The Magic of Searching (Part 1): Keywords

Hapless Researcher, Wizards of the Coast, Ron Spears

Searching through the vast arsenal that is the Magic card pool can be a daunting task.  This is a skill that I feel many, even experienced players, have trouble with, especially with the finer aspects of searching.  Granted the fact that there are currently over 13,000 Magic cards with hundreds more being added every block makes this difficult.

In this article, I am going to get you started on recognizing keywords as well as walk you through a few different resources that you can use to find the cards you need.  I have decided to use Gatherer and MagicCards.Info (MC.I for short) to search for my examples as a poll of over 90 people listed these two as their top search engines.  In my research, I quickly realized that TCGPlayer, the third most popular search engine, does not allow you to use cherry picked keywords.  Instead, it requires unbroken text which, makes looking for similar cards very difficult and restrictive.  As such, I do not recommend using TCGPlayer as a search engine for cards.  As a pricing guide (mid-price) and ordering site, it is an excellent resource.

The Magic of Searching

One of the first initial steps towards successful card searching is looking up cards you come across that you haven't heard of or don't recall.  This not only expands the number of cards you know about to put in decks but also familiarizes you with additional terminology and rules text that you can use in future card searches.

Choosing Keywords 

Choosing which words to include in your search is crucial to card searching.  A single word added or excluded can result in a difference of hundreds of cards.  Good keywords are words that WotC uses frequently.  Words like "graveyard" "hand" "exile" "battlefield" etc. are examples of commonly used terms.   A full glossary of terms is available here under "Comprehensive Rules."  There are several important things to remember when choosing keywords:

Remove specific references such as names, numbers, etc

Often times, cards refer to themselves, cite specific numbers, costs or other drawbacks for balance purposes.  These need to be removed, as they will limit your search results, often by a large margin. Let's use Haunted Fengraf as an example, looking for creature recursion.

First, it is best to look at the full syntax of Haunted Fengraf's rules text first:

{T}: Add {1} to your mana pool.
{3}, {T}, Sacrifice Haunted Fengraf: Return a creature card at random from your graveyard to your hand.

Notice a few things:
The tap symbol "{T}"
The colorless mana symbol "{3}"

The colon ":" marking the ending of the cost for the activated ability and the beginning of the effect.

Now, Haunted Fengraf has a few rather specific wordings that we need to remove.  Most obvious is the name, which would limit our results to exactly one.  Then, there are the tap and colorless mana costs that are unnecessary and too specific for our search.  We also want to remove the keyword "sacrifice" this time because it will narrow down the results only to those cards that sacrifice themselves or other permanents.  The mana producing ability also needs to be removed, as it is specific to this card.  The keyword "random" is an example of a drawback/balance added to the card.  This word should be removed, as returning a specific creature card from our graveyard to hand is much more beneficial.

Ideally the keywords we want are "return" "creature" "your" "graveyard" "hand" 

Notice that because I wanted cards with effects specifically similar Haunted Fengraf I included the narrower keywords "your" and "hand" These keywords eliminated cards that reanimated creatures from both your graveyard and other player's graveyards.  The keyword "your" restricts our search to your graveyard and the keyword "hand" eliminates reanimator cards.

You, Y'all, and You all

A very important thing I learned while searching for cards is the distinction between searching for the keywords "target player" "target opponent" "each player" and "each opponent"  Each of these combinations is unique, giving specific kinds of cards in your search.  Another crucial distinction is searching for cards that are targeted effects and global effects: "target" (player, opponent, artifact, enchantment etc) and "all" (artifacts, enchantments, etc).  Adding any of these terms into your search parameters can heavily influence the kinds of cards you find in your results.  Now, if you want to cast a wide net these kinds of terms will eliminate an entire category of cards.  However, on the other hand, if you are looking specifically for let's say global effects these terms can narrow down your search and save time.

Beasts and little things 

Another important distinction is the difference between wording for creatures and non-creatures being "put in the graveyard from play" Creatures use "dies" rather than the term "put in the graveyard from play" that non-creatures use.  Despite this difference in wording, "dies" by definition is "put in the graveyard from play" only it applies to creatures.  Here are two examples of the differences between creatures and non-creatures being put into the graveyard from play: Child of Alara and Hatching Plans

Cherry Picking Keywords

Often my first initial step to card searching is starting with a card that has effects similar to what I want to find.  This by far is one of the easiest places to begin.  As an example I have chosen the "Mill" mechanic as it currently does not have a easily searchable keyword yet is a significant enough mechanic to see printing in almost every set.

