provide the benefits of a lifetime devoted to an obscure hobby to anyone who cares to pick it up

And I'd love to write a long and probably pointless essay on that list of cards. If you'd care for a completely honest and probably objective expert opinion and promise not to be dissapointed with me I'd do it. It could provide you with some insight into what he back-end of mtg actually looks like. I'd understand if you wouldn't like that, though, most people just get uncomfortable with themselves and intimidated by the size of what they're oblivious to (same happens when you open up the code for the program and realize just how little you understand of the inner workings of something you love, unless you're a specific type of loonie who just digs in).

EDIT: On the other hand, I think I have a way to explain what I mean by all this without insulting anyone I was just at a loss as to being able to point the finger at the actual bit of info stassy and you were unaware of, and the conclusion isn't a pessimistic one at all

---

Lemme try, all that looks too ambiguous.

That deck has too many expensive things in it.

Deamons weren't meant to be a tribe, they're not designed that way. Most of the ones in there are curve toppers, something you have 2-4 of in a deck total (more than 2 if you're a steady ramp deck). A deck with that many 5+ cc cards (let alone cards which are as expensive as Kuro, Pit Lord ) doesn't really work even if you brute force it to work here and there.

Dark Ritual - well, that's one way to get something done, but the AI will dump it on something cheaper all the time. And it's a lousy card to bank on, it'll just make a hugely uneven deck look like it works occasionally. And many of those cards weren't designed in the same era, which you can see when you compare their effects to their casting costs - Master of the Feast wasn't meant to be played in a meta with Dark Ritual, otherwise he would've cost more.

And that brings me back to the point - Deamons weren't meant to be played that way. Kamigawa Oni + Ogres, yes, maybe, but most of the ones in the deck aren't like that, they're buildarounds. And there's no sense in trying to build around 10 different buildarounds in the same deck.

For example - Yawgmoth Deamon needs artifacts, right? But it's not worth sticking random artifacts in just for the one that's there. Lord of the Pit needs sacrifice fodder, but if all your other stuff is as expensive then you're spending all your mana each turn paying for sacrifice fodder (and none of them make actually good sacrifice fodder). There's a random bitterblossom and 2 nuisance engines, but those don't do anything with the rest of the deck. Some aren't even built around - Master of the Feast is meant to be played with discard, but there's no discard. What if he just eats a Pacifism? By the time you can sacrifice him to anything the opponent has drawn a ton of cards!

Almost every card in there is something you build a deck around, not something you cram all into one deck. If you do that a simple draft deck can run circles around you before you cast even one. A proper "deamon" deck isn't built with many deamons but with a few deamons and their minions.

That's not even getting into all the potential missplays.

My current Nether Fiend just looks like a rat deck, but it isn't actually a rat deck. It's a Lord of the Pit deck - the point is to have a nice curve of smaller creatures which give the deck time to eithe bust out a Lord of the Pit or reanimate one. They're just rats because Ratcatcher (who's an ogre) can get sacrifices for Lord of the Pit, and Ravenous Rats discard cards that you can also reanimate, while Dirty Wererat can discard Lord of the Pit so that it can be reanimated. The enemy is never subjected to a cheap trick like dark ritual + fattie designed post dark ritual, but the deck doesn't need that to work. It's actually essentially a powered up version of the original Nether Fiend, a Lord of the Pit w Reanimation and the Hive, it's just that some of the available rats seemed to make a better engine for it than anything else that was available.

If the Deamon in question was Master of the Feast, the deck would have Waste Not and discard in it (but still no Dark Ritual to keep it fair). If the Deamons were the kamigawa Oni it would still have Ogres as minions and enough of them compared to the Deamons to not have the AI mess up on accident (although that's asking for trouble with the AI).

I do have to go through black again, and the current Nether Fiend is up for reworks/retweaks but just piling up cards like that and then scrambling for busted standouts to attempt to hold it togather is not what I'd recomend to anyone in any situation. It never makes a bad deck good, it just ocasionally makes it beat someone.

Just think - why was Dark Tutelage at any point put into that deck? I don't want to belittle anyone, but how exactly do you reach the conclusion that piling up a lot of ludicrously expensive cards in a deck and then following it up with that is a good idea?

I need to give white a rest for a day for it to cool off (almost done with the current round of retweaks on it), I'll take that list and whip up a bunch of deamon decks to show you what I mean. I made the current one the way it is because I was making a Lord of the Pit deck (to basically just improve upon the og deck), but that's not the only deamon deck I've contemplated for it.

