Just a warning to everyone, later today or tomorrow I will be updating MTGJSON with several backwards incompatible changes. Some fields are going away, some are changing format.
I very rarely make backwards incompatible changes as I don't want to break existing code, but a bunch of things have been piling up over the years and it's time to do a little bit of cleanup.
I'll be adding a big red WARNING at the top of the page to warn users of these changes.
In addition, I will be changing the 'major' version number from 2 to 3.
You're a legend, Sembiance! Thanks for your hard work on this resource.
Thanks for the kind words
It's funny, I don't even play MtG anymore. Haven't played it in over 3 years now.
I initially created MTGJSON and MTGIMAGE because I was going to create a 'visual' card search tool and deck builder. I wanted to use it myself to quickly and visually search through cards and create decks and try them out, in order to 'get back into' playing MTG, perhaps eventually at a competitive level. However after creating the two sites, I found I no longer wanted to create the search engine and I had lost all interest in playing MTG.
By the way, I've added all outstanding issues, feature requests and other changes to the MTGJSON Github Issues List
So feel free to comment on any of the issues or add any new ones.
I of course will still be monitoring, replying and posting here on this forum, just like always, just wanted to point out that all outstanding issues/requests are being kept track of on the MTGJSON Github Issues List
2. in ORI boosters, the land slot can instead be a checklist card. i believe this should be indicated in the 'boosters' field as [... ['land','checklist'], 'marketing']
5. there are three sets from magiccards.info that don't appear in your data set -- 8eb,9eb, and uhaa. the first two i believe are just starter sets, which you include under 8ED and 9ED with the 'starter' field set to True. uhaa appear to be alternate art unhinged cards, which i believe are not currently included.
Yes, that is the way the 8EB and 9EB set cards are handled.
As for UHAA, these appear to be 'alternate art' foil versions of cards that were rarely included in the booster packs of unhinged. From what I read here the only difference between the original cards and these foils is that the foiling shows secret words, symbols or other art highlights. Since they were included in the boosters themselves, it ideally belongs in the set itself. For 'alterante art' cards in most sets I include a 'variations' array with the multiverseid of the other variations. This won't work here since Gatherer doesn't have the alternate art versions. I have GitHub Issue #39 open to add foil information per card. This is probably the best way to handle the unhinged alternate art cards, add another card with a 'foilOnly' flag set (or something similar). I've added this set info to that GitHub issue for further tracking there.
6. the magicRaritiesCodes field is sometimes a list and sometimes a string. it would be easier to work with if it were always a list (sometimes containing only one element)
8. although many card names have non-basic-ascii characters, the only set name like this is conspiracy (which uses '\xe2\x80\x94' for a dash). it seems like it would be more consistent to either use a normal ascii dash for CNS or to use the same UTF8 code in other set names with dashes.
I agree it would be more consistent, but Wizards uses this weird dash for the Conspiracy set not only on Gatherer but also on their wizards.com blog posts. This seems to be a very intentional move by Wizards and thus to me seems like it's the official version of the name. Due to this I plan on keeping it the way it is for the time being.
12. on mtgjson.com you state "I order the cards first by 'name', then by 'imageName' and finally by 'number'". since set,name,imageName are enough to uniquely identify each card, number is never actually needed as a tie breaker.
According to magiclibrarities those two cards were available in both standard white bordered and foil black bordered versions (unlike Lhurgoyf and Necropotence which only came in foil black bordered). Thus I will handle this once the 'per card foil info' GitHub Issue #39 is taken care of. I've added this info to that issue.
16. conversely, the CED/CEI cards do not have collector numbers printed on them, but they do have the number field populated. they appear to be purely alphabetical, which is how they are listed on magiccards.info, but are not "real" collector numbers. the same is true of some of the promos -- pDRC, pLGM, pPOD, etc.
I have fixed this for CED/CEI. As for the promo sets, I need to spend some more time looking into getting those fixed.
17. i think it might make sense to split VAN into two sets, the 32 physical vanguard cards printed in 1997-1998, and the avatar cards which are online only.
I agree. I have added this to the issues list as Github Issue #49
What about card copies restriction in a deck? Do we need a new attribute for this information?
