Magic circa 1995

[Matt]

I've never seen a town restock, so no, don't just buy random shit.

Get the +1 card limit world magic first, then the 5 mana taps, then the white teleport. There's no slippery slope on the mana taps except if they hit your mana links (i.e. life total) so you can just let them get 1-2 each and reclaim them later, when you have a good deck and just happen to be in the area.

You can wait on the white worldmagic because you have to accumulate white jewels for it to be useful.

[Lou]

I've never seen a town restock, so no, don't just buy random shit.

Get the +1 card limit world magic first, then the 5 mana taps, then the white teleport. There's no slippery slope on the mana taps except if they hit your mana links (i.e. life total) so you can just let them get 1-2 each and reclaim them later, when you have a good deck and just happen to be in the area.

You can wait on the white worldmagic because you have to accumulate white jewels for it to be useful.

Holy shit. I had no idea what mana links were, and I was super pissed that my life total wasn't going up because I'm obviously a god damn retard. Thanks Matt! This should be so much easier now.

[Matt]

Yeah, your life total is (I think) 10 plus the number of towns in which you have a mana link. Not every town can have them, and I think (on hardest difficulty, which is the only one challenging enough to play) it tops out at about 25 links.

Oh yeah, and ALWAYS complete your quests, because if you fail that town will never give you another one.

[nataz]

ive been trying to beat the game with 10 life...

you can get more, wtf.

ive been kicking so much ass, but I always hated the random hurricane for ten move after you have it pretty much locked up.

[Illissius]

Yeah, the most disgusting way to lose is probably when a Summoner goes first turn Birds, second turn Channel, Hurricane for the kill. I mean, if it were Fireball, that's one thing -- but Channel, Hurricane. (This was also before I figured out the whole mana links thing).

And your life total isn't quite 10 plus number of mana links -- it's the number of mana links. You start out with ten. (I know, because I lost two of them before I caught on).

[Matt]

God damn you all, you made me reinstall. I have two moxes (ruby and jet) and one contract in a B/r deck - hyppies and burn and a sengir, mostly.

Goddamn it.

[dandan]

Play only with cards that you have never put in any constructed deck (except basic lands but I guess some of the hardcore Vintage players might not have used a Forest or a Plains). It really is more fun if  you have to win bad cards and the computer is still weak enough for you to win most games.

The fun goes really fast once you start getting a deck that wins too easily (you know the ones, Vice, Timetwister, Contract, Ancestral, Time Walk, Strips)

[TheAlpha]

I have two moxes (ruby and jet) and one contract in a B/r deck - hyppies and burn and a sengir, mostly.

That actually worked out quite well for me. I used a similar type of deck with Ivory Tower and land destruction, when you're in a dungeon you can just infinitly up your lifetotal (well... sort of) because they have no manasources (except for some of the Dragons but those are al totally pathetic). Winning one match that way is a GG for the whole dungeon. You should check if Power Struggle starts in play though and add REB's if it is.

I now have 3 decks, the 4contract.B/r.landdestruction.dec (hell yeah!), a shop deck that copies fatties and a Bazaar reanimator deck with Trisk, Mahamothi Djinn and Shivan Dragons. Especially the last one totally rocks. I really recommand making something like that Bazaar deck because it's very cool to play

[OfficeShredder]

I'm currently playing with a B/W weenie deck.... having a black knight AND a white knight in play is just so bad ass (and bad for the mana base  :lol: )

[Shock Wave]

Does anyone have any idea why my deck editor complains when I have more than 3 of any card (other than basic land) in my deck? Is that normal?

[OfficeShredder]

You haven't gotten the worldmagic that let's you play with more than three yet.  So no, it's not surprising.

[zeus-online]

Does anyone have any idea why my deck editor complains when I have more than 3 of any card (other than basic land) in my deck? Is that normal?

You probably got a 40-card deck....Just play with 60 cards and the problem is solved.

/Zeus

[Shock Wave]

You haven't gotten the worldmagic that let's you play with more than three yet.  So no, it's not surprising.

Oh ok, that's definitely the problem. Unfortunately, I now have a more complicated problem: Shandalar goes all screwy on me as soon as I load it up. The 1st time I played it, it only had some minor glitches and it lasted for a 3 hour run without issues. The 2nd time around, I tried loading it and I can't see any text whatsoever, starting from the initial menu of the game (create game, load game, etc). I'm running Windows XP.  Are there any display settings or others that I should modify to make this hoss work properly?

[TheAlpha]

Are there any display settings or others that I should modify to make this hoss work properly?

Lower your resolution and maybe your colors to 16-bits. That worked for me.

[Matt]

I'm having fun with a U/R fish deck. Flying Men, Zephyr Falcon, Unstable Mutation, Force Spike, Cspell, Bolt. Phantom Monster/Roc of Kher Ridges. Old Man of the Sea, and splashing black for Unholy Strength. Boomerang.