The positive side is that if Korath allows for enemies to choose between multiple decks, the Nether Fiend (and probably Archangel) will love it, because Deamons and Angels make terrible tribes but occupy the curve-topper and buildaround niches by design. Never knowing which Deamon (and his minions) will pop up at you would be awesome.

[stassy]

The deck I originally posted was a netdeck, so no need to hold back on deck criticism (I am better at learning from netdeck, yours included, than trying to figure out for myself, after all you can only draft if you are already a magic experimented user, which I am not).

As long as no personal attack is involved on anyone in this forum, it's ok.

[jiansonz]

I am also OK with it. I obviously do not know much about the inner workings of the game, but I do know I've had a lot of fun playing against that deck, and also playing with it in Duel against the other remade Shandalar decks.

[lujo]

Ok, I really don't ever want to attack anyone personally, and what I just wrote up there is a reaction of any pro to that decklist. I haven't even mentioned that it has only 20 swamps in it, too.

But even Rosewater reacted badly to exalted when he first saw it and found out it works and plays well when he tried it, and god knows a bunch of my decklists here would look strange to anyone who, for example, couldn't take into account shandalar-specific obstacles which effectively change what cards really say. Thank you for not taking it the wrong way.

But lets say someone wants a deck with a lot of expensive deamons in it, specifically for Shandalar. That person would have several things to answer:

1) What do you do when you get stuck with a bunch of them in your hand?

Unless you live to 7+ mana that you need to cast them they'll be dead cards and the opponent can run you over. The only easy answer to that that black has is discard them and reanimate them. The AI mostly misuses discard outlets (sometimes horribly), but some of them work and if you have reanimation that can also hit the opponent's graveyard this can tie in with some more discard.

The current Nether Fiend plays into that with just Lord of the Pit and Animate Dead, there's Dirty Wererat, Rakshasa's Secret and Ravenous Rats. Lord of the Pit also has sinergy with that approach because big fatties like him eat cheap removal but if you have reanimation you can bring them back. And if it gets hit by a variant of Pacifism, you can sacrifice it and bring it back.

You could go for a full-reanimator approach, but that would take Buried Alive or Entomb being in. Or just self mill of whatever sort, there's plenty of it (has to only target yourself, though, the AI tends to target the opponent if it can). It's also a bit of a pickle because reanimation is something you'd expect from a "Necromancer" - but the biggest black stuff he could reanimate are often these huge deamons which top the curve in black, simply because that's the design slot for deamons in most blocks.

I'd actually wait for the next update, because Korath got to some card templates which play nicely with this, so it might turn out to have goodies for reanimator. Someone should really be asking for Buried Alive and Entomb in the wish list, though. You can never be sure, but I think they can be coded. With those two around cheating huge deamons into play is a breeze. Additional bonus with Buried Alive is that it's less insanely fast but removes 3 expensive things from the deck so you're less likely to draw things you can't play.

2) Even if you're settled on reanimating them, you still don't want too many in there.

Reason is - you don't want do draw into them instead of other things, as you don't even intend to have mana to hard-cast them unless things go spectacularly wrong (or long). Being curve toppers, deamons mostly say "Answer this right away or game over". Any one of the big ones just gets cast and it's GG. Any one of them gets cast early enough, it's probably GG. And if you have self-mill and, say, Buried Alive, you don't actually want to draw any

3) So which ones do you want in, then?

Well, if you're reanimating them, and really want to cheeze it, you just want the most GG-tastic ones. Flying and no drawback is a good way to go, there's a bunch of them. What you don't want is ones which you have to pay upkeep mana for, unless they lock the opponent out like Demonic Hordes where you're just paying mana for LD in that case.

And if you're hard-casting them, then, again, you don't want too many because you want to draw into them before you can cast them, and you particularly don't want ones which cost upkeep mana because then casting one will prevent you from casting the next one (and by the time you can cast them they'll pile up in your hand as they got nowhere else to go).

5) But wth do I do with the rest of the deck then?

Well, then you... put the deamons minnions in, ofc! If you're reanimating, self mill guys is what you want, and if you're hard-casting you need something to survive until you can cast the big guys, right?

6) But I want a deamon deck, not a rat/ogre/thrull/zombie/whatever deck!

Read the flavor text on Master of the Feast.

Then consider that all these big deamon guys are made to end the game when they show up. How many matches do you need to win at the same time?

You could put 3-4 Master of the Feast as a roadblock, but if you do, it will either get killed or removed as soon as it hits, or just win without the other guys because it's a stonking huge deamon (just not as huge as some). So your deck will not so much work, as have it in it. Same goes for several other cheaper deamons.

7) All right, all right, I want to live until I can throw down my big metalhea d friendly evil dudes! How do I do that?

