MTG Wiki talk:Community portal

Something wrong
There is something on the recent changes page. It takes forever to load, and for example my creation of Scrycast at first didn't show up at all (it does now) --Hunter (talk) 08:07, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

In-game references
Sorry if this isn't the correct section to write this. Looking through the pages, it seems to be that the section "in-game references" are not always constant. Usually we have a "represented", with cards that represent precisely the character (with name, appearance and gameplay); then we have a "depicted", with cards which that character is presented visually; then we have an "associated", with cards that share the name of that character, or are strongly implied to be theirs even if the character's name doesn't appear (like Pyromancer's google for Chandra and Jaya), and last we have a "quoted or referred to" with cards in which the character appears in the flavor text. Sometimes, however, I see that the card are repeated: for example, if a character is both depicted and quoted, the card appears in both sections. To me it seems a bit redundant: wouldn't be better if a card appeared only once on the page, in order of importance? Represented, depicted, associated and quoted (associated could even be put to the second place, since the common Magic player recognize the name of a card, but not necessarily the character depicted). I would like to hear your reasoning on the matter, in order to come up with the best "template" to follow, in order to apply it to every page. --Firebead elvenhair (talk) 13:58, 9 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I usually do "represented in", "associated cards", "depicted in" and "quoted or refereed to" in that order, and I do not duplicate entries between them. Because all card that represent that character also depict him and also often quote him. Same goes with association. So my take is to put a card in the highest category for that character. At least that is my approach to it. - Yandere Sliver H09 symbol.png 15:37, 9 April 2019 (UTC)


 * That is my preferred method / order as well --Hunter (talk) 19:09, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Mechanic pages
All of the keyword mechanics in the game have a link on the bottom to a Gatherer search that lists off all the cards with that mechanic. May I request that we change this to link to Scryfall instead? Given that the rest of the Wiki is on Scryfall, it seems like this ought to do the same. As it stands now, it sticks out like a sore thumb. --GoldenSandslash15 (talk) 21:57, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I mean I would be all for it because Gatherer likes to break on me for some reason. We would really need to check if Scryfall still finds all the search phrases since it handles reminder text differently from Gatherer. - Yandere Sliver H09 symbol.png 22:18, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
 * You can find reminder text if you want to. The search "o:flying" would ignore reminder text, but the search "fo:flying" includes it. --GoldenSandslash15 (talk) 00:26, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I manly ask because the search function must be able to earch for the reminder text because that is often the only thing which allows you to find a certain keyword accurately. Case in point: Champion.
 * Again, I would have no issues with that. I would want to hear other voices however. - Yandere Sliver H09 symbol.png 01:20, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I prefer Scryfall over Gatherer --Hunter (talk) 08:09, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Fixed and updated gatherer search template
It should be noted upfront that Template:Gatherer_search is currently only used on one page, so there's a decent chance that ditching the template completely makes more sense than working on it.

The instructions on the template say you should be able to create an "and" condition by repeating a parameter multiple times with different arguments, but that doesn't work (e.g.  is supposed to find cards that are both red and green, but it does not). I created a new version of the template at Template:Gatherer_search2 that correctly implements this, and I also added an optional display parameter so that the template can be used for if anyone feels so inclined. I threw together some sample cases on my user talk page.

Template:Gatherer_search should be replaced with the modified version I put at Template:Gatherer_search2, but even that one still has some outstanding issues I didn't fix. Number-related conditions like cmc or power don't work because they have different formatting than most other conditions, and there is no way to do NOT conditions or OR conditions. If there is any interest, it might be possible to make those work with a secondary nested template that can do some smarter formatting.

As a side note, a lot of the uses of this template on that statistics and trivia page are incorrectly entered. I might fix that tomorrow.

--Chris314542 (talk) 22:14, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Blogatog FAQ
Is this something that we could facilitate? --Hunter (talk) 11:54, 19 April 2020 (UTC) https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/615793163757551616/would-it-be-possible-for-question-marks-to-update#notes
 * Sure sounds good to me. Qestion is do we do this on Tumblr or here? -Yandere Sliver H09 symbol.png 16:38, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Citing the rules
There are several places where the ideal description of how something works is basically a paraphrase of either the Comprehensive Rules or the Tournament Rules, and therefore the best reference to cite is the rules themselves. I know it's possible to include excerpts directly from the CR, but those can be hard to understand quickly compared to prose / are not-wikified, certainly not suitable for inclusion in a top paragraph of an article for instance. So is there a way to cite the rules? I didn't find any template for it and I'm not even sure if it's really done anywhere on the cite; if there's a policy against it I'd like to understand it.

