First of all... thanks for the comments, guinsoo. In my view, we can only reach a set of acceptable guidelines if those are thoroughly discussed. The underlying logic was, as stassy mentioned, to prevent a situation like we have in Manalink (where there are billions of decks, but their power levels are not matched at all, making the Gauntlet not particularly fun).
Clarifying some points:
- the restriction on fetchlands/duals was not so much to prevent AI from playing them as much as it was about preventing the player from getting them easily through grinding (i.e. fight low level creatures over and over again to get them); if people think it doesn't make much sense to restrict them, I don't see any problem with that (a deck's power level ends up depending more on the nonlands than the lands anyway).
- as pointed out by
Bog Wraith, you are more than welcome to make and submit decks that don't conform at all to the guidelines (I'm 100% sure people will enjoy them either way... at least I will
).
- regarding the use of a spreadsheet, rather than a forum post... since it's probably not really possible to embed tables in forum posts, I guess I could also post a printscreen of the Excel file and post it along the file; alternatively, there's an
online tool you can use to check your Shandalar decks against the current "deckbuilding guidelines" (in bulk, if you want), which probably makes things more practical (just make the decks as you want and then pass them all in bulk through the online tool, which will tell you which ones should probably be a bit tweaked, if you actually want to make them conform to the "guidelines").
- regarding the issue #4 you mention (i.e. the problem of estimation of a deck's "power level")... this has been considered, and I'm also providing (in the previously mentioned tool) an estimate based on (among other things) the price of the cards that compose the deck (both in Shandalar and real life paper MTG); this is obviously far from perfect (since it cannot take into account things like "card synergy"), but it seems to give reasonable results when applied to e.g. the original Shandalar decks.
- regarding the issue #5... I'm not sure you are looking at the latest file
(see if it's this one
viewtopic.php?p=180424#p180424)... basically, the class "Special" was replaced by "Mythic" (which includes both mythic rare cards and power 9s); it's not an ideal situation, i know...
- regarding issue #6... I don't see any problem in relaxing the "number of cards in the deck" restrictions (and I doubt anyone else will either).
So... guinsoo... just confirm if you are looking at the latest file; see how you would modify it to make sense to you, and send it to me (i.e. post it here), if you have time and are willing to do so. I'll try to modify the guidelines to conform to your approach, if feasible.
Having into account guinsoo's comment, I will make the use of fetch lands and dual lands less restricted in the meantime (and will accordingly post a new set of guidelines once i have a bit of free time, and update the online tool). If anyone strongly disagrees (I doubt
), just say something. Any other comments and suggestions are welcome.
Fourth Inversion: Yes, tribal decks can be horribly overpowered; that's actually why I thought that some guidelines were really necessary
Restricting the number of rares kinda prevents those situations where half the decks are "Lords". My experience particularly against Merfolks has been different from guinsoo: I often get my assed kicked
but maybe I just play really bad
Posted: 20 Jun 2015, 02:57
. It'd be easier to make the suggested Cleric's deck stronger or more focused, by only sticking to one flavour, but I think it's strong enough to potentially win a few games against a starting player's deck. I'm a bit worried that the AI seems to blow up the sacrifice yourself -> gain life creatures at the earliest opportunity possible, so they could be replaced with other clerics.
