"So this is why my Sideboards aren't loading..."

[Rawky]

I've been working on some Enemy Decks for a while now and I've just recently hit a wall. Everytime I fight a Paladin, it has 57 cards. I can't seem to figure out why my Paladin deck isn't loading its sideboard cards. It's probably really obvious, but I am overlooking it nonetheless. Please help!

0175.rar

(638 Bytes) Downloaded 299 times

[Rawky]

Actually, is anyone with AS2 able to get any sideboards to work?

I just noticed that other decks are not loading their sideboards, but I'm quite sure they used to, at least before I installed AS2.

Maybe I need a clean reinstall.

[stassy]

I never was able to make sideboard work outside the original decks, was it working for you in previous Korath version?

[Rawky]

was it working for you in previous Korath version?

I'm pretty sure I had something working just last month. I mean, I specifically remember seeing evidence in the form of two colors of circles of protection from a deck that only had them in the sideboard. I remember thinking that it was confirmation that the game adds the color-specific sections based on meeting a requirement in the player-deck, which I still don't know what it is (I think it's based on quantity of colored spells, but I am not sure). I remember heading to town right afterwards to check how many spells of each color I had in my deck, and I clearly had more of two colors (same colors of the circles I saw) than the 3rd color. Didn't put much more thought into it. This was after the March 2016 release and after I made that excel file of the full card list. I think I was playtesting against my new Priestess deck.

Actually, here's her deck list. Notice how there is no Exile in the main deck. She definitely cast Exile on me and I also remember her casting Lifeblood once and I had to play around it.

Priestess | Open

.4 1 Animate Wall
.10109 2 Armillary Sphere
.12890 1 Basilica Guards
.3713 2 Brilliant Halo
.13410 1 Colossus of Akros
.9949 2 Dispeller's Capsule
.14891 2 Dragon's Eye Sentry
.620 1 Elder Land Wurm
.11118 1 Elixir of Immortality
.642 2 Fortified Area
.2714 1 Gossamer Chains
.12392 1 Haunted Guardian
.1517 1 Idyllic Tutor
.10576 2 Kabira Crossroads
.8982 1 New Benalia
.12039 1 One-Eyed Scarecrow
.13784 1 Pillar of War
.188 15 Plains
.9627 1 Plumeveil
.14158 2 Radiant Fountain
.6941 1 Razor Golem
.4180 1 Replenish
.969 1 Rolling Stones
.3419 1 Shifting Wall
.5688 1 Second Thoughts
.10680 2 Sunspring Expedition
.8320 1 Wakestone Gargoyle
.6459 2 Wall of Hope
.11078 1 Wall of Omens
.545 1 Wall of Spears
.273 1 Wall of Swords
.11079 1 Warmonger's Chariot
.1467 2 Wayfarer's Bauble

.vNone
.12890 1 Basilica Guards
.2714 1 Gossamer Chains
.12039 1 One-Eyed Scarecrow
.vBlack
.33 1 Circle of Protection: Black
.2279 1 Exile
.844 1 Wall of Light
.vBlue
.1876 1 Blue Scarab
.34 1 Circle of Protection: Blue
.2279 1 Exile
.vGreen
.1960 1 Green Scarab
.35 1 Circle of Protection: Green
.2279 1 Exile
.vRed
.36 1 Circle of Protection: Red
.2279 1 Exile
.715 1 Lifeblood
.vWhite
.128 1 Ivory Cup
.37 1 Circle of Protection: White
.2714 1 Gossamer Chains

I also remember how this affected my Undead Knight deck, because it has larger than standard sideboard chunks. This resulted in a slight bloating of the deck with non-land cards and skewed the land ratio. It was sort of a side experiment while working through the lower tiers of mono-color decks. I definitely saw the Undead Knight cast Crypt Incursion and Moor Fiend, which were the same two colors of sideboard cards that the Priestess added against me back then. It's also worth noting that there is no Order of Yawgmoth in the main deck, but it's in the no-color sideboard, and I definitely had to deal with that guy. Another clear memory is my saying the f-word outloud at work after a late-game Dregs of Sorrow for 3 or 4, which is only a sideboard card. I quickly looked around to make sure I was alone.

