Skip to main content

My Favorite Feature in Amaranth

If you haven't used it, Amaranth is a deck builder and card search utility.  You can find cards, build and save decks, and export them in a variety of formats.  And if you've ever played a deck and tweaked it, then you need to know about Amaranth's Versions ability.

We'll take a look at a deck that I have played for many years: a !Toreador Undue Influence bleed deck.  It's gone through many iterations.  I recently added two cards to bring it to 72 for Rudolf Scholz's V5 for Vendetta event.  The Archon Investigation proved very useful in round one of that event.  It's always useful to look at a deck's history.  You can recognize changes in your playstyle, the meta, and other effects that have altered your concept.

So what is the Version ability?  Quite simply versioning a deck allows you to keep a single copy of the deck saved on the server.  There's no need to title your decks v1, v2, etc. any longer.  That single deck can have many versions and each version can have details.  I like to list why I made changes, but you don't really need to fill in that field if you don't want to.

How to Version a Deck

To version a deck, simply click on Versions.

Click Tag This to create a new version of the deck.

Enter any text you think is appropriate for the new version.

Comparing Versions

When you click on a version in the Versions pane, you'll get a comparison with the current version of the deck.  You can see that comparison here.

If you want to compare two different versions, you'll need to make one of them the active version.  You start by clicking on the version that you want to make active.

Then, click Use.

Now you can open the Versions pane again and compare the active version (that you just replaced) against any other version.

If the current version is not tagged, Amaranth will warn you.

Seeing Your Deck Over Time

As I mentioned at the beginning, it can be really interesting to review a deck over the course of its lifetime.  I invite you to check out Undue Art Scam.  You'll notice that the name is no longer accurate: the deck doesn't even contain any Art Scam any more.  If you review the deck, it gone from 90 card down to 60 and back up again.  The crypt is rather different, including having Maldavis (ADV), at one point.

Do you have a deck with a long history?  How drastically has it changed?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Watchlist

We know the BCP has a watchlist for cards that are under review for banning/nerfing.  With the upcoming changes to Ashur Tablets and Emerald Legionnaires announced, but not detailed, I thought I take a few minutes to talk about some cards that I feel are problematic in the game.  I'll forego any talk about the upcoming changes. (I don't know what they are and any more talk about those cards at this point is just tilting at windmills.) My Watchlist This probably isn't my full list, but it's what is on my top of mind right now, which means they're important enough to remember that I have problems with them and important enough to think about what we need to do about it. Veil of Darkness A card that Black Chantry must be concerned about because it wasn't even reprinted in Echoes of Gehenna. The effect is powerful, a permanent chance to cancel cards.  There may be some problem with the effect, which is never going to be applied evenly.  Some decks run more Master ca
2 comments
Read more

The V5-Only Format

The idea of a V5-only format has been floated by BCP for some time.  Ideally, this is a way to level the playing field for newer players.  Some folks have, of course, lost their collective minds about the idea.  More ways to play VTES and easier formats to bring in new players sounds exactly like what the doctor ordered to me. Steve has been running several online tournaments this year, a subset of which were in the V5-only format.  I wasn't able to make his earlier V5-only events, but was able to make this last one.  Here are my thoughts about it.  Is V5-only worthwhile?  Let's find out. What I Played I had a few ideas that I wanted to experiment with: Queen Anne + obf/pre Princes, using Banishment (she's one of the oldest vampires available); Malk voters; Banu voters; and Nos Barons.  I'm glad that I didn't pick either of the first two as both of those showed up in the event.  I've previously won with a Banu deck focusing
2 comments
Read more

Thoughts on the 2024 Tournament Season Updates

BCP recently announced errata and changes for this years tournament rules to coincide with the Ravnos, Salubri, and Tzimisce starter release date.  The new cards and the changes will be tournament legal on February 2, 2024. The Errata We knew this was coming as Black Chantry announced that there would be an announcement.  I even stirred up some controversy by posting some changes I'd like to see now that these have been settled.  That being said, here's my initial thoughts regarding these changes. Ashur Tablets As much I would have preferred BCP to ban Ashur Tablets, this is the errata that I expected them to settle on.  I had considered this approach several years ago before BCP began testing changes.  It seems to be a solid middle ground that guts MMPA decks without necessarily gutting other decks that use Tablets.  The Ashur race is now much more of a race.  Gone are the days of 18+ Tablets decks.  I expect decks to sit in the 6, sometime
2 comments
Read more