Improved Shandalar General Playtesting & Feedback Thread

[lujo]

Each cycle has it's pros and cons. The Darksteel Cycle are quite usable as sideboard cards, but they're also, well, they can be really strong. And they're lifegain, so if the player gets hold of it he can really abuse them hard in dungeons (particularly the red one). Gotta try some and see what happens. The staffs would be much better, except, yeah, it's not just that they come in after the AI has cast a bunch of things, it's also that they cost 3 mana and don't change the situation on the board and the AI has issues with over-prioritizing things wich aren't creatures at turns 2-3-4.

The thing with pulling punches - I'm not sure if you guys would believe me but not pulling punches is why I made the current Dracur and a bunch of other Djinns and Dragons stronger than I would have otherwise. But the deal with them is that they don't need to go out of their way to be nasty - higher starting life is enough of an advantage and they don't show up late - you get them in quests and walking around all the time. And they aren't really "tough as nails boss enemies" they're place where 3-colored themes go, making them into extra-tough no-holds-barred beatdowns cuts down on variety of what elements of the pool are usable. And cards which support those themes are above curve in general (take Woolly Thoctar for example, no need to go out of my way to make a deck in his colors murderous if I just give it random stuff like that with the current Shandalar mana base).

LD and stuff was rampant when I started playing (and continued to be rampant wherever me and my family could sneak it into tournaments ) I know this stuff, and I know how much you can abuse it. And don't actually have issues with most of it on any aesthetic/sentimental basis, but I do with some on mechanical. Giving up on some things (at some power levels) really did make the game better.

I'm not taking LD out of the pool, mind you, heck, I'm whining about Tremble and Raze not being there for threshold decks XD And I still kept the High Priest an Armageddon deck, of all things. It's just that making something a Vintage land destruction deck really narrows down what the player can do about it - some colors can't deal with it at all, and some colors have sideboard which shuts it down so completely (and there's bound to be artifacts). Then I've made someone who's supposed to be tough either techincaly unbeatable or a pushover, and that's counter-productive.

As for not giving stuff moxes - the OG decks had them for reasons other than power. I'm pushing conistency over randomly drawing power, and with the expanded pool, they really shouldn't need them to kick your ass left and right. Same with Mana Vaults - mana vaults made some decks look like they work, when in fact they only worked because they could randomly do something which you occasionally couldn't deal with. I can (and mostly already have) made decks which used to have mana vaults in them consistently way stronger than they used to be in way which are far less random and dependent on drawing a mana vault.

When I'm finally done with this current tweak pool, and especially if the AI is improved, walking through a dungeon/castle should be way tougher than it used to be. I'm just trying my best to keep metagame warping things down to a sane level, to the best of my abilities.

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Anywho, working on druid, I've repored the problematic cards, it just needs some tweaks perhaps and it's ready to go and then I'll do Witch.

Err, I was holding off on remaking her because it was a quite functional deck, but it was also a Nevinyrral's Disk deck on a tier1 enemy. -.-' Can't have that, one of the eternal problems with Shandalar was that you could beat up witches for disks whatever you were playing and put them into any deck. I'm not sure I've not made similar blunders with this tweak deck pool (in fact I'm sure I have), but nowhere near as bad as that one.

Druid 0139.dck | Open

Druid (G, 4th)

.91 23 Forest
.288 3 Wooden Sphere
.276 4 Wanderlust
.2863 3 Bee Sting
.11131 3 Hornet Sting
.2295 4 Hail Storm
.5631 3 Nantuko Elder
.5756 3 Woodland Druid
.13165 3 Kraul Warrior
.14112 4 Hornet Nest
.10402 3 Deadly Recluse
.1481 2 Kaysa
.1333 2 Spidersilk Armor

There's the druid, it's been tweaked a bit. The tweaks included taking out Voyaging Satyr for 2 more lands, and making room for 1 more Hornet's Nest and 2 Spidersilk Armor. It's a defensive deck with tricks it can do and it's to a degree built around trying to make the AI unable to misplay itself to death. It also doesn't realize how important Hornet's Nest is for it so it will try to play other stuff instead occasionally.

It has it's issues which I've reported - the burn gets thrown at the opponent for no reason (1 and 2 dmg burn should probably be adjusted to not be able to target the opponent before turn, say, 4), Hailstorm is currently being played outside of combat and the AI doesn't really recognize Deathtouch properly on defense. It would benefit greatly from Fight cards being in, too.

I already wrote the deck up when I put it together originally, this is just a tweaked version. I would benefit from being able to mulligan imensly as would all decks with relatively low curves.

It could also use feedback in terms of how tough or weak you're finding it in adventure mode.

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[stassy]

Well, one cannot simply walk into Shandalar without the updated Decks

In order to evaluate and compare difficulty, the whole rules should be changed or at least one part (field or castle or dungeon treasure/handicap/bonus) so you can feel the unbalance in the forces.

Do you have enough new options set in the Shandalar.ini, King of Meta?

Jokes aside, it's not possible to test the new enemy decks with the old Shandalar settings in a full run, choices need to be made before playtesting (difficulty, rules, etc...).
So, how do you want us to make the tests?

[lujo]

Ahhh, good point, good point. Hmmm, set the thinking time as high as f... I mean at least to 2160, but if it doesn't slow you down then as high as possible.

If you're trying the quest mode.

