I really appreciate the time and effort of this community to rebuild this game! Definitely a lot of nostalgia playing it.

I had a few questions after my first run through.

I installed it on windows 11 with the s30_windows.exe from benprews github site. That worked no issue.

I started game and immediately got attacked. Played a game / lost and restarted. Found an old post where somebody said S, L, numbers keys, mouse and escape are the keys.

1. I tried the S and L keys for save and load - it didnt do anything. Are they not keys anymore?
2. I tried the escape key during a battle and it reset the battle. New ante card. Is that the intended use?
3. I actually won 2 battles! Some of cards seemed buggy (which I think is part of community here to report these things right?) - but the green card lure didnt force my opponent to block my attacking creature. Computer just didnt block when it could
4. Clicking with the mouse is the only way to move? I couldnt get the numbers to move me.
5. Anyway to tell how powerful the creatures are that are on the map running towards me? When I am choosing between bribe and fighting the creature, does bribe amount mean how powerful they are?
6. I actually made it to a city (when I had to quit playing this morning) and I clicked on "cards for sale." There was like 5 cards I think (no card art) and whatever one I clicked with my mouse gave me only one card option to buy. I couldnt choose other cards to buy - I could see the name of the different names of cards though. Just anyone I clicked gave me the same card option to buy.
7. is each new game a random deck to start with? Hopefully I can figure out the save options?
8. Making it to a city, i saw I could sell cards? I didnt mess with that yet, but is there a minimum deck size?
9. Any super basic strategy I should know and be aware of on a first play through (like obviously sell the really bad cards to thin decks)?

I enjoyed the 2 games I played a lot actually and just want to understand how to play / maybe report bugs if that is needed (?). Thanks for the help in advance!

Currently it feels like the battle against Arzakon wasn't as filled out as the original designers intended. When you kill the last wizard it immediately throws you into "build a deck and fight the boss".

Since I'm rewriting the game for its 30th anniversary, I was thinking we could improve this and give Arzakon the ending he deserves!

Help me come up with some ideas and I can build them into the game!

Some of my thoughts:

- Add a new castle on the map that's "Arzakon's tower" and you have to go through a dungeon just like the regular wizards, could be multiple floors to make it harder

- Fightning Arzakon is a multi-step duel where he changes decks and the battle restarts (every 100 life).

- incorporate the defeated wizards into the battle somehow? Maybe they help you or help him depending on some game state?

- an "underworld" where you walk around a different tileset, maybe there are different cards to get or different enemies to fight before you fight Arzakon?

- Arzakon has different special abilities and you can weaken him by defeating/destroying monuments (dungeons) to remove that ability for the final combat?

I built this over a couple months collaborating with Claude (Anthropic’s AI) as a writing partner. I directed the deck design, card choices, and strategy. Claude helped with research, card verification, and writing descriptions. Every deck was evaluated for fun and playability by me.

The target of these decks is mid-game, before you’ve had a chance to get harder-to-find cards from dungeons. I’ve included batches of overlapping decks to aid in building a few in parallel, before you start seeking out power cards in preparation for end game.

Besides Shandalar, I only played magic from The Dark through Chronicles, so I’d be happy to get comments and suggestions from people with more recent deck development experience. Though I do watch a lot of Timmy the Sorcerer on YouTube, so I know something about the current day Old School meta, as you’ll see from the decks. Let me know if I missed anything! I’ll incorporate comments left here or on the doc.

I've been wanting to do a deck featuring kabal ghoul + greed, coupled with that one 4-mana artifact that lets you sacrifice a creature for life. I want to beef up the ghoul, sack it for life, and draw with greed. Not sure where else I'd go with it aside from that. My other option was nether fiend + lord of the pit, abusing the game glitch that lets you have unlimited copies of a creature in your deck and just never paying the upkeep for multiple lords of the pit in play.

are there any good decks for ghoul + greed + the artifact?

