Lord of the Deck (LotD) is a program to keep track of Magic: The Gathering™ card decks. I saw many such programs available for Windoze machines and decided that the Mac could do with at least one more. There's nothing extremely unusual about this program -- it generally works the same way as others of the same type.
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This is version 2.0 of this program, and I have implemented many, many new improvements over v1.0. I have added more basic info on decks, an advanced testing feature, and better organization overall. I completely rewrote the code of v1.0 in C++ (instead of v1.0's plain-old C) to allow for these changes.
v2.0 is still NOT PowerMac native since, well, I don't have a PowerMac. Wish I did, but I don't see it happening for about 2-4 years…
Shareware!
LotD is shareware. If you don't like it, trash it. If you find yourself using it, I would appreciate a small token payment. The suggested payment is an unopened booster pack of Magic cards (please no 3rd edition Revised or Fallen Empires, 4th Ed. Revised is fine) or $5 in US funds, but, of course, I'd be willing to take any sign of appreciation. If you use it, but don't think it's worth anything, at least send me e-mail explaining what you like and dislike about it.
If you use the program but don't send in registration or send me e-mail praise, then I'll probably assume that no one's using the program and give up work on it.
Registered users will have free access to all updates, and will be notified via e-mail when a new version is released and where it can be found online.
Send any registrations to:
Kirk Hedden
3051 S. Pine St
Spartanburg, SC 29302
USA
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Comments?
If you have any comments, criticisms, critiques, or creole please e-mail them to me at 70661.2514@compuserve.com. If you want to send me large files (e.g. sample graphics, etc.) please e-mail a request to send them. If I see large chunks of mystery mail appear, I'll most likely delete it without reading it since large Internet mail can rack up huge CIS charges — and God knows I can't afford that.
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In Detail:
After starting the program, the LotD main window will appear. It contains two list views -- one for the main card list, and one user list for the deck you're viewing at the moment. Unless you double-clicked on a deck file, the user list will be empty and the window will be titled 'Untitled.' From this point, the program is ready for you to enter your cards for your deck.
Prelude
Before getting into the nitty-gritty details, I just want to take a moment to point out a few liberties I took. This program does include 4th Edition cards and to avoid large amounts of redundancy, I have not included the entire unlimited and 3rd Edition revised sets since they are virtually identical to their 4th Edition counterparts. You will notice, however, that when viewing all cards at once some cards will be listed more than once. This is due to the fact that revised takes cards from earlier expansions. If you select 'Set' from the 'Show' menu, then you'll be able to tell which set a certain card is from.
Also, I forced all rarities into common, uncommon, and rare catagories. This is not exactly accurate in some cases since the printing mechanisms on small expansions allows for only common and uncommon card sheets. However, it is generally accepted that U1 (cards that appear only once on a small expansion uncommon sheet) are equivalent to rare cards. Forcing C, U, and R rarities on all cards is further confused by having U2, U3, U4, C1, C2, etc rarities across different sets. The bottom line is: if you think I got any rarities wrong, please let me know.
Now, on with the show…
LISTS
Main List -- this is where the database of Magic cards is listed. When the program first starts up, all Magic cards from every set will appear in this list, sorted alphabetically. You can limit which cards are viewed at any given time by two methods:
Custom List: clicking on this radio button and selecting a list from it's associated popup menu allows you to define exactly what cards appear in the main list. For example, if you wanted to be able to view only the green cards you own, you would first create and save a Lord of the Deck file with all of your green cards in it. Next, choose 'Define…' from the Custom popup and add that deck to the menu. From that point on, your custom files will be available in the popup for easy access. The 'Inc. Qty' (include quantity) checkbox to the side of the custom popup menu dictates whether or not to show quantities when viewing a custom list. This allows you, for example, to know how many of a card you have in your collection while building decks.
Limited To: the four popup menus associated with this radio button allow you to limit which cards are shown at any given time. For example, if you only wanted to view cards from the expansion set 'The Dark' you would select the appropriate choice in the 'Set' popup menu. If you only wanted to view red cards you would select 'Red' from the 'Color' popup menu. To view only the red cards from the dark, you would choose both. Please be aware that certain combinations will produce worthless results (e.g. since there are no blue artifacts, choosing both 'Blue' and 'Artifact' will give you zero cards to choose from).