Set default basic lands to 8. Really, so your initial pool is at least technically usable.

For the dungeons, try this:

Blue: Either Hatching Plans (hey, it's not power struggle) or Seal of Removal (will slow you down a tiny bit, everything else I'm not sure if it works at all, let alone in a dungeon).
Red: Either Crackling Perimeter (won't do anything), or Mana Echoes (everything else looks kind of suicidal or lethal)
White: Seal of Cleansing or First Response
Green: Seal of Primordium (what I think would be perfect isn't there and the others kind of affect stuff)
Black: Necropolis of Azaar or Feast on the Fallen

As for wizards, leave as-is, but change the leviathan to Seal of Removal.

Bonus creatures:

White1=Dedicated Martyr
White2=Mesa Pegasus
White3=War Elephant
Blue1=Water Wurm
Blue2=Cloud Sprite
Blue3=Wind Dancer
Black1=Black Cat
Black2=Blood Vassal
Black3=Foul Imp
Red1=Crazed Goblin
Red2=Dwarven Berserker
Red3=Whip Sergeant
Green1=Simic Initiate
Green2=Orochi Sustainer
Green3=Utopia Tree

And you can leave everything else as-is.

Those are just experimental, if you'd like to test them, some are nerfs, some are buffs, and I'm curious about how the nerfs go.

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Also, don't kill me if stuff turns out to be busted or unworking or mishandled. Several things I tried out with the Witch have failed so I'm back to the drawing board with her ATM, but as soon as she's done I'll upload my current shandalar decklist folder. Somehow.

Also - please don't be too dissapointed - I'm going through the infinite duels mode with stuff from bottom up and I've only managed the tier1 opponents who're missing the witch and the results are somewhat demoralizing. Don't hold back on criticizing the decks, yelling blue murder, cursing me for a fraud and stuff - but do give feedback, as I CAN adjust stuff and how folks feel about these decks means a lot to me, even if they get mad.

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Witch still being uncooperative. I'm trying to do something with non-brutal cards, and it just can't get off the ground. Card Draw tied to lifegain, sacrifice fodder not working, cheap removal conditional, expensive removal expensive, creatures either meh/too good with auras or owerwhelming or just not on theme whatsoever. And I've put 30 lands in the deck at one point and still it still got mana screwed 4 times in a row (and it can't afford to get mana screwed). Uhhhhh.

I'm happy with Maw of the Mire as lifegain. I'm happy with Witch's Familiar as roadblock, but equipment is largely unusable and he's useless on offense. I'm ok with Childhood Horror because I don't need to put auras in to get it buffed up enough to attack. I'm OK with the idea of having, say, Sip of Hemlock as an expensive, reliable removal, and pairing it something cheaper to madly fire off.

What to fill 60 cards up with that works, is moderately on theme, isn't overwhelming and the AI can use it I'm a bit stumped with. Gotta sleep on it. Sounds stupid, but it's so. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions you're wellcome.

[jiansonz]

lujo, I am planning to soon play a campaign that uses the enemy decks you've presented so far. Afterwards, I will post some impressions here. Note that I do not see the enemy's hand so sometimes I can't value how well the AI plays them.

Going through this thread, copy/pasting and saving decks and updating my spreadsheet of who has made decks for what enemies, I get your count to 39 decks. Correct? Not sure yet what I'll do for the other 16 decks - probably going with those in the overhaul thread that I've had the most fun playing against before.

Haven't decided yet on what to go for in my growing-up or my castle-assault deck(s).
This will (hopefully) get interesting.

[lujo]

Oh, ty so much, let me try to make it easier with the updated decklists for some of these guys and the new Witch!

And, err, wow, I managed to wring out 39 decks? Well, some need adjusting, I kind of canibalized them and some got new toys, and some are a tad half-assed, and many will have serious issues with how the AI plays them/bugs (I'm going through everything and making stuff that's missing but it's turning out to be a quite difficult), so make sure to check here and apply any new stuff as it comes up!

Right, new Witch, after more hours and trial and error than you'd believe:

Witch | Open

.12016 3 Maw of the Mire
.239 25 Swamp
.14201 3 Witch's Familiar
.6270 4 Smother
.13287 4 Festering Newt
.7557 4 Shuko
.13294 3 Gnawing Zombie
.3739 3 Dark Hatchling
.12696 4 Daggerdrome Imp
.318 4 Fellwar Stone
.7891 3 Keening Banshee

Eh, don't blame me for this one, really, I tried so many things, and so many things failed in so many ways (whether it's bugs, the AI, black as a color historically, me making stupid decisions, lack of mulligans murdering the AI, you name it).

Goes like this: It's a Shuko deck. It's one of the few equipment the AI can not arse up with too hard (It still does it's best and gets there often enough! ).

It's got a whooping 29 mana sources. Don't. Ask. Naturally it can still get mana screwed and mana flooded but do report on all instances of that which you find displeasing.

Festering Newt, Gnawing Zombie and Witches Familiar are supposed to block up the ground, and with Shuko and Smother backup also get some damage in. Occasionally the AI will just burn you down with Gnawing Zombie (it'll look like it's doing nonsense but then you'll realize you dropped dead), and it's rarely ever going to play intelligently with Festering Newt.