When the time comes that I add the Duels sets (Github Issue #53) it probably does make sense to add the card copies restriction info too (Github Issue #54)
in one of the last updates the gatherer text for Nature's Cloak changed due to their new handling of landwalk reminder text. I'm not sure if the new text is working as intended:
Green creatures you control gain forestwalk until end of turn. Forestwalk (...)
This looks like the sorcery itself has forestwalk?!
Do you think, this could be changed in the json file or do you want to keep the gatherer text?
It is kinda crappy, the way it is worded. It's been better in the past. However this is the official Oracle text, and is how Wizards (as of right now) is planning on printing cards in the future. Therefore I'll be keeping it the same as the gatherer text.
It is the new Oracle text for this card yes but I think it is an error in this card's Oracle text change from DTK to ORI. Other non creature cards do not have this "Landwalk" before the reminder text.
Ahh, you are correct. They don't seem to have done that weird wording in any other cards. It does indeed look like a Gatherer bug (big surprise). I've updated MTGJSON. Thanks for the additional info.
Is there any chance we could get a set defined for the cards contained in Magic Duels: Origins? It consists of roughly 80% of the Origins cards plus other older cards. There are already requests for independent deck building apps for this game since the built-in deck-builder is fairly limited on filter capability.
It also brings up a new card characteristic that might need to be defined (maybe it is there already): The number of copies of a particular card that can be put in a deck as limited by rarity. Namely: common-4, uncommon-3, rare-2, mythic/planeswalker-1.
Booster is 6 cards: 3 common, 2 uncommon, 1 Mythic/Rare
I've added it to the list of things to look into doing. Right at this moment I'm pretty swamped with some other work on a different project so I'm not exactly sure when I'll get around to adding this info. Thanks for the info on booster makeup, etc, that will be useful when the time comes.
In the mean time, since the cards are just reprints of existing cards, it should be pretty easy for someone who needs this to just scrape or even manually type in the list of cards into their code and import the existing cards already found in mtgjson.
in one of the last updates the gatherer text for Nature's Cloak changed due to their new handling of landwalk reminder text. I'm not sure if the new text is working as intended:
Green creatures you control gain forestwalk until end of turn. Forestwalk (...)
This looks like the sorcery itself has forestwalk?!
Do you think, this could be changed in the json file or do you want to keep the gatherer text?
It is kinda crappy, the way it is worded. It's been better in the past. However this is the official Oracle text, and is how Wizards (as of right now) is planning on printing cards in the future. Therefore I'll be keeping it the same as the gatherer text.
However, those appear to be generated from MTG Salvation, as in someone there may have just guessed at artist/card number. Before publishing this data to MTGJSON, I'm going to wait for a second source of info confirming the correct number and artists. Ideally I'd love to see physical images of the cards, however as these are sample decks sent to dealers and not available for sale directly, finding them has proven to be quite difficult
The images in those links look like hi-rez card scans, and each includes the number and artist at the bottom.
At the bottom of those images it says 'MTGS Mockup'
However, those appear to be generated from MTG Salvation, as in someone there may have just guessed at artist/card number. Before publishing this data to MTGJSON, I'm going to wait for a second source of info confirming the correct number and artists. Ideally I'd love to see physical images of the cards, however as these are sample decks sent to dealers and not available for sale directly, finding them has proven to be quite difficult
I very rarely make backwards incompatible changes as I don't want to break existing code, but a bunch of things have been piling up over the years and it's time to do a little bit of cleanup.
I'll be adding a big red WARNING at the top of the page to warn users of these changes.
In addition, I will be changing the 'major' version number from 2 to 3.
Fixed.
Fixed.
Thanks for the kind words
It's funny, I don't even play MtG anymore. Haven't played it in over 3 years now.
I initially created MTGJSON and MTGIMAGE because I was going to create a 'visual' card search tool and deck builder. I wanted to use it myself to quickly and visually search through cards and create decks and try them out, in order to 'get back into' playing MTG, perhaps eventually at a competitive level. However after creating the two sites, I found I no longer wanted to create the search engine and I had lost all interest in playing MTG.
So feel free to comment on any of the issues or add any new ones.
