The Magic of Searching (Part 2): A Gatherer and MagicCards.Info Walkthrough

Walking Archive, Wizards of the Coast, Heather Hudson

Welcome to Part 2 of "The Magic of Searching" where I help you build skills that will help you find the cards that you're searching for.  Part 1 introduced how to cherry pick cards of keywords to use in your search.  In this article I plan on breaking down the Advanced sections of Gatherer and MagicCards.Info (MCI), explaining their uses and functions to further narrow down your parameters.  TCGPlayer was purposely left out as I found that it required exact wording for its searches making it essentially unusable as a search engine and therefore not recommended as a card search site.  As a price guide and card purchase site it has been good in my experience.

Disclaimer: This post leans a bit more heavily towards MCI for two reasons. One, I have used MCI more extensively and know the ins and outs better.  Two, I personally believe it is a better search engine than Gatherer (Again personal opinion)

MagicCards.Info

MagicCards.Info or MCI for short, is in my opinion one of the better, if not the best search engine for Magic cards.  It has extreme versatility, a clean template, and the ability to edit search parameters on the fly, especially if you know the syntax, which I will get you started on later.

The Basics

In addition to your search parameters there are several auxiliary things you can do to aid your search.  On MCI the first module you come across is the "Options" module which I almost always set to sort by converted mana cost (CMC).  This ensures that I get cards with the lowest cost for the effect(s) that I want.  Next are the "Name" "Rules Text" and "Types" modules.  These are fairly straightforward with "Name" searching for names, "Rules Text" searching Oracle text and types searching for types (Both card types like Artifact, Creature, etc and more specific types like "Treefolk" "Vampire" and "Elf")

Colors, Mana Cost, and Color Identities

"Colors" "Mana Cost" and "Color Identity" may look straightforward but in reality have subtler uses as well as some potential pitfalls.  The "Colors" module for example is simple and straightforward but can easily cut large swaths of potential cards from your results.

The first thing to notice is that "!Exclude Unselected" in the "Colors" module is selected by default.  This often means by not unchecking this box you will exclude: 1) Artifacts and other colorless cards 2) Lands (Also technically colorless) 3) Multicolor cards and hybrid cards.  Make sure to select or unselect this option respectively and/or include the options that you want to find in your search results.  For example selecting "White" and "Exclude Unselected" when searching for cards in a mono-white deck would eliminate cards like Rhys the Redeemed, Judge's Familiar, Boros Recruit etc. that all have the possibility of being played in a mono-white deck.

Furthermore, "!Exclude Unselected" can interact with the "Require Multicolored" options in interesting ways.  For instance, keeping "!Exclude Unselected" checked while including "Require Mulicolored" with UBW selected will find only cards that have all three of the Esper colors in their mana costs.  On the other hand, unselecting "!Exclude Unselected" will open up a slew of other options that contain at least one of the colors selected but can contain other colors like Abrupt Decay.

The "Mana Cost" module is a less used but still useful tool that will help you search for specific mana costs.  For example entering "BBB" into it will find cards that cost exactly three black mana.  This can be useful for finding good black devotion cards or more efficient cards for your mono colored deck.  Finally, the "Mana Cost" module plays a crucial role in finding both X cost spells as well as hybrid mana symbols that will be discussed below.

Power, Toughness, CMC, and Loyalty

These are really self explanatory, power and toughness modules can be used to find creatures for Alesha, Doran, or to trigger Ferocious.  The "Converted Mana Cost" (CMC) module is something you are sure to use often, capping mana costs to keep your curve efficient, or looking for Transmute targets.  The "Loyalty" module is something I don't often use but  you can use it to search up planeswalkers only with specific abilities etc.

Rarity and Format

Again, self explanatory.  "Rarity" can be used to limit your search to pauper cards or perhaps a cube draft.  "Format" will limit your search to cards that are only legal in their respective formats.  (Note: I've noticed that MCI lags a bit with Metal Worker still being listed as banned in Commander although it was unbanned around 5 months ago and Treasure Cruise still listed as "legal" in Modern although the ban announcement and implementation came into effect 21 and 17 days ago respectively (as of 2/9/2015).  Furthermore, it does not include the Duel Commander (1v1 or French) banlist at all).  Because of this I don't recommend using this module as it will often be outdated and the banlists can be looked up easily.

Is:
The "Is" module is one that, I admit I only rediscovered in the process of writing this article.  I looked at it before in the early days, and not understanding the terminology or significance, wrote it off as useless and hadn't gone back to it since.  Therein lies the tragedy.  I mean look at the sheer versatility of this module (On the left) that doesn't come as a "one of" but two of.  Because of this I just had to put it into a section by itself.