All the fliers were forced on me by the limitations clusterf**k. Daggerdrome Imp + Shuko is lifegain and early threats. Keening Banshee is more removal + not-too-efficient flier, and Dark Hatchling is removal vs. non-black which leaves a flier in. Don't laugh, between Shuko and Gnawing Zombie the deck should be able to kick your ass here and there.

Maw of the Mire is lifegain, slowdown, and just kicking you when you're struggling.

The deck CAN be tweaked in several ways, although even getting here was a pain in the nethers. I hope it's not too weak and aimless, but black is seriously difficult to make a 10 life deck for if you're trying to avoid feeding the player too much power for beating witches up.

Playdeck folder at link here, I'm a bit of a noob with uploading stuff:

http://www.filehosting.org/file/details ... ayDeck.rar

There have been tweaks in the meanwhile for many decklists (the "patch") before the update hit, so this should be used rather than copypasting links. The decks I've actually tested with the new patch are the tier1 enemy decks - everything else could be in any state of buggy/malfunctioning/too weak/too strong whatsoever (it's not that I haven't tested them but not in Shandalar and not in this update, and many will need updates and even reworks). The decks which I haven't touched yet in the folder are OG decks, and those would be:

Tier3 - Troll Warlord, Warlock, Conjurer, Crusader
Enemy Dual - Fungus Master, Centaur Warchief,
Friendly Dual - Ape Lord, Tusk Guardian, Mind Stealer, Sedge Beast,
Wizards - Any of them

And I'm sure a bunch of guys need retweaking from the gauntlets I've been putting other decks through (I give a deck to the AI and play random decks vs. it in infinite duel mode).

Another thing is that in Shandalar a random card gets removed from decks at the start of every match because of Ante, and that just simply has to go, it's bound to screw decks up in ways which are too damned random. The only problem with that are Darkpact and Jeweled Bird, but if I can find a way to reconcile those two with removing ante cards at the end of the match that bit of nonsense has to go. If I can't I'd ban those two in Shandalar or put a caveat on them or something, because randomly missing stuff before the match starts WAS why ante got removed from tournament play (believe it or not). So the decks will randomly malfunction or have possibly severely decreased chanced of working properly (25% less chance to draw a Llanowar elf or a key card before the match even starts f**ks decks right up, and the chance reduction % goes up the fewer copies of a card there are in a deck. For Mandurang, losing any of it's 4 win conditions reduces it's chances of even drawing anything it can use to win by a quarter -.-). So keep in mind that that "feature" of Shandalar currently can't be disabled and the decks will overall be less stable and functional than they would be otherwise. I'm not entirely sure we can even get proper tweaking / feedback done while that's going on.

As far as the rest is concerned - have fun. I I haven't messed up too much.

What I'd love to know - Do particular decks feel weak? overwhelming? too fast? if they're weak are they at least fun to play against? Do the decks overall feel samey? Any deck too nasty in dungeons? Any decks too easy in dungeons?

Also, obviously, any bugged / malfunctioning decks, cards which make the AI embarrass itself on a regular basis, etc.

As well as any general feedback, just because I'm currently using the thread as a decktweaking blog this doesn't mean this isn't a general shandalar experience feedback thread so feel free to write up the campaign.

EDIT: Oh, and I've tested the tier1 decks at 10 life, so whatever difficulty you pick, fiddle with the ini settings to get them at least there.

[lujo]

Oh, god... Update!

Anway here's my current Decks folder with more tweaks. Once the AI can use Hex, I can make the Witch actually awesome, but until then it's like this. I could also hot-tweak cleric, probably, if it's being too mishandled.

This is whith a touched up Priestess (added a copy of Rolling Stones and 2 Copies of Replenish, and I think one more Serra's Boon). She can be taken in different directions, doesn't have to be a Wall deck at all.

VERY IMPORTANT TWEAK/REWORK here is the Merfolk Shaman one. The one I made earlier gets spectacularly mishandled. This one doesn't have any merfolk lords in it, but I somehow managed to make a deck which doesn't mishandle Trusty Machete, which is my best work/lucky break with a piece of Equipment with casting cost or equip cost above 1 so far (how come it doesn't mangle it and does mangle so many other things I've seen so far - no idea). It's got a serious bunch of Drakes in it, and I'll write it up later. It might be too damned good, but it's not exactly my fault that the AI just kept stacking removal auras and misplaying it (so if that's fixed I'll probably change it back).

Undead Knight also got revisited, the AI is kinda bad with Flanking but I managed to trick it into it a bit. Will also be written up.

I'll review and re-test Elvish Magi later today, and Sorcerer is completely messed up, I just didn't have the strength to grapple with him any more last time around, will also probably do him today.

Grab this for the Merfolk Shaman if nothing else, otherwise just slap it all into the Decks folder (it's everything + missing OG stuff). Holler if the Merfolk is too brutal.

[lujo]

Right, so Elvish Magi remained the same (with a few disclaimers) and Sorcerer got a remake I'm somehow quite satisfied with. Also, I put in a workday and got somewhere with the Troll Shaman - it's misusing stuff, and I'm kind of always 2 slots short of a satisfying deck, but it's quite cool this way until things get fixed (I think). It had an epic match vs the Witch which lasted for 20 turns and it was never a true standstill!

