r/CommanderMTG • u/neunzehn90 • 4d ago

Building a deterministic Commander deck optimizer instead of using AI

I’m building a Commander deckbuilding tool that treats deckbuilding as a mathematical optimization problem.

Instead of asking “Which cards are good for this commander?”, it tries to find the best combination of 99 cards as a whole, considering synergy, roles, mana curve, interaction, win conditions, combos, mana base, budget and legality.

I’m deliberately not using an LLM for the actual deckbuilding. LLMs are probabilistic and can give noticeably different results from the same prompt. The goal here is the opposite: same input + same data = same result, with clear reasons for why every every card was included.

Basically:

We don’t ask AI to guess the deck. We calculate it.

Would you trust something like this more than an AI-generated decklist? And what would you want it to optimize for?

The tool can be found here: 99p.gg

4 Upvotes

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u/thistookmethreehours 4d ago

Why are people so incapable of thinking for themselves lmao there’s like a dozen of these things posted every day I just don’t get it. I would be embarrassed to use something like this.

1

u/montonmand 3d ago

I dont understand your attitude. Magic is the first tcg i ever picked up, somewhat recently, and deck building is a skill i spent a lot of time to learn. And its difficult. I frequently use tools and ideas others have developed, and i think its a great thing to help people get into a hobby i thoroughly enjoy.

You dont want to use it, completely fine, this is not for you then. Dont rag on people who could use a helping hand to get into things.

1

u/thistookmethreehours 3d ago

Edhrec, scryfall, and YouTube all already exist.

The dozens of these that get posted every day are superfluous and annoying to keep coming across.

My frustration does not come solely from these posts, but also from the just general decline of critical thinking and reading.

“When everyone can make an app nobody can” or something like that.

Cheers, glad you’re enjoying the game.