new magic idea - Page 2

Urban Ranger · June 2, 2003, 13:34

It should run.

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 13:41

maybe you downloaded the wrong thing??

I know I did the first time

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 13:42

I don't know how to run the draft software

but the apprentice program is downloaded and running (as is the draft software, I just don't know how to use it)

UJon Miller

Urban Ranger · June 2, 2003, 13:44

I have it running too. I think you might have to connect to another player before doing the draft thing.

Edit: it's not a draft it's a sealed deck generator.

Urban Ranger · June 2, 2003, 13:48

The generator apparently doesn't work. I keep getting an index out of bounds error.

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 13:52

I like playing constructed (That is what I played mostly)

it was cool seeing someone com eup with a new deck (With their limited cards) and than others moving to respond

actually the best guy (who won the most) had one of the most limited selections of cards (he bought cards maybe twice a year and most cards that he bought were commons (he would occasionally buy a particular rare or uncommon)

all those who bought cards were constantly responding to his decks

the decks that people spent the longest time responding to was a control deck which had

8 flag bearer, 4 mothers of the rune, and 2 of those shamans that allow you to pull damage to themselves or put it on others

some of the reason why I wanted to come up with cards for everyone and to allow people to trade (and to get some of the earlier cards too) is that I wanted that same atmosphere

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 13:55

well ther eis another generator that you can download from that site (not the one inside of apprentice)

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 13:58

hmm

what we could do is have virtual money

and then use some sort of online store in order to buy our fantasy cards

Jon Miller

Urban Ranger · June 2, 2003, 14:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Jon Miller
well ther eis another generator that you can download from that site (not the one inside of apprentice)

Jon Miller

Oh yes, that one. Try it tomorrow. Bed calls

SnowFire · June 2, 2003, 16:24

For Drafting, there's a program called "NetDraft," but I've never tried it, and even if it does work, we'd all have to be online at the same time. Could be annoying.

As for "Win32" errors... yeah, I got those the first time I tried to use the program. However, the first time I tried to use it was just my roommate sending me the files and trying to run it straight. I downloaded the .zip file from the Internet and then it ran fine.

I don't have WinME though, so I'm not sure. Can ME emulate 98? You can also always try downloading it from somewhere else (Google "Apprentice download").

As for index out of bounds error... um, this always happen? Sometimes it gets screwy when adding in extra basic lands, but the generation has always worked for me. You aren't trying to make it generate 100 starter packs or something else ridiculous, are you?

Jon Miller: Well, hopefully we can all get Apprentice up and running so we don't need a GM (and can just use Apprentice to connect to each other and play that way), but if we want to do sealed and it still doesn't work for UR, somebody can just generate his cards on a version where it does work and send it to him.

Alternatively, in order to insure fair pricing, we can just crack open some booster packs and have people bid on the cards within. Everybody gets a $100, the GM cracks a booster pack and announces the cards in it to everyone, silent bids are submitted to a GM, whoever bid the highest on each card gets it (and if a card had no one bid on it, for some odd reason, it carries over to the next pack opened to be bid on again there). As a warning, this could be rather time-consuming: say with 6 players, we'd want to bid on 18 packs, so fast response would be helpful. Or we could just crack 2-3 packs at a time.

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 16:41

the last suggestoin would not allow for palyign with old cards (which many of us wish to do)

other than that it is good

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 16:47

we coudl use this

http://www.anycraze.com/magicsearch.asp

Jon Miller

SnowFire · June 2, 2003, 17:41

JM: Completely false. The Sealed Deck generator in Apprentice doesn't care that you give out long out-of-print boosters to generate- you can make Unlimited, Arabian Nights, & Revised Booster packs all day if you wanted.

Now if you're talking about ANY old card, then we might as well play "constructed" Type I where we can just choose whatever card we want. Let me assure you that "pricing" 6,000 magic cards is not a feat you want to take up. Even if you were to grab "real" prices, they wouldn't reflect what they're worth in a limited enviornment- Terror goes for 25 cents or less, and that rules for Limited play (the reason it's so cheap is because it's useless against Black or creatureless decks in constructed, which exist a decent amount, and that it was a common for a loong time).

Mind you I have no problem with Constructed Type I play, but be warned, there are many evil decks that can be made there that take control of the game by about turn 3. For fairness's sake (for those who don't want to research these decks), I'd rather do Sealed play. Which again, if you want to play Sealed with old cards, is quite possible.

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 17:47

Yah

I understand that there is evilness in constructed

I guess what I want is casual play

where resources are limited (among 10 people there might be only 4 asassins) but cards from every era are used

is there any easy way to do this?

otherwise we can do the sealed deck thing

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 17:50

also

I am not able to draft anything but alpha using apprentice

Jon Miller

SnowFire · June 2, 2003, 18:00

JM: Sure. Say that everybody drafts a sealed deck composing of 10 boosters of their choice, from whatever expansion they'd like. Add as many basic lands as you'd like. Then make some decks!

There's nothing stopping us from doing lots of different things, too. We can use your idea AND play our own constructed decks too, for instance.

The main stopping point seems to be Apprentice's curious failure to work for some people here... so it only makes Alpha sealed decks?! That makes no sense... you'd think if it could do one, it could do 'em all...