Right some writeups:

Merfolk Shaman 0150.dck | Open

.126 26 Island
.3732 4 Coral Merfolk
.11171 4 Scroll Thief
.10516 4 Caller of Gales
.2484 4 Floodgate
.7847 4 Flight of Fancy
.7848 2 Flow of Ideas
.10693 3 Trusty Machete
.13904 1 Hall of Triumph
.1155 4 Spiketail Hatchling
.8673 4 Spiketail Drakeling

Poor bugger couldn't use Whitewater Naiads or auras properly (kept playing them after combat and wasting their evasin-granting which was the whole point of them), and I saw that giving Shandalar opponents lords kind of always ends in tears. Way too swingy depending on how many lords are drawn and lords tend to make large ammoutns of stuff unblockable (or small ammounts of buffed stuff unblockable) which is just plays out lame most of the time with low-tier enemies.

Anywho, I got creative. Or, better to say, compilive. Word. I stuck in a bunch of tempo drakes (Spiketail Hatchling, Spiketail Drake), which probably weren't the best idea. The AI mishandles them so you it won't beat you every time, but if they proove overwhelming I'll think of something else.

The actual plan is to make Merfolk buff with Trusty Machete (I can see why a Merfolk Would need one if he's walking about, all this green crap everywhere, a person can't even slither around properly). Make them evasive and draw cards with Flight of Fancy! (Also draw a crapton of cards with Flow of Ideas, and card draw is the primary, er, draw of Flight of Fancy, tbh). If it draws the lone Hall of Triumph - stuff gets big!

The removal is Floodgate. Several ways to lift it up and do AoE damage, and it's also a fatass wall.

When I write it up like this you'd think it was 5 minutes to do, but believe me, it wasn't. Well, the machete works, which was an interesting discovery. Works damned well, too, so, again, if it's too brutal somehow, do complain.

Undead Knight | Open

.4271 4 Corrupt Court Official
.13580 4 Tormented Hero
.14590 4 Merciless Executioner
.2329 4 Phyrexian Boon
.13542 4 Scourgemark
.239 24 Swamp
.2702 4 Fallen Askari
.2422 4 Cadaverous Knight
.12602 4 Public Execution
.1835 4 Thrull Retainer

It was a nice thematic deck, and it's still a nice thematic deck! Although I might've accidentally nerfed it a bit, and flanking is being mishandled.

Anywho, Corrupt Court Official is still sacrifice fodder (and actually gets sacrificed properly), Merciless Executioner is removal (and there's also Public Execution now, too, but I might be a bit low on lands).

Fallen Askari and Cadaverous Knight are the undead knights, and if they get Thrul Retainer on them they're rather difficult to put down on attack. The AI doesn't seem to realize how flanking works too well, and I've seen it not attack with Fallen Askari who can't block. It does attack with the other guy, so Thrull Retainer ought to "Squire up" the non-blocker one into attacking.

*Incidentally, people laugh at Squire, like it's the worst most senseless card ever made. Wasn't. If you're playing a banding deck (and I've drafted the Dark on Forge where if you're white you're playing a banding deck), Squire's the guy in the band who takes the bullet. Morale, Holy Light, Pikemen and Knights of Thorn in the same set, Squire bands kill Carnivorous Plants, true story - strongest draft deck in the pool, really. He's perfect top-down design, a guy who follows a more capable guy into battle. It's just that power creep killed him. Eh, the more you know...*

Tormented hero either attacks a bit, or sits there and gets auras stacked on him, to buy time and lower the enemy life, and once it gets too low, you the deck goes alpha-strike. Hitting a Public Execution helps with that, too. Auras are a flexible buff/removal in Phyrexian Boon, cantrip power buff in Scourgemark and proto-totem armor in Thrull Retainer.

I didn't want to make 2nd tier guys too strong, I only really got pushed into it by accident when it happened, if this guy works pleasingly well, I think I'll rather try to bring the others to his level rather than buff him.

Elvish Magi | Open

Is still the same dude, except I'm unhappy with Thrive on several levels - it gets mishandled and cast on the first Llanowar Elf on one hand, and on the other hand it's like a lord you can't get rid off. And pumping Elven Riders isn't something I think this deck should be able to do. But then again, with Hurricane out, who knows. Still, they're pretty much unblockable vs. green, it's primary customer, and I'm trying to think up a good way to replace Thrive with something expensive which would make all the little dudes worthwhile, either that or do a bit of retweaking after feedback/playtesting.

Drumroll...

Sorcerer! 0192.dck | Open

.164 24 Mountain
.1361 4 Prodigal Pyromancer
.10381 3 Act of Treason
.4316 4 Ravaging Horde
.7361 4 Ronin Houndmaster
.4907 4 Veteran Brawlers
.14571 4 Humble Defector
.7162 3 Battle-Mad Ronin
.10788 3 Kitesail
.5696 3 Shower of Coals
.7950 4 Seismic Spike

This was in fact a barrel of fun to make. I went - screw everything I'm just dumping all the Asian dudes in there to go with his Fu Manchu / Emperor Ming look and then I'll see what I've got.

What I got is somewhat mishandled and played suboptimally but with enough Korath-badgering we could get this baby to sing! And, err, might be a tad too strong, red's like that. Took me actual ages to get to the point where it's at now, with several scraped themes past "a lot of various asian dudes", now it's... bizzare.

