Magic the Gathering Update and Patreon
11 years ago
I went to my AI class and worked a little more on my final project. I have a little more information for those that are helping me. Ive received a lot of responses, which have all been helpful.
Deck list: http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/ma.....ily/arcana/673
(by the way, read the Dragon's intro. I just noticed quite a bit of vore involved in it)
We will only use the cards in this deck list. The game will always be white against red.
So my program has to follow some rules that my partner and I give it. These rules will determine what the program wants us to do. An easy example of a rule would be, "At the beginning of each turn, place a mountain". We also have to come up with rules about which mountains to tap when playing a card. We can create rules that are card specific too, for example, "Use Ghostfire on cards with the trait 'protection from red'".
Ive noticed a few things about each deck. First off, every single game that I have played or watched, the knights have won. The dragons have some heavy hitters, but they cost a lot of mana. Knights cost less, so they can get a lot of creatures on the field at once. Some strategies I noted for the red deck were things like get the dragon claw out early so the red deck could gain some health, or use an armillary sphere to gain extra lands. The red deck would also use a lot more instants. The white deck just needed a few creatures on the battlefield with extra abilities to boost each other.
Looking at the decks, do you guys see any opportunities? How about any cards that I should worry about? If there is a card that needs to be removed asap, what card(s) could or should be used? If you need more info or have a question, comment or note me.
By the way, since this is a final project, I have until december to work on it.
Next up: Patreon. It sounds pretty cool. Basically, you would subscribe to my art by making donations.
Now Im sure the idea of paying to see my art is discouraging. I have no intention of making all my uploads 'pay to view'. It would simply be a way to support me.
I would plan on setting up a Patreon account as a 'by project' donation, where Patreon would only charge you when I upload a piece. It would not be a monthly subscription because there are some months where I am not very active. I would post clean art only to Patreon, and I thought about Patreon-only specials, where an image would only be posted, and therefore seen, by subscribers. Subscribers could also be entered into raffles or get other exclusives from me.
From what I understand, you would choose how much you would like to donate per upload. You can set a limit each month so if I started posting a lot, you would stop being charged once your limit was reached. Basically, if you wanted to donate $5 per image and set a limit at $15, you would be charged $5 for the first 3 uploads, and then nothing for the last one since it went over your limit. There would not be a donation minimum (unless the website has one, which I don't think it does). Only want to donate a dollar a month? Sounds good to me.
I think I would be uploading 3 to 4 images a month to Patreon. I would try to make one of those uploads free (yes, I can actually do that), as a thank you to anyone who subscribes.
My only worry is taxes. In order for this to be 100% legal, I need to put this as income on taxes. The problem is Im still under my parents roof, and they file all their taxes with a financial guy. If I go to my parents and say Ive been making extra money through art, they'll want to see what I do, and a gallery full of vore art is not something Im ready to share with them. And my other account is not nearly popular enough to use it as an excuse. I want to do this, but I want to do it legally.
If I managed to get a Patreon account, would you subscribe? Feel free to share your thoughts.
Deck list: http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/ma.....ily/arcana/673
(by the way, read the Dragon's intro. I just noticed quite a bit of vore involved in it)
We will only use the cards in this deck list. The game will always be white against red.
So my program has to follow some rules that my partner and I give it. These rules will determine what the program wants us to do. An easy example of a rule would be, "At the beginning of each turn, place a mountain". We also have to come up with rules about which mountains to tap when playing a card. We can create rules that are card specific too, for example, "Use Ghostfire on cards with the trait 'protection from red'".
Ive noticed a few things about each deck. First off, every single game that I have played or watched, the knights have won. The dragons have some heavy hitters, but they cost a lot of mana. Knights cost less, so they can get a lot of creatures on the field at once. Some strategies I noted for the red deck were things like get the dragon claw out early so the red deck could gain some health, or use an armillary sphere to gain extra lands. The red deck would also use a lot more instants. The white deck just needed a few creatures on the battlefield with extra abilities to boost each other.
Looking at the decks, do you guys see any opportunities? How about any cards that I should worry about? If there is a card that needs to be removed asap, what card(s) could or should be used? If you need more info or have a question, comment or note me.
By the way, since this is a final project, I have until december to work on it.
Next up: Patreon. It sounds pretty cool. Basically, you would subscribe to my art by making donations.
Now Im sure the idea of paying to see my art is discouraging. I have no intention of making all my uploads 'pay to view'. It would simply be a way to support me.
I would plan on setting up a Patreon account as a 'by project' donation, where Patreon would only charge you when I upload a piece. It would not be a monthly subscription because there are some months where I am not very active. I would post clean art only to Patreon, and I thought about Patreon-only specials, where an image would only be posted, and therefore seen, by subscribers. Subscribers could also be entered into raffles or get other exclusives from me.
