The Manual of Style is a style guide for the MTG Wiki and serves to standardize articles and other pages, with consistent and clear language, layout, and formatting, as much as practical, thereby improving article readability and, broadly, site quality.
In essence, the MTG Wiki follows Wikipedia's Manual of Style. However, this wiki has a few specialties which will be laid out in the next sections.
Language[]
American English[]
American English is preferred, since Wizards is a US-based company.
Capitalization[]
Magic sometimes utilizes non-standard capitalization. In general, the Comprehensive Rules can give a good overview what terms to capitalize in which circumstances.
All subtypes are capitalized, except when utilized in lore focused articles:
Note that a few types like Eldrazi and Phyrexian are always capitalized, since in the game lore they are proper names.
Also note that card types (e.g. creature, land) and supertypes (e.g. legendary, basic) are not generally capitalized, nor are abilities (e.g. flying, equip).
Formats like Standard, Sealed Deck, or simply Constructed are capitalized.
Italics[]
Magic products[]
Magic, Magic: The Gathering, and all related products are written in Italics, including software Magic Online Magic: The Gathering Arena and their abbreviations, and published spinoff works such as novels or comics.
Innistrad refers to the set, but Innistrad refers to the plane of the same name.
Note that the Innistrad block would not be italicized (nor would "block" be capitalized), since it is not a magic product.
Ability words[]
Ability words should always be italicized in running text (Gotcha is an exception). Keywords should never be italicized to avoid any confusion.
Epithets[]
Epithets should not be part of an article name or the character infobox, since characters can be represented by multiple cards with different epithets and it makes searching and linking more difficult.
Universes Beyond[]
Universes Beyond (UB) characters as out of scope for this Wiki:
- A) UB characters require an IP license from their current copyright holder and that license has a limited time-frame. This means UB characters will never be plot relevant and are unlikely to be used multiple times.
- B) UB sets don't actually have a narrative. The Lord of the Rings set used the narrative provided by the books as the card setting but there was no narrative for the set of cards designed by WotC. The same is true for all other UB products released so far (as of February 2024).
- C) There is no in-universe status of Universes Beyond. It's not like the Marvel or DC multiverse, where the characters are incorporated, even tangentially, into the regular IP's meta-narrative. Universes Beyond "universes" are self contained and isolated from the Magic narrative.
- D) Other Wiki's do a better job of covering these characters. Linking to those articles in the Notable [creature type] sections should be sufficient.
Editor Tools[]
- See also Help:Cheatsheet.
The Cheatsheet provides an overview how to display mana symbols (
), link card or decks and how to display foreign characters.
Card tags[]
- See also Help:Card tags.
Follow capitalization on the card. Also use the wiki card tag template for card names: <c>Dark Ritual</c> gives Dark Ritual.
Deck tags[]
- See also Help:Deck tags.
Within deck tags, add the appropriate card types as sections and alphabetize cards within their section. The sideboard - if existent - should be the last section of the deck.
<d title=Rats>
Creature Artifact Land Sideboard |
Rats |
New sets[]
Use {{subst:ExpansionDummy}} to start a page of a new expansion.
ISBN[]
ISBN-13 is preferred. For older books, use the ISBN-13 Online Converter.
Professional player pages[]
Criteria[]
Professional players used to have an article written about them once one of the following criteria was met:
- They have won a Pro Tour or the World Championship.
- They have been the Player of the Year or Rookie of the Year.
- They have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.
- They have reached 100 lifetime Pro Points.
If none of these criteria wasn't met, an article wasn't created, unless the player was noteworthy in some arena beyond professional play.
In the League era, pages were created for all MPL and Rivals League players.
Currently, the guideline is to create at least a page for each new Pro Tour Champion. If necessary, this can also be done for a Pro Tour Runner Up, the winner of an Arena Championship or MOCS. As of yet, regional champions don't need their own pages.
Accomplishments[]
In the Accomplishments section, the following results from current tournaments should be included:
- Top 8 of a Pro Tour (2022-current)
- Arena Championship Top 8s (2022-current)
- Top 4 of the World Championship (2012-current)
- Magic Online Champions Showcase Top 2s (2022-current)
- Winner of a Regional Championship (as yet, not counted as Top Finish).
- Winner of a Limited Open (as yet, not counted as Top Finish).
Mentions of disqualifications and suspensions[]
These are touchy subjects, as they can be the cause of negative attention for the player. In general, it is recommended that the first disqualification obtained at Grand Prix level or below is not mentioned, but once the player has been disqualified twice or more, it is appropriate to include it in the article. At the Pro Tour level or above, the first disqualification should be mentioned. All DCI suspensions are fair game. In all of these cases, being brief, staying completely objective, and providing sources for every claim is critical.