How does it work? Well, Battle-Mad Ronin and Humble Defector are early drops, and their usefulness can be extended with Kitesail. Which is, yay, another equipment that you can make work if you put in effort. The deck can, but doesn't nearly often enough, give the Humble Defector over and ping it with the Prodigal Pyromancer (titular sorcerer, woot, flavor!). Also, booo AI, it'll madly spam card draw except when you want it to.

Another nudge to use the Humble Defector to draw cards, a really rare thing for red, the only actual burn thing is Shower of Coals. Not because of Threshold which the deck can't really get, but to ping the traitor off the board

Ronin Houndmaster is another agressive drop with haste to follow up the two-drops. Then it gets interesting.

Veteran Brawlers, you see, are quite a kickass wall. And what they do, rather well, is make the opponent not curve out properly and play from behind unless they want a 4/4 (or often a 5/4 flier because of Kitesail) to swing over. What can happen, though, is that there's Seismic Spike and Ravaging Horde in the deck So if there's 1 untapped land it can get pinged off and then the 4/4 swings. What's more is that the first ld lets the deck play a 2 drop or attach kitesail, and the other is a creature + ld. As you can, hopefully, see, I'm the last guy to shy away from land destruction

Only 8 ld spells, so it's not really an ld deck that would totally ruin your game with it, it can mess you up and be very annoying. There's also Act of Treason, from when I was playing around the idea of how to justify putting the Chinese and Japanese in the same deck, and figured that the deck is full of traitors and renegades anyway, so it's on flavor. Can also mess you up, too.

Shouldn't be too strong, should prompt a bunch of complaining about AI mishandling of stuff (which is good, so I'm not the only guy complaining), and I hope to at least make someone smile when they get bushwacked by a card from the much maligned Prophecy set after getting twacked with ld out of nowhere. Enjoy!

And this took ages (otherwise I would've done more):

Troll Shaman | Open

.164 24 Mountain
.13282 4 Dragon Egg
.452 4 Rukh Egg
.261 3 Uthden Troll
.10937 4 Goblin Arsonist
.11927 3 Demonmail Hauberk
.2480 4 Fire Diamond
.10928 4 Flame Slash
.9929 3 Caldera Hellion
.1448 4 Dragon Fodder
.13443 3 Flamecast Wheel

Don't ask why this theme, I tried several others, it didn't work out, this looked interesting. Then, hours later, crapton of faulty sac outlets and sacrificial buggers and op-swingy devour failures, I got to this, and it's played somewhat badly and needs complaining about.

It was supposed to be a Rukh Egg / Dragon Egg deck which plays a bunch of board sweep (which Keeper of Kookus and Uthden Troll survive so that I can squeeze the damned troll in). Problem with that was that the AI wouldn't play Rukh Egg over madly tossing sweepers whatever I did. And it's still extremely reluctant to do so (it's was a bit of a problem with Hornet Nest and Druid, too).

But it did turn out that, off all things, Demonmail Hauberk can be made to work if you grind through decklists until you get one where it's got something appropriate on the board when it casts the damned thing, which can buy it time to play the eggs, missplay the eggs-hauberk interaction to some degree, and still end up kicking your ass with the results.

Also, Uthden Troll with Demonmail Hauberk is scary s**t. 6/4 regenerating bugger coming at you at turn 4 with Fire Diamond mana up for regen. Also, with the Hauberk down, Rukh Egg is pretty much a 4/4 flier for 4, and the other thing is a 2/2 fierbreathing flier for 3, and there's a +4/+2 equipment around.

Goblin Arsonist and Dragon Fodder are, well, fodder, and it works since it's trigger happy with the Huberk but not madly so (it is with the Bubbling Cauldron and some other things, though). Also, Dragon Fodder + hauberk tends to escalate quickly as there's a 5/3 goblin attacking you

Caldera Hellion is board wipe and a way for the deck to sacrifice / trigger a lot of eggs. It was the OG plan but the Equipment kinda overtook it, still kept it in as the expensive sweeper / fatty. Flame Slash is the quick burn (which also gets thrown at the eggs, go figure, but I'm not complaining).

I added Flamecast Wheel a bit late - I ran through so many things that could've gone in the deck and it was either retarded powerful (there's a dude for 3 mana and "devour 3" which can easily be 10/10 on turn 3 on a regular basis), or spectacularly missplayed, so there's like, rotating semi-unfillable slots in the deck. And getting the deck to actually ever play Rukh Egg at all instead of anything else was a long process (Which is why no Wildfire, before you ask). The AI seems quite unwilling to use the wheel on the eggs, but I though it would be sort of good insurance vs protection from red buggers, maybe. What I've seen happen, though, is that it misses the opportunity to cast it in favor of Goblin Arsonist/Flame Slash, then Dragon Fodder, then Uthden Troll, then... you get the idea.

Anyway it's a bit wonky, the AI messes up with egg sacrificing and hauberk activations in it's second phase (fortunately does less rather than more, which could easily be disastrous), and it can be a bit madly strong at times. And It's not actually tested with anything that runs artifact removal, and I can kind of see that possibly becoming a fashion in Shandalar soonish.

But I'm kind of glad I got it over with, and there's another deck with an equipment in it to see how that goes. It's got it's downsides, and when it kicks your ass it's a bit of a poster child for "AI beats you up because it's too terrible to be given stuff which won't necessarily beat you up". I did try, quite hard.