- Minnions! Depending on the deamons you're using, these can be all sorts. Different minnions for different deamons, and which package you go for shapes the entire deck.

- Artifact mana! Deamons require a lot of black, but it's not like you can't speed it all up with a Worn Powerstone. Plop one down turn 3, whipe the board on turn 4 and have a 7-8 cc deamon out on turn 5 (and one every turn afterwards).

- Controll Shell! You want to live up to 7-8 mana, you gotta durdle like a boss. Combine with artifact mana, and as long as your deamons don't need sacrifices you can get there. That essentially boils down to Tendrils of Corruption, Damnation (maybe), Mutilate (probably), some quality discard, some cheap card draw, etc. (I didn't go for this, because it's quite unfun to play against with a Shandalar deck, but it is VERY easy to play, well enough, for the AI as all it ever does is throw removal out, draw cards and play fat stuff).

8. How about if I wanted to make deamons properly tribal?

Well, deamons got some stuff for that, but they don't fill a curve out, and tribal friendly deamons like the various Oni from Kamigawa are paired up with their minions anyway. Those, for example, need ogres on board or they have penalties, and with so few black ogres available in the pool and the way the AI madly dumps creatures without forward thinking it's not exactly viable. Not that it couldn't work, some ogres, some 3-5 cc deamons and a big one of some sort, but how well that would work is a bit sketchy. Might be worth a shot, though.

Wishlisting for more black ogres, though, is something someone looking to get that working should do.

9) What can go wrong?

Well, several things - the AI might be unable to play the minions. Id you go for the more controling approach you might get bad draws without mulligans and get run over before you get there. If you go for reanimator it might work TOO well, making it seriously unfun to play against. Same for control - you make it work right and a typical shandalar deck can just get run over every time.

But as for how you play them, that's how you play them. In broad terms. I'mma go make a few lists for demonstration ^^

[Korath]

I skipped Buried Alive and Entomb because the built-in AI assessment can't deal with them at all, and I don't expect to start working on AI at the individual card level for many, many months.

I could put them in and have them essentially read "pick a random number (itself semi-randomly chosen between 0 and 3, but probably 0 most of the time) of random creature cards in your library and put them in your graveyard" when the AI plays them, but I'd never hear the end of it.

Cards tutoring from a library into exile like Jester's Cap are in the same position.

[lujo]

Well, they would certainly be appreciated by any player looking to build a reanimator of any sort (they're bread and butter there, too good at it, even). Also kick ass with threshold regardless of what you're burying, for the player.

As a temporary solution for the AI it's probably the best hack atm to have it bury the creatures with the highest casting cost. I'll do a proper makeover of the "cards the AI can't handle well" thread after the next patch anyway, make it more useful and acessible so it can be noted there that the cards are pretty much in for the player and reanimation targets sorted by casting cost. That can be worked with for basic archetype purposes, random not so much. If it's possible, ofc.

Oh, black ogres too - if it's not a bother, those are more important for certain demon decks than the actual deamons

---

One thing I forgot to mention about the whole minion bussiness. It's not just that deamons are mostly show-stoppes and big cc creatures, it's that choosing whether to buy time with control elements or creatures, if your end-plan is plopping a big fatso down, favors the creature plan. Control builds are rective, but if all you do is remove the enemy threats from the board what's going to pile up in the opponents hand is - removal.

So when you do get to your big flying monsters they'll just get hit with it. Ofc, black does have discard, and any such deck should probably have something like Mind Sludge to cast after wiping the board but before it gets around to casting the big baddies. You'd think a cheaper, more sleek or fancy bit of discard would be better, but no - the cc on that means it has the highest chance of getting played exactly when you want it played to do exactly what it needs to do (Also a good place to point out just how difficult it is to evaluate a card's worth from just a casual user perspective)

But if you choose to engage and pressure the opponent with earlier creatures (and you pick those to play ball with the deamon, ofc), the opponent will, hopefully be forced to waste their removal on them. Then when the big bad shows up it's really gg.

Getting the AI to play something right, without digging into .csv's which you have to do when it's just set to misplay - I've done a bunch of it but haven't posted any dekcs and files for them up yet, anyway, getting the AI to play a deck right means understanding how to build a curve and adjust it properly, and Deamons simply need other dudes or specific builds to really do that, by design. Angels are somewhat similar to that, too.

Speaking of which - what Angel list are you guys using?

