Shandalar Deck Analyser

[quatrocentos-e-vinte]

~ Shandalar Deck Analyser v0.03 alpha ~

For those of you making new decks for the Shandalar characters/enemies deck pools, this online tool may be useful. It reads any .dck file you upload (or a bunch of them, if you want) and gives you some statistics. In the case of Shandalar decks, it also tries to compare those statistics against some given "guidelines" for the corresponding character (currently, the guidelines are the ones described here; if you disagree with them (as you should), please say something on that post).

This software should not be confused with the awesome Manalink PlayDeck Analyser by CirothUngol. If you need a "swiss knife" to deal with bulk modification of .dck files and so on, that's what you need, not this

If, on the other hand, you're a hardcore Shandalar deckbuilder...
-> Click here for the online version. <-

Instructions: | Open

1) Upload file(s);
2) Read analysis;
3) If you need to analyse another one, go to step 1 (no need to refresh the page).

Known bugs/issues: | Open

- Sideboards are not supported (i.e. deck with sideboard import ok, but whatever is in the sideboard is disregarded)

If the online version is not working or if you otherwise prefer to use an offline version, please see this post. If using the offline version, update to the current version by extracting the contents of the "bundle update" inside the "shiny" folder.

[stassy]

No offline version, pretty please ?

I tried with my version of Lord of Fate and I get this result :

Number of mythic cards: >3. Dark Ritual

Does that mean the limit is 3 and was broken?

[quatrocentos-e-vinte]

No offline version, pretty please ?

I'll prepare a desktop version of it soon; just want to get the most obvious bugs solved first (and to add some essential features, like "bulk deck analysis" and fixing definition of "mythic" in the database).

I tried with my version of Lord of Fate and I get this result :

Number of mythic cards: >3. Dark Ritual

Does that mean the limit is 3 and was broken?

Yes, that's what it means; I'll make some clearer instructions later.. for now... "ok" means that it's ok, otherwise it gives you a hint of what's wrong. That "Dark Ritual" bit shouldn't appear though... maybe you can post the deck here?

Either way, after analysing the original Shandalar decks, I figured out that the limits are waaaay too low. I've uploaded a new proposal for the limits, so the "Shandalar Deck Analyser" rules will also be updated in the meantime. If you find them too restrictive still, while testing your decks, point it out. The point is not to be overly restrictive and annoy everyone, but just to prevent people from making Witch decks full of Moxen, Black Lotus, Necropotence and Contract from Below

[quatrocentos-e-vinte]

I've fixed the "rarities" definitions for Enemy deckbuilding. If you disagree with any particular situation that doesn't make much sense (e.g. Fyndhorn Elves was "mythic", since it *has* been printed at mythic level, for some reason... I changed it back to "common"), tell me, so I fix it in the database. So far, it should be ok...

I've also adjusted the deck "guidelines" so they are not horribly restrictive. Please say something if they are ok with the decks you test or not.

I just need to implement "bulk analysis" mode, which I haven't had time to, yet (but should be quick).

Regarding an "offline version", I already have a working package (just unzip and run a .bat). The only issue is that this a web app with a large dependency, so... well... unless you have R installed, the download will be quite large if you want to run it locally sorry. The app (+data) itself is like 200 Ko, but the whole bundle (app + R Portable) is like 100 Mo(!). If that is not a problem to you, stassy, then I can upload an easy-to-run offline version soon... it's already prepared, in fact.

[stassy]

The Dark Ritual note was just a copy paste to reference which mythic card was breaking the rule, it's not a bug per se.

Thanks for the offline version, I would really like to use it as I am often in area without internet and with the new guidelines rule it would help a lot (100 Mo is no problem)

[quatrocentos-e-vinte]

I think I managed to reach a level where I'm happy with the (minimal set of) functionalities and I think most obvious bugs should be gone now.

As such, and by popular demand (i.e. stassy asked), you can download a local/desktop version of the app here (warning: ~90 MB file). If someone knows a more reliable place to store this file, please tell me

I tried to make this bundle as simple as possible to use:

Installation:
1) Unzip package somewhere.

Usage:
1) Run 'Shandalar Deck Analyser.lnk' file in the root of the folder;
2) If that doesn't work, just run the 'run.bat' file inside the 'shiny' folder (it's what the .lnk does anyway);
3) You should see a minimized console window appear (which is a mini-webserver running on a random port) and a tab should open in your default browser with the app (i.e. pointing at that local webserver);
4) When you're done using, just close the tab/browser, and the webserver will kill itself.

I didn't hide the webserver process so it's easy to know when it is running or not (and so the user can kill it easily also, if needed).

If anything goes wrong, for some strange reason, it will spit a log file inside the "shiny" folder.