Whole folder here, hope the rest of the tier 3 squad (Conjurer, Crusader and Warlock turn out less time intensive. Enjoy, feedback, complain, curse me for a charlatan, compare me unfavorable to Abe Seargent, have fun! (I'm going to bed, will weed out typos when I'm up).

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Small note: I just tweaked the Crusader (it's not in the deck folder yet). I have to nerf immediately. Let's just say that putting banding, flanking and Abu Jafar in the same deck is not a good idea balance wise Although I totally want to, but, err, how to make it sane? Maybe if I gave it no evasion or removal besides Abu Jafar? Eh, noone's winning any combats vs. that deck. I think I'll not give it any equipment, color protection, evasion or removal, just banding, flanking, Longbow Archers for reach and Abu Jafar for insane trolling. And some pump. Just a word to the wise, if you're building decks, mind what you do with those things, "You distribute combat damage" + "everything that blocks you gets -1/-1" on cheap weenies in the color of cheap mass pump is quite nuts. 1 mana basilisk or no 1 mana basilisk.

[lujo]

Two more!

Crusader 0283.dck | Open

.188 23 Plains
.391 3 Abu Ja'far
.2007 3 Kjeldoran Warrior
.13 4 Benalish Hero
.2940 3 Benalish Infantry
.8486 4 Benalish Cavalry
.1277 4 Longbow Archer
.443 3 Moorish Cavalry
.6787 3 Soldier Replica
.51 3 Crusade
.432 2 Jihad
.12515 4 Zealous Strike
.13556 1 Spear of Heliod

I settled on this, and feedback is appreciated.

The theme I was going for is no mysticism, just a bunch of xenophobic-white-militant-chaps off to have a war which may or may not have divine patronage. And also mingling with the local xenophobic white-militant-chaps they originally invaded because they're not all that different when you get down to it. You know, like what the actual crusades kinda devolved into anyway. And, well, the euro-themed-xenophobic-buggers have good infantry tactics, lack of a sense of self preservation and crusading zeal and the middle-eastern-themed-xenophobic-buggers have tramply cavalry, exotic diseases and jihadi zeal, and they're basically the same continent anyway and got their ideas from the same places, when you get down to it. Also, it was like that in the OG deck and I liked it, was very appropriate.

As for how it works - lot of banding, some flanking and trample, longbow archers for reach. Soldier Replica against protection from white spoiling the fun. Human Tribal, because flavor, and no color protection because also flavor (These guys are on a crusade / jihad because it's a good reason to go to war, painting folks black/red so you can use your hypocrisy/xenophobia powers to murder/persecute them is the Paladins gig).

Pumps are Crusade, Jihad and Spear of Heliod (because relics and such). Zealous Strike because quite appropriate, and also because the AI mishandled a lot of stuff during testing.

It's been tested to a degree, and it can work quite well - it's a nasty ole weenie deck with more "lords" than you can shake a stick at. Which is why the holes and the weaknesses - no removal of any sort (so far), no fliers, no nothing - just banding, flanking, leprosy and zealous (first) strike.

Curious about how you guys find it

This took a while, because the AI was terrible about everything I tried because the OG concept is kind of terrible when you get down to it:

Conjurer 0260.dck | Open

.126 25 Island
.11335 4 Plated Seastrider
.13331 4 Seacoast Drake
.193 4 Prodigal Sorcerer
.1274 4 Mawcor
.14482 4 Reef Worm
.8844 4 Serendib Sorcerer
.1344 4 Snap
.1294 4 Zuran Spellcaster
.475 3 Ashnod's Battle Gear

See, now, the "tim" or "Prodigal Sorcerer" deck has always had issues with the curve, as there's too damned many things it wants to cast wich don't do anything immediately and cost 3 mana. And the problem with 3 mana, as opposed to 2 mana is that you can't cast 2 more of those on the next turn, or ever the one after that.

Not to mention that blue is really the wrong color to have a deck full of expensive 1/1 guys in because you can't really keep mana open for counters, and all your dudes just get killed. Unless you're playing Faeries, but the AI is so bad at that (I tried) that it just wouldn't do.

So what I did was bust my ass to try to give it a sensible curve, which wasn't easy at all and I'm very unhappy with where I ended up. It needs more life than this guy has, but is ultimately too weak even for tier3. Still, after many tries this is how it goes:

4 Plated Seastrider
4 Seacoast Drake

The seastrider is tortoise mk.II and is excellent. Along with the Mawcor which we will get to in a minute, it would make a fine beast sub-theme I was happy with, and I was happy with it in all possible ways. It's necessary.

However, the problem was that because it was there you couldn't play Curiosity, which is kick-ass with Prodigal Sorcerer clones. But the blasted AI just played it on the Seastrider -.-' Same thing happened with Charisma, which is also kick-ass with the tims. So after a million reworks I decided that the deck just can't get off the ground at all without a rock solid 2 drop base and ended up with both the Seastrider and the Seacoast Drake. They can both go on offense, too, but we get to that.

Also, now that there's 8 of these guys, it's quite possible that the AI will keep playing them instead of the Tims. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen, because if these guys suck up some removal, and this buys the deck time, maybe it's actually good.

The Tims are

4 X Prodigal Sorcerer
4 X Zuran Spellcaster
4 X Mawcor

And at least the Mawcor isn't squishy. I tried every trick in the book I could think of to keep the little Tims on the table, but no dice - it either gets missplayed entirely, or ends up on the Plated Seastrider. Ashond's Transmogrant was kinda promising, though, because the deck is a bit too blue and because it couldn't stick all of them on the tortoise, and maybe there's a place for it.

