I still don't understand why WotC continues to tolerate a slow, error-prone, and incomplete "official database" for their cards, when other websites are far better and more comprehensive.
Other websites for magic, or other games?
To address the first:
The reason why they maintain an "official database" is because they do foot the bill on tournament prizing. They therefore have a vested interest in maintaining the the game much like how software publishers have to maintain their software. Constant updates to old cards to make sure they still function as intended. I will also note That I have not noticed ANY of your complaints about gatherer. I have not noticed it to be slow, error prone or incomplete. PLEASE link any websites you believe to provide better service, I am interested. I am also interested in people substantiating these kinds of claims when made on forums that support linking.
The second scenario:
Are the Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh! official databases better? How large are those libraries? what kind of traffic do they experience? Have you considered that perhaps it is a traffic issue on gatherer because of people directly linking gatherer in their websites and slowing it down for individual users?
Other websites for magic, or other games?
To address the first:
The reason why they maintain an "official database" is because they do foot the bill on tournament prizing. They therefore have a vested interest in maintaining the the game much like how software publishers have to maintain their software. Constant updates to old cards to make sure they still function as intended. I will also note That I have not noticed ANY of your complaints about gatherer. I have not noticed it to be slow, error prone or incomplete. PLEASE link any websites you believe to provide better service, I am interested. I am also interested in people substantiating these kinds of claims when made on forums that support linking.
The second scenario:
Are the Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh! official databases better? How large are those libraries? what kind of traffic do they experience? Have you considered that perhaps it is a traffic issue on gatherer because of people directly linking gatherer in their websites and slowing it down for individual users?
I agree with you but I have noticed a few things that could be implemented like being able to search for cards by color-identity like Stormcaller of Keranos or Boros Fury-Shield that have colored symbols in their rules box but not in their cmc.
The reason why they maintain an "official database" is because they do foot the bill on tournament prizing. They therefore have a vested interest in maintaining the the game much like how software publishers have to maintain their software.
I don't even understand what you're saying here. Are you talking about WotC? Yes, WoTC has a vested interest in maintained a better database. That they are not doing so is my entire lament.
Constant updates to old cards to make sure they still function as intended. I will also note That I have not noticed ANY of your complaints about gatherer. I have not noticed it to be slow, error prone or incomplete. PLEASE link any websites you believe to provide better service, I am interested. I am also interested in people substantiating these kinds of claims when made on forums that support linking.
My claim is far from controversial. If you want to see a better database, try http://magiccards.info/
If you want to check out how the Gatherer is incomplete and filled with errors, try looking up Anthologies cards or Promo cards (not listed), or try looking up the different artwork versions for Homelands cards.
There are one or two things Gatherer does better. Firstly, Gatherer has some (limited, often broken) support for regular expressions, whereas magiccards.info does not. Secondly, magiccards.info has occasional small errors (though generally only in sets that have only just gone up, and if you complain, they'll fix it).
But the first is rarely needed and the second rarely comes up. Gatherer has errors of its own, in particular when it comes to flip cards, that magiccards.info does not, and I'd consider them more serious errors. (And they never seem to get fixed.)
In addition, Gatherer includes tokens, which it really shouldn't (magiccards.info has them separate, on the "extras" page) and doesn't include rare promos like the holiday cards. (It really has very little about promos in general; magiccards.info is much more complete in this respect.) Magiccards.info also uses higher-resolution images for its cards (once they get the scans in, anyway).
But where magiccards.info really excels over Gatherer is its search. Gatherer advanced search is tedious to use. Anything complex takes a long time to enter. Elaborate boolean constructions? How do you do even do those? And there are all sorts of things it just can't search. Magiccards.info search, once you learn the syntax, is very versatile and very powerful. It can't do everything I'd like it to do, and it has some quirks (though often less so than Gatherer's quirks). (Compare searching for creature types. There are cases where magiccards.info will include extraneous results, but they are much fewer than the cases where Gatherer will.) Trying to do the searches I do in magiccards.info with Gatherer would be slow and painful, when it's even possible. Magiccards.info is like the command line to Gatherer's GUI.
Magiccards.info is like the command line to Gatherer's GUI.
Yeah, but the Gatherer GUI is extremely well designed and easy to understand, which counts for a lot. I don't really feel the need to learn a scripting language in order to do searches.
For people who aren't frequently called upon to do elaborate boolean searches of the database there are still strengths to magiccards.info:
bigger images
bigger text
ridiculously faster loading time (since the layout is very simple)
format legalities are front and center
the advanced search is about as intuitive as the gatherer one
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
I finally remembered the question I had about this-
Do any of these card search engines have an option to search for a specific number of colored mana symbols?
