Mill for Power deck (v2.0 now)

[GamerXYZ0]

Requirements:
- The game obviously
- The expansion WADs
- And of course the stuff required to run custom WADs

Installation:
- Unpack the zip file, then drag the unpacked file in your DotP13 installation folder (where all the other similarly-named files are)

Having seen what cards this game has, I really wanted a Blue/Black deck that mills not for direct victory, but for indirect victory by powering up stuff and/or making use of stuff (examples: Sewer Nemesis and Body Double). But when the situation calls for it, it can of course also win through mill! With the exception of Hedron Crab as it needed some milling speed, all its mill is functional as in: it doesn't just mill, it does something else too (like Thought Scour: drawing a card). Don't expect Nightmare Incursion: cards must end up in the grave, not get exiled.

I'm not exactly a modder (not when it comes to coding stuff), so it only contains cards from the game itself (with an encounter-only card: Horrifying Revelation). Exception is the new AI handling this deck: Szadek (credits to Thefiremind for this). Tests reveal it's about the level of the other in-game decks (using some jokes like Brainbite and Jhessian Zombies as they're the only Blue/Black cards in the game, Slave of Bolas excluded). Its ramp isn't exactly the best (focussing on 1CMC and 4+CMC, having only few 2 and 3's), but tests have shown it works well enough like this.

I first tried adding Green (Lord of Extinction and Vulturous Zombie), but as awesome as Lord of Extinction was (30/30 was the norm for it when it came out), it dragged the deck as a whole down. The deck attached to this post is the final build out of many.

Like the deck? Don't like the deck? Please let me know! No need to keep criticism to yourself

Build notes:
1.0 - First released version
1.1 - Stripped the .wad of everything it doesn't need. No change in functionality or anything.
2.0 - Thanks to Thefiremind, now a new AI handles this deck: Szadek, Lord of Secrets. To accomodate the new AI, the deck now has a proper name, and of course its own card is added in as well (being the only non-DotP card in this deck), including 2 other changes for some Counterspells.

[thefiremind]

Just a tip: since you included copies of the illustrations, why didn't you include also copies of the cards, so that no expansion WADs are needed?

EDIT: Now that I look more carefully, I think you just left the illustrations of the original Jace deck's cards... if that's so, I'd suggest you to remove the ILLUSTRATIONS folder: no need to make the WAD so big.

EDIT 2: If you want to add a fatty that perfectly follows the deck's theme, try with this:

SZADEK_LORD_OF_SECRETS_247390.zip

(99.79 KiB) Downloaded 447 times

I quickly adapted it from my DotP2012 mod, and it works perfectly in DotP2013 now.
(Oh of course, if you plan on inserting this one, you'll have to leave the ILLUSTRATIONS folder, just for this card's image.)

[elminster63500]

I played with your deck and I like it well. It is long enough to get started but once advantage, it roxe well. 3 Avatar of Woe seem much, 2 have widely enough and Sheoldred would have its place in this deck. The Sewer Nemesis is the basis of your deck and is extremely powerful and low cost. The Jhessiens Zombies have no utility, a Abyssal Specter can be in place? But by confronting this deck to others, including those created by Firemind and Kev, he held very well the road.

Very good deck and good holding thank you

[GamerXYZ0]

Thanks for the feedback.

I've now created a version of the .wad that's stripped of everything it doesn't need, being only 3kb now (my main post will be updated by it soon after this post). Initially I had it stripped down, but the .wad didn't work then (though eventually I found the problem, and it was something entirely different. But I still kept everything in). The folders are still in just in case, they're just empty.

And it's true 3x Avatar of Woe might indeed be a bit much. I wanted the deck to run each of its finishers (Jace's Phantasm, Sewer Nemesis, Mortivore and Avatar of Woe) in triples, making an exception for Sewer Nemesis since it also mills, but other than that I wasn't thinking of whether I'd have too much redundancy or not.

And Jhessian Zombies is simply a card for DotP flavor: it's a multi-colored deck, so since DotP has only 2 cards of both those colors (Slave of Bolas excluded since it's also Red), I decided it would be nice to add them both in unless they'd drag the deck down too much. They actually aren't so bad, DotP-wise: I've used Lancycling plenty of times in my favor with Jhessian Zombies.


