The drop-down menu in the upper-left hand corner is the primary means for navigation in the deck builder. You start off in the Search area (which changes what cards are displayed in the datagrid at the bottom). You also have access to a list of decks (both official and your own once you've made some) and a section for viewing the contents of your current deck, which also has its own subsection for statistics on the current deck. Double-click on any entry in any datagrid to view that card.
Search for Cards section
Update search in real-time (check box): Leave this checked for the datagrid that displays your search results to update automatically every time you make a change in the search controls above. Leave this unchecked for the search to only be performed when you click the Search button.
Name (text field): Used to search by card name (not case sensitive). Note that this can be any part of a card's name, such as "fire clan" to find all cards that have the term "fire clan" in their name.
Type (drop-down menu): Used to choose a card type to search for, such as Creature or Quest. You can also search by pile, such as Barracks or Spellbook cards. Quest cards are not included in the Barracks (Cr/Gu) or Armory (Sh/Dv) searches.
Alignment (three check boxes): Leave any combination of these check boxes (Heroic, Neutral and Evil) checked to search for cards of those Alignments. As there are no Alignment-less cards, un-checking all of these will display no results.
Class (three check boxes): Leave any combination of these check boxes (Über, Advanced and Basic) checked to search for cards of those Classes. Un-checking all of these will display all Class-less cards.
Long Range (drop-down menu and numeric stepper): Leave this on Any to not search by Long Range. Selecting > and entering a number will return all cards with a Long Range greater than that value. And so on with >= being greater than or equal to, == being equal to, <= being less than or equal to, < being less than and != being not equal to.
Medium Range (drop-down menu and numeric stepper): Leave this on Any to not search by Medium Range. Selecting > and entering a number will return all cards with a Medium Range greater than that value. And so on with >= being greater than or equal to, == being equal to, <= being less than or equal to, < being less than and != being not equal to.
Close Range (drop-down menu and numeric stepper): Leave this on Any to not search by Close Range. Selecting > and entering a number will return all cards with a Close Range greater than that value. And so on with >= being greater than or equal to, == being equal to, <= being less than or equal to, < being less than and != being not equal to.
Defense (drop-down menu and numeric stepper): Leave this on Any to not search by Defense. Selecting > and entering a number will return all cards with Defense greater than that value. And so on with >= being greater than or equal to, == being equal to, <= being less than or equal to, < being less than and != being not equal to.
Dexterity (drop-down menu and numeric stepper): Leave this on Any to not search by Dexterity. Selecting > and entering a number will return all cards with Dexterity greater than that value. And so on with >= being greater than or equal to, == being equal to, <= being less than or equal to, < being less than and != being not equal to.
Creation Cost (drop-down menu and numeric stepper): Leave this on Any to not search by Creation Cost. Selecting > and entering a number will return all cards with a Creation Cost greater than that value. And so on with >= being greater than or equal to, == being equal to, <= being less than or equal to, < being less than and != being not equal to.
Rarity (five check boxes): Leave any combination of these check boxes (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Scarce and Unique) checked to search for cards of those Rarities. Un-checking all of these will display all Rarity-less cards (everything post-Maelstrom-FP).
Limit (drop-down menu and numeric stepper): A card's Limit is the highest number of copies of that card you can have in your deck. If you choose to use copies of a card from different printings (say, some Maelstrom-FP Acolytes and a Maelstrom Acolyte) you must go by the lowest Limit amongst them. Leave this on Any to not search by Limit. Selecting > and entering a number will return all cards with a Limit greater than that value. And so on with >= being greater than or equal to, == being equal to, <= being less than or equal to, < being less than and != being not equal to.
Release (drop-down menu): Leave this on Any to not search by Release. Maelstrom-FP is the first, test release (cards say "First Printing" at the bottom) of the first 100 cards from the full release of Maelstrom.
Rules (text field): Used to search by rules text (not case sensitive). Note that this can be any part of a card's rules text, such as entering something like "Deploy" to find all cards whose rules text contains the word "Deploy". Those often having Deploy abilities, or triggering off of them or affecting them if not.
Flavor (text field): Used to search by flavor text (not case sensitive). Note that this can be any part of a card's flavor text.
Search In (drop-down menu): Leave this on All Cards to not search by this option, or change this to Current Deck to only search within your current deck.
Only show cards in print (check box): Leave this un-checked to not search by this option, or leave this checked to only show cards currently printed and available.
Developer Comment (text field): Used to search by developer comments (not case sensitive). Note that this can be any part of a card's developer comment.