( NOTE: LIMITING EACH POPUP TO 'ALL' LISTS EVERY MAGIC CARD EVER PRINTED. THIS CAN TAKE A WHILE FOR THE COMPUTER TO DO, SINCE LISTING 1000+ OF ANYTHING IN A LIST IS NO SMALL FEAT. BOTTOM LINE: BE PATIENT IF YOU DO THIS. )
Cards appear in the main list by name followed by card info in '<>'. By default, only the casting cost and rarity are shown, so the Royal Assassin card would appear as 'Royal Assassin <1BB, R>', showing a casting cost of one colorless and two black mana and a rarity of 'rare'. You can alter what information appears here with the Show menu.
You can select cards in the main list by clicking on them with the mouse. Holding down the shift key while clicking or dragging will select continuous lines. Using the Command key while clicking selects disjoint lines. The up and down arrow keys along with the page up, page down keys can also be used to navigate through either list.
User List -- this list displays the cards in the user list currently being viewed. Cards can be added and deleted with the buttons. Cards can be selected in this list in the same manner as the main list. Cards are displayed is the same way as the main list, except a quantity is included to the far right. For instance, if you had two Royal Assassins in your deck, they would appear as 'Royal Assassin <1BB, R> (2)'.
SHORTCUT: Note that it is possible to select a card in the main list by typing its name. In most cases, you need only type the first few letters of the name for LotD to select it. Currently, this is a very weak function which I only recommend using with limited main lists. Using this while viewing many cards (300+) is rather slow. I plan to improve this function's performance in the future.
To go along with this function, pressing the Return key triggers the 'add' button.
BUTTONS
ADD -- the 'add' button appears underneath the main list. Use this to add cards from the main list to your user list. By default, one card of each type selected is added to the user list. If the card already appears in the user list, the quantity will be incremented by one. Alternatively, there are ways to add more than one card at once. Holding down a number key (not on the keypad) while clicking 'add' will add that number of cards to your user list (holding down zero counts as 10 for this purpose).
If nothing is selected in the main list when this button is depressed, then LotD will check to see if any lines are selected in the user list. If so, it will increment those lines in the user list.
DELETE -- this button removes cards from the user list. By default, a quantity of one of each type of card selected in the user list is deleted. Holding down a number key (not the keypad) while clicking 'delete' will remove that number of each type of card selected. If a deletion would take a card down to a quantity of zero or less, the card is removed from the user list entirely.
SHORTCUT: Holding down the 'option' key while clicking the 'delete' button will remove that entire line from the user list.
TEST -- the 'test' button brings up the test window which provides a way for you to analyze your deck, including test draws. Specific information on this facility is explained later.
INFO -- the 'info' button brings up another window which displays useful information about the cards currently in the user list. The specific information which appears in this window is explained later.
Be aware of the abbreviations used here: 'OP' stands for out-of-print and includes the cards dropped from the Unlimited set when moving to 3rd Edition Revised and also the cards recently dropped in the transition to 4th Edition Revised.
MENUS
There are five menus for LotD: the apple menu, the file menu, the edit menu, the show menu, and the sort menu.
The Apple Menu -- this menu contains all your Apple Menu items and the 'About Lord of the Deck…' item. Selecting the 'About…' item displays a small splash screen.
The File Menu -- there's nothing out of the ordinary here.
The 'New…' item blanks out the user list in preparation for the entry of a new deck. If changes have been made to the current deck, you will be prompted for a save before it closes it. Note that LotD can only open one deck at a time.
The 'Open…' item allows you to load a previously saved deck into the user list.
The 'Close…' item closes the deck currently in the user list and resets the window title to 'Untitled'.
'Save' and 'Save As…' operate as would be expected, allowing you to save to file the deck currently in the user list.
'Print…' lets you print out a hardcopy of the deck currently in the user list. It is printed in a pre-defined format; I would like there to be optional formats available in future versions.
'Quit' exits the program.
The Edit Menu -- is always unavailable. It exists for interface consistency, but has no function.
The Show Menu -- allows you to choose what information will appear beside every card in each of the lists. I don't recommend selecting every options since the list boxes aren't wide enough to accommodate all of that information. It won't hurt anything, but the rightmost info will scroll off the list.
The Sort Menu -- lets you sort both the main and user lists individually by seven different criteria: set, color, rarity, quantity, type, name, and casting cost.
