Monday, June 21, 2010

12 Outstanding Cards

Forge is filled with tons of interesting cards and while not all 3,000+ cards are outstanding, most are them are pretty darn good. Today I'm just going to point out 12 cards that you may or may not know about. (Basically this is just fluff piece but all writers write fluff occasionally. Even Earnest Hemingway wrote a few radio commercials.....I think.)

1. Holy Day, Fog, Darkness, and other similar cards that let you prevent all combat damage. I didn't code any of these cards but it is great to see them working. Forge doesn't really support skipping combat but like all good software, Forge can be hacked into submission.











2. Sengir Vampire has the ability "Whenever a creature dealt damage by Sengir Vampire this turn is put into a graveyard, put a +1/+1 counter on Sengir Vampire." This is an example where Forge actual implements this strange card 100%. I understand the ability lets Sengir Vampire "feed" off of his victims and grow larger but since the ability rarely activates, the card just feels like a cheap 4/4 flyer. When I actually do activate his ability, I do a little victory dance.






3. Fourteen "level up" creatures like Transcendent Master. I enjoy using these cards. The cards do feel sluggish at first but they have a great payoff. I like these new "level up" creatures more than planeswalkers.












4. Huge Eldrazi creatures, move over Darksteel Colossus and 11 mana, that's nothing when compared to Emrakul, the Aeons Torn which costs 15. Forge has 5 huge eldrazi creatures that all have the devastating annihilator keyword which makes your opponent sacrifice permanents.











5. Pirate Ship which says, "Pirate Ship can't attack unless defending player controls an Island. When you control no Islands, sacrifice Pirate Ship." Both of these abilities are miscellaneous but quirky. Forge even has Dandan (UU, 4/1) "Dandan can't attack unless defending player controls an Island.When you control no Islands, sacrifice Dandan."










6. Forge has only 3 dredge cards but they are fun to use: Greater Mossdog, Moldervine Cloak and Dakmor Salvage. It is great just keep dredging Greater Mossdog.













7. Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle which is a land AND deals damage, sign me up!















8. Dark Depths lets you put a 20/20 creature into play. That sounds like a winning game plan. (I'm beginning to sound like a sport's announcer.)













9. I didn't know that Forge supported rampage but it does. (Hey, I didn't play Magic 10 years ago.) Forge has 10 rampage cards like Balduvian War-Makers (4R, 3/3) haste, rampage 1 and Wolverine Pack (2GG, 2/4) rampage 2.

Taken from the comprehensive rules: Rampage is a triggered ability. “Rampage N” means “Whenever this creature becomes blocked, it gets +N/+N until end of turn for each creature blocking it beyond the first.”






10. Time Vault and Time Walk are two of Magic's greatest cards. Time Vault lets you skip a turn now in order to get another turn later. While Time Walk is utterly insane and lets you have another whole turn to annihilate your opponent. Kudos to anyone who actually owns a real, cardboard Time Vault or Time Walk.










11. Necropotence lets you exchange cards for life. At first most people considered this a crap rare but after it won a tournament or two, people realized how powerful this card really was. Do yourself a favor and build a deck around Necropotence.












12. Goblin Charbelcher is an odd "build a deck around me" type of card that gives red decks a way to repeatedly deal damage.

And the list could go on and on...












p.s.
Time Walk's art is well...bizarre. Who knows what Amy Weber was thinking back in 1993?

p.p.s.
What topics do you want me to write about? It seems like I've covered everything about Forge.

11 comments:

Fueled said...

I would like to hear your thoughts on the new Duels of the Planeswalker game (developed by Stainless Games).

Luis Eduardo said...

I´m a junior java programmer compared to you =). I love your application and it goes better and better.

I just will ask you about some cards i loved to play like wildfire (urza saga) or phyrexian procesor (saga) or cataclysm (exodus) where is the cursed scrool too, or maybe scroolrack? Put that cards in please. good day

Forge said...

I'm really a junior programmer too. I started Forge and programmed 1,200 cards but other guys have done all of the hard work since then. Yes I created the program's framework but Dennis and the guys have really done most of the real effort.

Forge said...

The new Duels of the Planeswalker game looks very good. (I wish Forge looked half as good.) I haven't gotten a chance to play the AI myself but most people say it plays well. (The AI is much better than Forge's.)

The downside is that you can't create your own deck like Magic Online. Presumably this is to allow beginners a more "friendly" Magic experience. (So they won't be crushed by more advanced players.)

KingMob said...

I would like to read more about the AI of Forge, it's subtleties and possible methods for tweaking it (hypothetically).

Forge said...

Forge's AI doesn't have any options for you to tweak but I could write about the AI.

nacht said...

i played the new duels of the planes walker game. its pretty good, like anything else in magic, you'll need to draw well to win. you don't get to customize the deck so much as just decide what cards you want in the deck over the first 60. there's a discard deck, creature decks, trample, decking deck. lots of fun unlocking cards, already beat all the opponents, just looking to the expansions now.

J. Costello said...

hi forge, yesterday i downloaded forge so i'm still getting used to it i suppose, however i noticed that when i landfalled 2 bloodghasts and the ai only had 3 life, only one of my ghasts had haste. also i'd like to request that you add cards like consuming vapors, sorin markov, and mind sludge.

in reality i'd like to ask you to get all of type 2 in there since i use some of the obscure cards like sanguine bond/blood tribute at times but i understand that's a tall order and i'm asking for a bit much at that point. still it would be nice in order to play-test some of the decks i'm working on.

Gabriel said...

I'd love to hear your thoughts on any other CCGs you've played. I'd also like to hear if you have or are considering any other large java projects. What's next for you?

Anonymous said...

Being selfish, but wouldn't mind pimping the new Forge deck contest. Entries are being considered for the quest decks.

Resonantg

Rick said...

Levelers are nice...but you are missing a whole heck of a lot of cards. I can't even make a Leveler deck because of the lack of Training Grounds. But I can see how it might be hard to program something like that in.