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.
Lord of the Deck is not PowerMac native because, well, I don't have a PowerMac. It'll probably be at least a year before I'm able to get one, but if I come across a PowerMac compiler sometime before then, I'll do my best to get a native version out.
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Shareware!
LotD is shareware. If you don't like it, trash it. Everyone likes to be acknowledged and appreciated for their efforts, whatever they may be. If you find yourself using the program, I would appreciate a small token payment. The suggested payment $10 in US funds, but, of course, I'd be willing to take any sign of appreciation. If you try it and decide not to keep it, please send me e-mail explaining what you like and dislike about it. I welcome all e-mail and like to know what improvements you would like to see.
Lord of the Deck is over 7800 lines of C++ code in addition to over 300K in organized data. That's a good bit of work. If you use the program, please show me (and my wife) that I haven't wasted my time and register the program. Once you have registered, you will receive a code that you can enter into the program to prevent the registration notice from appearing at startup.
Registered users will have free access to all updates, will be notified via e-mail when a new version is released and where it can be found online, and can receive updates via e-mail if it's preferred.
Send any registrations to:
Kirk Hedden
3100 East Towne Mall Circle, Apt I-191
Knoxville, TN 37924
USA
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Comments?
If you have any comments, criticisms, critiques, or creole please e-mail them to me at hedden@cs.utk.edu.
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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 deck 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.
LISTS
Main List -- this is where the database of Magic cards is listed. When the program first starts up, all Magic cards from the 4th Edition revised set will appear in this list, sorted alphabetically. You can limit which cards are viewed at any given time by two methods:
Card Database: this radio button is automatically selected when the program first starts up. It allows you to navigate through all 1599 Magic cards with the four popup menus — color, rarity, set, and type.
Collection: choosing this radio button allows you to navigate through your personal collection of cards with the four popup menus. However, since the program doesn't know what cards you have unless you tell it, you must create deck files containing all of your cards and store then in a folder entitled 'Collection' which must be in the Lord of the Deck folder. It is recommended that you save your collection in a number of small files instead of in one huge file. Smaller files makes things easier on everyone. They require less memory, are loaded faster, and are overall friendlier to the program. Just save your cards in files separated by color, set, or whatever, and then store all these files in your 'Collection' folder. LotD will read all of them in at startup.
Limiting Popups: Using the popup menus is easy. 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).
Cards appear in the main list by name followed by card info in '<>'. By default, only the card set, casting cost and rarity are shown, so the Royal Assassin card might appear as 'Royal Assassin <4E, 1BB, R>', showing it belongs to the 4th Edition set, has a casting cost of one colorless and two black mana and has 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.
Deck List -- this list displays the cards in the deck you are currently working with. Cards can be added and deleted with the buttons below it. Cards can be selected in this list in the same manner as the main list. Cards are displayed in 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 might appear as 'Royal Assassin <4E, 1BB, R> (2)'.
NOTE: Option-clicking on a card in the deck list changes it's set. For example, if you had the card Elder Wurm listed in your deck as a Lengends card, but yours was from 4E, merely option-clicking on it will switch it's set to 4E. Cards from more than two sets cycle through the sets. Cards found in only one set are unaffected.
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.
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 deck list. By default, one card of each type selected is added to the user list. If the card already appears in the deck 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 deck list (holding down zero counts as 10 for this purpose).
There are several other ways to add a card to the deck list. Pressing the Return key has the same function as clicking the 'add' button. In addition, double-clicking on a card in the main list adds it to the deck list.
If nothing is selected in the main list when this button is depressed, then LotD will increment any selected lines in the deck list.
DELETE -- this button removes cards from the deck list. By default, a quantity of one of each type of card selected in the deck 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 deck list entirely.
Pressing the delete key on the keyboard has the same function as the 'delete' button.
SHORTCUT: Holding down the 'option' key while clicking the 'delete' button will remove that entire line from the deck list, regardless of quantity.
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.
The 'test…' button is not available if you have less than seven cards in the deck list.
