1 Reply by meldon44

(113 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

NEW CONTENT

Warhammer 40k
Two versions have been provided, one for the collectors edition and one for the regular. Why? Well, not only do the foil flags need to be set on all the cards in the collectors edition decks (rather than just a handful of cards), but the collector numbers of the two commanders and the thick display commander are all different. I figured this was enough difference to warrant two different CSVs. Yes, you could just edit everything yourself, but the whole point of the CSVs is to make it super convenient and for you to NOT have to do that. So there you go!

But major NOTE: Deckbox currently has duplicate listings for each card, one of which is intended to make the "surge foil" pricing accurate. Unfortunately, since they have the same edition + collector number, the CSV import has no way of knowing which version is intended. When you attempt to import one of these decks, you'll get a bit of each -- some surge, some non. I have brought the issue up with Sebi, so I encourage you to chime in, but in the meantime, you'll have to manually edit those cards if Deckbox pricing matters to you.

I also added Game Night: Free-for-All, but the edition has not been added to Deckbox yet, so these CSVs will NOT import yet.


CSV AUDIT

So I want to apologize for the tardiness on the 40K decks. The reason for that is I did a complete audit of all 460+ CSVs, to ensure consistency, accuracy, and successful import. I am betting many of you have encountered errors when trying to import (I wish someone had reported these!). Multiple CSVs had various issues that prevented an error-free import; these should all be corrected now.

You can see a list of all changes in the changelog, but the highlights are:

  • removed the Language column (you can explicitly set a language if you want one)

  • added the display commanders, now that Sebi added them to Deckbox

  • fixed the names of some tokens and DFCs that Sebi has renamed within the database since the CSV's initial creation

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2 Reply by meldon44

(113 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

NamespaceV wrote:

DMU Jumpstart seems like a failed execution, hopefully they will come up with some improvements as the idea is nice, but execution seems pretty weak with this particular product (not enough variety, no Dominaria related themes).

I wholeheartedly agree. Just as they did was the Commander Legends name, they have watered down and sullied the Jumpstart name with this new one. I assume BRO Jumpstart won't be any better. Hopefully the "main" Jumpstart release this year, at least, will be as good as the original.


NamespaceV wrote:

I remember I suggested a unified table form with filtering for presentation. But current organization is quite nice once you get used to it. So keep up the good work.

Your suggestions definitely haven't been forgotten or ignored!  smile  Time is not my friend, unfortunately. But as stated in an above post, the complete revamp I did in the underlying code allows for a lot of cool things to come, not least of which is searching / filtering. Definitely in the works!

Thank you for the encouragement and feedback!

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3 Reply by meldon44

(17 replies, posted in Announcements)

sebi wrote:
PatBr wrote:

hi !
I'm wondering if the price is right for the collector deck of warhammer 40k for the surge foil cards. It seems that all the cards are mark very much cheaper here compare to other site. is this normal ?

Hello,

The surge foils were not actually imported, I added them now. (pricing is still not working though for many of them)

I'm concerned about the current implementation of differentiating the surge foil from the non-foil cards. I don't see a need for duplicating each card in the set. The pricing for a given card merely needs to point to the surge foil pricing when the foil flag is set, and the non-foil pricing when the flag isn't set.

The only cards in the set that have BOTH a surge- and standard-foil treatment are the commanders, and these are given distinct collector numbers for each treatment. Every other card doesn't have a standard-foil treatment, just a surge-foil treatment, so the foil flag can represent that just fine.

Here's why it's a major problem: The CSV import doesn't account for extra info (like the little "surge foil" note you add to those cards) and ONLY looks at edition + collector number. Imagine a user who has taken the time and effort to correctly list all those cards and split them between surge and non-surge, exports their inventory, then later needs to import from that exported CSV. It is going to import as a complete mess -- particularly if the user has not used an additional flag like Foil, in which case the import will merge all of those entries. That's a nightmare for data integrity.

