Magic in Shandalar

[Toad]

Shandalar is the first PC Magic game ever published. Even if the AI is really stupid, It's kinda funny to play. I don't use the scenario mode often, but I really enjoy designing crappy decks with the Deck Editor. I always use the Type One restrictions, except for restrictions that are due to modern cards. For example, without Wastelands, I consider Strip Mine to be unrestricted. The cards are limited to Alpha and Beta, without dual lands.

My two favourite current decks are a 4 colour The Hive deck (yes, without duals! ) and a mono red Goblins deck.

// 4 Colour The Hive
// Mana base
3 Plains
        3 Swamp
        5 Mountain
        7 Island
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Sapphire
// Card advantage
        1 Braingeyser
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Disrupting Scepter
        2 Jayemdae Tome
        1 Time Walk
        1 Mind Twist
// Win Condition
        3 The Hive
// Removal
        2 Control Magic
        1 Disenchant
        3 Swords to Plowshares
        1 Fireball
        1 Pyrotechnics
// Countermagic
        1 Spell Blast
        4 Counterspell
        4 Power Sink
// Land Destruction
        4 Strip Mine
        4 Stone Rain
// Utility
        1 Ivory Tower
        1 Timetwister
        1 Demonic Tutor

The deck runs pretty smoothly with 4 colours as long as the opponent is not running heavy LD or annoying stuff such as Evil Presence. The four Stone Rains looks weird here, but are really strong since the opponent's decks are really low on mana. Killing a land by turn 3 is really strong. The rest of the deck is really Keeperesque

// Mono Red Goblins
// Mana base
        16 Mountain
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Ruby
// Brokeness
        1 Black Vise
        1 Fork
        1 Wheel of Fortune
// Direct damage
        4 Ankh of Mishra
        4 Lightning Bolt
        2 Fireball
// Goblins and Co.
        4 Goblin Balloon Brigade
        4 Goblin King
        4 Mons's Goblin Raiders
        4 Ball Lightning
// Pump
        3 Giant Strength
        2 Blood Lust
// Land Destruction
        4 Stone Rain
        4 Wasteland

This is really straightforward.

If you are a Shandalar addict, post your decklists too

If people are interested in running an Apprentice based Shandalar tourney, let me know.

[Malhavoc]

When I used to play with Shandalar, I was running an Armageddon deck. Don't have the list, but was something like: all artifact mana acceleration, BoP, elves, wrath of god, StP, disenchant., armageddon, serra angel and Personal Incarnation (not a great card, but there wasn't so much choice with such a few sets). I easily won every game against the computer.

I also found a bug: buy as much bronze tablets as you can. Find a monster who runs a mox (usually dragons have a mox or two). During the game, use the tablet to steal one of his mox. When you look into the inventory, you will find 99 mox (!!!). Ah, and of course they are not restricted...  

...but it would be too much easy this way..  

P.S.
Anyway, I think nowadays the best (free) magic program is Magic Workstation. Apprentice is history.

[Kasuras]

Shandalar = the pwnage.

Just <3 playing with 4 strips.  :lol:

Haven't played it for a long time but I believe it was something like this:

Teh Teck.dec
4 dark ritual
1 mox jet
1 mox ruby
1 black lotus
4 strip mine
1 library of alexandria
13 swamp

4 black knight
4 royal assasin
4 Uthden throll
4 hypnotic specter
4 will o' the wisp

4 lightning bolt
4 bad moon

1 wheel of fortune
4 contract from below ( )
1 demonic tutor
1 mind twist

I think we should do a beta/alpha/unl. apprentice tourney, I will be in.  

[goober]

If I am playing for fun with the deck editor I had a plethora of decks I use.  Too bad the computer it was on doesn't turn on anymore.  One of them was just a deck with 30 Tims, and some blue spells+mana.  I used a green splash at one point for Fungasaur.  I had monored Mana Flare with Shivan, Dragon Whelp, Fireball, and Inferno.  If I am playing the scenerio to win I use this deck.

Suicide Black (40 card limit)

//Mana
13+-1 Swamp (14 Swamp/Jet/Lotus)
4 Dark Ritual
1 Mox Jet(if I can find it)
1 Black Lotus (see above)

//Beats
4 Black Knight
4 Erg Raider
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Bad Moon

//Control
2 Terror
4 Royal Assassin

Then if I was in the Deck editor, and being ridiculous

Long was slow as hell.dec

//Draw/Win Condition/Combo/Manabase
25 Ancestral Recall
30 Black Lotus
5 Feldon's Cane

then theres the deck actually using the 4 card limit

//Mana
4 Black Lotus
4 Mox Jet
4 Mox Sapphire
4 Mox Ruby
2 Mox Emerald
4 Mana Vault
4 Hurkyl's Recall

//Draw
4 Timetwister
4 Wheel of Fortune
4 Ancestral Recall

//Win
2 Fireball

The scenerio mode is great fun because of the mad beats you are able to put on with Durkwood Boars, Craw Wurm, and Elvish Riders beats.  Unless your opponent lays down the savage Carnivorous Plant.

