Useful mtg programs and services. Useful programs and services mtg Proxy cards mtg

I had to go out and trade for or buy several copies of each.

When I first started working here at Wizards, however, I found that R&D uses proxies all the time to test cards. Obviously, the cards that are in development need to be proxied, but I was surprised to find out that R&D didn"t get upcoming sets much sooner than the rest of the world did. (For example, we still don"t have Fifth Dawn cards here yet, and must still play with proxies of them.)

Substantial Substitutes

The best kind of proxy card, and the one you"re most familiar with if you read the site enough, are the “playtest stickers.” Here is a playtest sticker of used during Darksteel development:

These stickers are printed directly from our card database in large numbers, and then we all sit around and stick them on the appropriately-colored leftover cards from older sets. The stickers are printed up usually about once a month and are used almost exclusively for limited (sealed deck and draft) playtesting.

The stickers, while nice, take substantial effort to print and fasten. So much so that we can't realistically use them when we're playtesting constructed decks. During constructed testing, card text and deck contents are constantly changing—often from one hour to the next—and the stickers become obsolete really quickly. Instead, we have a supply of blank cards handy—normal cards with the Magic back and plain white fronts—that we write on when we make decks.

One way to make good proxies is to write all the relevant information on the card, like developer Devin Low did here:

Devin—and any one he plays against—never had any problems remembering what this card was supposed to do, since he spent a lot of time making sure it was clear. The problem is that this method takes way too much time. It almost would be faster to print and cut stickers than to write all this information on every proxy card.

So we take shortcuts, often writing just names and mana costs, and relying on playtesters" knowledge of what cards do. Now, this system would work really well if everyone in R&D had good penmanship. But alas, people"s ideas on what makes a decent proxy varies greatly. Have a look at these three cards:

All three are proxies of the same card, Darksteel"s . The card was known as “Cool Cat” during early development. The first proxy is from Developer A. Developer A"s proxy contains the bare minimum information he needs to play the card: a mana cost and the name he knows it by, “Cool Cat.” If you were wondering, this proxy was made long after Darksteel had gone to press and Cool Cat was given his real name. But many playtest names just stick and R&D never stops using them. If you play against Developer A, be ready to ask him what his cards are five times per game. But his system does allow him to make and edit decks at breakneck speed.

The middle one is by Developer B. Developer B has bigger handwriting, so at least you can tell it"s called “Cool Cat,” and hopefully you"d remember what card Cool Cat was as well as what its abilities were. He also was kind enough to write the creature's power and toughness, so that if it gets into combat, the math is easier.

The third proxy is by Developer C, and it is a thing of beauty. The green Sharpie clearly indicates that the card is green. The real name (for which the creative team thanks him dearly) is written neatly in the center, and the mana cost and P/T are also very readable from across the table. While this is not a proxy that I made, it is close to how I try to create them. I, like many developers, keep a wide range of colored pens at my desk at all times. I"m sure I spend more time than is necessary on my proxy decks, but it really increases my own play experience. I like my cards to look nice.

I"ll let the (cool) cat out of the bag: Developer A is newly anointed Magic Lead Developer Brian Schneider, Developer B is Matt Place, and Developer C is Paul Sottosanti. Paul is very particular, Matt a little less so, and Brian is all substance-over-form. (He probably made four new decks since I started writing this article.) We tried to persuade him to use real card names for a while, but he ended up writing “Glaivemaster” for and “Voltron” for , which was worse than whatever he was doing before. He leaves the names up to other people.

Things can get even worse. For a while we were really low on blank cards and had to reuse them. This Magic Arcana shows what happened then, and was not pretty. Cross out, change it to. Then cross that out and change it to. Yuck. We still make changes directly on cards within a deck, but we don"t need to turn one deck into another any more just to ration blanks.

Of course, some people try to save time in other ways. Here"s a card Devin used during Mirrodin development:

He had two deck ideas that were similar, and tried to save time by making one deck into both versions. In one game he"d play all the top halves, and in other he"d use the bottoms. While a sound idea, in practice it was way too confusing to play against.

A Glimpse Ahead

You really have to know future card sets well in order to understand Magic games here in R&D. To prove it, I"m going to show you a few Fifth Dawn cards taken from recent Future Future League decks. If you"re wondering what they do, so do many of the other developers that have played against these cards!

Last Week's Poll

What set did your favorite Wall first appear in?
Urza's block	2179	20.2%
Alpha	1202	11.1%
Tempest block	1119	10.4%
Early expansions	962	8.9%
None - Walls are dumb.	909	8.4%
Mirrodin block	903	8.4%
Mirage block	738	6.8%
Masques block	723	6.7%
Ice Age block	667	6.2%
Onslaught block	548	5.1%
Invasion block	514	4.8%
Odyssey block	334	3.1%
Total	10798	100.0%

There are hundreds of sites, services and programs about and for MTG. I collected those that I have used myself or my friends use.

