I noticed that Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate was the last big release with a wide language range, and since then most sets have been printed in fewer languages. Does anyone know why Wizards started scaling back on localization after CLB?
For MTG (like everything else on the internet) it feels like the old forums are dead, replaced by a dozen different Discord servers where you’re lucky to get a rushed answer before your message gets swept away and forgotten. So what are good deckbuilding communities nowadays?
I’m currently building some nostalgia Commander decks based on decks I used to play when I started playing Magic.
Honestly, I’ve found better deckbuilding advice in old forum posts than on most Discords I’ve tried. Curious what places people use now for thoughtful feedback and discussion.
If you enjoy playing alternative MTG formats like Penny Dreadful, Heirloom, Pauper, Tribal Apocalypse, or Pre‑modern on Magic: The Gathering Online, check out Gatherling. It’s built for player‑run tournaments and has impressive stats: over 74,000 unique decks and 218,000+ matches logged.
It features:
Useful Discord communities for each format:
Some of these servers may be inactive, but they’re still worth checking out.
Related tools:
Hello,
I’ve built a set of Python scripts to create a custom Magic: The Gathering legality checker using Scryfall and Moxfield. It fetches a card pool, converts Moxfield CSVs to JSON, and validates decks against that pool.
Right now, I'd have to update the format manually every few months. I host my repo on Forgejo, but I’m not sure if it supports GitHub-style workflow automation.
What’s the best way to automate this update process? Should I use a cron job, or are there other alternatives I should consider for a Forgejo-hosted repo?
I don’t have much experience with CI/CD or scheduled automation, so any guidance or examples would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Hey everyone!
I just finished building a web tool to help validate Magic: The Gathering decklists in any custom format. It fetches card data from Scryfall, checks for banned or illegal cards, and gives instant feedback right in your browser.
It’s perfect for experimenting with niche formats, casual play, or even building decks for some existing formats like Standard Penny Dreadful, 2015 Modern, Classic Legacy, Pre Fire Modern, Pre Horizons Modern, Pre Modern. It can also integrate with Moxfield for deck building.
Check it out here: https://git.disroot.org/hirrolot19/mtg-legality-checker
I’d love to hear your thoughts, suggestions, or ideas for improving it. Hope it helps deckbuilders and casual players alike!
https://git.disroot.org/hirrolot19/mtg-legality-checkerOpen linkView original on mtgzone.comHi everyone, I’m trying to build decks for a custom format using this card pool (f:standard tix<=0.1 usd<=1). I have a deck here: deck link.
I know legality is ultimately whatever rules you define for a custom format, but I’m looking for a practical way to check a deck automatically against a specific pool, rather than checking each card one by one. For reference, Penny Dreadful has a deck legality checker. I’m wondering if there’s something similar for generic card pools, or if manual checking is the only option.
Is there an easy way to check if the deck is legal for this pool and identify any cards that aren’t allowed? Also, I’d love tips or strategies for making deckbuilding simple in a custom format like this. Thanks!
I want to play a custom MTG format where the card pool is defined by a Scryfall search and updated twice a year. For example, my search might be f:standard f:penny usd<=1.
How can I export, share, and import the list of legal cards with other people so that we can all check card legality and use a deck builder with the same pool of cards?
I personally use cockatrice, there's almost always a game available
MTGO and MTGA are the official clients (MTGA only has brawl. MTGO has commander but is also not particularly budget friendly). There are also unofficial ones like cockatrice, untap.in, xmage, forge (with some of these, you might be able to play commander, with others not). Many also play commander via webcam using https://spelltable.wizards.com/
I've been playing some Magic recently on Forge and considering rejoining my local game store (LGS). However, it seems like the company is pushing Commander a lot, and the most recommended way to play it is through Cockatrice. Nevermind, I'll keep playing on Forge, and maybe I'll try Cockatrice. I'm just not excited about playing a format where "Bobsponge" is a thing. It makes me wonder, what are they even doing with this game?
I've been wanting to get started using XMage and thought it would be fun to play a few matches against the AI with the GRN Guild Kit decks (GK1) using the original printings. I found decklists on sites like mtg.wtf that list the card names and quantities, but they don't specify the original set name and card number for each card.
For example, this GitHub repo has decklists for various preconstructed decks, but also lacks the specific set information and card numbers.
What I'm really looking for are decklists that include the card name, quantity, set name, and card number in the set for each card, ideally formatted like this:
quantity [SETCODE:collector number] cardname
This .dck file format used by XMage would allow me to easily import the exact preconstructed deck I want to play with the original printings, without having to rebuild it.
It made me think how nice it would be to have all the preconstructed decks available as .dck files with the original printings specified, nicely organized into folders by product. That way I could easily grab the exact deck I want to play with in XMage without having to build it manually.
Does anyone know if prebuilt decklists with detailed set data like this already exist somewhere for preconstructed products like the Guild Kits? Or if not, I may try writing a script to generate them before manually creating the files myself.
Please let me know if you know of any resources where I could find complete decklists for preconstructed decks specifying the card names, quantities, set names, and card numbers! This would save me a lot of time in recreating the decks accurately in XMage.
Our mission is to provide a welcoming community for Limited Magic players of all skill levels to experience each set released throughout the history of the game! We play using the XMage game software.
We have 7 weekly pod drafts here - four chronological ones called Chrono Leagues where we draft an official historical WotC format every week, and three Bonus Leagues where our players themselves choose the formats.
Custom "remastered" sets are designed by members of our community which we draft on Draftmancer. Matches are played on XMage with a full rules engine, all for free!
I discovered this on Draftmancer's Featured Communities
Do you play tabletop Magic at your local game store (LGS)? Perhaps you prefer the convenience of Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO) or Magic: The Gathering Arena on your computer. Or maybe you like playing on your phone or tablet with the Android version. Let me know how you play and what your preferred platform is!
I used to play MTGO on Linux through Wine, but it stopped working. Trying it in a VM was too laggy. So I finally bought a cheap Windows machine primarily to run MTGA and MTGO smoothly. Personally, the convenience of digital clients has won me over, but I have fond memories of Friday Night Magic at my LGS, specially a $1 entry format we played with crappy decks and store credit prizes because I liked the nostalgia of it being similar to when I started playing instead of the competitiveness of the typical standard format, where it seems like all the decks are similar netdeck copies.
Heirloom Format
Inspired by the MTGO budget format Heirloom but with paper price limits
Minimum deck size: 60 cards
No more than 4 copies of any card, except basic lands
Cards can be of any rarity
The legal card pool rotates a month after each Standard set release based on card price thresholds checked on Scryfall with the following search:
f:vintage ((rarity:c and eur<=0.1) or (rarity:u and eur<=0.2) or ((rarity:r or rarity:m) and eur<=1)) and tix<=0.05
Common cards under 0.1 EUR/0.05 tix
Uncommon cards under 0.2 EUR/0.1 tix
Rare cards under 0.3 EUR/0.2 tix
Mythic cards under 0.6 EUR/0.5 tix
Very low barrier to entry with decks costing less than $10, unlike Pauper where some "budget" decks still cost $60+
If the format was popular enough to influence card prices, rotations would ban the most used cards, preventing the metagame from becoming stagnant
Lets you play with cards that are bad in other formats but become viable here
Encourages creativity in deckbuilding with quirky card choices
Games decided by wits and luck rather than coin
I'm excited to hear your ideas for cheap MTG formats!