Card Code (text field): Use this to search by card code. A card's code is its unique identifier aside from its rather user-unfriendly database ID number. The letter that precedes a card's code is the iteration of that card. An A means it's the first time that card has been printed, a B for the second time, and so on. The number following it is the number raw number of the card in our printing process. For example, Maelstrom-FP ends at 00100 and Maelstrom begins at 00101.
Only show cards with art (check box): Leave this un-checked to not search by this option, or check this box to only return cards that currently have artwork.
Aspect (drop-down menu and text field): Leave this on Any to not search by Aspect. Alternately, you may search by the more common Aspects available (currently Fire and Mechanical) or select Other to type in a more obscure Aspect to search for. Aspects are not printed on the physical cards, they are instead common-sense attributes, like a Pyromance being of the Fire aspect even though its name doesn't contain the words "fire" or "flame"
Search (button): If you don't have the Update search in real-time check box checked, you'll have to click this to submit your search.
Current Deck section
Contents/Statistics (drop-down menu): Use this to switch between viewing the contents of your current deck in a datagrid and viewing various statistics about your deck in a pie chart.
Deck Playability (Mage Warfare Class symbol): This shows you how playable your deck currently is. Class-less (empty) means the deck is not playable at all in a real game (does not mean minimum requirements of 10 cards in the Barracks, 10 in the Armory, and either no Spellbook or a minimum of 7 cards in the Spellbook). Basic (1/3 full) means a deck is playable, but not tournament-legal (does not have exactly 50 cards). Advanced (2/3 full) means a deck is tournament legal, but not purchasable (must have more Basic cards than Advanced, and more Advanced than Über). Über (completely full) means a deck is purchasable. Click this symbol at any time for a remind of what means what.
Piles (pre-formatted text): This displays the total number of cards in all piles (Barracks, Armory and Spellbook) currently in your deck, as well as the total number of cards in your deck. If your deck contains Quests then the counts for the Barracks and Armory will be slightly different, displaying something like "Barracks: 31-33". In this example, 31 is the minimum number of cards your Barracks could have in it (just your Creatures and Guards) and 33 is the maximum number of cards your Barracks could contain (your Creatures and Guards, as well as all of your Quest cards). Since Quest cards can be in either the Barracks or the Armory at any time, the count in this example on any given game can be 31, 32 or 33.
Your Name (text field): Your name. Used for keeping track of who made what decks, particularly if more than one person uses the deck builder on your computer. When you load up the deck builder this will default to whatever the name of the person whom last saved a deck is, or if no deck has yet been saved it will be "Card-Spawned Token."
Deck Name (text field): The name of the deck. This is also the unique identifier by which decks are saved. If you save a deck with the same name as a deck you've already saved, you will be prompted as to whether you want to overwrite the previous deck or not. When editing a deck, you may change the name at any time before saving in order to 'save as' and create a new file so as not to overwrite your previous deck of the same name.
Deck Description (text field): A short description of your deck.
Save (button): Saves the current deck as a Macromedia Flash SharedObject file (.sol) to your computer (about 4 KB per deck). When saving a deck, its name is its unique identifier, so if you try to save a deck under the same name as a deck that already exists, you will be prompted as to whether or not you really want to overwrite the previous deck. For the curious or those who move from computer to computer and want to bring all their decks with them without e-mailing Export/Import codes; these Shared Object files should be in a location that looks something like "C:\Documents and Settings\<your Windows login>\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\<some gibberish>\www.magewarfare.com\deckbuilder\DeckBuilder.swf". Note that it does matter if you go to 'www.magewarfare.com' or 'magewarfare.com', as Flash stores the Shared Object files for these URLs in different folders and there's no way for the deck builder to work around this.
New Deck (button): Clears away all of the contents of the current deck after prompting if you really want to. Also clears the Deck Name and Deck Description fields.
Order Deck (button, not always visible): If your deck is purchasable (the Mage Warfare Class symbol is Über (full, see above for an explanation of this)) this button will become visible. Clicking this gives you a block of text to e-mail to either cbarrett@magewarfare.com or kbarrett@magewarfare.com to begin the process of ordering your custom deck. Since we're still about as indy as a company can get, we hand-assemble these ourselves and we'll reply to your e-mail with details like pricing, shipping details and how long it will take us to build the deck (if we're not busy with conventions or anything of the sort, it shouldn't take more than a week or two to build the decks). Note, however, that it would be extremely unlikely to randomly get a signed 1/1 card in a custom-built deck since we hand-assemble them. However, there's a higher chance than 0%, so who knows.
Export (button and text field): Export the current deck to a string of 'code' to be imported elsewhere, either by another person or by yourself at another computer.