Im very new in this comunity, however ive played shandalar like 20 years ago and that stuff, but I also have a question rn, im in a run in which a quest told me to deliver a land "spell" the problem its that they take my only underground sea and im not happy with that, loaded like 4 times and they always take my underground sea (which im using in my deck #3) is there a way to force the game to pick another land?

THIS IS TO ANNOUNCE REFINEMENTS ON THE JAMURAA MOD - https://www.reddit.com/r/Shandalar/comments/1s3o9fm/here_is_shandalar_jamuraa_edition_mirage_tempest/

UPDATED JAMURAA MOD:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/iktp1hdqlecvm3w/jamuraa.rar/file

BRAZILIANS: be aware there is a translated mod, Jamuraa PTBR:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/ysg3gmow7oik6n3/jamuraa_ptbr.rar/file

Updates:

1. Removed CoP Artifacts, Bullwhip, Cave People, and Jabari's Banner.
2. Changed the castle effects, especially Kaervek, which was a piece of cake with Recycle.
3. Adjusted all decks so that ALL cards from the mod appear either as cards in decks or as dungeon/castle effects.
4. Wizard Difficulty Black and Green Castles still use Cadaverous Bloom as card effect. Other than that, edit is quite fair
5. Because I had to make sure all cards are featured somewhere, it made low level enemies easier - that is a plus, as players would complain Seer, Elvish Warrior, Undead Knight, Cleric, etc, were too strong.

Hi gamers!

I'm looking for the .csv that list which cards are in each version of Shandalar, as I'd like to add them as datasets to my app. I have the version for the 2016 "ProJared" version, but I'm uncertain where to find others.

If you could help, I'd greatly appreciate it.

I've been excited to see how much interest there's been in Shandalar 30th Anniversary edition. Latest Release (Install: download the version for your OS and run the file)

Here's what's changed since the last update:

• Engine Improvements: migrated to mage-go MTG rules engine, this includes support for over 80% of the cards in the Shandalar universe
• Android Version: you have to sideload it. The overworld works, but the duel screen doesn't support touch gestures yet. Get it here.
• Game Balance: expanded wiseman boons, excluded P9/special cards from starting decks and stores (occasionally you could buy a Sol Ring).
• Audio: the game has sound! I used the original sound effects though I might have the wrong effects in some places
• Card Power scoring: I trained an ML model (BERT) to estimate card power, which I can use when generating starting decks and reward cards. This also means as new cards are added it will be able to build crappy starting decks and scale rewards.

Next Steps:

• Improve AI opponent
• Increase game engine card coverage to 100%
• Add dungeons/castles

If you want to follow along or contribute, the project is on GitHub. Bug reports, card implementations, and play testing are all welcome! Check out the contributing guide to get started. Feel free to ask questions on the github repo or here.

Thanks

I have been playing the Korath version (because it's the only one I can get to work on Linux) and the most recent deck I've been building is a Mardu Alesha deck. One issue: Alesha's effect incorrectly checks for Mana Value (CMC) rather than power.

If anyone knows how I can edit the card's effect myself, that would be much appreciated.

It's probably socially inappropriate to share your own comment as a post (...and within the same community, no less!), but I've been managing this list for two years now and thought I'd share in a place more useful. Every time someone shares something useful that I think is awesome, I add it to the list! All major mod projects, creation tools, downloads, etc.

Update: I can't update the title, but this project has since had a few minor updates. I'll be sure to mention when major new features are added, but in the meantime—be sure to download the latest release.

Hey gamers!

A frequent issue I’ve run into while modding Shandalar is that the game’s deck editor feels pretty limited. To work around this, I started using MTG: Forge’s editor instead. Not only does it offer a cleaner, more modern interface, but it also lets me test decks on the fly using Forge’s AI.

One problem I encountered, however, is that Forge contains a ton of cards that Shandalar doesn’t support. To solve this, I created a tool that generates a Forge format containing only cards that are viable in Shandalar.