[lujo]

Since I didn't have time I've only put in one Nether Fiend (and took a look at the Lord of the Pit one with rats, but haven't edited it yet). The AI being the AI it can be a bit silly with certain cards (lols to be had if you pay attention to what it's doing). But here's a deck that's as loaded with demons as one can safely get while not actually trying to force demon tribal:

| Open

.239 24 Swamp - Plenty of 'em
.3962 3 Worn Powerstone - As fair as Sol Ring ever got

.13366 3 Abhorrent Overlord - The big guy.
.14516 3 Archfiend of Depravity - The mid guy
.13931 3 Master of the Feast - The retarded guy

.4271 4 Corrupt Court Official - Ravenous rats
.11033 3 Runed Servitor - Fine ole fodder
.171 3 Nether Shadow - Devotion & fodder

.6219 3 Oversold Cemetery - Recursion, but not reanimation
.14347 3 Rakshasa's Secret - V. cool discard
.1592 4 Tendrils of Corruption - Enemy tempo killer

.5842 3 Mutilate - Reset button
.13430 1 Erebos, God of the Dead - Eh, why not?

Ok, there's a lot going on here, but if "cheezy damned tough below-henchman" deck is what you're looking for, with "while still holding back somewhat for sanity sake" to go with it, I suppose this would be the deck. Or something close to it.

I've made the notation along with the cards to illustrate some basic points, as that's essentially the structure for any good demon deck. Because a "demon" deck is basically just a black deck which actually plays an expensive fatso with an occasional drawback.

The AI misplays it somewhat, but here's how it goes:

Abhorrent Overlord is a Lord of the Pit variant, except that he comes with his own sacrifice fodder. I've seen the AI sac him to himself instead of the fodder but W/E. Worn Powerstone on turn 3 into whatever on turn 4 into him on turn 5 is the general idea. As opposed to Lord of the Pit he doesn't need to be built around too much. I did supply the deck with some devotion bumpers just in case.

Archfiend of Depravity is a low cost game-ender in his own right, the ability is more than strong, but since we're piling on demons for a scary opponent, lets have it.

Master of the Feast is just retarded, even without Dark Ritual. He'd be quite silly even if he cost 4, also without the ritual. How vulnerable he is is somewhat dependent on whether you're packing enchantment hate and stuff that takes him out of the fight but leaves him on the table. I think he's overkill, personally, and wouldn't mind swapping him out for Demonic Taskmaster.

The following 3 stooges are deceptively important:

Corrupt Court Official - is Ravenous Rats which can go into most black decks, but I have a strange compulsion to stick him in instead because he's so cool and sleazy. Tendrils of Corruption are also a flavor tie in, I'm making this guy a running gag. His mechanical purpose is to take out opponents cards (helps out Master of the Feast), fill the graveyard for Oversold Cemetery (which the AI is having trouble with), provide devotion and... beat face. We'll get to that in a minute.

Runed Servitor was poached from the warlock, he's kick-ass fodder. Doesn't provide devotion but does provide you with a card and something to discard, fills the grave and beats face.

Nether Shadow - devotion, beats face, fills grave, comes back.

The whole fills the grave thing is for Oversold Cemetery which lets the deck bring stuff back when the grave fills up a bit. Rashasa's Secret helps with that, too, and I'm considering giving the deck some more self mill. Also, all the little buggers die when the deck dishes out a mutilate, but one discards a card at CiP, one draws a card, and one can come back, so it's all good. If there's a Master of the Feast on turn 3 and a mutilate on turn 4, the master lives, too.

The "beats face" part for the little guys is something that happens naturally with demon decks - demons draw removal, if they don't get removed the other guy is toast. So what happens is that their minions, which the opponent can't really waste removal on, beat you up little by little. The AI tendency to recur the little guys with the Oversold Cemetery instead of the big guys unintentionally contributes to that, too.

Mutilate 's the board wipe, already covered, Tendrils of Corruption is probably the most annoying targeted removal ever, the self-mill/discard is was also covered, and the Oversold Cemetery is also what it is and also provides devotion. If I wanted to differentiate it from the warlock a bit and had a reason to push the devotion theme, Oubliette could probably replace Tendrils here (this does create a pileup at the 3cc slot which I'm wary of for AI reasons).

As it is, the only other Devotion card is Erebos, God of the Dead. Mostly because Gray Merchant of Asphodel is already over at Necromancer and some testing showed that this deck was retarded enough as it is.

This is far from the only way to build a demon deck, but the three demons I used here are about as plug-and-play as they get. The deck will get some cheap wins off of Master of the Feast. I'd appreciate feedback on it as far as enjoyment goes, and I don't mind making more and varying demon decks until
we get the right one (hopefully without Master of the Feast, lol). It's also a rather good deck to take note of the whole "60 card decks have an issue when the user draws too many copies of the same ridiculous threat" thing, as if the AI draws 2 of the fat dopes you're in trouble.