THE INFORMATION WINDOW
After you click on the 'Info' button in the main window, the information window appears, displaying data about the deck in the user list. Most data is presented as a number followed by a percentage. For example, a line might look something like: 'Red: 12 (28%)'; this means that your deck contains 12 red cards which comprise 28% of your deck.
The mana information is slightly different. Overall mana-producing cards are shown in the usual context (i.e. percent out of entire deck) but the colored mana percentages are shown in context with other mana-producing cards. For example, say the line concerning blue mana read: 'Blue Mana: 8 (41%)'; this means that you have 8 cards that can produce blue mana and these 8 comprise 41% of all your cards that produce mana. This does not mean that these 8 cards make up 41% of your entire deck.
At the top of the window, the total number of cards in the deck is shown.
It is important to note that for the purposes other than type and mana producer info, land cards are not included -- otherwise, a great percentage of colorless, common, 4th Edition cards would be displayed. Note that in the above example you would interpret the information to mean '28% of your non-land cards are red'. Be aware that the exclusion of lands does have its drawbacks; for example, multi-lands will not be counted as OP cards in the info window -- indeed, they won't be counted as being in any set. However, if you hold down the 'option' key while clicking the 'info' button, then land cards will be included in all the information.
The totals of percentages may not equal 100% due to rounding.
THE TEST WINDOW
Clicking on the 'Test' button in the main window brings up the test window. This gives you feedback on the probability of drawing certain types of cards. When this window first opens, you will see the phrase 'Chance of drawing card types from the first 7 cards in deck' along with a number of percentages. For example, if a line reads 'Creatures: 87%', then you have an 87% chance of drawing creatures in your first seven cards. The number seven can be changed to whatever you like. The percentages will be updated once you click on the 'Test' button in the test window.
On the right side of the window, there are mana percentages. Since it is vital to know how much mana you have available through land, that percentage is listed separately in the same line. So if a line reads 'Mana Producing (Land): 39% (33%)', that means 39% of your cards in this deck produce mana in some way (mana birds, dark ritual, black lotus, etc.) but only 33% are mana producing lands. The colors listed below this line indicate colors of mana. Please note that since some cards can produce different colors of mana (celestial prism, standing stones, etc.) there is a good chance that these percentages will exceed 100%.
The list box in the lower left hand corner displays your entire deck. Two radio buttons are off to the side, one labeled 'List Deck' and one labeled 'Test Draws'. With the 'List Deck' radio button selected, the entire deck is displayed. Clicking on a line or lines in this list will show you the percent chance of drawing any one of the selected cards out of the first 7 (or whatever you've changed the 7 to) cards in your deck. So if you wanted to see your chance of drawing a stasis in the first 8 cards, you would find stasis listed in the list box and click on it, then change the editable number 7 to 8 then click 'Test'. If you click on multiple lines (using Shift or Command), the chance of drawing any one of the cards will be displayed. For example, clicking on both the Llanowar Elves line and Wild Growth line in a deck listing would show you the chance of drawing either a Llanowar Elves or Wild Growth card in your first 7 (or other number) cards.
Clicking on the 'Test Draws' radio button will empty the list box, and the 'Draw' button will become enabled. Clicking on the 'Draw' button will randomly draw 7 (or whatever you've changed the number to) cards from your deck, listing them in the list box.
The two lines which read 'Creatures w/1 casting cost:' and 'Artifacts w/1 casting cost:' display the chance of drawing creatures and artifacts with a casting cost of 1 or less in your first draw.
The mathematics that LotD uses for these test functions is not trivial, and may appear slow on some machines. Larger decks require more computational time.
THANKS
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the following people:
Marc Britten - for the great 'About' box graphic. Check it out!
Matthew Gallagher - for the wonderful finder icons which are much better than anything I could do.
Ryan Biggs - for suggesting the new file format (savings of ~85%!).
Matt Ward - for constantly badgering me to get this program done.
Wizards of the Coast - for making such a great game.
Apple Computer - for making such a great computer platform.
PROGRAM TESTING
Lord of the Deck v2.0 was tested on a Quadra 610, an SE/30, an LC w/an 040 acceleration board, an LC II, a 7100/66, and an 8100/80.
If it doesn't work on your system, make sure you're running System 7, which LotD requires, and send me e-mail at 70661.2514@compuserve.com describing the problem.
DISCLAIMER
I did my best to make sure there are no bugs in this program, but, naturally, can't be held responsible for any side-effects from inadverdent system crashes or accidental data corruption.