PS Workstation 4L, too bad the MWSplay populace still thinks Sui is Tier 1

[Sheik al Kaji]

If we ran a Shandalar based tourney, which card minimum would be enforced: 40 or 60?

Also, why not allow what the one expansion pack included as well? Then we'll have Duals and expansions up thru The Dark.

[Bram]

In Shandalar, I just played what I got When I played it again a couple years back, I managed a kinda cool blue/white old skool control-like build with Mishra's Factory and Fat Moti as the kill

I always use the Type One restrictions, except for restrictions that are due to modern cards. For example, without Wastelands, I consider Strip Mine to be unrestricted.

Wasn't Strip Mine restriced before Wasteland came out? Wasn't it a Black Vise thing? Or more specifically: the fact that every deck ran four copies of each or something?

[Toad]

Tempest was out in October 97. Strip Mine got restricted by the following B&R Announcement, in January 98. So I think this must have a relationship

[Kasuras]

If we would make a tourney, we would need rules indeed.

I suggest we use the rules that are used at the present. That means we have a minimum of 60 cards mainboard and 15 or 0 sideboard cards. That also means the stack can be used, and you cannot go to less than 0 life.

There must be made a choice of which sets that can be used. I think beta is the oldscholiest as you can get, so I say only beta cards.

The current banned/restricted list should be used because those cards are restricted/banned for a reason. Ante cards also don't work with apprentice and neither do cards like falling star, so the banned list is also on.

[Jacob Orlove]

Tempest was out in October 97. Strip Mine got restricted by the following B&R Announcement, in January 98. So I think this must have a relationship :)

Those months were SO terrible. 8 strips = unplayable format.

[Jdub]

Here's a few of my decks from the deck editor:

"eternal artifax"
.17   1   Black Lotus
.480   1   Candelabra of Tawnos
.485   4   Colossus of Sardia
.393   2   Aladdin's Lamp
.157   1   Mana Vault
.165   1   Mox Emerald
.168   1   Mox Ruby
.169   1   Mox Sapphire
.230   1   Sol Ring
.2   2   Animate Artifact
.1   1   Ancestral Recall
.48   2   Counterspell
.47   1   Copy Artifact
.250   1   Timetwister
.256   4   Twiddle
.510   4   Mishra's Workshop
.628   4   Eternal Warrior
.15   4   Birds of Paradise
.121   4   Instill Energy
.91   9   Forest
.126   8   Island
.164   3   Mountain

this one was basically eternal warrior on a colossus. Or animate an aladdin's lamp

"quick death"
.1   1   Ancestral Recall
.25   1   Braingeyser
.44   2   Control Magic
.48   3   Counterspell
.154   4   Mahamoti Djinn
.55   4   Dark Ritual
.62   1   Demonic Tutor
.220   4   Sengir Vampire
.17   1   Black Lotus
.165   1   Mox Emerald
.166   1   Mox Jet
.167   1   Mox Pearl
.168   1   Mox Ruby
.169   1   Mox Sapphire
.230   1   Sol Ring
.157   1   Mana Vault
.126   6   Island
.239   5   Swamp
.249   1   Time Walk

This one was particularly nasty in 40-card format. Really fast beats and some countermagic and creature stealing. It rarely lost to the crappy AI...

"slighslighsligh"
.295   4   Ball Lightning
.583   4   Blood Lust
.394   4   Ali Baba
.92   1   Fork
.649   2   Giant Strength
.101   4   Goblin Balloon Brigade
.425   4   Hurr Jackal
.679   4   Immolation
.124   4   Ironclaw Orcs
.145   4   Lightning Bolt
.163   4   Mons's Goblin Raiders
.282   1   Wheel of Fortune
.17   1   Black Lotus
.168   1   Mox Ruby
.164   15   Mountain
.528   3   Strip Mine

I like the previous poster's idea of ankh of mishra, I'll have to try it.

"stompy"
.14   1   Berserk
.7   4   Aspect of Wolf
.76   4   Elvish Archers
.97   4   Giant Growth
.149   4   Llanowar Elves
.444   4   Nafs Asp
.217   4   Scryb Sprites
.247   4   Timber Wolves
.851   4   Whirling Dervish
.222   4   Shanodin Dryads
.803   2   Sylvan Library
.91   15   Forest
.17   1   Black Lotus
.165   1   Mox Emerald
.159   2   Meekstone
.287   2   Winter Orb

I made this when beserk was still restricted...winter orb is an all-star.