Also, really hope the whole idea about enemies being able to have more than one deck at their disposal goes somewhere, looking forward to it.

Also, this whole business made me do some thinking on the Archangel situation, and while I was playing around with demons I noticed I made a screwup with the new up-coming Sainted one, so white stuff is gonna have to wait until tomorrow.

[lujo]

Right, here's a new folder!

Priestess has been tweaked, but inconclusively, cleric and crusader still need their touch-ups, and Archangel needs a full looking into.

For now I've moved the Angelic Voices and Nuisance Engine out, added a copy of Archangel, gave her a some angel-specific resurrection and several Condemn.

Since I moved Shifting Sky to the Pegasus for a red-hating UW combo with some pegasi, and several things I tried with the Paladin don't quite work right yet, I retooled him into a very simple exalted deck with the xenophobe package to go along with it (and a few gimmicks). It's mono-white now, and that was kinda the goal, but needs feedback:

Paladin | Open

.188 24 Plains - Look, ma, no Islands!

.1018 4 Distorting Lens - Hypocrite's Delight
.10120 4 Celestial Purge - Cheap Vindicate with the lens
.175 3 Northern Paladin - Vindicate -on-a-stick -II-
.10529 3 Devout Lightcaster - CiP Vindicate w the lens

.10066 4 Sigiled Paladin - First strike exalted bugger, also Paladin
.9911 3 Akrasan Squire - Cheap exalted bugger
.10111 4 Aven Squire - Evasive exalted bugger, v important
.12582 3 Knight of Glory - Pro-black exalted bugger
.9983 3 Guardians of Akrasa - Defender w exalted, also v important

.205 3 Righteousness - If ever there was a deck for this thing...
.1787 2 Hand of Justice - Also this guy, he's GOOD w exalted

Anywho, the deck is simple. Distorting Lens makes anything black, lots of things murder black things. The deck might have a spot of trouble actually drawing them, but I hope Painter's Servant eventually gets ported to back them up.

The exalted guys are good on offense but lousy on defense by design. Also, most of them don't fly, which is a pickle because of the AI being the AI. This is why Aven Squire and Guardians of Akrasa are invaluable. The numbers on them might need adjusting, though.

The good thing about Exalted is that if it's used properly, and the AI will kind-of-sort-of be able to do that, it leaves a lot of untapped creatures around. Hand of Justice is nasty in that situation as it doesn't need the lens to kill stuff, but it also makes a good attacker with exalted as it pumps it's power and it has a big rear end anyway.

Righteousness is also a card that's generally rather lousy except in an exalted deck where it's a decent-to-kick-ass combat trick.

It's not a complicated deck, it can roll you over rather nicely, ant it could probably use some csv fiddling to sort out what gets cast when. The question is - is it strong enough? You tell me!

The high priest got it's stuff worked over before, but I finally got around to doing a wizard, and while it's not my best work, let's have this for now until Armageddon Clock is working properly (or I just put togather a better one):

Sainted One | Open

.188 12 Plains - Only twelve?
.17 1 Black Lotus
.11311 1 Mox Opal
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.230 1 Sol Ring
.6870 4 Darksteel Citadel - Artifact Land
.1219 4 Ancient Den - White Artifact Land
.3078 4 Ancient Tomb - Pay close attention!

.400 3 Bottle of Suleiman - Are you paying attention?
.11833 3 Personal Sanctuary - Bam! Solves the life problem.

.10974 2 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth - And it tries to ramp into this.
.11385 2 Tower of Calamities - Also this.
.9990 1 Invincible Hymn - And this.

.240 4 Swords to Plowshares - Some busted spot removal.
.7726 2 Reverence - This should help with swarms.

.11586 1 Darksteel Relic - More metalcraft help.
.11236 2 Darksteel Axe - More metalcraft help, also pumps dudes.

.11205 4 Auriok Sunchaser - An evasive nuisance
.11247 4 Etched Champion - A very nasty nuisance
.11283 4 Indomitable Archangel - Something to draw aggro

It's not the best ever deck, it's not the strongest white deck you can imagine, but!

It starts with and Elder Land Wurm in play, and all it's 15 creatures besides the eldrazi are evasive and pumpable with the Darksteel Axe. Between StP, Tower of Calamities, the wurm and Reverence it shouldn't have trouble kicking someone's ass with the creatures.