This is just the latest iteration of an existing issue that I've brought up multiple times before that has yet to be addressed. It also plagues cards like Tahngarth, Talruum Hero (and the other promos from Planeshift), Brothers Yamazaki, and the full-art vs non-full-art basics from BFZ. There's probably other examples I'm currently forgetting.

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4 Reply by meldon44

(8 replies, posted in Announcements)

Hey Sebi! For whenever you add the Game Night: Free-for-All edition, here's the token info. Pretty simple -- they all have the GN3 expansion code, and there's only one artwork of each token face. So there's just 8 double-sided combinations of the 10 token faces, as follows:

1    Angel // Zombie
2    Human Soldier // Zombie
3    Soldier // Drake
4    Soldier // Elf Warrior
5    Bird Illusion // Demon
6    Bird Illusion // Elf Warrior
7    Zombie // Treasure
8    Dragon // Elf Warrior

The token faces are:

1    Angel
2    Human Soldier
3    Soldier
4    Bird Illusion
5    Drake
6    Demon
7    Zombie
8    Dragon
9    Elf Warrior
10    Treasure

Wizards article showcasing the tokens

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5 Reply by meldon44

(2 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

While the utility of the idea is sound, in implementation it couldn't be as simple as "is alternate art". Technically, four artworks of a basic Plains in a set are all alternate arts, but that's obviously not what you want. A flag like "is fancy" is closer to what you're after, but the problem with that is it's too vague, not easily definable. What's considered "fancy"?

The filter would more likely need to be one of those "is any of" / "is none of" filters, with a list of possible treatments. Then you could have things like "showcase", "extended", "borderless", "full art", "retro frame", etc. all of which have relatively clear definitions. This then allows each user to subjectively choose what sort of "fancy" they're after, and it also makes the filter more extensible (i.e. future-proof).

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6 Reply by meldon44

(7 replies, posted in Announcements)

CSVs for the DMU commander decks have been added!

MTG.PreconDB.com

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7 Reply by meldon44

(113 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

NEW CONTENT

DMU commander decks have been added! I've also got a head start on upcoming products and have some of the data entered. Hoping it'll help me get the decks up prior to release next time.  smile

I haven't yet added DMU Jumpstart, as I'm still deciding on how I want to reorganize Jumpstart, now that it's going to be a continuing product line with every set.  :\

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8 Reply by meldon44

(833 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

darcet wrote:

not sure if tcgplayer or scryfall are preferred these days, so pasting both!

It has been recommended to go with Scryfall, since SF links to TCGPlayer (as well as other sites), so posting TCGP becomes redundant. That'll help cut down on your time, as well as reducing the "wall of text" effect.  smile

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9 Reply by meldon44

(8 replies, posted in Announcements)

sebi wrote:

Also added a csv export of the entire database of edition names, codes, card names, collector numbers and printings, as requested by various people from time to time.

In addition to the deckbox ids for cards/editions/printings, I also included (where known by deckbox) the gatherer_id and scryfall_id.

Hey Sebi, is it possible to use Deckbox's printing_id (within a CSV that's been formatted for import) in order to differentiate cards? I'm thinking of specifically the regular and foil alt art versions of Tahngarth, Talruum Hero and friends from Planeshift. Both versions have the same Card Number, so up till now there's been no way to specify which version you mean within a CSV. It would be great to be able to harness the power of printing_id for this purpose!

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10 Reply by meldon44

(4 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

ack wrote:

- when I look at my inventory, I filter for instance on the name of a card or a specific language and I would like to be able to merge by edition or name without taking the condition into account. At the moment, if I have 2 NM in English, 1 EX in French and 1 NM in Japanese, I have 3 lines for the same card and that makes things more complicated

So first off, I 100% agree that visually grouping / splitting (and by visually, I mean including totaling) based on various criteria would be an amazing native Deckbox feature. I'm going to present a solution below, for those times you REALLY need to get this done, but I acknowledge it's hardly ideal and should be native to the platform.