Undead Knight | Open

.10109 2 Armillary Sphere
.13383 2 Asphodel Wanderer
.8 1 Bad Moon
.16 1 Black Knight
.10732 2 Bojuka Bog
.2422 2 Cadaverous Knight
.55 2 Dark Ritual
.15378 2 Mortuary Mire
.3119 2 Dauthi Mercenary
.407 2 Desert
.11118 1 Elixir of Immortality
.12583 1 Knight of Infamy
.1564 1 Knight of Stromgald
.9585 1 Kulrath Knight
.1556 2 Order of the Ebon Hand
.14151 1 Paragon of Open Graves
.2329 2 Phyrexian Boon
.11496 1 Phyrexian Crusader
.12442 2 Predator's Gambit
.1689 1 Sanguine Guard
.3038 2 Shadow Rider
.6270 1 Smother
.9882 1 Stillmoon Cavalier
.1701 1 Stromgald Crusader
.239 15 Swamp
.1651 2 Torture
.1467 2 Wayfarer's Bauble
.4294 1 Zhang He, Wei General

.vNone
.4370 1 Dakmor Lancer
.1098 1 Nekrataal
.1690 1 Order of Yawgmoth
.242 2 Terror
.vBlack
.3755 1 Duress
.3709 1 Bog Raiders
.4401 1 Bog Smugglers
.1456 1 Hymn to Tourach
.1704 1 Moor Fiend
.vBlue
.3126 1 Dregs of Sorrow
.3755 1 Duress
.1456 1 Hymn to Tourach
.1098 1 Nekrataal
.1690 1 Order of Yawgmoth
.vGreen
.4370 1 Dakmor Lancer
.8357 1 Deathmark
.3126 1 Dregs of Sorrow
.8771 1 Dunerider Outlaw
.1098 1 Nekrataal
.vRed
.3755 1 Duress
.13138 1 Crypt Incursion
.6890 1 Essence Drain
.3126 1 Dregs of Sorrow
.1456 1 Hymn to Tourach
.vWhite
.8357 1 Deathmark
.3126 1 Dregs of Sorrow
.1456 1 Hymn to Tourach
.1374 1 Ihsan's Shade
.1690 1 Order of Yawgmoth

[Aswan jaguar]

Do you remember what colour or colours or most cards of which colour and which one was the selected one where you playtesting?

[Rawky]

Do you remember what colour or colours or most cards of which colour and which one was the selected one where you playtesting?

Sorry, can you split that into maybe two questions? I'm not sure whether you're referring to my deck or the computer deck.

Also, I added more to my previous post.

My deck at the time was black-red-green. Most of it was black-red, hence the sideboard cards indicated for each enemy deck listed above. I didn't specifically count how many of each color I had, I just quickly glanced at the deck list and noted that the number of green cards was visibly much less.

[Korath]

The sideboarding system is screwy and badly in need of replacement. There's code that looks like it tries to only sideboard if you fight monsters of the same color a couple times in a row with decks of the same color; if a given color of enemy hasn't played enough duels to start sideboarding even once, it doesn't even use the .vNone section. Higher difficulty has an unclear influence on the delay (though I'd assume it would decrease or eliminate it), and lieutenant-class enemies and above bypass it entirely. It also looks like it gets corrupted if a different enemy gets summoned, like Witch/Seer/Enchantress/Sorceress do.

[Rawky]

That is interesting. Maybe I need to spam fights on a single color before I will see them. This would explain why I was able to get it working last month, since I was going after a certain color enemy over and again.

[Rawky]

Aha! Green Scarab!

Right before fighting this Priestess, I fought a Tusk Guardian. I guess he counts as white (both?).

Awesome!

Now I can go back to brewing my super-amazing deck pack. I'm only 16 decks in, so far, but the results are SO FUN!