Bottle of Suleiman and Ancient Tomb can cause a lot of life loss, but Personal Sanctuary should help with that, and the Tomb is needed to help ramp into the Eldrazi. There might be some issues with the availability of white mana, there might be too many Darksteel Citadel (and the AI is weird with colorless lands), but it should be able to get there. Having an operational Tower of Calamities can also lock someone out. The eldrazi was chosen because it draws cards, something white isn't good with.

It's possible that some quality lifegain and Argivian Archaeologist should really be in here, but for a first try this should kinda do.

For any faults the deck might have, it's still better than the current one, and was made to be sort of similar. The current one is bugged in a way that makes it's main attraction not work, but this deck isn't actually all that different from it.

I hope you enjoy it, but I don't mind criticism at all, I've got a thing or two to say about it as well. This is far from the only thing to build the white boss into. Still, this is close to what's the most natural thing to evolve the original Sainted One into.

Enjoy and feedback is very wellcome.

What would also be wellcome is if someone has the witch from before I added spirits to it. I've accidentally owerwritten that one and the spirits only work with tweaked ct_all.csv (and I've developed it further), but for now I'd like the decks to be functional with the commonly distributed files.

So the folder doesn't contain a witch.

[lujo]

Just some brief notes on how my current UWG game is going:

Setup | Open

I messed something up which caused enemies to end up with significantly higher stats than usual. For lvl 1 and 2 enemies this was as good as you can expect - 20 lives IS what the game is supposed to be played at. What I messed up was that I adjusted the game to be played at apprentice with Wizard stats for some previous testing runs, and started it at Sorceror for some reason.

The initial pool distribution REALLY needs to be adjusted/adjustable (in terms of card types and artifact and multicolored ratios). It's making apprentice much more difficult than any start which allows you to play at least 2 colors. Multicolored and artifact cards can also be all over the place.

Still, 3 colors means you'll be playing a mana screw prone mess vs. actual decks so early game is as rough as usual for most pools ("rough" = "unplayable", pretty much).

It became playable after I got some amulets from walking-around quests and dumped them into Aether Bursts (gotta figure out how to get those to show up on the page). This made it playable, but that's a problem - if the game gets playable after you get a steady supply of those it's not really playable. Not everyone knows about them. Rox War Monk also won a bunch of early games for me. Now I'm kinda cruising after some smart picks, but don't have a 60 card deck yet or even a well constructed one.

A thing to note is that the hex editing switch seems to have worked. I'm seeing more friendly color pair enemies than enemy color pair ones. Now I got to go around disabling mind control on stuff that has it.

Enemies | Open

Witch 2/1 - This is the witch with my edited .csv which makes spirits work and a spirit-centered retweaking. Close games, and the loss wasn't an early one.
Undead Knight 2/0 - Also close games, but much less overwhelming than it used to be. I might've nerfed him too hard though.
Warlock 1/2 - This guy is getting some of his stuff moved over to the new Nether Fiend, and he's getting a different deck. I think.
Vampire Lord 2/1 - I made a few notes on him. I was happy with it because the original deck was a really bad deck, but this one can and will be better. It's not even that bad, it's just misplayed somewhat, and it has 12 Vampires in it, it's just that I've been too conservative.

Cleric 1/1 - He can be surprisingly nasty!
Priestess 1/0 - Needs mind control disabled.
!!! Crusader 0/1* - Accidentally closed the game, but would've lost. This guy is a huge, huge, huge problem, he's all creatures that play well togather and lords.
Paladin 0/1 - Well, it works, lol. In a bizzard twist of on-flavorness the Hand of Justice clothing color scheeme matches perfectly with his portait for some reason.
Arch Angel 0/1 - I'm not sure why jiansonz found this deck so easy to play against (although I'm playing vs. the new one with a much more user-friendly curve). It's quite impossible to play against early on, I'll have to see later. (EDIT: It has a lot of life, a lot of lifegain, a lot of board wipe, sideboards in fliers with protection of your main color and then just spams and reanimates largeish vigilant fliers at you. It shouldn't be a easy 5/1 deck, at least not anymore...)

Seer 1/2 - Err, this deck has issues and Unstable Mutation is not something that should be given to an early opponent. Made notes.
Merfolk Shaman 4/1 - I nerfed this poor guy too far. However, all of the matches were really close and tough. He's plagued by some bugs currently, and I've gamed AI deficiencies a bit, I think it's just that I ran into him in quests and seiges the most of all low tier opponents. I also tended to draw my bombs vs. him, too.
Conjurer 0/1 - got pinger'd to death and even if I didn't there was a whale looking at me.