Say, thefiremind, at first I decided I'd keep this deck 100% with DotP cards to have something original, but Szadek would actually be a great idea making him the AI who will use this deck instead of Jace (replacing 1 Chancellor with it. Replacing Avatar of Woe wouldn't be a good idea here: I'd have too many expensive fatties). Calling the deck something along of the lines of "Secrets Exposed" (exposing the opponent's library, thus their secrets, and growing stronger by that). Could you tell me how to change a deckbox, cover card, AI image, and a text_permanent for the deckname?

[thefiremind]

Say, thefiremind, at first I decided I'd keep this deck 100% with DotP cards to have something original, but Szadek would actually be a great idea making him the AI who will use this deck instead of Jace

I thought about that and I was about to prepare the replacements, the problem is that I can't find a high-resolution image of Szadek: the best I could find was the one I used for the card, which is 500x318. The backplate would probably become quite bad to see.

[sadlyblue]

The deck works quite nice.
Like any other, it has it's weakness. But you get a nice hand you can control the game.
Btw, i love playing the Chancellor Of The Spires against Talrand. After the Rite Of Replication is in the graveyard, you get has many Chancellors as you want or get tired before

[GamerXYZ0]

Firemind, would this be a good image? http://www.wizards.com/magic/images/mtg ... szadek.jpg

I looked around a bit, and this was the best I could find. Unfortunately, it's cut. But I also found http://img.aegen.nl/COM/Szadek,%20Lord% ... ecrets.jpg which is only cut a bit at the bottom, but of slightly lower quality, but still alot better than the 500x318 picture you found (IF the 500x318 picture I found when searching is the same as you used).

[thefiremind]

The images are all very noisy in colors, and by making them bigger it becomes more evident. I did my best to make a decent result, and this is what I came up with:

Deck_0099_ST.zip

(272.79 KiB) Downloaded 489 times

The images really can't stand the comparison with the other ones, but at least you have a starting point: you can see what I added to the WAD.

[GamerXYZ0]

Thanks for that! I checked it out, and it's good enough. I've now added Szadek to the deck (swapped out Chancellor), and decided to swap out 1 Avatar and the remaining Chancellor for some Counterspells (not enough consistency for Chancellor's first effect now, and in all my tests Chancellor was often a dead draw: Szadek is enough for 7 mana. Besides, it was kind of a black sheep, being the only to focus solely on Instants/Sorceries. And it solves the problem of having too many Avatars and now ramps a bit better).

But before I can release it: how do I make Szadek the preview card?

[thefiremind]

I don't know if there's a shorter way to do it, but that's how I do it: I make a test deck with only the card I want to make as preview, then I run the test deck in a custom duel, I zoom in the card inside the opening hand and I take a screenshot. Then I crop the card from the screenshot and I paste it on the copy of an existing preview card, resizing as needed. Then I save it as TDX (using Paint.NET) and I make a copy of the card for each language (I copy the English preview on all languages, except for Italian because it's my language and so I make a real preview of the Italian version).
I'm doing it right now for a new deck I just made, and believe me, it's the most annoying thing of all the work needed to make a deck. I'd suggest you to leave the preview card you already have... after all, Szadek is previewed on the deck and on the avatar.

[kevlahnota]

Hi, I edited a good but not perfect Szadek using photoshop. here's the image:



512 x 376 size

Hope you can use this.

[luh-koala]

I don't know if there's a shorter way to do it, but that's how I do it: I make a test deck with only the card I want to make as preview, then I run the test deck in a custom duel, I zoom in the card inside the opening hand and I take a screenshot. Then I crop the card from the screenshot and I paste it on the copy of an existing preview card, resizing as needed. Then I save it as TDX (using PaintNET) and I make a copy of the card for each language (I copy the English preview on all languages, except for Italian because it's my language and so I make a real preview of the Italian version).
I'm doing it right now for a new deck I just made, and believe me, it's the most annoying thing of all the work needed to make a deck. I'd suggest you to leave the preview card you already have... after all, Szadek is previewed on the deck and on the avatar.

You could use the WADEd tool made by RisenDeep to preview the card ( i believe it auto-builds the preview).

Cheers o/