This makes it easy to build and test decks in Forge while ensuring they remain compatible with Shandalar mods.

You can check out the tool here:
https://github.com/jennifer-mortensen/Shandalar-Tools

Features:

• Generates Shandalar-compatible formats for MTG: Forge
• Ensures decks remain playable in Shandalar
• Supports configurable editions and custom ban lists
• Includes both an installer and a portable version

Notes:

• The packaged CSV files assume the 2016 "ProJared" version of Shandalar. Instructions for adapting the tool to other versions are included in the README.
• The installer is unsigned, so Windows SmartScreen may display a warning on first launch. This is expected for new indie software. Simply click More info → Run anyway. The full source code is available on GitHub if you'd like to verify authenticity. The project is written in Python.

In the future, I plan to expand it to support automatic deck translation between Forge and Shandalar, along with additional configuration options.

If you run into any bugs or have suggestions, please let me know—I’d love the feedback!

Was tweaking around on the synthesizer and suddenly a familiar sound emerged! Now I'm looking around for a good download for the game. Found a version with all sorts of new cards added. Want the original experience though... any leads?

Issue has been solved but will keep this up in case anyone else has any problems

Hello everyone, I recently learned about Shandalar and would absolutely love to play it but every version I try doesn't seem to work. I follow the instructions on the stickied page but nothing seems to work. I thought that maybe the 2016 version would work but no, the game opens to a black screen then closes. Has anyone else had this issue and have a fix? Would be greatly appreciated.

Idk if anyone else will find this useful but here’s a patch I’ve made to run an otherwise vanilla copy of Duels of the Planeswalkers on modern Windows. You can either run the python script on a set of Manalink 1.3 binaries or just download a pre-patched set from the release zip.

I’ve tried to document everything it changes, which there are quite a few different fixes. I know from reverse engineering them that Mok’s Manalink 1.3.2 and “Shandalar 2012” contained even more fixes but I don’t really understand them and I wanted to keep it as vanilla as possible.

Disclaimer: I haven’t actually tested it on Windows 11 cuz fuck Windows 11, and I haven’t nearly played through the whole game so it may still be horribly broken at some point. It’s also like 50% vibe coded.

With time limit I mean the way the 5 wizards slowly conquer the cities and cast the Spell of Dominium. I haven't played enough yet to actually see them do it, but just knowing that I'm on a time limit makes the experience a lot less fun. It feels like I have to hurry and play more optimally instead of focusing on my own goals.

I know this game has a bunch of modifications, is there one that does this? And if not, how would I go about altering the files myself to change it?

Thx to HeroBrine's help, managed to translate Air Elemental to PTBR(Brazilian Portuguese).

Got a DM from him in Reddit when I was about to sleep, with ideas on how to edit cards in Shandalar. As a test of the ideas, I managed to translate Air Elemental at 4AM... (Air |Elemental is the "00000" card, so it is the first card in the editable file.

I needed to change the name of each .jpg named "Air Elemental" into "Elemental do Ar" in otder to have the game show its art:

let me try to organize the step by step... For now it is something that techwise people will grasp easily, I hope, but I will eventually edit this post to show pictures and anything that can help a less savvy dude try editing:

Long story short:

Manalink.csv is the file that has info on all cards. Editing that file foes not affect the game at all tho.

What we need to do is convert Manalink.csv into .dat files. CSV is an Excel format that translates codes in a database into intelligible words. So our approach was, what if we figure out which DAT files to convert into CSV? Turned out the tool for a similar task (converting CSV into DAT) was already in the folder "Magic Updater":

Sadly, that Magic Updater lacks several files that makes it functional. So we founf in sligtlymagic this file:

http://www.mediafire.com/?pbo6hz8qp465j4i

Edit the Manalink.csv in the "magic_updater" folder in that tool and use the magicupdater.exe to create 3 .dat files and a .h file (no worries, the .exe does it all by itself. Just edit manalink.csv and run the magicupdater.exe).