Druid 2/1 - I thought I made tweaks to this guy, but I must've forgotten to apply them. Still kicked my ass one time.
Elvish Magi 1/1 - This guy either wins hard or loses hard, no middle ground.
!!! Enchantress 2/1 - This thing needs a major rework. I nerfed it too hard because so many ways to make it eneded up destroying everything effortlessly.
Summoner 0/1 - Power Matrix is a heckuva card. Slow Rolling but messes you up.

Sorceress 1/0 - I messed up her last rework in a major way.
!!! Sorcerer 0/1 - Eh, you think you've got him and BAM Act of Treason , randomly decides that it can indeed play Humble Defector right, figures out why it has Shower of Coals and kicks your ass. I'd take this one to a tourney.

Ape Lord 2/0 - This guy was so frustrating to make that I eneded up overnerfing him. Needs tweaks. Probably .csv tweaks on apes, too.
Winged Stallion 0/1 - Oh god... Well, when it works it works. Gotta see about when it doesn't draw Shifting Sky, and it could actually use a peice of equipment, hmmm...
Centaur Warchief 0/1 - This doesn't. Making it was an ordeal, and it kind of sucks. Old one was just a Serra Angel deck, but I can certainly do better than this (and well, some .csv tweaking would make a few sensible versions work with no problems).

Haven't fought anything else and got my ass kicked quite often (although, surprisingly, not one time when defending seiges or taking towns back). Still, it's been quite enjoyable so far, way fewer !!! notes than usual.

Rarity bumpage & general adjustment to-do list | Open

I'm enjoying mythics costing 4 amulets.

Gaea's Skyfolk can't be common. It's just a completely no-brainer choice if you're on color. I'm not even sure about uncommon, if you need a cheap, efficient, offensive 2cc flier with a cc that doesn't have two of the same color (so that it actually works in a 2-3+ color deck), what exactly are you going to pick over it? It's even got 2 relevant creature types!

- Aether Burst should be at the very least rare. Being able to grab 3 and easily replace lost ones is warping my perception of how difficult the game is. It's quite likely the best bounce ever, by quite a margin, too.

- Sorceress handing out Lightning Bolt s when you beat her is silly, on the same grounds. Not sure what she should be handing out if anything, though. Way things are, every red guy just needs to beat 3-4 for a guaranteed playset every game. Also, it can't be common, it's way too good for common.

- Alpha Duals need to be mythic, as far as amulet prices go, if they aren't already. They're no-brainers compared to other rare lands.

EDIT: If it is possible, being able to edit enemy card rewards / special powers / punishments and all that jazz through the ini would be a huge deal. I guess it could also be a lot of work, but eh, I wouldn't mind doing it myself if I could. It's kind of integral to having a decent full deck / enemy rework without having to upload a hacked exe along with it and manually rehacking it with every update. I could list a number of concrete reasons and benefits but it's probably ultimately down to time investment on the part of who's making it happen.

[Aswan jaguar]

Aether Bursts (gotta figure out how to get those to show up on the page).

The best way I know is to copy the name from gatherer,or csv.
Æther Burst

[RanDomino]

I just want to say I love you.

[Korath]

It's logically one letter; capitalize both of it. AEther Burst.

[Aswan jaguar]

Mine looks way cooler though.

[lujo]

Question: Is there a way to limit the use of Mythics and dungeon treasures to 60 card decks? Because shortly after the point of the previous writeup I scored a Mox Emerald (the only dungeon card so far), and every time I draw it in an opening hand I not only win but have quite a tangible advantage over the opponent, and since I'm running a 40 card deck it's sorta hapening a lot. Might be a good idea.

Another possibly good idea - if adjusting enemy starting stuff rewards, special powers and such through the ini was a thing, I think starting them off with reactive things which slow down explosive starts from the player would be pretty cool, and a much better idea than having them start with offensive permanents like they tend to have now. Think seals of various sorts.

I also know that the "signature card" is currently tied to the deck names, so getting that to be adjustable might be a problem. But the whole "ante inherently screws things up" thing is really murdering decks like the current Paladin and Winged Stallion - they have 4 Distorting Lens and Shifting Sky, respectively, for a good reason, and even a single copy of those getting removed from decks before the match starts easily makes half the deck fall apart. Being able to set what can't be anted is a very poor substitution for not having stuff removed pre-match at all, but it's a necessary minimum.

Also, the more non-basics I have the more they get to be ante, and the more I play with one land missing. Since I'm tri-colored this tends to show, and if I try to counterbalance it I'm playing more land than I should be so I get mana flooded. It's also screwing with my AEther Burst count all the time. I don't mind losing cards if I lose a match, but this pre-match "nope you don't have this even if you do, lol" is truly absurd.

