Oh my...
Not commenting on all of it, some of them I already answered, others I just don't have an answer to right now.
For the decks that can bring out Level 8 Synchros, it might be worthwhile to implement PSY-Framelord Omega.
Definitely, at some point. Not the easiest card to use for the AI, though.
In some situations, the AI will activate cards with a Life Point cost that will cause it to pay all of its Life Points (which wasn't an issue until the OCG ruling that while you can't pay a Life Point cost that's greater than your current LP, you can pay one that's exactly equal to your current LP, you'll just lose the game). Offhand, I can only recall seeing this with Instant Fusion.
What a stupid ruling, right? -.-
I fixed most of these, I think, but some might still be there. I'll look after Instant Fusion. Also, obviously, that will affect any non-scripted card with a LP cost as well, and unfortunately I cannot check for costs in a generic sense, so that issue is here to stay.
The AI still seems to not pay enough attention to its Life Points and the field situation when deciding what position to Summon monsters in and whether to Normal Summon monsters versus Setting them.
Yeah, most monsters don't check for anything but a list, which monster should be summoned in what position. If I factor in current life points, current ATK of opponent's monsters and especially, if and which of these monsters the AI expects to be able to remove, or if the AI needs to pay more life points this turn, it just gets overwhelmingly complex. I have no idea, how to do that properly, so I'll probably just stick to the current logic for now.
I'd have to retest to be sure, but I seem to recall the AI apparently being unaware that Burgesstomas that are being treated as monsters are not affected by monster effects, leading to it trying to use monster effects on them with no success.
Maybe. Will look into it.
It would probably require some changes to the script, but the deck could probably make some use of Harpie Harpist. Not sure what to suggest taking out, though, as this deck was not affected by the new banlist and the current Main Deck is already pretty solid.
The guys at pojo disagreed on this mostly, Harpist was deemed too slow for a fast swarm/OTK deck like Blackwings. Some of them don't even play Pinaki anymore, which I thought to be an amazing card for the archetype, but end phase adds are largely unneeded, if you have access to 3 Whirlwind.
I believe that I have mentioned this before, but the AI will activate the Graveyard effect of Calcab if able, even if the only available targets are on the AI's side of the field. The AI should only use this effect to target S/T on the player's side of the field, and should not activate the effect if the player does not have any set S/T.
The intend was to re-enable the BA self-summon effects. The execution is done poorly, but it can be useful to return your own S/T.
I don't play Burning Abyss myself, so take this one with a grain of salt -- but I don't really see Barbar as being all that useful here, at least in terms of its Graveyard effect. I could maybe see it if this were running Leviair the Sea Dragon and/or Burial from a Different Dimension, but since it isn't, Barbar seems to run counter to the way Burning Abyss works.
Barbar is just a name in the early game, good enough for that initial Dante. And lategame he is an awesome finisher. 900 damage just for sending him to the grave is not bad at all. Others run Cowboy in the extra for this, arguably way harder to make use of, and weaker burn effect. The AI doesn't use his effect early to not waste resources, and I have found myself being finished by this card more than once. Definitely good enough as a 1-of, in my opinion.
The logic for choosing positions on Special Summons could probably use some tweaking. For example, if the player has a monster(s) that the AI doesn't expect to be able to get rid of that turn, it can Special Summon Chaos Sorcerer, Collapserpent and/or Wyverburster in defense, to allow them to act as blockers.
As mentioned, this "expect to be able to get rid of" part is actually very hard to check.
Mega Monarch:
- For my own use, I've been experimenting with a build that main decks Zaborg the Mega Monarch, and includes 3 each of Elder Entity N'Tss and PSY-Framelord Omega in its Extra Deck, with some success. The idea is to use Zaborg to destroy a LIGHT monster (in order of preference, that would be an opponent's monster, The Original Monarch, or Zaborg itself) sending N'Tss and Omega to the Graveyard in order to make use of their effects. (My build also uses Miracle Synchro Fusion and some appropriate Synchros and Fusions for it, though I would probably not recommend that part here.) It does mean that Dominion will sometimes not be locking down the opponent's Extra Deck when it otherwise would, but the tradeoff is that the deck gains an option for dealing with multiple cards on the opponent's field at once and the ability to mess with the opponent's Graveyard. Do you think that play could be implemented here?
That is a completely different variant and would require quite some changes to the build, as having an extra clashes with Dominion, arguably one of the most important cards in the current AI build.
If I add a Zaborg build, it will be a different deck, since that plays out in a completely different way. However, I will work on other decks first, before I implement a 3rd variation of Monarchs :D
Thanks again for your extensive notes. Did you have a change to try out the Kozmo deck yet?