"suicide black"
.16   4   Black Knight
.582   4   Blight
.8   2   Bad Moon
.55   4   Dark Ritual
.62   1   Demonic Tutor
.415   4   Erg Raiders
.117   4   Hypnotic Specter
.162   1   Mind Twist
.433   2   Junun Efreet
.171   4   Nether Shadow
.179   2   Paralyze
.606   4   Cyclopean Mummy
.528   4   Strip Mine
.239   17   Swamp
.17   1   Black Lotus
.166   1   Mox Jet
.173   1   Nevinyrral's Disk

There is no good hand disruption in the basic game save for mind twist, so the beatdown route was the only way to go. Blight sucks.

"white weenie"
.826   4   Tundra Wolves
.283   4   White Knight
.213   4   Savannah Lions
.240   4   Swords to Plowshares
.794   3   Spirit Link
.710   3   Land Tax
.64   3   Disenchant
.417   3   Eye for an Eye
.10   1   Balance
.13   4   Benalish Hero
.862   4   Rainbow Knights
.188   17   Plains
.17   1   Black Lotus
.167   1   Mox Pearl
.159   2   Meekstone
.290   2   Wrath of God

I cant remember if land tax was any good. I would use the white mage in shandalar since I like being able to use the worldmagic to save a city, and you could board in appropriate c.o.p's before heading into the castles.

peace

[samael]

anyone know where I can find this program? Is it abandon-ware?

[LordHomerCat]

http://www.the-underdogs.org seems to have it, although I can't say for certain if it works (im still downloading it, piece by piece since I couldnt get the zip to work right).  But it looks good, and says it also comes with both expansions... just do a search for "magic" and it should come right up.

[Malhavoc]

This is the correct link:

http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?gameid=1550

[pi]

I also found a bug: buy as much bronze tablets as you can. Find a monster who runs a mox (usually dragons have a mox or two). During the game, use the tablet to steal one of his mox. When you look into the inventory, you will find 99 mox (!!!). Ah, and of course they are not restricted...  

The bug that you could tap your opponents lands during his upkeep was also pretty bad.

I've played shandelar for quite some time, I prefered the scenario mode.

pi

[Matt]

Well I downloaded the program from that site, and it runs. But for some reason it won't let me buy cards in towns - does anyone else have this problem? Or know how to fix it? I'm NEVER going to get a deck together if I have to win it all in ante.

[jpmeyer]

OH!  I had that problem.  I forget what button you press on the keyboard but there IS one that does it.  I just sat there hitting a bunch of them till I found the right one.

I like playing Shandalar but it's annoying as hell trying to beat people inside of their castles when like all of your opponents start play with like a Serendib Efreet or something.

[LordHomerCat]

Just so you know, the button JP is referring to is "Y".  I also wandered around for half an hour wondering why i couldn't buy, and eventually got to just mashing the darn keyboard and it finally worked.

[Bram]

I wish there were a PocketPC version of Shandalar....

[Setnakt]

Oh man, this game is the best. I've probably been spending like too many hours on this, but that's because this is the most awesome game ever.

To really have fun, just go through the game, as in the campaign. It's really challenging having to build a consistently strong deck out of so much crap.

I've been experimenting with the deck builder though, since while I work a bit on obsolete formats i haven't really tried pre-Alliances much lately. I remembered this old book I have of a bunch of type 1 deck primers (when Alliances wasn't legal yet and nobody knew how to use Necro). So I looked up Weissman's list and metagamed it.

.1   1   Ancestral Recall
.292   1   Amnesia
.17   1   Black Lotus
.25   1   Braingeyser
.10   1   Balance
.230   1   Sol Ring
.240   4   Swords to Plowshares
.726   2   Moat
.64   4   Disenchant
.66   2   Disrupting Scepter
.131   1   Jayemdae Tome
.62   1   Demonic Tutor
.84   2   Fireball
.438   1   Library of Alexandria
.165   1   Mox Emerald
.166   1   Mox Jet
.167   1   Mox Pearl
.168   1   Mox Ruby
.169   1   Mox Sapphire
.173   1   Nevinyrral's Disk
.126   4   Island
.188   3   Plains
.191   2   Power Sink
.43   1   Contract from Below
.221   2   Serra Angel
.528   3   Strip Mine
.254   4   Tundra
.266   2   Volcanic Island
.403   4   City of Brass
.48   4   Counterspell
.249   1   Time Walk
.250   1   Timetwister

RAWAR NO DRAINAGE. Wtf ever. Anyone know what's up with that? I seriously just don't see Drain in the card list.

I figured since it's always ante Contract was okay, but obviously since it's like the best draw ever it'd be restricted.

I had Blood Moon in (as Weissman did) but none of the computer's decks have nonbasics so I cut it for a Fireball (which is awesome removal and sometimes a finisher).

All in all, it's hard to lose with this deck when playing the computer (assuming you don't intentionally screw up like constantly I guess).

