MTG Hivemind: Artificial Intelligence Designing Magic the Gathering Cards
It&#x27;s interesting that this is an entire system, integrating disparate
components for different parts of a card. This is the first time I see this
kind of thing (for auto-homebrew M:tG cards). Unfortunately it doesn&#x27;t work
that well.<p>Some of the cards that are presented as being &quot;good&quot; or even &quot;gems&quot; actually
dont&#x27; make a lot of sense.  In fact, every single card shown in that article
has some kind of flaw- either the concept is all over the place, or the
ability text is incorrect, or both.<p>A few examples, starting with the three &quot;gems&quot; listed towards the end of the
article as surprisingly good stuff you find once in a while:<p><pre><code>  Sick Strength 
  RR
  Creature - Nomad
  Haste.
  Whenever Sick Strength deals combat damage to a player, sacrifice all other
  creatures you control
  3&#x2F;2
</code></pre>
This is probably the one that the author of the article considers the &quot;jewel
in the crown&quot; because it seems to make sense. But - a <i>creature</i> called &quot;Sick
Strength&quot;? Of type &quot;Nomad&quot;? A creature called &quot;Strength&quot; should be of a type
denoting some kind of elemental property, e.g. &quot;Avatar&quot; or &quot;Elemental
Incarnation&quot; etc. Or just &quot;Elemental&quot;. In any case, a red card called &quot;Sick Strength&quot; should probably be a sorcery, or instant (and most likely one granting a P&#x2F;T bonus).<p><pre><code>  Mastery of the Unseen
  2UU
  Creature - Trilobite
  Blue instant and sorcery spell you control have flying The same is true for
  flying, deathtouch, haste, landwalk, protection, trample, and vigilance.
</code></pre>
Wait, protection - from what? Protection must be protection <i>from</i> something,
like &quot;Protection from Black&quot; or &quot;Protection from Creatures&quot; or even
&quot;Protection from converted mana cost 2&quot; etc. Also, Flying (twice),
deathtouch, haste, landwalk, trample and vigilance are all crature abilities,
but while Mastery Of The Unseen itself is a creature, it grants those
abilities to instants and sorceries. This card doesn&#x27;t work. But, cool name (though totally not for a creature).<p>[Edit: also note the ungrammatical use of singular &quot;spell&quot; for &quot;Blue instant and sorcery&quot;.]<p><pre><code>  Dreamspoile Right
  WGG
  Creature - Dryad
  Sacrifice a forest: Dreamspoile Right gets -1&#x2F;+1 and gainst vigilance until
  end of turn.
  4&#x2F;3
</code></pre>
Actually, this one&#x27;s pretty decent. The ability even fits right into the
colours of the card and the overall theme is fine. The name is off though.
&quot;Dreamspoile&quot;? Not &quot;Dreamspoiler&quot;?<p><pre><code>  Taste of Blood
  1UU
  Creature - Elemental
  Flying.
  When Taste of Blood dies, exile it with two time counters on it and it gains
  suspend.
  2&#x2F;2
</code></pre>
The article sounds amazed that MTG Hivemind managed to come up with that
second ability that uses Suspend not as an alternative casting cost, as it is
usually used. Except that&#x27;s basically the second ability of Epochrasite [1],
that the article mentions as an example of a card with Suspend, word-for-word,
but with two counters instead of three.<p>Also &quot;Taste of Blood&quot; goes well on an Elemental, but really not on a <i>blue</i>
Elemental.<p><pre><code>  Write Of Goblin Blade
  UR
  Creature - Goblin
  Prowess blue spells you cast cost 1R Less to cast.
  1&#x2F;3
</code></pre>
&quot;Write of Goblin Blade&quot;? Not &quot;Write-off Goblin Blade?&quot; Then, the ability text
is all wrong- it&#x27;s ungrammatical for natural English and it&#x27;s ungrammatical
for ability text even- keyword abilities like Prowess are written with a &quot;--&quot;
after their name.<p><pre><code>  Grim Battlemage
  4U
  Creature - Yeti
  Flanking.
  When Grim Battlemage enters the battlefield, return target permanent to its
  owner&#x27;s hand.
  U: Grim Battlemage loses defender until end of turn.
  6&#x2F;4
</code></pre>
I was sure there was a card in Magic that gave Defender to a creature (so that
it couldn&#x27;t attack you; bit crappy but eh). I even thought it had a name like
&quot;Turn to stone&quot; or something. A search on Gatherer can&#x27;t find it. So, unless
I didn&#x27;t search right, this is the ultimate junk card. [Edit: to clarify, it
loses defender, but it doesn&#x27;t have defender to begin with and there&#x27;s nothing
that can give it defender, so the ability is unusable] Also, a &quot;Yeti&quot; that is
a &quot;Battlemage&quot;? A &quot;Battlemage&quot; would be a &quot;wizzard&quot; probably. But OK, the
article clarifies that types don&#x27;t work very well.<p><pre><code>  Over Cub
  2U
  Creature - Skeleton
  Also can block only creatures with flying
  2&#x2F;2
</code></pre>
Also? OK, now we just have to find another creature that can block only
creatures with flying. No, we don&#x27;t - that&#x27;s not correct ability text.<p><pre><code>  Juffy Khrovalize
  3G
  Creature - Ally
  Convoke.
  When Juffy Khrovalize enters the battlefield, you may search your library for
  a pirate card, reveal it, then shuffle your library and put that card on top
  of it.
  5&#x2F;3
</code></pre>
That name is a mess. I used to follow the development of Roborosewater (or the
neural net that eventually became Roborosewater) when it was a thread in MTG
Salvation and I remember clearly that many card names used to be a total
slapstick mess that made no sense, like this one. Roborosewater, if I remember
correctly, was able to generate more plausible names I think with a little
longer training. But I&#x27;m not sure.<p>___________<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gatherer.wizards.com&#x2F;Pages&#x2F;Card&#x2F;Details.aspx?multiverseid=446923" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gatherer.wizards.com&#x2F;Pages&#x2F;Card&#x2F;Details.aspx?multive...</a>