Shandalar enemy decks overhaul

[guinsoo]

@jiansonz @stassy for card draw for Nether Fiend deck perhaps consider Phyrexian Arena. It's like Dark Tutelage but costs 1 health per turn and doesn't reveal the card.

@quatrocentos-e-vinte for now I'm removing the good fetch lands from the lower tier decks and replacing them with Mirage fetchlands in decks that can afford to drop a tapped land on turn 1. Doesn't seem to hurt them too badly so far and keeps my desired deck thinning while keeping them harder to acquire.

On that note, we should try to make a list of cards that need price adjustments (in the Nomad's Bazaar etc). A few examples: I think duals and fetch lands are too cheap (~200 and 150 respectively, maybe not too far off); Berserk, Fork, and some other old cards that used to be in dungeons cost 100 (maybe OK?); I've seen a few commons that are not particularly amazing that I sold in a city for 1000+ gold; some old cards that aren't very good anymore are still probitively expensive like Shivan Dragon. In general almost all the new cards seem to use the 'cheap' pricing for each level of rarity.

@quatrocentos-e-vinte I agree about restricting/regulating the number of lords (seems to be the most direct indicator of the early decks' power so far). Should perhaps make that its own category, especially since some lords aren't rare.

I'm not supremely familiar with mythic rarity cards. What is their power level generally like, what kind of cards are they?

Trying to hold off posting decks until I have a full set. 24 more decks to go...

[stassy]

For Nether Fiend (and all the enemies), my take was to put a maximum of various cards in order also to test them (though I must admit that most new cards past Shandalar and coded by Korath are not bugged, sorry Gargz) while fitting in the theme (fetchland are originally replacing Cabal Coffers which is not in yet); after creating the Sorceress nuke deck I found it very limited and boring while damage efficient.
Of course, this is a temporary deck because new cards inc soon and I am not good enough player to make good decks, but I will happily compile "final decks" into pack and test them though :p

About tribal deck, I am not sure they need to be nerfed because of their T3 gg issue (T1>tribal,T2>lord,>T3>lord>gg), because unless you get a enemy swap or deck swap you can quickly choose between your 3 decks before the enemy hit you and counterpick him in time.

I don't know also if it's a good idea to test enemy deck in ML3 duel/gauntlet type, as Korath said earlier they must be tougher than the originals but not duel killer, and unless they are all set to 20 life with 60 cards they are destined to die (that is also why I put "taxing" cards because they need to die at some point :p)

[jiansonz]

Yes, I know that running gauntlets isn't quite the same as in Shandalar. But it's pretty good for getting a feel for if a deck is working as intended or not (mana screw often or not, empty hand but still behind on the battlefield and in life amount, too slow in general, etc.), as well as to see which decks/cards/combos are handled well by the AI and which ones not so much.

The decks I most often get creamed by are:
Elvish Magi and Summoner (quatro's elf version)
Merfolk Shaman
Sorceress and Sorcerer (your versions, stassy)
Goblin Lord
Undead Knight
High Priest
Centaur Warchief

And the Conjurer's bouncing bonanza can get really nasty, too.

[Korath]

Testing in the Manalink gauntlet isn't going to give any clue at all how well the Shandalar AI deals with a deck. The AI weighting functions are different and essentially none of the cards share implementations.

I'm not sure how much of the gauntlet remains in Shandalar.exe (by way of contrast, all of the duel engine's support for multiplayer is present, but the networking layer is removed); but even if none of it is, I may be able to rig an option to force a duel at program start between two given AI decks, or perhaps between a given AI decks and a continuous succession of other random AI decks, if people think it would be especially useful.

[gmzombie]

Just curious since you touched on this is that the same multiplayer parts that are still present in manalink or is that the missing link to helping out multiplayer in manalink or not really anything. It would be great to have multi player again in manalink.

[stassy]

AI vs AI in would be awesome, even in Manalink.

I am curious about multiplayer as well, I was tempted some time ago to run a multiplayer session with a Ruined Tower version...but as I saw that the updates are coming fast, I restrained myself...

[Korath]

I meant the human playing with one of the AI decks against the AI with another AI deck. AI vs. AI would be a considerable amount of effort to little real purpose.

[stassy]

Here is Orion79 version of Crag Hydra, following the original flavor which was a Power Barb Flare deck with the usual staples white splashed to survive the 1st rounds before landing stompers.
I tried to find alternatives to missing cards but all I could was to put crap until more cards are coded (there are only 2 Hydra creatures and 1 instant green flavored Hydra card coded for now).