A Shandalar tourney would be the man.

[Mirificus]

Mana Drain was never available in the game unfortunately. You'd think Microprose would have included it when they published the expansion pack that included a number of Legends cards but that wasn't the case.

Brian

[Viceroy]

Try this one, it`s a real monster sometimes go on turn 2.
I also have a turboland decklist, post it later.
The counters never convince me a lot, maybe 3 psionic blast instead of the power sinks.

Shandalar Atog

Broken (10)

1 Ancestral
1 timetwister
1 timewalk
1 Braingeyser
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Regrowth
1 Sylvan Library
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mind Twist
1 Balance

Permission and Removal (9)

4 Lightning Bolt
1 Psionic Blast
3 Power Sink
1 REB

Kill (8)

4 Atogs
4 Berserk

Mana Base & Artifacts (33)

8 SoLoCryMoxen
4 Fellawar Stone
4 Copy Artifact ( brass man or Jeweled Bird)
4 Fountain of Youth
4 City of brass
4 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical
1 Mana Vault
1 Blakc Vise
1 Jayemdae Tome

[dandan]

I found that using 4 Balance beat 99.9% of the Computer's decks. Factories are very strong as the AI seems to run dorks into them all of the time.

The game is undoubtedly better when you start with rubbish and try to build up a decent deck (give me the right land!!!). It is so 1994 to beat down with Boars and Bears.

[Setnakt]

Viceroy: your deck isn't broken enough. You should run a full four Vaults, and cut random burn for Fireballs. Cut Sylvan Library and uh the rest of the burn I guess and run as many Contracts from Below as possible. WHERE ARE THE REST OF YOUR BLACK VISES. Fountain of Youth is also not very broken.

I've done a little bit of experimenting with similar card pools to this, and basically what I started liking was things with Atogs, the broken mana accel, Fireballs, Vises, maybe Ankhs if you go that direction, and other than that a bunch of draw. Definitely remember to pack Strip Mine and Vise, they will randomly win you a stupid amount of games.

[Toad]

Anyone knows where I can get all the add-ons for Shandalar? Since the core program only has Alpha and Beta, without the dual lands :<

Thanks

[goober]

the-underdogs has all the expansions Shandalar supports.  It also has some online and sealed features I haven't checked out yet.

[Komatteru]

You'd think Microprose would have included it when they published the expansion pack that included a number of Legends cards but that wasn't the case.

The Legends/Dark expansion set (called 'Duels of the Planeswalkers' I think, back when the rule book described the game as a "duel between powerful planeswalkers") had like nothing good in it.  I think it was something with Wizards, but they didn't put in any of the power cards, like Moat, Mana Drain, Nether Void, or The Abyss.  Thunder Spirit was about the best thing you got...

I was always a big fan of the sealed deck function added with Spells of the Ancients...it was pretty neat to play with a Beta starter and Arabians boosters.

[Matt]

Heh, I actually assembled this:

//Draw - 10
4 Contract from Below
3 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
2 Ancestral Recall

//Miscellaneous - 7
2 Demonic Tutor
2 Time Walk
2 Fastbond
1 Regrowth

//Damage - 6
1 Juggernaut
4 Black Vise
1 Copy Artifact

//Mana - 17
1 Mishra's Workshop
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Black Lotus
2 Mox Jet
2 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl

The Workshop could probably be a Sol Ring.

You have to get the worldmagic that eases the limit of number of a certain card you can have. I happened to just run into random Lotuses and Time Walks, but I also hunted down a lot of Elementalists, because every third or fourth one gives you a duplicate card.

It's kind of tricky beating the final boss, though - he has 300 life, which takes a LONG time to whittle down on the "Juggernaut-and-infinitely-cast-Time Walk" plan. I tried to go infinite mana with Fastbond thinning all the land from my deck so it was all Twisters and Lotuses (and I had a lone Braingeyser I was going to kill him with), but after I got to about 50 mana the program crashed. I have yet to go back and finish him off.

[Mirificus]

The Legends/Dark expansion set (called 'Duels of the Planeswalkers' I think, back when the rule book described the game as a "duel between powerful planeswalkers") had like nothing good in it.  I think it was something with Wizards, but they didn't put in any of the power cards, like Moat, Mana Drain, Nether Void, or The Abyss.  Thunder Spirit was about the best thing you got...

I was always a big fan of the sealed deck function added with Spells of the Ancients...it was pretty neat to play with a Beta starter and Arabians boosters.

The Duels of the Planeswalkers expansion pack was rather underwhelming. I'm pretty sure though that it was Duels of the Planeswalkers that added Moat. Mana Drain, Nether Void and The Abyss were all omitted as you mentioned.

Brian

Brian

[rvs]

IIRC, Moat was added.

[geela234]

Wasn't there a patch released where you could play duelands and what not.  Im sure i remember somthing like that.