Special Types: This is one of the most useful categories.  It can limit your searches to either permanents or non-permanents.  Spells or non-spells (Non-spells essentially being lands).  You can search for split cards, flip cards, vanilla creatures (no rules text), and most important of all "Costs split mana" which means hybrid mana in this case (More to come on that).
Card Face/Border: This category is the "aesthetics" category, allowing you to search for "old" border and "new" border cards, future sight card frames, cards with black, white, and silver (Un-cards) borders and foils.  Essentially every possible option to pimp out your decks.
Cagegories: This module is another rather useful one enabling you to search exclusively for or eliminate the "Un-cards"  Find promo, reserved list, reprinted, and time-shifted cards.
Banned/Restricted: This is largely to find cards that are banned in multiple formats (Keep in mind that the banlist for MCI lags behind the official ban lists).

Card Text and Flavor Text:

"Card Text" refers to the wordings that were originally printed on the card.  This option searches almost the entire card including the name, type, and rules text.  Flavor text should be pretty obvious, searching the flavor text for the words you choose.

Edition and Type:













Finally there is the "Edition" and "Type" modules.  The "Edition" module is an effective tool you can you to search for cards in specific sets or blocks as well as another way to search for standard cards (In case the sets are not updated correctly).  The "Type" module is a very useful tool, one that I use often.  The "Type" module allows you to search for artifacts, creatures, enchantment, instants, lands, planeswalkers, and sorcieries.  Furthermore, it breaks down these categories into all the available types of cards.  For instance, selecting "Artifact - Equipment" would produce only equipment for your results.  Use "Shift" to select blocks of neighboring sets and "Control (Ctrl)" for multiple individual selections.

Now that we've covered the basics there a few more specific things that I'd like to cover.  Using the MCI syntax and wordings, searching for X spells, and hybrid mana.

Syntax

Some syntax you should be aware of when using MCI includes:

Quotations: Quotation marks around groups of words will include only cards with this exact phrase.  For instance, searching for "from a graveyard" in the Rules Text slot, will include only cards with the words "from a graveyard" in that order.

Minus Sign: Adding a minus sign in front of single words will exclude cards with those words from the results.  For example, including "-graveyard -hand" will exclude cards with "graveyard" and "hand" in them from your search.  This can be used for mass exclusion of undesired mechanics found in your initial search.  If for example you are searching for cards that copy spells (like Increasing Vengeance) you might want to include "-Cipher -Conspire" in your search in order to exclude all cards with those keywords.
Quotations and Or: Entering ["graveyard" or "hand"] as well as [graveyard or hand]into the rules text will give you cards that have "graveyard" and/or "hand" in their rules text.

X Marks the Spot

To find X cost spells you need to use the "Mana Cost" module.  For example Banefire and other red X cost spells can be found by inputting "X" into the module, specifying greater than or equal to (>=), and finally for the "Colors" module, check the color(s) you want to find (Depending on your goal, don't forget "Exclude Unselected" ).

Why are hybrids always stronger?

Hybrid mana is often hard to search for.  MCI enables you to search for cards with hybrid mana in several different ways.  The easiest way is to go down to the "Is:" module and select "Costs split mana"  Now you can go back up to "Colors" and select which colors you want to include.  If you're searching just for split mana costs that can be paid with blue remember to uncheck the "Exclude Unselected" check box.
A second method is to enter a hybrid mana symbol into the "Mana Cost" module (with ">=") to find all the cards that cost that particular hybrid mana.  For example "{W/U}" will find each card that can be paid with white or blue mana costs.
A third method is to search the "Card Text" or "Rules Text" using the hybrid mana symbols to search the card text/rules text for hybrid mana symbols.

Below I've included the notation for hybrid mana to help in the future.

•  = {W/U} White or Blue
•  = {U/B} Blue or Black
•  = {B/R} Black or Red
•  = {R/G} Red or Green
•  = {G/W} Green or White
•  = {W/B} White or Black
•  = {U/R} Blue or Red
•  = {B/G} Black or Green
•  = {R/W} Red or White
•  = {G/U} Green or Blue
•  = {2/W} 2 Colorless or White
•  = {2/U} 2 Colorless or Blue
•  = {2/B} 2 Colorless or Black
•  = {2/R} 2 Colorless or Red
•  = {2/G} 2 Colorless or Green

Gatherer

Gatherer is the official search engine of Wizards of the Coast and is generally the favored search engine for many.  Gatherer sports an easier way to exclude words with a drop down menu.  It also separates words out with the "Add" keys included with every parameter and includes a drop down of all possible options.