I of course will still be monitoring, replying and posting here on this forum, just like always, just wanted to point out that all outstanding issues/requests are being kept track of on the MTGJSON Github Issues List
Thanks for the heads up. I have added these 'starter' cards to MTGJSON ORI set in the same manner as they were added to M15.
According to: http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Magic_Origins#Tokens_.2F_Emblems_.2F_Checklist
The '16th' card that is marketing is sometimes the checklist card, instead of the land card. Does anyone know which one it truly is? Is there always a land or is the land sometimes replaced with a checklist as smecaj states?
Fixed.
Fixed. I also fixed/updated my cron script that was supposed to catch and notify me when magiccards.info got around to adding sets.
Yes, that is the way the 8EB and 9EB set cards are handled.
As for UHAA, these appear to be 'alternate art' foil versions of cards that were rarely included in the booster packs of unhinged. From what I read here the only difference between the original cards and these foils is that the foiling shows secret words, symbols or other art highlights. Since they were included in the boosters themselves, it ideally belongs in the set itself. For 'alterante art' cards in most sets I include a 'variations' array with the multiverseid of the other variations. This won't work here since Gatherer doesn't have the alternate art versions. I have GitHub Issue #39 open to add foil information per card. This is probably the best way to handle the unhinged alternate art cards, add another card with a 'foilOnly' flag set (or something similar). I've added this set info to that GitHub issue for further tracking there.
I agree, fixed.
Fixed.
I agree it would be more consistent, but Wizards uses this weird dash for the Conspiracy set not only on Gatherer but also on their wizards.com blog posts. This seems to be a very intentional move by Wizards and thus to me seems like it's the official version of the name. Due to this I plan on keeping it the way it is for the time being.
Fixed.
Fixed.
Thanks. Those will be used once I eventually add full foreign language support. This is tracked in Github Issue #40
I have updated the docs.
According to magiclibrarities those two cards were available in both standard white bordered and foil black bordered versions (unlike Lhurgoyf and Necropotence which only came in foil black bordered). Thus I will handle this once the 'per card foil info' GitHub Issue #39 is taken care of. I've added this info to that issue.
Whoops. This used to be the case, but the numbers got lost when I moved the cards around before they ended up in 8ED/9ED.
Fixed.
Fixed.
I have fixed this for CED/CEI. As for the promo sets, I need to spend some more time looking into getting those fixed.
I agree. I have added this to the issues list as Github Issue #49
When the time comes that I add the Duels sets (Github Issue #53) it probably does make sense to add the card copies restriction info too (Github Issue #54)
Ahh, you are correct. They don't seem to have done that weird wording in any other cards. It does indeed look like a Gatherer bug (big surprise). I've updated MTGJSON. Thanks for the additional info.
I've added it to the list of things to look into doing. Right at this moment I'm pretty swamped with some other work on a different project so I'm not exactly sure when I'll get around to adding this info. Thanks for the info on booster makeup, etc, that will be useful when the time comes.
In the mean time, since the cards are just reprints of existing cards, it should be pretty easy for someone who needs this to just scrape or even manually type in the list of cards into their code and import the existing cards already found in mtgjson.
It is kinda crappy, the way it is worded. It's been better in the past. However this is the official Oracle text, and is how Wizards (as of right now) is planning on printing cards in the future. Therefore I'll be keeping it the same as the gatherer text.
At the bottom of those images it says 'MTGS Mockup'
That is useful, thank you!
However, those appear to be generated from MTG Salvation, as in someone there may have just guessed at artist/card number. Before publishing this data to MTGJSON, I'm going to wait for a second source of info confirming the correct number and artists. Ideally I'd love to see physical images of the cards, however as these are sample decks sent to dealers and not available for sale directly, finding them has proven to be quite difficult
Fixed, thanks for the heads up!
This is the same thing they did in M15 and I handle that by simply specifying 'starter' : true for these cards.
Sadly however Gatherer doesn't list these cards for Magic Origins, yet they did for M15. Sigh.
Does anyone know which of the Magic Origin Sample Cards are numbered which number? Also which artist is attributed for each card?
I can't find any images of these cards online and I can't find a list that contains the card number and artist either.