#and then designed the cards around that

[dravidious]

You're really awesome

PROBLEM: I want to make magic decks with my cards irl, but I have no one to play them against.

SOLUTION: Make an entire custom deck that can play itself to more or less replicate an opponent.

I decided to put the rules in card form as conspiracy cards, but it turns out that rules should be written as rules, not cards, so I had to make extensive notes about each of them (except Industrial Expansion, that one is actually effects instead of rules). I also just enjoy talking about my design choices.

Notes: Creating waste tokens instead of playing lands is basically free card advantage, as well as preventing mana screw/flood. The bot is supposed to have more raw strength than the player, so this isn’t a huge problem, but the starting hand size reduction and 5 land limit are still needed balance it.

Also, I know wastes isn’t actually a basic land type, but it makes the card so much cleaner so "Wastes token" is a predefined token here just like Treasure and Food.

Notes: There’s probably some awkward edge cases here too. I fixed the only one I could find (involving Recycle Bin), but there might be more. The main guiding rule in playing the bot is "don’t make it do obviously dumb stuff." The cards are balanced around the rigid rules, so bad decisions are okay, but sometimes there are plays that are so worthless or actively counterproductive that you really ought to step in. Edge cases should be resolved in whatever way makes the bot play best. Ideally, you shouldn’t have to think too hard about what the bot does; it’s supposed to be automatic, after all. The other guiding rule is "make this similar to a normal game of Magic."

Notes: Much, much simpler than Defense Protocol. Still some vagueness, but good enough to prevent swinging into the opponent’s 4/4 with a 3/3. It applies on a creature-by-creature basis; if you have a 3/3 with flying and a 2/1, and your opponent has a 4/4, the 2/1 won’t attack, but the 3/3 will. If you have a 2/1 and a 5/4, only the 5/4 will attack since the 2/1 can be fully blocked by the 4/4.Non-lethal battles are tricky; if you have a 2/1 and the opponent has a 0/3, you shouldn’t attack because then you’re just tapping down your 2/1. But if you have a pair of 2/1s, you should attack for the free damage. You could reinterpret the "such that they lose no life" bit, but that would result in the rules telling you to swing your creatures into into a 4/4. Basically, use your best judgement; this stuff is too complicated to write out. You’re smart enough.

Notes:

This card would be a fucking nightmare to properly template. Good thing it’s a rule and not actually a card. The vague wording can probably result in lots of edge cases, but this card is basically meant to say "The bot makes the best blocks possible" so use your best judgement in those cases. Activated abilities that boost a creature should be taken into account if mana is open for them. A version of the blocking rules not in card form is given below.

Priority 1: If you can block in such a way that your life total remains above 0, you must do so.

Priority 2: If a blocker can deal lethal damage to an attacker and survive, it must block that creature.

Priority 3: If a blocker can deal lethal damage to an attacker, or if it can survive, it must block that creature.

Priority 4: Don’t block.

Misc 1: If multiple attackers are tied for the highest block priority, the blocker must block the creature with the highest power. If tied, highest toughness, then highest mana value, then choose randomly.

Misc 2: Multi-block an attacker only if it has menace or a similar ability, only with the minimum number of blockers, and only if it falls under a blocking priority (ex. it’s threatening to win the game, or it can be destroyed, or both your blockers survive). Anything else could be a nightmare to calculate.

And that's all the rules/conspiracies, which should allow for playing against the bot while making as few decisions as possible. Here's the cards. The bot's deck consists of 4 copies of each card for a clean 60 deck, compatible for testing against mill.

[mercurymacaroons]

arrives 15 min late with a latte

......sup

[deeva-arud]

Ohh Playful Land Deeva save me

[gbirrd]

9/9 - Dick Grayson tarot card designs for Complete Candor by @vexfulfolly as part of the @batfam-big-bang

Read the fic here!

Other cards:

1-Babs 2-Cass 3-Bruce 4-Tim 5-Damian 6-Jason 7-Duke 8-Steph 9-Dick

Image IDs

Image 1:

A design of "The World" tarot card. It has the texture of recycled paper and reads "THE WORLD". A symbol of two clouds is visible behind the numeral "XXI".