In the meantime, I added the "bulk analysis" mode, which should make it easier to analyse a whole folder of files

I guess that's all... any questions, bug reports, feature requests, just post them here. As far as I'm concerned, it already does what I need it to do, so I probably won't add many more features (unless requested). I should be making Shandalar decks, not coding

[stassy]

Unfortunately, trying to run the SDA give me this error (invalid win32 application) :



With log file stating "Access Denied" (even though I removed all file writing protection before), and it even corrupted winXP by corrupting any screencapture graphic file created into invalid file to be uploaded on image hoster, I had to reboot in order to fix the latter

I guess I will stick to the website version until then

[quatrocentos-e-vinte]

Are you using a 32-bit or 64-bit Windows? If you are using 32-bit, it makes sense that you're having problems sorry.

If that's the case, the fix should be simple: replace the 'run.bat' that is in the 'shiny' folder by the one I include in this post (the difference is that it invokes the 32-bit binary of R, rather than the 64-bit one).

[stassy]

Thanks, it work now.

Does Shandalar column mean SDA check if at least one card is not Shandalar coded or does it mean something else?

Is character name Arzakon set for default or non specific character deck?

Is it possible to have the deck filename in the 1st column for better deck visility?

[quatrocentos-e-vinte]

Thanks, it work now.

Good one less bug

Does Shandalar column mean SDA check if at least one card is not Shandalar coded or does it mean something else?

SDA does not check whether cards are coded in Shandalar or not (mostly because I am not 100% sure how to figure that one out but also because that might change over time, while card rarity shouldn't). The assumption is that the person making the decks is using Deck.exe with the appropriate rarity.dat file.

The column only indicates whether the deck is in Shandalar-compatible format (i.e. first line is NOT a comment and contains the character's name) or not (i.e. in normal Manalink format).

Is character name Arzakon set for default or non specific character deck?

"Arzakon" is chosen as comparison reference whenever the character is determined to be "Unknown" (since it's the character with the least restrictive guidelines, in general). In the case of Manalink decks, the program doesn't even try to figure out a character. In the case of Shandalar decks, it will read the first line of the deck and try to determine from that what the character is; if that does not work (and only if that does not work), it will instead read the first 4 characters of the filename and compare with the known character "id" values. Only if it can't figure out the character based on either the file contents or the filename will it consider the character "Unknown" (and thereby compare it against "Arzakon").

This design choice was just to simplify the program logic. Nevertheless, the deck character in such cases should be indicated as "Unknown", rather than "Arzakon". If that's not the case, it's a bug.

If there's interest, I can also implement prediction of character name for Manalink format decks (e.g. you can make a deck in Deck.exe, name it as '0010_whatever.dck', and SDA will know that it should compare it with 'Lord of Fate' guidelines, even if the deck is not in strict Shandalar format).

Is it possible to have the deck filename in the 1st column for better deck visility?

Sure. I guess I should also move the "character" to the 2nd column as well...

EDIT: Ok, the online version should be fixed now. Please check if it's ok for you, stassy. If you find any other bugs or need any other features before I upload a small update for the desktop bundle, tell me.

[stassy]

Thanks for the fixes, it's really handy to have a quick stats peek when making Shandalar deck

For some reasons, the Arzakon name popped on Manalink decks but no more now.

Prediction name would be nice indeed.

Also got some errors with a Manalink test deck, not that it's major but just wanted to point it out:

test deck uploaded alone


test deck upload with something else

[quatrocentos-e-vinte]

Thanks for the testing

The "Arzakon" thing (instead of "Unknown") was a bug that I fixed, yes. This problem you had now with test.dck was also an error on my part that was causing all decks with less than 3 unique cards to fail (should be fixed now in the online version, if you test with the same deck).

I'll just add character prediction for Manalink decks later on today, then, and upload an update for the offline version. If you find any other bugs, just post them here and I'll try to fix them before releasing an update.

[quatrocentos-e-vinte]

After some delay, here is a new version of the code, with an update for the offline bundle (see top post). I've added some more graphs for the "single deck analysis" mode and introduced the necessary fixes.

[stassy]

Seems to be when bulking decks you only get the summary table, not the others data, I'm sure in the previous version there was the complete the data for each deck...

[quatrocentos-e-vinte]

(Thanks for testing...)

You mean the comparison of the deck stats with the "guidelines"? If yes, then I haven't been able to reproduce the problem, either offline or online (i.e. it seems to work for me).

A few points:

1) Have you checked if there's a horizontal scroll bar? It's just that the table is quite large (horizontally) and can get off the screen...

2) If you press "Get report as a table", do you get the full table?

If the problem persists, please post here the offending files (if possible), along with the output of "get report as a table" (if available).