Manalink Update May 6 2009 - Vanguard

[aww1979]

Hmm, now I am curious what that chaos orb avatar is, lol. I only played once with vanguard ,and that was like 10 years ago, so I don't really know what they do. I like those gold cards, those are perfect for my fun deck styles, where I play 5 colour 499 card decks :p Only problem is, I don't think vanguard likes that big a deck, or at least Momir doesn't, because Momir works on my normal size decks. (I posted somewhere else in more detail about that)

Slightly off-topic: I went through my entire collection and made notes of various wishlist cards, either powerful cards or cards that are just plain fun. It's probably at least a hundred cards, so I haven't put it up, but there's some good ones in there that I don't think anyone has ever suggested, and many that shouldn't be too hard to do, given similar existing cards.

[jatill]

Hmm, now I am curious what that chaos orb avatar is, lol. I only played once with vanguard ,and that was like 10 years ago, so I don't really know what they do. I like those gold cards, those are perfect for my fun deck styles, where I play 5 colour 499 card decks :p Only problem is, I don't think vanguard likes that big a deck, or at least Momir doesn't, because Momir works on my normal size decks. (I posted somewhere else in more detail about that)

Slightly off-topic: I went through my entire collection and made notes of various wishlist cards, either powerful cards or cards that are just plain fun. It's probably at least a hundred cards, so I haven't put it up, but there's some good ones in there that I don't think anyone has ever suggested, and many that shouldn't be too hard to do, given similar existing cards.

No idea why Momir shouldn't work for any size deck. I'll try it out on Monday. Try putting a different vanguard avatar into your giant deck and let me know how it goes.

Go ahead and put your giant wishlist in that thread. A lot of the cards I make I would have remembered if no one posted them.

[stassy]

Chaos Avatar made me lol when I played it. it's the perfect way for random deck generator though the innate ability is a bit too much maybe.

Also when I created the Chaos Avatar deck, I didn't know you only had to put it alone in the deck so I included it in my test land deck (land x 50 unicolor usually used for Momir) and I got a 90 cards deck. After several shuffle I noticed there are a lot more artifact cards than colored ones and I had no hand size limit.

Edit: seems to be size hand limit is 10

[Tower_Mazer]

Thanks for doing such good work Jatill. Finally Reflecting Pool you are the man! I'm trying to get used to these avatars as they are different than the ones I am used to. All of these were from MTGO or were some of these printed in their over sized version? 5 days until my freedom from school .

[jatill]

Thanks for doing such good work Jatill. Finally Reflecting Pool you are the man! I'm trying to get used to these avatars as they are different than the ones I am used to. All of these were from MTGO or were some of these printed in their over sized version? 5 days until my freedom from school .

These are all magic online avatars, except Chaos Orb.

[jatill]

This is a really minor update, but it's the last one I plan on doing for the next 3 weeks. (we'll see if I stick to that or not...)
http://www.savefile.com/files/1997761

Changes:
-Added the 'Chaos Orb Lite' Avatar, which just builds a random deck for you, but does not mess with your life or hand size like the normal Chaos Orb avatar does.
-Updated my random card generator so that illegal cards (like Sword of Light and Shadow) don't appear in your random decks
-Similar change so that the list of creatures for momir doesn't have to be updated any more
-Updated the AI Base Value for several cards, so that the AI drafts better. All those values in the csv could still use an overhaul. If anyone feels like updating one of more of those values, here's the scores I would recommend using.

100-200 Bombs that potentially win the game on their own (Loxodon Warhammer, Meloku, Fireball)
80-99 High Quality removal (Terror, Swords to Plowshares)
70-79 Very strong Creatures (Air Elemental, Serra Angel)
60-69 Strong Spells (Tidings)
50-59 Above Average Creatures (Durkwood Boars, Prodigal Sorcerer)
40-49 Medium quality Removal (ex: Immolation)
20-39 Average Creatures
10-19 Lands and mana fixers
1-9 Filler cards (ex: Grizzly Bears)
0 Cards that should never make your draft / sealed deck

[stassy]

Image graphic for Chaos Lite can be done by just copying the Avatar Chaos Orb image file 1883.jpg and rename it to 1885.jpg

About card value in the csv, it's going to be tough to rate, since some powerful cards need a combo deck and are useless alone

[jatill]

Image graphic for Chaos Lite can be done by just copying the Avatar Chaos Orb image file 1883.jpg and rename it to 1885.jpg

About card value in the csv, it's going to be tough to rate, since some powerful cards need a combo deck and are useless alone

The ratings only count for Sealed and Draft, so cards like Cadaverous Bloom that are only good in combo decks would earn a 0 for Draft.

[stassy]

Oh and btw AI Avatar Chaos always choose Sol ring, that mean its rating is god tier to him

[jatill]

Oh and btw AI Avatar Chaos always choose Sol ring, that mean its rating is god tier to him

The AI is completely incompetent with tutors, so I just told it to always take Sol Ring. Seems like a good bet, since that was the card I was fetching about half the time.

[0rion79]

Jatill, about tutors, what about using the card value that I've increased for sealed deck?
I've seen that the AI, when it is the time to create decks, is using anti-creature/artifacts/enchantments much more than before and also is using more drawing cards... so, since the AI is so lame in selecting cards, what about telling to seek the availeable card with the highest value?
PS: I was thinking to disable bouncelands in sealed deck because, at least in my version, the AI keeps targeting the same bounceland instead than basic lands, no matter what value I've included for lands.

[jatill]

Jatill, about tutors, what about using the card value that I've increased for sealed deck?
I've seen that the AI, when it is the time to create decks, is using anti-creature/artifacts/enchantments much more than before and also is using more drawing cards... so, since the AI is so lame in selecting cards, what about telling to seek the availeable card with the highest value?
PS: I was thinking to disable bouncelands in sealed deck because, at least in my version, the AI keeps targeting the same bounceland instead than basic lands, no matter what value I've included for lands.

I don't know where the AI selection code is, so I don't really want to dig in and mess with that presently. For Chaos Orb, the card with the highest value probably would be Sol Ring or Black Lotus anyway, since you can pick any card.

I don't understand the problem you're having with bouncelands. The AI should never play them (they get converted into dual lands). And remember, I don't think the AI Base Values are used during game play, but only for building sealed and draft decks.

[stassy]

Hum noticed in the deck tool if you disable all color filter you get also a card called Draft which is carbon copy of Avatar Chaos Orb...

[Dwedit]

Is Nevinyrral's Disk supposed to destory vanguards?

[aww1979]

LOL, probably not :p