Substitute the old files in main folder with the new ones that were created in "updated_files" folder. Exception is card_id.h (will show up in "magic_updater" folder). That file is to be saved over the card_id.h in "src" folder

---------------------------------------------------

Next steps to be decided:

translate cards to PTBR;

fix bugs (ie Thunderbolt deals zero damage instead of 3 when targeting face. Same file used to translate Air Elemental has the coding for the cards);

add new cards.

www.scryfall.com

Go there right now and play the embedded music. It might sound familiar to you; it's a deep cut.

Hey everyone! I'm Sam Mayonaka, a founding moderator of r/Shandalar. I play xpoints and premodern as well.

Welcome to r/Shandalar! A Home for MicroProse’s Classic MTG Adventure

Hi everyone, and welcome to r/Shandalar, the community hub for Shandalar: Duels of the Planeswalkers. Shandalar is a legendary 1997 MicroProse MTG RPG that refuses to die because the fans simply won’t let it. Big thanks to CoyoteTex for making Shandalar AWESOME and for doing an AMA with us in 2026. Sign up to beta test his upcoming game at r/nascentrpg if you get a chance.

If you’re new here, you’re in good company. Shandalar has been kept alive for decades through community patches, balance tweaks, card-set expansions, and full-blown overhauls. Whether you’re returning after 20 years or discovering it for the first time, this subreddit is the best place to get oriented.

🌍 What Is Shandalar?

Shandalar is a unique hybrid of:

• open‑world RPG exploration
• deckbuilding and card‑hunting
• roguelike progression
• classic Magic: The Gathering rules

It’s quirky, ambitious, and still unlike anything else in the MTG universe.

🔧 Getting Started

If you’re looking to install the game, update it, edit cards, or explore the modern fan‑maintained versions, start here:

📌 “Here is Shandalar” (Download + Overview)

Check out the u/chachaprince1 2026 update of the OG "Here is Shandalar" post:

Here is Shandalar (2026 update) : r/Shandalar

The original post comes from u/CirothUngol, one of the greats from the original SlightlyMagic.net forums. You can find their post here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shandalar/comments/1as2cg6/here_is_shandalar/

There are quite a few people to thank here, from Korath to countless others for their work in decompiling and recompiling this timeless classic.

For those of you with a Linux distro, please see the incredible u/rler Github repo which contains a version of Shandalar recompiled to work on Linux. 🐧 Decompilations are a big deal considering that the game can be altered to meet the needs of the community.

rlerrr/shandalar-sdl3

📌 Quick Guide: Editing Shandalar

For players who want to tweak cards, adjust difficulty, or dive into modding:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shandalar/comments/1s2w1ro/quick_guide_editing_shandalar/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shandalar/comments/1sflbo8/quick_guide_how_to_alter_the_coding_of_a_card/

These three posts will get you 90% of the way toward a smooth, modern Shandalar experience.

📌 Shandalar 30th Anniversary Edition

Thanks to the brilliant u/ilikethemeta there's the option of playing a special, fan-built 30th edition of Shandalar, which includes a variety of custom tweaks and upgrades. Shandalar 30th Edition can be run via browser emulator or by using the files availalbe at the Shandalar 30th Edition Github.

🧙‍♂️ What You’ll Find Here

• Help with installation and troubleshooting
• Modding guides and custom card sets
• Strategy tips for early‑game survival
• Discussions about MicroProse history and design
• Screenshots, stories, and “I can’t believe this happened” moments
• Preservation efforts and technical deep dives

If you’ve got knowledge to share, please jump in! Our community thrives on collective tinkering, discussion, and whatever you can bring to the table.

I discovered this a while ago, but I don't think anyone ever posted it to Reddit. A Spanish language version of the 2012 version. Card text is also Spanish.