Applications

MTG Manager, formerly MTG Augmented Reader, is a free application for iOS that scans a card through the phone’s camera, recognizes it from a picture in a second and displays its text description and prices according to TCGPlayer / MagicCardMarket / MTGMintCard.

Not a program, but “magic” (-: Convenient when you have a card in your hands not in Russian or English, but, for example, in Japanese - the application will give it out English version and figure out what the card does and show it to your opponent if he doesn’t believe it.

Or it’s convenient to find the cost of the card on StarCity for exchange - there is no search in Russian, so you recognize the card with the program, it displays the name in English and look for it on SSG.
You can also create lists of cards from your exchanger and see the current price of the collection. There are 100 card slots available for free. If you need more, you can buy more.

MTG Magic Scanner is a card scanner for Android. Recognizes them by name and displays prices.

MTG Scanner Delver Lens is another scanner for Android.

ScryGlass MtG Scanner is a paid card scanner application for Android.

Swiss System Tournament is an Android application that will allow you to create a Swiss tournament bracket. The disadvantage is that it distributes places within the same number of points alphabetically and you cannot do manual parings.

MTG Draft Calculator is an Android application for parings. Counts statistics - PMW, OMW, PGW, OGW.

MTG draft timer - timer for drafting for Android. Gives signals for the “peaks” of cards, counts the time for viewing selected cards between circles.

MTG Familiar is a Swiss army knife program for Android for counting lives, searching for cards in the database without an Internet connection, checking the legality of the card by format. It keeps track of hit points for two players and stores the history of changes. Counts poison tokens. It can also count mana in the pool - useful for decks with the Storm mechanics. Game rules and timer included.

— Android application for judges. Helps you find the Oracle text of the map, contains Complete Comprehensive Rules
and Complete Magic Tournament Rules. It works offline, you just need to download everything into the program first. Includes a timer for drafting.

Deckedbuilder is a paid application for iOS and Android for creating decklists. Shows statistics: mana curve, number of mana symbols for selecting lands, cost. Allows you to test the deck - see the first hand, etc.

Magic Card Designer is an Android application for creating your own MTG cards.

— a program for a computer under Windows, Linux, MasOS for maintaining a map database and organizing tournaments.

Web services

Build a deck

What’s in standard - the service will answer frequently asked question— what blocks are now standard. With the transition to blocks of two sets and an 18-month rotation, it became relevant.

Bangic is a convenient and simple site with a list of banned cards by format: Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Pauper, multiplayer and dueling Commander.

MTGcombos - you select a card and see all the combo decks with it.

Tappedout - there are a bunch of ready-made decks with descriptions and discussions, divided by format. True, many are for fun, not tournament ones.

Edhrec - you select a commander by color, color combination (two-, three-, four- or five-color), set, type of creature (zombie, goblin) and look at the decks based on it.

EDH Commander Card Reference is a service that will suggest synergistic cards for the Commander format. Choose a topic, for example, “alternative victory” and the site will show all the cards that will help you win the game without causing damage.

Manabasecrafter is a service for selecting a manabase for the Commander (Elder Dragon Highlander) format.

Make a proxy

MTG.ru/proxy/ is a service that will generate PDFs from proxies according to the list or from generated boosters. By the way, boosters are not generated very adequately - for example, too often you come across cool mythics, and the same ones.

Bluebones.net/proxies/ is another proxy generator. You can specify the card issue to be printed.

Find out prices

Mtg.ru/shops/prices/ - find out approximate prices latest issues for several stores as of today. The output is PDF for printing.

MTGOwikiprice - prices for cards in MTGO from bots.

MTGcoverage - covers from tournaments.

Mtggoldfish - see decks and prices in different formats.

Hold a tournament

MTGarena is a web service that will help you create seating and parings for the tournament. Useful for casual and kitchen tournaments. Works in the browser, authorization via Google account. The guys and I used it for kitchen tournaments. He thinks well.

Challonge is a service for flight pairings.

Tiebreaker is also a paring, but is rumored to be unstable. It can match those playing or give a “buy” to someone who has already received it.

Deckstats - can enter your deck into the tournament registration form, which saves time.

Generate maps

Map generator for Planechase and Archenemy. If you want to play these casual formats, but don’t have enlarged maps of plans and schemes, and don’t want to print proxies, use this site. There's even a planar die for Plainchase. Maps for Plainchase are from the 2012 release, including industrial patches. You can choose cards as desired, or from a set of original decks.

MagicDrafting.com is a service that allows you to practice sealed on issues that are included in the “Standard” format.
Generates a link to the revealed pool of cards, they can be uploaded to a text file that is suitable for loading into Cockatrice, shows the mana curve of the assembled deck. In general, service 🔥

Syunakira.com/smd/ - draft and sealed simulator. Works in the browser. The default map language is Chinese, but you can select English.

draftsim.com is a service for training seaside and drafting. The site helps you create an approximate deck and shows what other players - bots - took.

mtgen.net is a good generator of boosters for any edition, starting with Alpha. The author promptly adds new sets. You can even generate your own cube, inserts, and wipes from the Prerelease set 😆 There is a convenient sorting of revealed cards by type, mana cost, and colors. You can save a link to the revealed cards and show it to a more experienced player, asking for advice on building the deck.