Millstone is where the the informal term "Mill" comes
from as it was the first card to feature the mechanic.

Again I want us to look at the full syntax of Millstone's rules text first:

{2}, {T}: Target player puts the top two cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.

The initial keywords I take from here are "put" "top" "card" "library" "graveyard"  I have chosen these keywords to maximize the number of possibilities so as to not exclude or miss cards.  As you become more experienced searching for cards, you will know what keywords to include to narrow the initial list but for now I recommend casting a wide net.

Notice two things with the keywords I chose for this search:

1) I used "card" rather than "cards"  This is because although it may not seem like much of a change.  "Cards" is actually much more specific, most prominently eliminating cards that mill a single card at a time.  Such cards can be beneficial in let's say a Sidisi, Blood Tyrant Commander deck that wants to mill cards individually rather than whole swaths of them.

2) In my opening search I did not include the word "player"  In this instance I wanted to include all mill effects.  Keywords involving players come in two forms: "Player" and "Opponent"

Now entering "put" "top" "card" "library" into MC.I and Gatherer you come up with 287 and 288 results respectively.  Because we are casting a wide net, there are many cards that specifically are not mill cards.

Our next step is to narrow down the number of cards.  The first two cards that come up in both search engines are Academy Ruins, Altar of Dementia, and Altar of the Brood

Again, here is the full syntax:

Academy Ruins

{T}: Add {1} to your mana pool.
{1}{U}, {T}: Put target artifact card from your graveyard on top of your library.

Altar of Dementia

Sacrifice a creature: Target player puts a number of cards equal to the sacrificed creature's power from the top of his or her library into his or her graveyard.

Altar of the Brood

Whenever another permanent enters the battlefield under your control, each opponent puts the top card of his or her library into his or her graveyard.

By comparing these cards: one we don't want (Academy Ruins) and two that we do want (Altar of Dementia/Altar of the Brood) we can add additional parameters to our search to further narrow down the pool of cards.

Now, some additional search parameters we can add are "his or her" and "into" as these two terms are shared by cards that we want and are in common with other mill cards.  This reduces the card pool to 254 cards, a small reduction.  Clearly, there are other search parameters we can add.  Again scanning the first page of our first update, I notice Ancestral Memories and Animal Magnetism

Ancestral Memories

Look at the top seven cards of your library. Put two of them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.

Animal Magnetism

Reveal the top five cards of your library. An opponent chooses a creature card from among them. Put that card onto the battlefield and the rest into your graveyard.

Now, since there are several different types of mill (Self-Mill, 1v1 Mill, Opponent(s) Mill and Global Mill) there are several different directions to go.  For instance, self-mill would generally want to find cards that target a single player, each player, or have wordings similar to those above.  A deck using mill as a win con would on the other hand prefer spells targeting a single player or opponent(s), cards like Millstone and Mind Grind  A deck that wants to take cards from everyone's graveyard (with cards like Teneb, the Harvester and Reanimate) would choose cards that contain "each player" instead like Ghoulcaller's Bell.  By using these more specific terms, we can narrow down the pool list to the things that we want.

Rules? We don't need no stinkin' rules!

Finally, looking up cards you don't know, exploring different kinds of situations and meanings, these kinds things I also encourage you do with the comprehensive rules.  If you come across a situation that you're not sure of or you think of a particularly interesting interaction that might require a ruling, look them up.  It will help you grow in your knowledge and understanding of the game.

Part 2

It became increasingly apparent as I wrote this article that it was going to be a long one if I was going into the detail that I wanted to go into.  As such, I have broken this article up into two parts, the second of which I will complete at a later date.  In part 2, I will go into the specifics of searching for X spells, hybrid mana symbols and the specific uses of each of the functions on Gatherer and MagicCards.Info.  Part 2 will be available (here) when I finish it.

Thanks for reading,
Sincerely, MTW

Acknowledgements

This article was made possible by: (Alphabetically)
Chris "CJ" LaJeunesse
David Connor
Nikolaus Steven Bonnay
Stephen Jones
Those of you at MTG COMMANDER for your feedback, input, and votes.