That said, I wrote a solution to a similar problem a couple years ago. He had a different use case, but the same technique will work in your case. If you find yourself needing to know these kinds of stats often, might be worth the hassle.

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11 Reply by meldon44

(2 replies, posted in Announcements)

sebastiansmagiccards wrote:

Btw.. there was a discussion ongoing about etched foils and if there will be a special tag - any update on that?

Here is the last official word I could find on the topic. However, it would appear that as of Neon Dynasty, WotC is consistently giving etched variants their own collector number within an edition, which solves the entire issue. Will they continue to be consistent in this? Who knows. Probably not. But for now, the only affected sets are Modern Horizons 2 (including the MH1 reprints) and STX Mystical Archive. Which is an acceptably low amount of extra editions to have to track.

I'm still a fan and a huge proponent of an etched flag, to make etched cards stand out from non-etched within an edition and to be easily filterable. But I understand Sebi's concerns and think if WotC continues their current methodology, a flag is not an absolute necessity.  smile

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12 Reply by meldon44

(12 replies, posted in General Discussion)

The amount of entitlement oozing from this thread is astounding and, frankly, disappointing. It's a game, not your bank account or utility bill -- take a chill pill and have a little patience. I'm guessing most, if not all, of you are new 'round these parts, because otherwise you'd know that, while some sets get added to the database as soon as previews are done, others don't get added till post-release. But they ALWAYS get added in a reasonable amount of time. So no, the site is hardly dying.

A few things to keep in mind:

  • This site is maintained by a single guy. Honestly, it's impressive that he's able to keep up with it as well as he does! Cut him some slack, especially considering the sheet amount of new printings WotC is increasingly pumping out each year.

  • @Bithunter & other premium users -- You're not paying for early or greater access to cards; you're paying for additional features. If you find those features useful, pay for premium, regardless of the speed of set updates, because that doesn't impact the features you're paying for. If you don't feel like supporting a site that's too slow for your instant-gratification needs, then stop paying for premium. It's hardly a necessity for a good experience on here.

  • @MitchMizerie -- Unless you're a Deckbox seller, and you're not, you absolutely do NOT "need" to get the cards added on any specific deadline. You "want".

  • @MitchMizerie -- I agree that any site built these days should automate this process. Unfortunately, this site was built long before modern web technologies, MTGjson, and other tools that would make automation easy or even possible. And updating the site now to take advantage of such tools would most likely be a huge undertaking, a complete overhaul that would result in tons of bugs that would need to be tracked down. I'm not sure the risk is worth it.


TL;DR -- Stop whining. It's still release weekend. He's not even super late yet.

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13 Reply by meldon44

(10 replies, posted in Announcements)

sebi wrote:

Fixed, thanks!

Awesome, thanks for the super quick fix!

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14 Reply by meldon44

(10 replies, posted in Announcements)

sebi wrote:

* added the 10 cards in the Pioneer Challenge decks

Could we get the name corrected to Pioneer Challenger Decks 2021, with "Challenger" ending in an "r"?

Also, I noticed this edition is listed twice on the Editions page, under different sections.  smile

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15 Reply by meldon44

(4 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Nevermind! I went to Spoiler view and a bunch of mine didn't have images. The first four are:

Abolish ( Duel Decks: Elspeth vs. Tezzeret, # 29 )
Aboroth ( Weatherlight, # 59 )
Abyssal Horror ( Urza's Saga, # 115 )
Abyssal Specter ( Classic Sixth Edition, # 110 )

They're running into an Error 526: Invalid SSL Certificate. So hopefully an easy fix on Sebi's end.  smile



EDIT: Interestingly, the images display just fine here in the forums. https://i.imgur.com/HSItRMB.png

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16 Reply by meldon44

(4 replies, posted in General Discussion)

What are some example cards? I haven't noticed this with any of mine yet.