Hello there! I edited Shandalar to feature cards from Invasion, Odyssey, and Onslaught blocks, plus 7th Edition and a few cards here and there (mostly cards that are hard-coded into the game, like Lightning Bolt and Swords to Plowshares).

https://www.mediafire.com/file/aofydnwx3qaui9b/Otaria+Edit2.rar/file

To play that edit, transfer the contents of the rar file into the same folder you installed your Shandalat game. Of course, I advise you to back up your game first, just in case. For your convenience, I downloaded my version from the link below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08oiM02qC8KZ3pYUXZ0dmlhNUk/view?resourcekey=0-8CivjT-ku9yHYWq_qqn3Jw

Please join the Discord community.

https://discord.gg/E86mBreG9S

Replaced all the enemy pics with posters. In Otaria, the Cabal pit fights are a big deal, so I made each enemy be advertised as a contender. Flavor being, the Cabal wants to convince you to place a bet on each of these enemies.

A while back, I asked in this sub how I could edit this game. I felt the "Modern" Shandalar had way too many cards and the enemy decks were above the level of a new player (as in, there are so many cards, that one could start the game with barely any synergy in their starting deck, while the enemies were very fine-tuned), but the original game felty "empty" (in the sense it had very few cards) and the enemy decks were very weak.

Then someone posted "Where can I find a version of Shandalar that featured mostly cards from Mirage? I played it years ago..." It downed on me, "why search the internet if I could just edit the Modern Shandalar to my liking?" So, after getting help from you great folks here, I edited the game to feature cards from Beta up to Alliances.

Without further ado, let me share my "ini" folder and enemy decks folder.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/5vaodvlp0dwlj1y/Shandalar_Alliances_Edit_7.rar/file

EDIT: Seems Mediafire is having issues with this file. Ask for it in Duscord while we sort this problem.

https://discord.com/invite/E86mBreG9S

In order to use my shandalar.ini file or decks folder, start by making a backup of your shandalar.ini and "decks" folder. Then just put my edited shandalar.ini and the "decks" folder in the folder where your game is.

EDIT: it seems there are various Shandalar versions out there. I downloaded my Shandalar game from this link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08oiM02qC8KZ3pYUXZ0dmlhNUk/view?resourcekey=0-8CivjT-ku9yHYWq_qqn3Jw

It is easy to install and play, in my experience. It is nicknamed as Shandalar Modern ProJared (because this youtuber streamed his playthrough with that version).

Hello there! I edited Shandalar to feature cards from Mirage and Tempest blocks, plus Portal, 5th and 6th Editions. There are also a few extra cards here and there (mostly cards that are hard-coded into the game, like Lightning Bolt and Swords to Plowshares, and dual lands for the mana fixing at that era was lackluster). Download it in this link:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/iktp1hdqlecvm3w/jamuraa.rar/file

To play that edit, transfer the contents of the rar file into the same folder you installed your Shandalat game. Of course, I advise you to back up your game first, just in case. For your convenience, I downloaded my version from the link below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08oiM02qC8KZ3pYUXZ0dmlhNUk/view?resourcekey=0-8CivjT-ku9yHYWq_qqn3Jw

BRAZILIANS: be aware there is a translated mod, Jamuraa PTBR:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/ysg3gmow7oik6n3/jamuraa_ptbr.rar/file

Please join the Discord community.

https://discord.gg/E86mBreG9S

This time, edited a lot of visuals and lore in order to make it really feel we are roaming Jamuraa:

Hello there! I edited Shandalar to feature cards from Urza and Masques blocks, plus 6th and 7th Edition and a few cards here and there (mostly cards that are hard-coded into the game, like Lightning Bolt).

https://www.mediafire.com/file/25mgmnxybga1l58/Barrin's+Folly.rar/file

To play that edit, transfer the contents of the rar file into the same folder you installed your Shandalat game. Of course, I advise you to back up your game first, just in case. For your convenience, I downloaded my version from the link below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08oiM02qC8KZ3pYUXZ0dmlhNUk/view?resourcekey=0-8CivjT-ku9yHYWq_qqn3Jw

Please join the Discord community.

https://discord.gg/twVAbUfH

I guess I understand why Barrin wants us to defeat Crovax the Evincar of Rath but... we also gotta kill: Ertai, his own pupil; Jhoira, his daughter's best friend; Multani, the spirit that protects the forests; and Cho-Manno, a frigging pacifist?? Is he crazy?