Dick Grayson dives confidently downwards in his Nightwing uniform with pupil-less white eyes. His arms are spread wide. He plummets through a deep blue sky with large stylised cream-coloured clouds partially obscuring him in the foreground, and some less-visible in the background.

Image 2:

A design of "The World" tarot card. It has the texture of recycled paper and reads "THE WORLD" upside-down. A symbol of a theatre mask is visible behind the numeral "XXI".

Dick Grayson falls backwards in his Robin uniform, a hand reaching up desperately with one white pupil-less eye visible. He falls through a dark blue sky with partially- visible clouds in the background, and large stylised cream-coloured clouds in the foreground, partially covering him. The entire card is upside-down.

[fieldworm]

The Dead Tired line of dolls is one of my favs. Uh... So these are inspired by that ♥️

[br1ghtestlight]

obsessed w/ how many attempts they've made at redesigning gene's younger design over the years to make him look less uncanny and how they failed every single time. he's so fucking ugly. I don't even take any of these designs as canon Bcuz they keep doing my boy DIRTY. soo ugly

[thegreatyin]

scoundrel?? what scoundrel???? the magnificent mr cards (who ironically has more of a flower aesthetic going on) is completely unrelated to any "bandaged scoundrels" running around the neath. in fact it's never heard of the word scoundrel ever in its entire definitely long definitely ancient life. but yknow, hypothetically, if it did know the scoundrel, it's confident that they're really really really handsome and cool and epic and they're almost just as amazing as it is and you should totally donate all your valuables to them and stuff

aaand because i like them too much, have a transparent version. the Creachure. the Thing, even.

[adobe-outdesign]

you guys wanna have the Pokemon TCG ruined forever for you

so here's the back of an (English) Pokemon card, right

Here's the thing: the Pokeball is rendered incorrectly. In every other medium, the button in the middle stays with the red upper part, not the white part on the bottom. Even the illustrations on the TCG cards themselves get this right:

The problem is that it's hard to update the card backs because it could tip people off as to which cards are the newer ones during gameplay, so now there are just thousands of English Pokemon cards with an error on them that you will now never unsee

[0m3n-0f-d3ath]

Otto and D3-C1 at a casino

❤️♦️ Are the stakes worth it? ♣️♠️

[bmpmp3]

in which genbu attempts to give the new guy a warm welcome

[mrtequilasunset]

So I got that deck of Skill cards a couple months back and I think one of my favorite things about it is that there's some details on them that I don't see in the in-game versions. I really like how it looks like composure is crying, and the teeth on some of the physique skills are so meaty and visceral I love it. Theres something about Half-light's beady eyes that remind me of a cornered animal and I wish they had kept them in the game.

Perception probably has the biggest variance between the in game art and the card

[paperconsumption]

enstars twitter cares too much about the game plot i think. that never mattered to me what i’m invested in is the character development and i can ignore anything i want for those purposes. “tetora went undercover in an evil idol organization and witnessed a murder” no he didn’t. that entire event was fabricated to make chiaki and tetora finally confront each other and resolve their post-comet show issues. not like the writing actually takes tetora’s potential trauma into account at all

[liorlen]

redraw of a luard from high school lmaoooo

[shinmiyovvi]

The Star (XVII) and Death (XIII)

Alt versions under the cut:

[the-oracle-of-the-lost]

having a bad case of "it's two am but i'm not tiredddddd" and watched this video from Adam Savage's Tested with Mike & Denise Okuda that i highly recommend. graphic design details my beloved.

[resident-gay-bitch]

little rich boy sirius who gets disowned and can barely survive without his expensive brands and the basic human need to eat at least once a day meeting the entirely too generous james potter who just falls for the vanity and sincerity of the reformed rich boy and decides that once sirius stops caring about brands and status and rich boy things and just cares about what matters in life he decides to spoil his boyfriend to pieces because he’s secretly sitting on a fucking fortune