From what I understand, you would choose how much you would like to donate per upload. You can set a limit each month so if I started posting a lot, you would stop being charged once your limit was reached. Basically, if you wanted to donate $5 per image and set a limit at $15, you would be charged $5 for the first 3 uploads, and then nothing for the last one since it went over your limit. There would not be a donation minimum (unless the website has one, which I don't think it does). Only want to donate a dollar a month? Sounds good to me.
I think I would be uploading 3 to 4 images a month to Patreon. I would try to make one of those uploads free (yes, I can actually do that), as a thank you to anyone who subscribes.
My only worry is taxes. In order for this to be 100% legal, I need to put this as income on taxes. The problem is Im still under my parents roof, and they file all their taxes with a financial guy. If I go to my parents and say Ive been making extra money through art, they'll want to see what I do, and a gallery full of vore art is not something Im ready to share with them. And my other account is not nearly popular enough to use it as an excuse. I want to do this, but I want to do it legally.
If I managed to get a Patreon account, would you subscribe? Feel free to share your thoughts.
A general practice that professional magic players have is to attack first and THEN play anything that's unrelated to the attack phase after. Like, for instance, if you planned to play some dragon that doesn't have haste or any enter the battlefield effects, you'd play it AFTER attacking because then you'd have all your mana available for instants during combat. And, if you didn't have any instants, you could at least BLUFF that you do. Don't know whether or not the opposing CPU will check what mana you have open to make decisions, but it might work in your favor. Its also handy if a creature you're attacking with has "firebreathing", which is a term used referring to creatures that have an activated ability to increase it's attack, like Mordant Dragon or Shiv's Embrace. ALSO ALSO it would be a good idea because you could change your plans for the rest of the turn depending on what the opponent does. Like, for instance, if he played some instant and killed your attacker. In the post-main phase you can play another big guy or something to make up for that or play a sorcery or something.
With the dragons, this is simple, all lands are mountains, so if you have a mountain in your hand and have not already played it, then do so.
With the knights the system is more complex as you need to strike a balance of plains, forests and other lands. If given both a plain and a forest (or sacrificing a grassland to play one of your choice) the first thing to do would be to check if playing one instead of the other will allow you to play extra cards or use additional abilities. If so, it's probably best to go with that, if not try to strike a 2 plains to 1 forest ratio.
Some other rules I noticed that might be useful.
Advice for both
Assign each creature in the deck a value.
When being attacked take the highest value attacking creature and check for any of your creatures that can block it without dying.
If you find any, then do so and repeat the process for the next highest attacking creature.
After doing this for all creatures that you can safely block check if there are any creatures still unblocked.
If so and you still have unused creatures, evalute the value of your lowest value creature that can block against the damage done by the highest value creature, and if it would kill the attacker, against that cards value as well.
If you only have a few cards remaining and your opponent has more, always attack as being the first to run out of cards is instant defeat.
Vis versa if your opponent has very few cards left and you have more, and both of you have a large amount of health you could try always defending, but this is less relaible.
If you draw a hand with no lands consider muliganing
Advice for the knights
Dont gain life if your opponent has punishing fire in their graveyard. the damage they can do to your creatures is probably not worth it.
Dont play Selesnya Sanctuary if you are short on mana for this turn as it costs you a land and comes into play tapped.
Preferably play Selesnya Sanctuary after Serjiri Steppe in order to get the advatages of playing Sejiri Steppe multiple times
If you get both try to play the knight exemplar after the juniper order ranger to get it an extra +1 and never use it to block or attack. It is simply to useful to risk losing.
If you have mighty leap, and your opponent has a high damage flying creature, leave something big of your own untapped and if attacked cast mighty leap on it to kill the high damage creature.
Play agressively unless you have spidersilk armor as due to having so many flying creatures the dragon player will often be able to hit you while keeping themselves from taking damage.
If you do have spidersilk armor, play defencively and only attack if you still have enough to block all your opponents creatures and will not take lose your attacking creature without taking one of theirs. (having the knight exemplar or attacking with the silver knight is a good way to ensure this, as is using Sejiri Steppe
Check the behavoiur of your program very carefull. The knights should usually win this even if they don't play very well as they are significantly stronger. You don't want to be losing turns to illegal moves.
In particular, make sure nothing attempts to block flying creatures unless you are sure that it can.
You definitely have enough mana to cast what you are attempting, (remember some lands come into play tapped or remove others, and grasslands dont give any mana directly)
Make sure that when you are not in your main phase you only play instants.
Advice for the dragons
Play very agressively. The knights will almost certainly win this in the long run so you need to try to do as much damage with flying creatures as possible early.
Always deal damage to your opponents creatures unless it will win you the game. save cards that can do a large amount of damage for high value targets such as the knight exemplar.
Never attack with the bloodmark mentor, unless your opponent has no creatures out and does not have enough mana to cast reciprocate.
Save the Bogardan rager until your opponent is attacking and you can use it to kill a high value target of theirs.
Dont play as the dragons.
That's all I could come up with so far but I might think of some more stuff later.
Hope it goes well.