Crag Hydra (0207.dck)

| Open

Crag Hydra (R, 4th)

.145 4 Lightning Bolt
.75 3 Earthquake
.192 2 Power Surge
.710 1 Land Tax
.64 2 Disenchant
.240 2 Swords to Plowshares
.660 1 Greater Realm of Preservation
.131 1 Jayemdae Tome
.188 2 Plains
.164 10 Mountain
.189 4 Plateau
.36 1 Circle of Protection: Red
.224 1 Shivan Dragon
.155 2 Mana Flare
.84 1 Fireball
.65 1 Disintegrate
.12052 2 Rebuke
.1708 2 Sacred Foundry
.158 2 Manabarbs
.1525 1 Enlightened Tutor
.13258 2 Archangel of Thune
.6886 1 Echoing Ruin
.6883 1 Echoing Calm
.207 1 Rock Hydra
.528 2 Strip Mine
.11118 1 Elixir of Immortality
.14432 1 Wind-Scarred Crag
.13673 1 Bolt of Keranos
.7239 1 Honden of Infinite Rage
.10800 1 Mordant Dragon
.466 2 Amulet of Kroog
.1607 1 Akroma's Memorial

Unfortunately I couldn't test the deck in Shandalar because I have yet to find a reliable Crag Hydra spawn area...

[jiansonz]

Hydra deck looks interesting. Protection and destruction, with a few (but potentially nasty) creatures. Which is the other coded hydra card besides Rock Hydra?

[stassy]

Hydra Omnivore (which is not really useful in Shandalar, only in multiplayer game) and...Aspect of Hydra (duh!)

Going for Saltrem Tor in a few, though I like your version jiansonz

[stassy]

Just noticed that I got the wrong djinn, but whatever, this deck can fit any Djinn enemy like because...this is a Djinn Deck

Saltrem Tor (0456.dck)

| Open

Saltrem Tor (U/G/R, 4th)

.154 2 Mahamoti Djinn
.12 2 Bayou
.252 2 Tropical Island
.258 2 Underground Sea
.434 4 Juzám Djinn
.455 2 Serendib Djinn
.416 3 Erhnam Djinn
.239 2 Swamp
.126 2 Island
.91 2 Forest
.298 1 Dark Heart of the Wood
.15 4 Birds of Paradise
.1341 2 Treachery
.1110 1 Phyrexian Arena
.410 1 Diamond Valley
.1017 1 Diabolic Tutor
.80 1 Fastbond
.409 1 Desert Twister
.194 2 Psionic Blast
.1411 2 Nettletooth Djinn
.10309 1 Maelstrom Pulse
.7242 1 Honden of Seeing Winds
.7241 1 Honden of Night's Reach
.12431 1 Natural End
.1144 2 Sever Soul
.1506 1 Putrefy
.11118 1 Elixir of Immortality
.7240 1 Honden of Life's Web
.1513 1 Gaea's Cradle
.11451 2 Go for the Throat
.7256 1 Journeyer's Kite
.14339 2 Opulent Palace
.11985 2 Hinterland Harbor
.12127 2 Woodland Cemetery
.10411 2 Drowned Catacomb

Average Djinn deck with life supply in order to counter their side effect, Juzám Djinn will mostly go for the win if nothing else on the way.

[jiansonz]

Yeah, Saltrem Tor has traditionally played green/blue/red.

As for your Hydra deck, I had a hunch that Baneslayer Angel is not in the game (yet?) so I checked it out now that I got home from work. Indeed it isn't.

[stassy]

Ah you are right, I forgot to replace this one, well not much choice but Archangel of Thune instead, I updated to deck in my previous post.

[jiansonz]

Ah you are right, I forgot to replace this one, well not much choice but Archangel of Thune instead, I updated to deck in my previous post.

Path to Exile also needs to be replaced, for now.

I tried the deck out a little. Nice! Obvious, but this deck again drives home the point how well Mana Flare works along with X-cost spells. Also, I have new respect for Greater Realm of Preservation. Stops many threats if you have mana to spare and it works nicely when Power Surge is out (in Manalink, I pretend that mana burn exists, otherwise one can really just tap all lands on the other player's turn...).

[Aswan jaguar]

I tried the deck out a little. Nice! Obvious, but this deck again drives home the point how well Mana Flare works along with X-cost spells. Also, I have new respect for Greater Realm of Preservation. Stops many threats if you have mana to spare and it works nicely when Power Surge is out (in Manalink, I pretend that mana burn exists, otherwise one can really just tap all lands on the other player's turn...).

You can insert the mana burn into Manalinm3.0 as Korath has made that possible and don't pretend it exists.In config.txt you will see:
// Re-enables mana burn if set to 1. Enables it only for the human player if
// set to 2.
ManaBurn:0

so set it to 1 and voila manaburn is on.