---

As far as deck related observations go:

| Open

Saltem Tor - needs heavy tweaks, but there was a crazy ass match where we both gained a 100 life between us and the board situation was never dull and I only won because the AI has issues with attacking into protection from all colors and deathtouch.

New Paladin and Stallion - need tweaks. When the xeno plan comes togather they're good when it doesn't thare too much dead weight and too little aim. The ante mechanism is killing them, too. Paladin is a bit better off.

New Nether Fiend - fell into the "Dark Ritual" trap, the presence of Master of the Feast was skewing the testing. Needs more menacing minions and general tweaks. Also probably a few more deamons - you can't give it a reasonable number of deamons because it's a mono deck, which increases the chances of colored cards being ante, which then means it very often doesn't have as many deamons as you thought it does. Seriously, that pre-game card removal mechanism just messes things up in ugly ways. They're obvious to me, I wish I knew what I need to do, say, make a video of, demonstrate or something to make it obvious to other people.

Crusader - is a huge pain in the backside, and I've narrowed the problem down to Longbow Archer. I need to give it some reach, but not with first strike. It locks down to board too hard and with it's Crusades it basically keeps drawing into beef all the time (and he has combat advantage due to all the banding).

Sedge Beast - needs looking into, something's not right with him, not sure what yet.

Beast Master - Pack Hunt for a bunch of Aswan Jaguar is ugly, but he's misplaying his token spawn and he's suiciding things into "protection from all colors", otherwise he's surprisingly crafty.

Fungus Master - when he works, which isn't even rare, he seems unstoppable. I did overdo on expensive stuff with him, needs to be tweaked but I understand the mechanics involved somewhat better now.

[jiansonz]

Okay, my lujo-decks campaign is completed, the versions before the latest revisions (so Paladin has Shifting Sky, and Winged Stallion does not, etc.).

The deck I mentioned earlier was kept pretty much the same throughout, although it evolved and detiriorated over time. There were fewer and fewer black cards, and in the end, no creature was black-only. Full Savannah set but only 2-3 Scrublands and Bayous. I had a few other dual lands with drawbacks and one Terramorphic Expanse.
I eventually lost Ulamog, both Teysas and my Demonic Tutor. Replaced those lost creatures with a third Serra Angel and a Felidar Sovereign.

Overall won-loss 235-59 (insane number of duels due to the no-payoff bug.)

Match stats vs creatures of Shandalar:

| Open

Witch 3-1
Seer 2-0
Druid 3-0
Sorceress 3-0
Cleric 3-0
Undead Knight 2-1
Merfolk Shaman 3-1
Elvish Magi 5-2
Sorcerer 2-0
Priestess 5-0 (btw, I actually like the mind control!)
Warlock 7-8 (like I wrote before, nasty vs creature-based)
Conjurer 3-1
Enchantress 3-0 (yes, she is too weak. Matches weren't close)
Troll Shaman 1-2 (probably my favourite enemy. He is so cool.)
Crusader 9-1
Mind Stealer 18-3
Elementalist 5-0
Fungus Master 3-0
Sedge Beast 4-4 (getting early Birds of Paradise out was a huge deal)
Tusk Guardian 19-3
Vampire Lord 9-3
Sea Dragon 3-0
Forest Dragon 3-0
Goblin Lord 11-1
Paladin 8-1
Aga Galneer 9-3
Saltrem Tor 3-0
Alt-A-Kesh 2-1
Queltosh 1-0
Centaur Shaman 14-2
Winged Stallion 8-0
Ape Lord 0-1 (I was impressed in this one fight!)
Centaur Warchief 2-0
Lord of Fate 10-3
Nether Fiend 14-4
Shapeshifter 4-0
Beast Master 1-0
Hydra 8-0
Arch Angel 5-2
Mandurang 1-1
Whim 0-1
Prismat -
Dracur 0-1
Kiska-Ra 1-0
Necromancer 6-6
Thought Invoker -
Summoner 2-0
War Mage 1-1
High Priest 0-1
Azaar, Greater Lich (guinsoo's nasty discard + The Rack deck) 1-1
Astral Visionary (guinsoo's Honden deck) 1-0
Morgane, the Great Druid (guinsoo's Treefolk deck) 1-0
Kzzy'n, the Dragon Lord (quatro's Dragon deck) 1-0
Sainted One (my version with some elements of Abe's still there) 1-0
Arzakon (lujo's slightly tweaked original deck) 1-0 (won quite soon with Felidar Sovereign. Backup plans were Raving Dead and the Oubliette + Worldfire combo.)

Number of attempts needed to conquer the castles:
Blue 1
White 1
Red 1
Green 2
Black 18