Import (text field and button): Import the string of text to the right in the text field. It's suggested you don't try and hand-write entries for this, though it is of course quite possible. The format is c<card id number>x<number of that card in deck>c... Note that it's impossible to add cards not normally visible via the search feature within the deck builder since the downloaded card database doesn't even include such cards.
Contents sub-section
Plain Text (button): Click this to view your current deck in plain text-only. Good for copying into things like e-mails or blogs.
BBCode (button): Click this to view your current deck formatted in BBCode. Good for copying into things like the Mage Warfare forums, and any other forums that use BBCode.
HTML (button): Click this to view your current deck formatted in HTML. Good for copying into things like custom web pages and blogs.
CSV (button): Click this to view your current deck in a comma-seperated values format. Good for copying into spreadsheets.
Datagrid (Card Name, Count, Class, Type and Release): Displays all of the cards in your current deck.
Add to Deck (button): Add one copy of the card, or one copy each of all of the cards, selected in the above datagrid to your current deck. The deck builder will not allow you to exceed any card's given Limit.
Subtract from Deck (button): Subtract one copy of the card, or one copy each of all of the cards, selected in the above datagrid from your current deck.
Statistics sub-section
Alignment/Class/Type/Release (drop-down menu): This allows you to set the pie chart to base its data on the Alignments, Classes, Types or Releases present in the deck.
Entire Deck/Barracks Only/Armory Only/Spellbook Only (drop-down menu): This is a sub-menu to the Alignment/Class/Type/Release drop-down menu and focuses said data in just one area, or frees it up to look through your entire deck.
Including Quests (check box): Checking this check box will make the data displayed in the pie chart include Quest cards, as well. Note that Quests are Class-less and cannot be present in the Spellbook, so if the primary data selection drop-down menu is on Class and/or if the its sub-menu is on Spellbook Only, this check box will not be present.
Pie Chart: Graphically displays how much of your deck is what based on the two formarly mentioned drop-down menues. Refer to the keys just to the right of the chart to see what each color represents, how many cards that mactch that criteria are in the deck out of how many cards total are being considered, and what percentage this is. For example, if you have Alignment and Entire Deck selected and you're seeing something like "Evil (29/50) 58%" on the red key, it means that the red chunk of the pie chart represents the Evil portion of the deck, there are 29 Evil cards in the deck out of 50 cards total, and this means that 58% of the deck is Evil.
Deck List section
Datagrid (Card Name, Count): Displays the cards present in the selected deck, as well as how many copies of each of them there are in the selected deck. You can double-click any of these entires to view any card.
Add to Deck (button): Add one copy of the card, or one copy each of the cards, selected in the above datagrid. The deck builder will not let you exceed a card's individual Limit.
Subtract from Deck (button): Subtract one copy of the card, or one copy each of the cards, selected in the above datagrid.
Delete Deck (buton): Clicking this will prompt you as to whether or not you really want to delete the selected deck. Deletion is permanent. (Official) decks cannot be deleted.
Load Deck (button): Clicking this will prompt you as to whether or not you want to replace the current deck with the selected one, also loading the selected deck's name and description for easier updating of your own, older decks.
Deck Details (text field): This field shows when the selected deck was created, who made it and its short description.
Deck List (list): A list of all of your decks in alphabetical order, followed by all of the (Official) decks in alphabetical order.
Search Results Datagrid section
Add to Deck (button): Adds one copy of the card, or one copy each of the cards, selected in the datagrid below (note the matching colors of blue highlighting between the button and datagrid, while other Add to Deck buttons and card list datagrids have orange highlighting).
Subtract from Deck (button): Subtracts one copy of the card, or one copy each of the cards, selected in the datagrid below (note the matching colors of blue highlighting between the button and datagrid, while other Subtract from Deck buttons and card list datagrids have orange highlighting).
Datagrid (Card Name, Alignment, Class, Type, Release, Long Range, Medium Range, Close Range, Defense, Dexterity, Flesh, Limit): Lists the results of your searches. Note that you may double-click any entry in this list to view that card. Note that when clicking on column headers to change the sorting method in the datagrid that Flash datagrids only sort by string values, not numeric values, so if sorting, for example, the Flesh column in descending order that 1 will come before 10 and 10 will come before 2. Also note that changing the sort method of an actual string value column that Flash handles special characters oddly, such that cards like Álfheim's Light appears last in an alphabetical list, after the Zyx. AK-47 also comes after all of the other 'A's in the ActionScript sorting, but right where it should with the column header sorting.