These guys are backed up by

4 X Serendib Sorcerer.

This guy got made in Planar Chaos because all casual Tim deck were splashing Sorceress Queen and now you can do it in Mono Blue. Problem with that is that, as great as it is, it adds another 3cc 1/1 guy to the deck. The way the AI plays him and Sorceress Queen is all over the place, too.

The propensity of these guys to drop dead as soon as they hit the board in a million ways makes me think I ought to move the Flow of Ideas from Merfolk Shaman to this guy. I'll need a bit of feedback on both of those before I do it, though.

4 X Snap was literally the only thing out of a million which the AI could use without messing everything up. Key word "everything", as it will still madly spam it at anything the player has on the table, but at least it won't tap out for it.

But now things finally get interesting:

Here's the combo:

4 X Reef Worm
3 X Ashnod's Battle Gear

How's that a combo? Simple - the deck can (and will) ping the worm with a Tim for a 3/3 fish. Then if it has either Serendib Sorcerer or Ashnods Battle Gear, it will get itself a largeish Whale. Then if it has some combination of tims, Serendib Sorcerer and Battle Gears it'll get itself a 9/9 Kraken.

It's lovely to look at and has happened fairly regularly after I went to hell and back and back to hell and back looking for ways to build the deck in a way which doesn't cause the AI to arse up / play other stuff instead. The problem is that everything is very vulnerable to removal (and especially bounce) and that I can't think of a functional way to prevent that (well Confound would be a good start). And I can't think of a way to reccur stuff in mono-blue right now either, and the buggers with "Exploit" from Khans aren't in the pool (would give me a CiP sacrifice tool, at least), and well, this was the best I could do.

But still - Plated Seastrider and Seacoast Drake, and even Mawcor, can go places with the Battle Gear so even if it arses up with the whole Wurm thing it can still kill you.

Squeezing Flow of Ideas in there somewhere for a big hand refill is probably a good idea, but I really need feedback on this guy. Also, if Homarid Spawning Bed was working (seems to crash the game, but maybe it's not it that's causing it), that would be something to put in, definitely (if the AI could just use it in response to removal aimed at the sorcerers to get tokens out of them).

Oh, and I remember being told by Korath somewhere how to hex edit the invisibility off Troll Shaman and Conjurer, I'll look it up because testing those two in a natural game is a pain in the ass as you can't find the suckers.

Right, so, Warlock left for tier 3, as soon as I get it done I upload the whole batch.

[Korath]

Plated Pegasus in 0127 isn't in the game.

[lujo]

Hmmm, how come it's in the deck? (Several ways it could've happened, I'm an absent minded moron sometimes). Ty!

I snap-replaced it with Pegasus Charger without thinking about it, they don't serve the same purpose but I'm getting around to multicolored decks soon anyway and will rethink the whole deck.

[jiansonz]

Several of those latest decks look really interesting, especially Sorcerer and Conjurer. Keep up the good work.

[lujo]

Ty! They were all a lot fun to make, but took an enormous amount of time. Worth the effort, especially if the AI is improved in general (and the decks are polished after feedback).

I'm particularly pleased about the Troll Shaman and the Conjurer. Troll's got a nice flavor of exploiting the political situation of everybody in the red wilderness looking to crack those eggs. Really, the deck is all about various red buggers along the food chain looking to equip what looks like a gloriously offensive plate of armor, by harnessing the power of cracking eggs. Then the big hellion just shows up and eats everbody because it's top of the food chain and they're all running around in the open . The troll is, obviously, the one who with the best plan (because he goes nuts with the armor buff and can actually survive the hellion showing up). It tells a story.

The Conjurer is also a cool bit of poking fun at blue - the guy is an amazing summoner - he can conjure up an immense sea monster! By harnessing the mystic and mysterious powers of getting a bunch of his fratboy hunting esteemed marine biologist buddies colleagues to blast shi... focus their vast intellect on baiting conjuring up a bigger fish! an astounding leviathan! And that's when they're not strapping shi... onto local wildlife improving upon nature with the use of this bit...g sweet armor the forgotten technology of the ancients for the lols Science! Magic! If ever there was a truly prodigal sorcerer deck... (I can totally see them high-fiving each other and progressively taking the wacky hijinx scientific experimentation further and futher: "Brah, if we strap the armor on the Whale and then we shrink it, and then..." "Doode!" "I'm totally doing it!"). Only thing missing is the Thousand-Year Elixir to represent the "keg", but there's too many things at 3cc already (even though it otherwise fits into the deck flavor or no flavor).

Hope they work, though. It's not like I didn't try my best to make them functional in other ways before settling on all that stuff. And it's not like it can't beat you up despite it having themes running through. Now if I could just get some fight cards in (because they're bloody useful in any green deck) so that the Druid could have his guys literally go throw rocks at hives of killer bees (instead of the bloody Hornet Sting getting thrown at your head all the time)...

Been working on the Warlock, and in the process I've come up with 5 or so ways to make the Witch work (but when I was making the Witch work, I discovered a ton of ways to NOT make the witch work and got frustrated as hell). Still, having Hex in the pool and the AI unable to use it is a crying shame, Germans will understand.