And if you haven't already, it would probably be good to submit a support ticket with this bug.

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17 Reply by meldon44

(1 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Interesting! It used to work fine. I kinda want to go try it on my inventory now.

Did you submit a support ticket with this bug?


EDIT: Just tried it with my inventory, and the column was filled with "signed" as expected. Maybe try removing the "signed" flag from a couple of your cards, saving, and then re-adding? See if an export still shows those ones with NaN.

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18 Reply by meldon44

(6 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

On a more serious level: Do you have a good way of automating the export so that it updates the linked CSV any time you update the database? Otherwise, that's adding an extra task to your list (albeit an easy one, I'm sure), which has the potential to be forgotten, causing the CSV to become out of sync. It also adds ever so subtly more friction / roadblock into the update process, which often gets delayed enough as it is, what with the deluge of product that WotC sends your way.

Tl;Dr -- I love the idea. Just wanna make sure it's sustainable / scalable.

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19 Reply by meldon44

(6 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

sebi wrote:

I can also easily export a csv with everything, might make it official and put some link on the top of the editions page.

YAAAAAY! Do that.  smile

But you will not have nearly as much fun as I did coding this.  XD

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20 Reply by meldon44

(6 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

So. I think I may have gone overboard.  XD  I created a script that scrapes each Deckbox edition page for the card info, then appends it all to a CSV file. (I've only tested it on Chrome, so no guarantees it works in any other browser.)

Save the following link as a bookmark, go to the Editions page, then execute the bookmark. You should get a dialog popping up showing the progress, and then a Save As... dialog when progress reaches 100%.

The only problem is that a few cards can't be uniquely identified from each other in CSV format, so these get added as multiples of the same card. Notably, standard/full-art variants of basic lands and Wastes in BFZ/OGW, card variants from Unstable, the alt-art foils from Planeshift, and the Brothers Yamizaki.

Grab Cards from Deckbox


EDIT: Jk, apparently BBCode automatically adds "https://" to the beginning of each link, which breaks the bookmarklet code. So if you save it as a bookmark, all you have to do is right click the bookmark, choose Edit, and remove that portion (leaving "javascript:" at the beginning). Let me know if you have problems or questions.

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21 Reply by meldon44

(113 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

VERSION 2.0 RELEASE

Great news -- the new site is now live at MTG.PreconDB.com! Sorry for the long wait everybody!

I hope you enjoy the new features, as well as the fresh theme and updated organization. There's definitely more tweaks to come, but most importantly, you'll no longer be blocked by Bitly.  smile

As noted previously, I'm rushing deployment on this. So if you notice any bugs or issues, please comment here or use the "Report a problem" link on that page. I will address bugs as quickly as I can, but please be patient. Always include as much details as possible -- device, OS, browser and version, and clear description of the problem.

  • Tested browsers: [Windows] Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera -- [Android] Chrome, Firefox, Samsung, Opera, Edge

  • Untested: Anything Apple / iPhone, I do not have these devices available for testing

  • Unsupported: Internet Explorer -- If you still use IE, sorry, join the modern world!  ;-)


Next steps: I will get the backlog of recent precons added over the course of this weekend. I already have one submission (Obscura Operation) from a generous soul -- thank you!

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22 Reply by meldon44

(833 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

ic0n67 wrote:
AlmightySenator wrote:

I have found that the Card Numbers on Scryfall for Limited Edition Alpha do not match up with the card numbers on Deckbox. I am assuming that this will be the case for more sets as well. Is this something that could get fixed?

The numbers with older sets never match up with Scryfall. Back in the day we used to number cards differently than wotc did when they added the collectors number and deckbox uses that old way. You can simulate it easily though Black > Blue > Green > Red > White > Gold > Artifact > Lands and each group in alphabetical order.

To be more precise:

This nonstandard numbering will be true all the way up until Exodus / 6th Edition, when official collector numbers (and colored rarity) were first introduced.

