Hi,
It has recently come to my attention that two newcomers (at least new to me!) in the world of MTG minmax AI are making great progress. I find it extremely exciting that this kind of AI is getting more popular and that many projects are taking on this hard challenge. Hopefully, we can take some ideas from each other and make a better world!
Those two are:
I still have this crazy idea that one day we can make our AIs compete each other 
Maybe someone should start working on a protocol for MTG moves…
Also recently, Nvidia has released samples that show a minmax algorithm running on a GPU. They still have some way to go (no backtracking search) but the promise of running an algorithm on thousands of GPU threads is certainly appealing!
As for me, I’m currently making some progress on the deck editor. Next up is the staging area, where you prepare for the game, choose your deck, etc…
Hey François,
I’ve been following both you blog and the code progress for some time, and I’ve thought a bit about how you can adjust the AI to have preferences for certain abilities for instance an AI that focuses on certain abilities or though defensive creatures or this likes. Is it anything you have considered.
P.S. I really like the style of your code, and the whole approch to the design. So if there is anything that you want me to give a shot at contributing, just say, and I will see what I can do.
Hi! I didn’t think about how to make the AI favor some strategies over others that much. I guess I always thought that this would be done through the minmax heuristic that attributes a score to a certain game situation. You can then value some creatures over others, for example. Feel free to try it if you want!
Right now, I don’t have a lot of time to contribute. Last time I did so, I was starting to implement the client/server part (everything but the game itself – chat, lobby, etc).
Some ideas for you:
* Implement more cards
* Optimize minmax AI (can be hard)
* Improve UI (I recently finished the card browser/deck editor but they are very crude!). You can also get your hands dirty with the actual game UI. The basic skeleton is there, but it needs a major overhaul as well.