About Apprentice

Apprentice is a software created by Dragonstar, Inc and is sponsered completely by Wizards of the Coast. It was first made to play Magic: The Gathering, but with the patch from Pojo.com, you can now play Pokémon TCG over the Internet. Apprentice is available as freeware and is downloadable at http://www.dragonstudios.com/. You can also get the patch by going to http://www.pojo.com/ and clicking on the Pokemon area. Then go and click on Apprentice Patch. (NOTE: If you are playing Yu-gi-oh, you should go here to download the patch, for Pokémon, go here.)

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How to Play a Game with Apprentice

After you download Apprentice and the patch. Then unzip the patch and stick the files that were unzipped, into the directory where you installed Apprentice. You should get the files called "cardinfo.dat", "Distro.dat", "Format.dat", and "expan.dat." The file called "cardinfo.dat" should go into the directory called Sets inside the directory where you installed Apprentice. After that, put all the other files in the directory where Apprentice was installed. Then open Apprentice and make your deck by pressing Ctrl + K or pressing on the Deck Editor sign. You can use any cards that are in the list and you can name the deck. Afterwards you can save the deck. Apprentice tells you how many cards you have used at the bottom of the Deck Editor at the status bar.

• After opening Apprentice, press Ctrl + N or press the New Game sign. Load a deck and then afterwards if you are going to duel someone online, click the radio button marked "Connect via the Internet," or for practicing purposes, click the radio button "Play a Solitaire Game." The Solitaire game is meant to get familiar with the controls. After you are done selecting, be sure to first set the number of starting cards to 0 and then set your life to 8000. Immediately afterwards, press "Ok." If you click anything else, the Starting LP will automatically drop to 999.
  
  
• If you choose to duel your opponent online and you have chosen "Connect via the Internet," a new window should appear. Ask your opponent for their IP address or give yours away to connect. Your IP is how computers identify each other online and your IP should be listed in the area shown as "My Current IP." If you give your IP, you should click "Waiting for a Call" and click "Ok." Otherwise, click the "Calling my opponent at" and enter their IP address and press "Ok." NOTE: BE CAREFUL WHO YOU GIVE YOUR IP ADDRESS TO! PEOPLE CAN HACK INTO YOUR COMPUTER WITH YOUR IP ADDRESS, SO PLEASE BE CAREFUL! I HOLD NO LIABILITY OF WHAT HAPPENS OVER APPRENTICE!
  
  
• Text should appear in the chat window. Shuffle your deck a few times (Ctrl + S) and create two cards (Action/Create Card). These cards should be labeled with "Monsters" and "M/T" to denote the two rows of your side. They are automatically placed into your hand. Drag them onto the desktop. These are your two rows.
  
  
• To draw a card, press Ctrl + D or the Draw sign. To draw more than one card at a time, press Shift while clicking the Draw sign and enter the number of cards. To Set a card facedown onto the table, press Shift while dragging it onto the desktop. To flip a card over, right click the card and click "Flip card over." Flip a coin by pressing Ctrl + F. Your Library is your deck, graveyard is your discard, and removed from game is removed from game. To look at a specific number of cards at the top of the deck, go to View/Top Cards of My Library and type in the number of cards you wish to view. You can also view your Library, Graveyard, removed cards, and your opponent's graveyard, removed cards. To show your hand, library, you go to the Show menu.
  
  
• To discard a card, right click it and press "Bury" or drag it to the Graveyard symbol. To change your life, click the Set Life sign. To end your turn, press Ctrl + T or press the Turn sign. To side deck, you should start a new game and press the Sideboard. Trade the cards you wish to change and start the next duel.

• First open Apprentice. Then press Ctrl + N or press the New Game sign. Then you choose the deck you want to use to battle by clicking on the "Load Deck..." button. You can also edit your deck before you battle by pressing "Deck Editor." You then choose either a Solitaire game (practicing the keys and the feel of Apprentice) or connect via the Internet. To connect via the Internet, you need to know somebody else's IP address. This way you can play with people around the world. You can also change your startup message by editing the message in the "Starting Message" box. After setting what you want to do, set your "Starting Life" to 0 and set "Starting Cards in Hand" to 7.
  
  
• If you are connected via the Internet, then another dialog box should appear. If you know your opponent's IP address, click on "Calling my Opponent at ...", fill in the IP address at the box afterward and press OK. If you are the person who's getting called, then click on the "Waiting for a Call" and press OK. Also if you need to change the port do so in the Port Number box. It also tells your IP address in the box beneath the Port Number area. This is the IP address that you give to the person who's going to call you. NOTE: BE CAREFUL WHO YOU GIVE YOUR IP ADDRESS TO! PEOPLE CAN HACK INTO YOUR COMPUTER WITH YOUR IP ADDRESS, SO PLEASE BE CAREFUL! THE PHANTASMA HOLDS NO LIABILITY OF WHAT HAPPENS OVER APPRENTICE!
  
  
• Then the game should start. Then you can take the cards in your hand and while pressing shift, click and drag the card onto the playing area. Your "Library" is your deck and your "Graveyard" is your discard pile. Afterwards, while pressing shift, click and drag 6 cards from your "Library." Those are your prizes. To turn the cards face up, right click on the card and click "Flip Card Over." To draw a card, press the sign "Draw a card" or press Ctrl + D.
  
  
• To discard a card, drag it to the "Graveyard" or you can right click it and click "Bury." To view your "Library" or "Graveyard", then click the menu "View" and go down to either "Library" or "Graveyard." You can also flip a coin, or roll a die. To do that, go to the menu "Action" and go and click either "Roll a die" or "Flip a coin." To shuffle your deck, then go to the menu "Actions" and click "Shuffle library" or press Ctrl + S. When your turn is done, click the picture with the arrow and the T or press Ctrl + T. To disconnect, you can either exit the program or just press disconnect on the "Communications" menu. You can also chat with the person you are battling over the box on the white box on the screen.

You should know enough to play a basic game now. Play around with the program to get a feel for it in Solitaire mode, and then battle other people and you will find it to be a fun program.

Apprentice Themes

Here are some theme(s) in which you can change the appearance of Apprentice. Each can drastically change the viewing and coloration of almost everything within Apprentice. To change your theme, go to the "Options" menu and scroll down to "Preferences...", click the tab that reads "Themes", finally click the "Change..." button and select your theme.

NOTE: The themes on this site will be located where you downloaded them to, it is suggested that you download them to your Apprentice directory's "graphix" folder so that when you click the "Change" button, it will already be located with all the other themes that you have. Tripod messed up on something with downloads of these themes. When you download them, without right-clicking the link, you'll get a garbled mess on your screen with odd characters. You have to right click the files and click "Save Target As" to download these files properly. Also, Tripod automatically changes the file extension to ".HTM" and you need to change it to ".THM" by editting the end.