cards the ai plays badly

[muppet]

Now we have a new version I thought I'd make a list of cards the AI plays badly with explanations and or decklists.

I'll start with Welding Jar. The AI will happily regen a card that is under no threat e.g. an artefact land which just results in the loss of the Jar. Deck examples, affinity from firemind top decks modern.

I assume it does this because of a problem which might be common. In any given position there are a lot of actions which don't really affect the game massively and so it is almost 50/50 which will get more wins in the random trials. The only way I can see where you might fix this is if some abilities have a bias against using them. I have no idea how big a bias you wld need because too much and it won't regen things when it needs to, maybe 60/40 is enough to stop most of the random uses.

[muppet]

Suspicion that ai cannot flashback cards. Ancient Grudge for example will keep an eye on this.

edit: seems fine it managed to use Snapcaster Mage to cast a Swords to Ploughshares from the gy.

[PalladiaMors]

@muppet, they're aware of the problem you mention in the opening post, see Issue 116. In my view this is one of the biggest problems with the AI currently, since self-sacrificing abilities are very common and therefore this affects a lot of cards, and it's a very blatant error.

About the second one, I haven't played with cards with flashback recently, but I think I recall the AI playing Roar of the Wurm through flashback. It even seemed to me that the AI could see that sometimes it's supposed to discard the card in order to play it cheaper, although I can't be sure about that. This deck might be a good way to test that.

[muppet]

Hurkyl's Recall no targets.

[muppet]

Whisperwood Elemental sacrifice effect. Again I think you need a bias against using the sacrifice ability.

[muppet]

Mogg War Marshal, pretty much always pays the upkeep. You pretty much never want to pay the upkeep.

[muppet]

tried to Wasteland an untapped Misty Rainforest. And Strip Mine the same. Using Wasteland on tapped Tundra not untapped Tundra. Strip Mine used on Darksteel Citadel. It certainly used to try to destroy other indestructible things too. Wasteland on Darksteel Citadel too.

[muppet]

casts Daze even when the opponent has a mana untapped. And Cursecatcher.

[muppet]

Delver of Secrets. There is no reason to ever reveal the card when it does not transform you could just hard wire this.

[muppet]

AI has Soul's Attendant in play and plays Ajani's Pridemate and chooses not to gain life. This was right at the start of the game. This is probably another case for adding bias so that adding life is say 75% likely before the search.

[PalladiaMors]

AI has Soul's Attendant in play and plays Ajani's Pridemate and chooses not to gain life. This was right at the start of the game. This is probably another case for adding bias so that adding life is say 75% likely before the search.

This last one is one of several situations where I imagined it could be useful to transform certain may choices into simple may choices with a default choice. For example, sometimes the AI skips drawing from cards like Solemn Simulacrum, or passes a chance to counter something with Counterbalance.

There are problems with having a default choice, though. For example, is some rare situations, you may not want to draw (opponent has Underworld Dreams or Black Vise in play). You might not want to reveal your top card with Counterbalance if you know what it is already and know it won't counter whatever is in the stack.

But I do think it could be a good idea to study the possibility of doing more choices as simple choices, though it should require some thinking and caution.

[muppet]

Spellskite. I cast Dismember at the Spellskite, AI redirects it to the Spellskite twice!!

[muppet]

Standstill. AI plays Standstill and then casts Standstill the next turn.

[muppet]

Batterskull. AI likes to pay 3 to put it back in its hand for no reason. I suggest a bias against this unless the card is a target or unequipped.

[muppet]

Solemn Simulacrum failed to search for basic land.