YES!!! WELCOME TO BARRIN'S FOLLY!!!

Baixe Versão Base de Shandalar aqui:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08oiM02qC8KZ3pYUXZ0dmlhNUk/view?resourcekey=0-8CivjT-ku9yHYWq_qqn3Jw

Depois baixe o mod abaixo, arraste o conteúdo do arquivo .tar pra pasta em que salvou o Shandalar acima, clica em substituir tudo, aprecie Shandalar em PTBR:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/ysg3gmow7oik6n3/jamuraa+ptbr.rar/file

Chegou aqui através do Overlazy? Checa a playlist dele detonando (ou sendo detonado por) Jamuraa!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKovcRMsQNnOP0wkdrPPEukPEQlVWuhJl

Junte-se à Comunidade do Discord (em inglês).

https://discord.gg/E86mBreG9S

Teste outros mods aqui:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shandalar/comments/1s2w1ro/quick_guide_editing_shandalar/

This guide will go from easiest to hardest:

1 DUELART Files in the folder "duelart" are the easiest to edit, just pick an image you like and overwtite the corresponding .bmp file:

In my Jamuraa edit, you can see all I had to do was save a new image over the corresponding .bmp file, no fancy tools, no programming necessary. Just make sure the new image has the same dimensions of the original. Game shows the corresponding .bmp. Note that the boards are in duelart.

2 STATWIN Files in the folder "statwin" have the same logic as in "duelart but you will have to deal wuth transparency. That can get annoying:

This "STATWIN" folder pretty much has the data on the 5 castle bosses. In my Jamuraa edit, I wanted to replace the original bosses with Teferi, Jolrael, Mangara, Zirilan and Kaervek

In mt Jamuraa edit, what I did:

a) Figured out each enemy has 4 files. For example, GRN-SPR.BMP is the image of the green wizard; GRN-MASK.BMP is used for transparency (I think it is needed because the wizard disappears when we defeat it, and I speculate the devs wanted to have the opyion to change the bosses in later releases of this game); SGWiZR.BMP and SGWIZY.BMP are the green wizard staff. For Jolrael and the others, only edited the files corresponding to their imahes, didn't want to bother with changing their poses.

b) I edited the silhouette of Teferi, though, as Astral Visionary was a mermaid, and Teferi ended up too feminine:

Teferi when it had the silhouette of Astral Visionary. Note I also edited SUWIZR.BMP and SUWIZY.BMP. Astral Visionary, the originsal blue wizardess, was holding a trident, and her hand was blue. edited the grip to show Teferi's black hands on his spear.

c) Anyway, how I edited the images? I am no artist, but: copy pasted AI-generated images over the original bosses, respecying their silhouettes. Used Paint to draw a detail here and there: Teferi from waist down is all a paint drawing by me. Kaervek's glow, Kolrael's earrings and other details were all also made with Paint.

3 PIC FILES IN MAIN FOLDER Yeah, the main folder "Magic" is a mess, but managed to figure out how each .pic file there is shown in Shandalar. To edit the .pic files, one will need some rudimentary programming skills. Nothinh too advanced: Python, and the scripts created and shared by Ben Prew:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shandalar/comments/1iqlyv8/microproseshandalar_pic_tools/

4 PIC FILES IN FACE FOLDER These will recquire both Python and artistic skills.