Maintain a collection

Deckbox is a website for maintaining your own map database for collection or sale. You can create decklists and wish lists. I didn’t try the service at first, but it turned out to be very convenient - it contains scans of all map reprints, including enlarged ones. Therefore, it is convenient to create a search list for a collection, even with different pieces of art. Much more slick than Google Spreadsheets. And all this in the free version.

« Proxies» called printed on a printer Magic: the Gathering card images. Proxies usually played at deck testing, to don't buy cards, which may not be useful. This online service will help in creation such proxy cards.

With the help of this online service Can type not easy MTG card images, but also replace their original text with the latest Oracle rules or Russian translations. The service can also generate Magic: the Gathering boosters for home drafts.

How to use the online service

How to use the online service
printing MTG proxy cards.

Write the quantity and names in the column MTG cards that you want to print. For example, like this:
3 Sensei's Divining Top 3 Isochron Scepter 2 Researchers from the Academy 4 Elven Berserker 17 Mountain
There can be no more than 60 different cards in the list. Next, click the " Create a file with a proxy and get a link". If all card names are specified without errors, the system will create a PDF file with proxies, which you can view, print out, or save to your computer.

At the bottom of the menu there are " print settings", where you can specify whether it is necessary to overtop the original Magic: the Gathering card images impose Russian translation text or text Oracle. Please note that using this option may significantly increase the size of the output PDF file. The option does not work with split cards.

Helpful hints.

- If the number of cards of a given name that needs to be printed is not specified, the system will assume that 1 card needs to be printed.

If the name of a card is repeated several times in the list, the system considers only the last specified number of cards to be correct.

What you need to work with the service.

To view and print PDF files, you need a program (aka Acrobat Reader in earlier versions), preferably version 6.0 and higher. This program is often already pre-installed on the computer. Otherwise, it can be downloaded for free on the website Adobe.com or found on most driver discs for computer components.

For those who do not have the opportunity to use the cumbersome "" program to print proxy cards, there is an excellent replacement: a fast, compact, installation-free, free utility Foxit Reader.

When outputting proxy sheets to a printer, uncheck the image scaling option in the settings and, as far as possible, reduce the print margins. Then the printed images of the cards will exactly correspond to the actual dimensions of the cards.

The quality of proxy cards will greatly depend on your ability to configure printing parameters on the printer (resolution, brightness, halftone transmission). In the standard case, it is recommended to set the print resolution to at least 600 dpi, the color intensity to be lighter than average, and the transmission of halftones (for b/w printers) to be “accurate.” However, many printers have their own unique settings to optimize print quality. It is also sometimes useful to turn off the economical printing mode.

The card game Magic first came out in 1993. It utilizes different types of cards to form decks that players use to cast spells at one another. Intricacies of the game determine types of spells and their consequences.

What is “Magic: The Gathering”?

Magic was first published in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Players can use either random or constructed decks and can be played either in person with physical cards or online in a variety of settings either by a computer, smartphone, or tablet. The game is significantly more complex than most other similar card games and involves players as wizards, called Planes Walkers, fighting each other with spells. The game is recognized through international playing tournaments.

How do you play Magic: The Gathering?

Two or more players are wizards who battle each other. Each person starts with twenty life points and loses when their life point total hits zero. A player can also lose by having to draw from an empty deck, or if one of the cards specifies another way to lose. Some cards also allow players to win before their opponent has reached zero points. Each player has their own deck.

Players shuffle their decks and draw seven cards each. One is drawn at the beginning of every turn except to start the game. Cards are divided into spells and lands. Lands give energy which fuels spell casting. More energy is required to cast more difficult spells. Spells come in sorceries, instants, enchantments, and artifacts. The first two can only be used once before being discarded while the last two are permanent and remain in play. Creature spells are used to summon beings that attack opponents. Some versions of the game also include allies.

What are the intricacies of the playing deck?

For most tournament play, decks must be at least sixty cards. Most cards cannot have any more than three duplicates, with the exceptions of basic lands and some other select directions that note how many there can be directly on the card itself. Sometimes, certain items are restricted to one copy or banned altogether. In limited tournaments, some booster pack cards are allowed and the minimum deck size is lowered to forty cards. Players use strategy to build their own decks based on cards they know they will want to play.

What are the colors of magic?

White, blue, black, red, and green are the colors of magic that appear on each of the cards in the deck. To play a spell of a particular color, a player needs at least one unit of energy in the same hue. The unit is derived from a basic land card of corresponding color. Plains are white, islands blue, swamps black, mountains red, and forests green. Each color also has strengths and challenges based on the particular type of magic it stands for.

• White: order, equality, righteousness
• Blue: intellect, reason, rationality
• Black: power, determination, death
• Red: freedom, passion, chaos
• Green: life, ecology, interdependence