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 18:22

you can't pull down the drop menu to change the type of deck

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 18:33

yah

we will need a lot

I just tried to see how many cards I would have after 1 and 2 (1 main and 2 not mains) and I didn't even get enough cards to make a two color deck

I did get a chaos orb though

we would probably want to limit how many times you could draw from the earliest sets

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 18:37

its working now (weird)

warning, it only has older cards

Jon Miller

SnowFire · June 2, 2003, 18:50

JM: Actually, 1 starter and 2 boosters (note that a starter = 3 boosters + land, generally) is the traditional amount for sealed deck play, although occasionally 3 boosters are used. You'd be surprised; you often can throw together 2 color decks without too much trouble. That said, I don't mind having a bigger card pool.

As for restrictions, the fewer restrictions the better, in my mind. I don't think earlier sets need to be restricted; sure, there are a few more brokenly powerful cards, but on the whole, the commons are a lot worse, which is actually more important for sealed play. Compare Pearled Unicorn (2W for a vanilla 2/2) in Alpha/Beta to Patrol Hound, a common in Odyssey (1W for a 2/2 with "discard a card: gains first strike until end of turn"). If there's one set that needs to be restricted, it'd be Tempest/Stronghold/Exodus. One of the mechanics in that series of expansions was "Shadow:" creatures with Shadow can only block or be blocked by other creatures with Shadow." Kind of like super-flying, except you can't block non-flyers (in this case, non-Shadow creatures). Being that none of the other expansions have Shadow creatures in them, somebody drafting Tempest could easily create an unstoppable, unblockable army that wins by about turn 6 with maybe a few wallish normal creatures to hold off your rush.

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 19:02

yah I get you

but I have usually found shadow controlable

what about the fact that none of the newest sets is in the sealed deck drafter

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 19:04

actually what would be best is to have some sort of sealed generator

do that for 4 starters + 8 boosters, and than print the list of cards (it is somewhat ennoying to handle inside the utility given)

Jon Miller

Immortal Wombat · June 2, 2003, 19:07

What you really need is an unofficial, unsanctioned version of Magic: Online. But with all the cards, not just the last three expansions. I guess you'd have to do the effects manually, because coding them all would be hell.

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 19:09

I still don't see how it works (2 colored with 1 starter and 2 boosters)

I get only 40 cards, at most, in two colors from that

I only have 90 cards period

no way you can make a 2 color 60 card deck from that (on average)

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 19:11

and now the sealed deck generator for aprentice won't work again

this is weird

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 19:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Jon Miller
actually what would be best is to have some sort of sealed generator

do that for 4 starters + 8 boosters, and than print the list of cards (it is somewhat ennoying to handle inside the utility given)

Jon Miller

wait

even that is not enough to make a 60 card monocolor deck and have choice doing so

probably we need something like 8 starters and 16 boosters

JOn Mliler

SnowFire · June 2, 2003, 19:45

Forgot to mention the obvious. Sealed deck games are generally played with 40 card decks. That's why there's enough stuff to support 2-color decks.

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 19:47

ah

I like playing with 60 card decks a bit more

but maybe it is what I am use to

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 19:48

a 40 card two color deck from 1 starter and 2 boosters would still give ouy no choice (other than colors) though

I like choice (even 8 starters and 16 boosters seems a little slim)

Jon Miller

Urban Ranger · June 3, 2003, 02:56

Quote:

Originally posted by SnowFire
I don't have WinME though, so I'm not sure. Can ME emulate 98?

ME is just a newer version of 98, just like 98 is a newer version of 95.

Quote:

Originally posted by SnowFire
As for index out of bounds error... um, this always happen?

Quote:

Originally posted by SnowFire
Sometimes it gets screwy when adding in extra basic lands, but the generation has always worked for me. You aren't trying to make it generate 100 starter packs or something else ridiculous, are you?

Nope. I used 7th edition as the starter pack and 5 Invasion packs as boosters (this is probably where I went wrong). I told it to generate a deck with 40 minimum cards. Got the "out of bound error," and it gave me a bunch of lands. Nothing else.

Tried it again just now. Still doesn't work. This time, I specified using the 7th edition as the starter, with 2 Visions and 2 Planeshifts as boosters. I got a total of 22 basic lands before it bombed out.

If I removed the starter deck, I got 30 cards from the 2 Visions pack before it went poof. If I specified no minium deck size, it gave me 30 cards from Visions before going belly up.

I also got this message at the bottom "Drafting [Planeshift]..."

More upate: it works if I specify only one type of pack. It worked perfectly when I entered 4x Visions. Got 60 cards with no errors.

Even more updates: Unfortunately, only booster packs work that way. No starter decks.

Quote:

Originally posted by SnowFire
Alternatively, in order to insure fair pricing, we can just crack open some booster packs and have people bid on the cards within. Everybody gets a $100, the GM cracks a booster pack and announces the cards in it to everyone, silent bids are submitted to a GM, whoever bid the highest on each card gets it (and if a card had no one bid on it, for some odd reason, it carries over to the next pack opened to be bid on again there). As a warning, this could be rather time-consuming: say with 6 players, we'd want to bid on 18 packs, so fast response would be helpful. Or we could just crack 2-3 packs at a time.

That's only workable with some sort of instant messager, such as ICQ or MSN.