MagARENA

A friend of mine recently noticed I play magic and recommended me to try this AI software.

And lo and behold its Magarena





It is a really cool game and the best thing is it is FREE!



Not just free but GNU GPL v 3 FREE!



Whats even more cool? My friend (Melvin) is the developer of the A.I. how cool is that =)

I'm so proud of him really =D


Alright enough hollering.


I tried the A.I. and it is pretty addictive.


I have not tried to make it run more than 40 cards, tho I suspect it might be possible.



One of the disclaimers of Magarena is that it is not meant as a duel playtest software, which is a little bit of a pity since, the playtesting facility will really stress test the A.I.

and more importantly provide another playtesting avenue.

Having said that,unless the AI is able to play with the nuances required in the various types of decks, it would be useless. The reason being that MWS allows a player to play against himself already so that niche is covered.


Hence I can see why Magarena does not want to pursue duels since it would significantly up the ante in complexity.


A few things to note:

- You want to download the images and use the image version
- It can take a while but its worth it
- Its really good for learning combat and phases of a turn, without the pressure of a life opponent say on MODO or MWS















You probably can get a better view here

Clicking on a card gives you the a bigger card image so its readable:










There is also a text version but I found it difficult to use as there is no way to see what the card does. I did ask Melvin what was the use of the text version, he said it was for portability. Still something a little more friendly would be good. Apprentice was a software that was pretty lightweight and text based.. so that might work =)




About the A.I.
================

It is good enough to give you a good game. I suspect it is actually stronger than I think it is but it underestimates poison and landwalk.

Alot of the games I literally have a walk over because of landwalk.





Have fun ppl!