Specifically, I'd love a list of every (mono-colored) card with more than three colored mana symbols
(ie- Lich, Mind over Matter, Primalcrux, etc.)
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
A specific number? I don't know of any that do. But magiccards.info can roughly simulate it, I think, and the particular search you want can easily be done in magiccards.info, as follows:
(mana>=WWWW or mana>=UUUU or mana>=BBBB or mana>=RRRR or mana>=GGGG) not c:m
Make that
not:funny (mana>=WWWW or mana>=UUUU or mana>=BBBB or mana>=RRRR or mana>=GGGG) not c:m
If you wan to exclude Un-cards and such.
Private Mod Note
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Modern - Bogle, Infect (hey, i'm new!)
EDH - Prime Speaker Zegana, Reaper King
Standard - MBD, G/b Devotion, Blue Devotion, Boros Burn, BG Dredge, W/G Aggro, Dimir Heroic
ENCHANTMENT AGGRO!
To address the first:
The reason why they maintain an "official database" is because they do foot the bill on tournament prizing. They therefore have a vested interest in maintaining the the game much like how software publishers have to maintain their software. Constant updates to old cards to make sure they still function as intended. I will also note That I have not noticed ANY of your complaints about gatherer. I have not noticed it to be slow, error prone or incomplete. PLEASE link any websites you believe to provide better service, I am interested. I am also interested in people substantiating these kinds of claims when made on forums that support linking.
The second scenario:
Are the Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh! official databases better? How large are those libraries? what kind of traffic do they experience? Have you considered that perhaps it is a traffic issue on gatherer because of people directly linking gatherer in their websites and slowing it down for individual users?
I agree with you but I have noticed a few things that could be implemented like being able to search for cards by color-identity like Stormcaller of Keranos or Boros Fury-Shield that have colored symbols in their rules box but not in their cmc.
Other websites for magic.
I don't even understand what you're saying here. Are you talking about WotC? Yes, WoTC has a vested interest in maintained a better database. That they are not doing so is my entire lament.
My claim is far from controversial. If you want to see a better database, try http://magiccards.info/
If you want to check out how the Gatherer is incomplete and filled with errors, try looking up Anthologies cards or Promo cards (not listed), or try looking up the different artwork versions for Homelands cards.
I would recommend http://magiccards.info/ over Gatherer in almost all cases.
There are one or two things Gatherer does better. Firstly, Gatherer has some (limited, often broken) support for regular expressions, whereas magiccards.info does not. Secondly, magiccards.info has occasional small errors (though generally only in sets that have only just gone up, and if you complain, they'll fix it).
But the first is rarely needed and the second rarely comes up. Gatherer has errors of its own, in particular when it comes to flip cards, that magiccards.info does not, and I'd consider them more serious errors. (And they never seem to get fixed.)
In addition, Gatherer includes tokens, which it really shouldn't (magiccards.info has them separate, on the "extras" page) and doesn't include rare promos like the holiday cards. (It really has very little about promos in general; magiccards.info is much more complete in this respect.) Magiccards.info also uses higher-resolution images for its cards (once they get the scans in, anyway).
But where magiccards.info really excels over Gatherer is its search. Gatherer advanced search is tedious to use. Anything complex takes a long time to enter. Elaborate boolean constructions? How do you do even do those? And there are all sorts of things it just can't search. Magiccards.info search, once you learn the syntax, is very versatile and very powerful. It can't do everything I'd like it to do, and it has some quirks (though often less so than Gatherer's quirks). (Compare searching for creature types. There are cases where magiccards.info will include extraneous results, but they are much fewer than the cases where Gatherer will.) Trying to do the searches I do in magiccards.info with Gatherer would be slow and painful, when it's even possible. Magiccards.info is like the command line to Gatherer's GUI.
(Also, yes, it's faster than Gatherer.)
Yeah, but the Gatherer GUI is extremely well designed and easy to understand, which counts for a lot. I don't really feel the need to learn a scripting language in order to do searches.
For people who aren't frequently called upon to do elaborate boolean searches of the database there are still strengths to magiccards.info:
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
It's not a website, but the Decked app is really, really good.
It gives all kinda of info and has a very nice advanced search.
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
Do any of these card search engines have an option to search for a specific number of colored mana symbols?
Specifically, I'd love a list of every (mono-colored) card with more than three colored mana symbols
(ie- Lich, Mind over Matter, Primalcrux, etc.)
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
(mana>=WWWW or mana>=UUUU or mana>=BBBB or mana>=RRRR or mana>=GGGG) not c:m
Make that
not:funny (mana>=WWWW or mana>=UUUU or mana>=BBBB or mana>=RRRR or mana>=GGGG) not c:m
If you wan to exclude Un-cards and such.