I had an ultra cool idea for Arzakon, but I had to scrap it because at the time I didn't know the game loaded multiple sideboard chunks (or in some cases nothing at all). I was going to have 6 different decks in there, with the player deck determining which one loads for the final battle. Can't really do that so much now, but maybe I can muster an interesting variation (Yes. Yes I can).

Since I've already posted two of the tier 2 decks and 1 tier 3, I might reveal some others as I get closer to the finished product. However, these are meant to be played with a brand new save game with the classic dual lands entered into the NoChoose section. It's meant to be a different kind of hard mode. To give you an idea, I can't playtest anything efficiently if I go higher than Apprentice. I get destroyed by the tier 1 decks (Cleric, Druid, Sorceress, etc).

[stassy]

As the sideboard cannot be tested in infinite duel since it has campaign requirements, would be nice to know exactly what trigger it...thanks in advance Rawky

[Rawky]

As the sideboard cannot be tested in infinite duel since it has campaign requirements, would be nice to know exactly what trigger it...thanks in advance Rawky

So far, I've learned that the AI does not seem to add more than 2 sideboard chunks to the deck at one time, even when I have an even number of 3 different colors of spells and basic land. It also seems to prefer certain colors, but I don't understand enough of what I am seeing to say more.

At this point, I'd rather read code.

[Rawky]

I tried making a completely colorless deck, but the game still loaded the .vRed and .vGreen sideboard sections against me. No clue how to force it to load the .vNone section.

[Rawky]

I'm tempted to just put 3x Black Lotus in all the .vNone sections and wait until someone somewhere says, "What's with all the Black Lotuses?" (after sharing my completed enemy deck pack, sometime in the future)

[Rawky]

I just had an interesting occurrence on the topic of sideboards. In the below image, you can see three different birds, each with Protection from Black, Red, and Green. In this particular enemy deck (spoiler list below), these only exist in the sideboard sections for those colors. I counted the library, hand, graveyard, and cards in play - 72 present. Meaning even a 4th set was in there somewhere.

I screwed up two turns later and died horribly, so I never saw what the 4th set was; presumable it was white since I was playing mostly W-R-G. It's hard to tell from the picture alone, but a couple cards happened and the game swung wildly against me.

Anyways, here's a teaser list for one of the decks from my soon-to-be-released enemy deck pack. There are 3 decks still in playtesting, 8 more to be built and playtested, then I'm done. Making 55 effective and interesting decks is harder than it might seem.

Winged Stallion Teaser | Open

Winged Stallion (Ub/Wh, Type 1)

.6039 1 Airborne Aid
.12540 2 Arctic Aven
.995 1 Coastal Piracy
.8198 1 Dovescape
.11118 1 Elixir of Immortality
.10534 1 Emeria Angel
.10537 1 Expedition Map
.2483 2 Flood Plain
.1487 1 Flooded Strand
.10278 1 Flurry of Wings
.1713 1 Hallowed Fountain
.126 4 Island
.12760 4 Judge's Familiar
.6404 3 Keeper of the Nine Gales
.12425 2 Mist Raven
.8984 1 Nimbus Maze
.14976 3 Palace Familiar
.188 4 Plains
.15403 1 Prairie Stream
.11160 4 Preordain
.10660 2 Sejiri Refuge
.1205 4 Seaside Citadel
.6957 1 Skullclamp
.6005 3 Soulcatchers' Aerie
.11174 4 Squadron Hawk
.5143 1 Teferi's Moat
.14413 2 Tranquil Cove
.9721 1 Windbrisk Raptor
.14433 2 Wingmate Roc
.13359 1 Warden of Evos Isle

.vNone
.vBlack
.1404 2 Duskrider Falcon
.5836 1 Major Teroh
.vBlue
.1206 2 Arcane Sanctum
.5861 1 Possessed Aven
.vGreen
.6495 2 Coast Watcher
.5742 1 Treetop Sentinel
.vRed
.5476 1 Aven Smokeweaver
.1401 2 Freewind Falcon
.vWhite
.8506 1 Cloudchaser Kestrel
.13449 2 Glare of Heresy