The Basics of Gatherer

Name, Rules Text, and Expansion are self-explanatory.  Gatherer has the plus of allowing you to use the "not" and "or" functions easily.  Remember to add the parameters to the search criteria to include them.

Format, Colors, Types, and Subtypes are also self-explanatory.  For colors there is an additional drop down where you can limit the results to selected colors, multicolored, and more significantly a "Playable with only these colors" restriction that restricts your results to cards that are playable only to the colors that you choose.  This can be quite useful for hybrid cards and other multicolor cards in Standard, Modern, Legacy and Vintage formats when trying to stick to certain colors.
Keep in mind "Types" refers only to major types like "artifact" "creature" etc. while the "Subtypes" module is the one used for subtypes like "Vampire" and "Equipment" The additional drop down for Subtypes includes an "Exclude Unselected Terms" option.

Converted Mana Cost (CMC), Power, Toughness, and Flavor Text: All modules that are again self-explanatory.  Gatherer provides allows for greater than or equal to options in the drop downs as well as the usual "and/or/not" options.

Mark: Refers to the watermark of the various Guilds and Clans.  Only cards with these watermarks will be displayed in your results.  Additionally there is the option to exclude certain watermarks.

Artist: Is the artist who created the artwork for the card.

User Comment, User Name, and Community Rating all are indicative of the comments and ratings given by users who use Gatherer.  However, keep in mind that currently the comments sections are locked on all Gatherer card pages and thus new and additional comments for recent sets have no comments at all. (From what I hear this was due to an update to Gatherer that broke them)

Mana Cost: This is similar to the Magiccards.Info module.  It doesn't use a greater or less than symbol and instead opts for an approximate symbol which will search for cards that include those mana costs.  This is an additional way to search for hybrid mana costs by using the syntax above.  It should be noted that Gatherer does not search for exact mana costs when searching in the "Mana Cost" bar like MagicCards.Info does so there is less need to be specific here.

Block: Rather than set, this module will search through cards in specific blocks and find cards only in those blocks.

Rarity: This module will allow you to search for commons, uncommons etc for things like pauper.  Additionally there are "Promo" and "Bonus" options which allows you to find promo/alternate art cards and "Bonus" cards (Which seems to apply to Magic Online things like Vintage Masters).

Hand Modifier/Life Modifier: This refers to an official game mode/format called Vanguard where Vanguard cards have special effects as well as modify your hand and life totals.

X Spells in Gatherer

Searching up X spells in Gatherer is essentially the same as in MCI.  XG will find you all the cards with XG as their mana cost, while adding the approximate symbol to the syntax will find you all cards with X and G in their mana costs.

Hybrid Spells in Gatherer

Unfortunately, in Gatherer searching for hybrid mana is a bit more complicated.  Currently the only way I know how to search for hybrid mana is to use this "m/\(R\/G\)/" syntax in the "Mana Cost" module.  In this instance I am searching for red/green mana symbols in the mana costs of cards.  For hybrid mana symbols in the cards themselves (like activated ability costs etc.) type "R/G" into the "Rules Text" module for red/green hybrid mana symbols.  When searching for other hybrid mana symbols, use the above chart when ordering your colors.  For example, m/\(B\/G\)/ and B/G for black/green hybrid mana symbols will yield results but m/\(G\/B\)/ and G/B will not.  It should be noted that Gatherer does not search for exact mana costs when searching in the "Mana Cost" bar like MagicCards.Info does so there is less need to be specific here.

Pros and Cons (MCI vs Gatherer)

MagicCards.Info

Pros:
Cleaner Template/Layout
Displays Low/Mid/High prices from TCGPlayer (with links)
Allows easy switching between sets and printings
Allows easy switching between languages.
"Is:" module allows for vast possibilities.

Cons:
Must know/use syntax to subtract out results
Must "keep/go back to" the original search page or know syntax to subtract out search terms.
Relies partially on volunteers/users etc.

Gatherer:

Pros:
Not/Or Functions Built in (Easier to exclude terms)
Drop down of possible search terms
Comments/Rating (Indefinitely Disabled)
Is updated first (being WotC's search engine)

Cons:
Doesn't fully display syntax (Tap symbols "{Q}" etc)
Harder to find Hybrid mana symbols
More complex advanced syntax (Personal Opinion)
Longer Load Time

Thanks for reading,
Sincerely, MTW

Acknowledgements

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