Winter Orb!

[Shock Wave]

Are there any display settings or others that I should modify to make this hoss work properly?

Lower your resolution and maybe your colors to 16-bits. That worked for me.

I tried both and nothing works. I loading this thing up on my W2K box and it worked almost perfectly, except that when I enter deck edit mode in a town and try to remove one of my cards from the deck, it disappears instead of becoming available on the task bar. I'd like to use my WinXP PC because I'm using this box for another purpose and would rather not put any games on there. On my WinXP box, I can't see any text from the game at all. Anyone else have any ideas?

[Hi-Val]

Matt, I don't think Old Man works correctly-- I think it only grabs guys with a power less than his. I think that's why I stopped playing it entirely.

In other news, I'm having a lot of fun with a near-Highlander Keeper deck. Using Detonate as a win condition has been awesome!

[zeus-online]

In other news, I'm having a lot of fun with a near-Highlander Keeper deck. Using Detonate as a win condition has been awesome!

Lol, well i've used...recurring lightning bolts....fireball...the rack...serra angel...mishra's factory, its all good fun

/Zeus

[Hi-Val]

There's also the Mana Link option on this program. It's probably completely inferior to actually just using MWS but at least you get a really limited cardlist to go off, making building and playing a bit more interesting.

[TheAlpha]

My opponents made the worst plays ever when I had multiple Triskelions in play... Sometimes the computer seems to protect his lifetotal in the most stupid ways :X

I actually like the fact that you can get a creature in play at the start of a duel in a dungeon, I build a reanimator deck with Bazaars so I got random Shivan Dragons / Mahamothi etc. Nice move!

Question: Is mana crypt in this game?

[zeus-online]

Yeah mana crypt is in the game, and its quite easy to aquire. Same thing with mana vault.

/Zeus

[Harlequin]

Yes mana crypt is in the game... however I find it horrably annoying to play with.......  It does that flip a coin animation every friggen upkeep.  Sure you can click buy it, but still i don't think its worth it (the computer is easy enough without it).  

[Hi-Val]

You can just click the mouse and the coin flip animation goes away.

The real problem with Crypt is that in Shandalar, you need a good amount of extra mana links to avoid killing yourself with Crypt. If you have 12 life, you better be killing really fast or Crypt will just do you in.

[Shock Wave]

I'm still having trouble getting this thing to work. The last thing I tried was running it on a Win2k Server through VMWare. The game actually worked perfectly (except without sound, which I can't get VMWare to cooperate with), until I reached a point in the game where one of the other wizards seized a town. At the point (at which I believe the game is supposed to play a short video clip), the game just halts on me.

It would be really helpful if those of you who have been able to play this game without problems could post the configuration of your system. It would help me out a lot and would be of service to other people having the same issues.

Useful Information: Your OS and any relevant patches (eg. Service packs, etc.), your system hardware (processor speed, RAM), your display settings

Thanks in advance for the help!

[Matt]

I hit a Nomad's Bazaar and bought 40 lightning bolts. The 40 bolt/ancestral/draw7s deck is probably the "best" deck for the endgame because it kills in fewer mouseclicks than the moxen-fueled combo decks.

[OfficeShredder]

I hit a Nomad's Bazaar and bought 40 lightning bolts. The 40 bolt/ancestral/draw7s deck is probably the "best" deck for the endgame because it kills in fewer mouseclicks than the moxen-fueled combo decks.

It's not nearly as cool though

[CCClark]

I'll have to post it as soon as the bugs are worked out but me and some friends added some cards to the game.   I have all of Fallen Empires, The Dark, some of Ice Age, and the missing cards from the previous sets working now.   I am working on Affinity since a friend wanted me to make it into the game, but that particular ability is hard to convert since there's nothing similar to it already.  Cards that already are similar to one in the game are simple to add.   I want to get rid of the interrupts also and add 6th editions stack into it.   That's a lot of work by itself, but the game is too much fun to let die.

[M.Solymossy]

I'm just annoyed trying to find all the places to get multiple black loti, recalls, and twisters.  It's frustrating.

[President Skroob]

I'll have to post it as soon as the bugs are worked out but me and some friends added some cards to the game.   I have all of Fallen Empires, The Dark, some of Ice Age, and the missing cards from the previous sets working now.   I am working on Affinity since a friend wanted me to make it into the game, but that particular ability is hard to convert since there's nothing similar to it already.  Cards that already are similar to one in the game are simple to add.   I want to get rid of the interrupts also and add 6th editions stack into it.   That's a lot of work by itself, but the game is too much fun to let die.

Thallids!

<3

[Matt]

I'm just annoyed trying to find all the places to get multiple black loti, recalls, and twisters.  It's frustrating.

Did anyone mention the mox trick yet?

Find the dragons and use Bronze Tablets on their moxen. They will always swap. Easy way to get tons of moxes. The spells are harder.