In particular, I'm trying to clarify some descriptions of tournament formats and want people to be able to see the exact tournament rules if they want to see the details, without shoving them in their entirety into an article.

Perhaps the accepted way is simply to link to the page for that rules section without treating it as a citation at all? (And create the section if necessary, since many of the Tournament Rules sections are redlinks.)

Jerodasst (talk) 21:54, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The tournament rules are a new addition, so this is very much work in progress. Also there is not really a central repository for the tournament rules at the moment, which could easily be cited, since the oroginal document doesn't exist in a nice txt format.
 * With the CR it would be possible. Currently there is no such option, but that could be implemented I guess.
 * The problem I see with citing as opposed to block quoting the document is that rule 302.a Paragraph 3 Sentence 2 is nothing that would stay very consistent over time. So I don't see that this would actually be less maintainace work then describing the rules in laymen's terms. - Yandere Sliver H09 symbol.png 22:34, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I certainly do want to describe the rules in laymen's terms in the main text :) But I know I like to be able to find the exact language if I want it, and others might too. I will go ahead and quote the section within the citation instead of just leaving it as a "section reference", and include a date so it's clear why the section number might be off in the future. Thanks! Jerodasst (talk) 17:11, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Originally we did that but after a few releases most references were out of date.
 * Perhaps I don't understand what you mean. Could you give an example? Perhaps with a sample page in the wiki and explain what you are missing? - Yandere Sliver H09 symbol.png 17:50, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Vanillas and card comparisons
Hey gang, this is one of my first forays outside of mainspace, so I hope this is the right place to raise the issue. I do a lot of work on card comparisons, and early on (can't remember when, maybe around Ixalan), I had a lot of my comparisons with vanilla creatures reverted. I thought that was fair enough, given how cluttered it can make pages. I haven't removed anything on those grounds myself, but more recently, we've had them on card comparison pages. I wanted to throw out the possibility of maintaining these but separating them out, either in discrete sections (like we've done for Endless One at Battle for Zendikar/Card comparisons) or in subpages (which could look like Core Set 2021/Card comparisons/Vanilla). Thoughts? I'd just like a consistent approach. --BlackDiamondDragon (talk) 15:09, 10 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I mean we are constantly evolving as a community. Members leaving and joining so the consensus what should be done might shift. I personally do not think that comparing Vanillas offers much value and clutter things, but I would not necessarily move it to an extra subpage. But perhaps a subsections might be helpful so separate things out a bit. - Yandere Sliver H09 symbol.png 15:30, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure, sure, nature of a wiki and all. Since the M21 page will be changing a lot in real time, maybe I'll find another set as an example and try to model a different approach. There are going to be some cases that are inherently messy, like when a new card is strictly better than both some vanillas and some non.
 * Kind of a side note, but I fantasize about some sort of card comparison linked data, so when we've established that Goblin Hero isFunctionalReprintOf Gray Ogre and Bolt Hound isStrictlyBetterThan Gray Ogre, you don't need to add that Bolt Hound isStrictlyBetterThan Goblin Hero, because it would be inherited. That would certainly help with this sort of clutter. --BlackDiamondDragon (talk) 15:42, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * There are ways to do that with either Cargo or SMW. I can ask around with the Fandom staff, if we could add such a feature to the wiki. And yes I agree that would make a lot of things much much simpler... And also might solve our whole Card Compare problem in one go. - Yandere Sliver H09 symbol.png 15:57, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay I asked around and apparently it is quite hard to implement such a system. So for now it remains a pipedream.-Yandere Sliver H09 symbol.png 22:36, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Confirming email?
I keep getting a pop-up about confirming my email address that returns on every page even after I X it out. Twice now I've told it to send a new confirmation email, clicked it, and no change. Any idea how I can fix this? Is it happening for everyone? --BlackDiamondDragon (talk) 15:59, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, it happened to me as well. Seemed to have solved itself. Some people have two accounts after the merge, that seems to be a possible cause as well. --Hunterofsalvation (talk) 06:16, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Does "attacks each combat if able" have a page?
It's used on 81 cards and (as far as I know) evergreen, but I can't find it in the miscellaneous mechanics category. If such a page does not already exist, the page could also document the rules change from "each turn" to "each combat".

Cards that involve choosing a number (including bidding life) would also be an interesting page, but it's not as glaring an omission.98.217.244.101 23:44, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Good point. Must attack would be my suggestion for an article name, or has that mechanic an inofficial name? Goad is obviously a related to this as well. - Yandere-sliver (talk) 09:09, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * As far as I know there is no slang name. The only thing we have is Declare attackers step, so feel free to create a new page --Hunterofsalvation (talk) 11:24, 22 June 2021 (UTC)