INFO -- the 'info' button brings up another window which displays useful information about the cards currently in the deck list. The specific information which appears in this window is explained later.
Be aware of the abbreviations used here: 'RV' stands for Revised cards (3rd Edition) and '4E' stands for the 4th Edition Revised set. 'HL' stands for Homelands.
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 deck 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 and show 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 disk the deck currently in the deck list.
'Export…' allows you to save the deck currently in the deck list to a text file. It saves it in a tab-separated format ideal for spreadsheet applications. It saves it in teh following format: quantity - card name - card set - casting cost - color - rarity - type. Each piece of information is separated by a tab.
'Import…' allows you to read in a text file as a deck. The file must be in a specific format for it to be read in correctly; each line of the text file must have the following information in this order: quantity, card name, and card set. The card set is optional. Take a look at the sample text file included with this program for an example.
Every time you import a text file, an error log entitled 'Text Import Error Log' is created in whatever folder your text file was in. This file lists all the lines in the import that started with a numeral, but could not be interpreted as valid card names. It's important to check this file after each import, particularly imports of large files. Note that this log overwrites itself each time you import a file; it does not keep a running log. The creation of this error log can be turned off in the Preferences dialog.
'Print…' lets you print out a hardcopy of the deck currently in the deck list. It is printed in a pre-defined format; I am planning there to be optional formats available in future versions.
'Quit' exits the program.
The Edit Menu -- all of the options except 'Preferences…' are always unavailable. They exist for interface consistancy only.
'Preferences…' brings up a dialog that lets you select options that makes LotD work for your individual tastes.
There is a popup which changes between general preferences and price preferences.
General Prefs
The first option lets you select the default set for ambiguous cards. An ambiguous card is one that exists in more than one set. For example, the Llanowar Elves card could be from any of the basic sets: Alpha through 4E, so which does the program say it's from when you view, say, all mana-producing cards from all sets? This option lets you choose. As a general rule, choose the set from which you have the most cards for this one.
The second option is also for ambiguous cards, but is for cards that were taken into the basic sets from expansion sets. If you have more expansion cards than RV or 4E cards, then choose expansion sets, otherwise choose Basic sets.
The third option is purely personal preference. With this version of LotD, option-clicking on a card in the deck list changes the set it is listed as being from. With this option, if you have, for example, two Llanowar Elves listed separately in your deck, one from RV and one from 4E, and you changes the RV one to 4E, when you release the option key, the two cards will combine into one line instead of remaining listed on separate lines.
Two check boxes appear at the bottom of this window. The first lets you disable the alert message which appears whenever you choose to view all 1599 Magic cards at once. The second check box determines whether or not error logs are created when you import a card list from a text file.
Price Prefs
These preferences allow you to dictate what the price list that LotD reads in is named and whether or not prices are read in at all.
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.
Please note that the Macintosh OS has a built-in limit of 32K on the data of a list box. Listing all Magic cards (1300+) at once with a lot of excess information listed out to the side would "overload" the list box and exceed this 32K limit. For this reason, when you choose to list all the cards, the program automatically prevents you from viewing any information aside from card set and rarity for each card.
I am looking to ways around this, and also to make viewing all the cards operate faster.
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.
NOTE: 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 8 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 eight cards. The number eight 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 and organizations:
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.
Wizards of the Coast - for such a great game.
Apple Computer - for such a great computer platform.
PROGRAM TESTING
Lord of the Deck v2.5 was tested on a Quadra 610 and a 7100/66.
If it doesn't work on your system, make sure you're running System 7, which LotD requires, and send me e-mail at hedden@cs.utk.edu 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.
LEGAL STUFF
This program uses copyrighted material from Magic: The Gathering, a product of Wizards of the Coast Inc. Wizards of the Coast®, Deckmaster™, Magic: The Gathering™, Magic™, Arabian Nights™, Antiquities™, Legends™, The Dark™, Fallen Empires™, Ice Age™, Chronicles™, Homelands™, and Alliances™ are registered trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