I'm kind of dead bent on loading the guy up with Tendrils of Corruption and Corrupt so that dropping him is a pain in the nethers, but then again, I probably could've done this for the Witch as she needs the life more (but that's giving a ton of lifegain to an early opponent which doesn't play well with dungeons). Also, Pillar Tombs of Aku + Aku Djinn rocks socks, but all the sacrifice fodder is kinda Witch-flavored rather than Warlock flavored (Festering Newt, Black Cat), and I can't bloody well hand her a big ole trampling Djinn and an Abyss that does 5 to the face. A functional sac outlet is hard to find, which makes me a bit sad Braids, Cabal Minion isn't in.

Decisions, decisions. But hot damn are things gonna get silly when Korath gets around to enabling enemies to choose between different decks (hopefully this gets done with enablers for them to scale up the more you defeat, I could mine that shi**t until Balrogs come out). Once I've mapped out the pool, ofc, I'm way behind on that because making these is taking all my time.

[stassy]

I do wonder if we can trick the game with the .vColor option in enemy deck : we know that this line add cards depending on the deck it's against, so maybe something like :

Lands
.vNone
originaldeck
.vBlack
alternativedeck1
.vBlue
alternativedeck2
.vGreen
alternativedeck3
etc...

Would do the trick. Will have to test that once I can be sure my game is really in NB1

[jiansonz]

I do wonder if we can trick the game with the .vColor option in enemy deck : we know that this line add cards depending on the deck it's against, so maybe something like :

Lands
.vNone
originaldeck
.vBlack
alternativedeck1
.vBlue
alternativedeck2
.vGreen
alternativedeck3
etc...

Would do the trick.

It's a good idea, but if the player isn't playing mono-colour, there's a risk the AI will get two sideboards, resulting in a huge deck with far too little land.

[lujo]

I was thinking we could maybe fool the game with the "X summons Y" thing. Sideboards might prove handy.

---

Warlock taking forever, every time I make progress on one front something breaks on another. This is the folder with Conjurer and Crusader, Winged Stallion with the Plated Pegasus hastily replaced, and the current Warlock permutation (although I'm not happy with it and it'll take more work, but you may as well test it if you're up for it.).

I'd write it up, but I'm sure I'll tweak it more before I do, fixing it's issues must be in front of my nose all the time but keeps evading me.

Might as well write it up, the final form is hopefully going to be similar, and in the least case there's gonna be some shuffling between it and the Witch eventually. Or it and some other decks.

Warlock 0055.dck | Open

.10410 3 Dread Warlock
.1592 4 Tendrils of Corruption
.1588 4 Corrupt
.239 25 Swamp
.2757 4 Pillar Tombs of Aku
.2822 4 Endless Cockroaches
.3993 4 Fog of Gnats
.1702 4 Priest of Gix
.2429 2 Charcoal Diamond
.13985 3 Squelching Leeches
.7082 3 Lose Hope

So here's how it works - it's got Dread Warlock, Priest of Gix and Squelching Leeches to do damage, and Endless Cockroaches and Fog of Gnats to stall up the board. It's supposed to kill your something with the removal (Lose Hope, Tendrils of Corruption) and drop Pillar Tombs of Aku on you. Followed up very soon by a Corrupt to the face.

If it has the cockroaches it can keep reccuring them as a sacrifice to the pillar tombs. I tried everything (and I mean everything) and they are the only thing that the AI can not arse up with / powerful enoguh to not mess the deck up if drawn in multiples. And I still had to add Priest of Gix in there for the deck to not be too slow.

When it works - it works. Game drags a bit, you get hit by a Corrupt, you die, that's the plan. However, the deck is bad vs. weenie swarms, and quite tight on the curve, and somewhat non-agressive, it always sacrifices to the pillar tombs even if it can make it work in it's favor and when I put it like this it sounds like it can't possibly work because there's too many problems, but I think the only thing that's really missing it some hard aggro in place of the more passive stuff and that if it could put pressure on the opponent it could work consistently.

Problem with that is that the deck messess up any evasion I've tried giving it apart from flying (and well, that black evasion simply doesn't work vs. black, darnit), and it also messes up any equipment I give it (I gave Shuko to the Witch for that very reason), Tawnos wand sucks up mana (and the deck is mana hungry as-is), and if I find something cheap and evasive to give it (like Tormented Soul or something) and also give it Bonesplitter the aggro rush is going to be quite murderous vs. anyone not black. Sucks vs. good removal and sucks somewhat vs. protection from white, too.

And that doesn't prevent the weenie rush problem - Pillar Tombs work quite well against decks which don't go for weenies, but not that great vs. them and the AI will still play them and sacrifice it's creatures.

The problem, the main problem, is that the deck can't play board wipe. Power level be damned, it can't play it because it would kill all of it's dudes, top of the curve is taken up by corrupt, bottom of the curve is taken up by weenies, and I'm not sure I can squeeze recursion in. And it would be necessary if I added, say, Mutilate somehow. I think I'll still try, though. There's also the Phyrexian Arena route, the deck certainly runs enough lifegain to handle it.

Try it out like this, I'm sure I'll think of something in the meantime. I don't want to give up on the Dread Warlock, and he's decent and all that, but I get the feeling I'm paying too much mana for that effect. I've had wins and lossess vs. the deck, it's not terrible, but I'm sure it can be much better (and it would've been allready but some stuff was just unusable by the AI).