The order mentioned by ic0n67 is almost correct, except multicolored -- those follow artifacts and lands in almost every single case.

There are three editions on Deckbox that don't even follow this nonstandard order, and instead have their own unique order:

  • 4th Edition -- BUGLRWA -- Lands between green and red

  • Antiquities -- ABUGLRW -- Artifacts at the beginning + 4ED's quirk

  • Visions -- BUGRWMAL -- The only old set that has multicolored between green and artifacts

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23 Reply by meldon44

(1 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

On Deckbox, neither of those are possible, though the former has been oft requested. I'm not aware of any site that sorts by color "weight", not even Scryfall -- great idea, though!

The former is easily accomplished on Scryfall by searching for "mana>={R}{R}{R}". Note the >= syntax, so it'll find a card that costs {7}{R}{R}{R} as well as one that costs {1}{R}{R}{R}{R}. Also note the curly braces. For devotion specifically, you can add "is:permanent" to the search to further refine your results.

Not trying to draw traffic away from Deckbox, it's amazing at what it does, but when tool A doesn't do what you need it to, there's no shame in supplementing with tool B.  smile  Hopefully Deckbox gets some more advanced search features in the future to compete with Scryfall!

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24 Reply by meldon44

(113 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Hello everyone!

I apologize for my complete silence for the past several weeks. A colleague at work screwed up big time and had to be emergency pulled from the position, so within a couple business days, I was suddenly on a new schedule, with much longer days and late evenings. I haven't had the time or energy to complete the project, only working on it a few times in the cracks.

That said, my crazy schedule ends this Friday, back to normal on Monday. Yay! Also, the huge revamp I have had in the works is about 95% in a workable state now. So I'm going to be doing some testing and bug fixing on other browsers over the weekend and next week (because I hate the idea of launching something that's broken out-of-the-box for a bunch of people, so... sorry... but I won't launch prematurely). I don't want to guarantee an exact ETA, but I feel confident that I can have it up sometime next week.

Everything will look and work mostly the same on the surface, so it's hard to understand the immense overhaul I did. But the changes will allow some cool features in the future. Initially, it'll launch with the ability for you to set your own language and condition, as well as the ability to accommodate batch downloads (multiple precons concatenated in a single file). In the future, it will be searchable and filterable, including by deck colors. I also want to provide the ability for you to set your own grouping and sorting preferences, since no one is going to agree 100% on anyone else's categorizations.

To those inquiring re: the five STX decks, I'm prioritizing the launch of the resource itself right now, and don't want to divide my limited time. I'll get those created and made available within a day or two of launching.

Sorry again for the radio silence. I appreciate your patience! Talk soon!

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25 Reply by meldon44

(4 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Here ya go! Let me know if you have any questions.  smile

  1. Export both as CSVs. To make things a little easier, rename the inventory CSV to something short with no spaces in it, like "Inv". (It's just a temp file anyways.)

  2. Open both, and in a blank column of each, copy down this formula:
    =B2 & D2 &...X2
    where the letters represent the columns of each criteria you want to match, separated by the & sign (no dots). Obviously you'll need at least B2 for the Name, but you can decide whether or not you want to precisely match e.g. foiling or edition.

  3. In your deck CSV, create a new column next to Count (label it Inventory or whatever). Copy down this formula:
    =SUMIF( FileName.csv!X:X, Y2, FileName.csv!A:A )
    where FileName is what you chose in step1, and X and Y are the columns you populated in step 2 for the Inventory and Deck CSVs, respectively.

  4. You can also make a Missing column. Copy down this formula: =IF( X2<2, TRUE, "" )
    where X is the column you created in step 3.

  5. Save your Deck CSV and close it. CSV files do not retain formulas, so once you close it, it'll just save the results. The Inventory CSV can now be safely discarded. You can also safely delete the column you made in step 2 after you reopen the Deck CSV.

It may seem complicated, but it took me just a couple minutes to perform all the steps.

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