Sylvan Messenger (+Woodland Bellower)

shteev

I'm sure I'm not the first to have noticed that if Sylvan Messenger is the only elf in your deck, then if you play a Sylvan Messenger, you're guaranteed to replace it with a Sylvan Messenger.

... at least, until you have played 4 Sylvan Messengers. There appears to be a limit of to the number of SMs you can draw in a game. I've hit this upper limit myself a number of times, and I've also noticed the AI hit a hard limit of 4: in one game it played 2 SMs, and in both cases it drew an elf to replace them, but after I killed them with a Displacement Wave, and then cast Days Undoing, the AI went on to cast 2 more SMs which were *not* replaced by elf cards (I assume that the AI drew the 3rd and 4th SMs with the Days Undoing... it would make no sense if it played the 3rd one, chose not to replace it, and then drew into a 4th).

The thing is, tho, that during a recent run to see how large a creature he could get into play, one of my friends played about 8 or 9 Guardians of Meletis.

So how does the card limit of 4 SMs work? Does it *just* apply to SMs? Or perhaps the game generates a deck of, say 40 cards (10 each), and then replenishes your deck only after all 40 cards have been drawn, to ensure variety of card draws?

I've been keeping an eye out to see if I draw more than 4 of any other card in a game, but I haven't noticed whether it works one way or the other yet.

paralistalon

Hmm, very interesting observation! I kind of wish the game mechanics were more transparent.

Morphis

Yes I think somehow there is some kind of deck copies limit implementation or else the " gather the pack" effect of destroying the creatures from deck would make no sense at all(not that it is a vital feature for card effectiveness, but why writ it in description if it ends doing basically nothing?)

An official word on the subject would be nice cause knowing it could affect somehow the gameplay.

loroku

I'm pretty sure the official word is: there is a 1/10 chance of drawing each card. Every time.

Everything else is likely coincidence and confirmation bias.

Unknown

loroku wrote:

I'm pretty sure the official word is: there is a 1/10 chance of drawing each card. Every time.

Everything else is likely coincidence and confirmation bias.

That isn't what this is about though, this is about a card that guaranteed a creature draw, but instead fails after 4 cards.

Unknown

Agreed. If they are going to limit a draw to 4 cards and it's not stated on the card itself, it would make sense to limit the decks to only 10 total cards.

Cards would become moot and I certainly won't pay for more cards if I can't be garaunteed to pull the one I REALLY need more than 4 times.

Just my opinion

Lieguld

Hibernum_JC

Here's how the logic goes -

When a game starts, each card in your deck is copied 3 times, for 4 copies of each card. Then this 40-card deck is shuffled, and this ends up being your Library.

However, should your Library be empty, a new set of 40 cards is generated. Likewise, if you were to draw a specific card type that does not exist anymore in your Library, a new set is created and appended at the end of your Library.

This ensures you never run out of cards, but that card draw is still relatively fair for both players.

Unknown

Thx for the info. Great to know.

Meto5000

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Here's how the logic goes -

When a game starts, each card in your deck is copied 3 times, for 4 copies of each card. Then this 40-card deck is shuffled, and this ends up being your Library.

However, should your Library be empty, a new set of 40 cards is generated. Likewise, if you were to draw a specific card type that does not exist anymore in your Library, a new set is created and appended at the end of your Library.

This ensures you never run out of cards, but that card draw is still relatively fair for both players.

So it sounds like this is what is happening. After you cast your 4th Sylvan Messenger the game engine realizes there are no more Sylvan Messengers in your deck and generates a new 40 card set and adds it to the bottom of your library. The problem is that the draw logic for Sylvan Messenger doesn't wait for your library to refresh and instead fails to find the card. The game engine should probably handle it so that it checks to see if there is a valid target for the Sylvan Messenger ability, and if not, append a new deck set before trying to draw another elf card.

Current:
4th Sylvan Messenger is cast and tries to draw your next elf card
No elf card found
Draw fails
Game appends new 40 card deck and appends it to the bottom of your existing library

Proposed fix:
4th Sylvan Messenger is cast and tries to draw your next elf card
No elf card found
Game appends new 40 card deck and appends it to the bottom of your existing library
Draw finds your newly generated Sylvan Messenger card

EDUSAN

how i understood what the dev said is that once your whole is depleted, THEN it generates a new one

so the sylvan messenger will never draw a 5th sylvan unless that 4th sylvan was the last card in the 40 cards deck, so when the game needs to draw and see no other card left, would create a new deck and find that sylvan, but if there are still cards in the deck no 5th sylvan will appear

Meto5000

EDUSAN wrote:

how i understood what the dev said is that once your whole is depleted, THEN it generates a new one

so the sylvan messenger will never draw a 5th sylvan unless that 4th sylvan was the last card in the 40 cards deck, so when the game needs to draw and see no other card left, would create a new deck and find that sylvan, but if there are still cards in the deck no 5th sylvan will appear

Reread what he said, specifically this bit:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Likewise, if you were to draw a specific card type that does not exist anymore in your Library, a new set is created and appended at the end of your Library.

So a new set of 40 cards is created at any point where a draw fails to find a card, either because there are no more cards left or there are no more cards of that type left.

loroku

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Here's how the logic goes -

When a game starts, each card in your deck is copied 3 times, for 4 copies of each card. Then this 40-card deck is shuffled, and this ends up being your Library.

However, should your Library be empty, a new set of 40 cards is generated. Likewise, if you were to draw a specific card type that does not exist anymore in your Library, a new set is created and appended at the end of your Library.

This ensures you never run out of cards, but that card draw is still relatively fair for both players.

Thanks again so much, that's a great explanation.

I'd +1 you but I can't.

EDUSAN

Meto5000 wrote:

EDUSAN wrote:

how i understood what the dev said is that once your whole is depleted, THEN it generates a new one

so the sylvan messenger will never draw a 5th sylvan unless that 4th sylvan was the last card in the 40 cards deck, so when the game needs to draw and see no other card left, would create a new deck and find that sylvan, but if there are still cards in the deck no 5th sylvan will appear

Reread what he said, specifically this bit:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Likewise, if you were to draw a specific card type that does not exist anymore in your Library, a new set is created and appended at the end of your Library.

So a new set of 40 cards is created at any point where a draw fails to find a card, either because there are no more cards left or there are no more cards of that type left.

sorry you are right

shteev

Today I was rather surprised when playing against a Garruk player that they managed to play 7 Woodland Bellowers. There's no way they went through their 40 cards, they played no other creatures in that game, no spells, and about 4 supports.

Asking around my friends it seems that Woodland Bellower just doesn't have the same restriction that Sylvan Messenger does. What's that about?

zaann85

You can get more than 4. http://imgur.com/EngYL4V How many times does this topic come up?

Rootbreaker

It may have been a bug with Sylvan Messenger when this topic was originally posted?