The Alteration System, A Simple Way to Tag Etched Foils and More
Site Updates forum
Posted on Jan. 31, 2022, 1:25 a.m. by Femme_Fatale
The long awaited update is FINALLY HERE. This is the Alteration System!
UPDATE: We now call these treatments because by god Alterations and Alters were confusing, so keep that in mind when reading this article.
This system was made to be able to properly and accurately tag all the physical changes to a card that were just additions to an image. No card number, no unique TLA, no identifier anywhere on the card itself ... all this makes it incredibly hard to log each one individually such that users know how to tag them. Not too mention that not every card in the set will have these differences.
Here are all the alterations and how to tag them.
- Normal/Default
- Foil *f*
- Pre-release foil *f-pre*
- Promo Pack *pp*
- Promo Pack foil *f-pp*
- Etched foil *f-etch*
- DND foil *f-&*
- Oversized *oversized*
- The List *list*
- Thick/Display *thick*
- The Great Henge
- The Great Henge
- Waking the Trolls *f-pre*
- Waking the Trolls *pp*
- Waking the Trolls *f-pp*
- Abomination of Llanowar *f-etch*
- Tasha's Hideous Laughter *f-&*
- The Mimeoplasm *oversized*
- Lightning Bolt *list*
- Adrix and Nev, Twincasters *thick*
To add these to your decks, lists and inventory, use the "alteration" drop down menu in the search/add UI. It will auto-populate with the alterations that have been assigned to the card and variation you have entered. If you notice an alteration that a card is missing let me know here or in the missing/incorrect card token thread.
You will notice that the we display these alterations as a border around the card. It can't on the image otherwise they would have to cover up the artwork or valuable information about the card image, and not all images are the same, so having to make a new overlay for each different type of frame or card image size is rough, and may never look nice (the etched foil in particular is really difficult).
These borders are made by yours truly, so I can photoshop them from the feedback received here to make them look better, and yes I'm already noticing improvements I can do, larger displays make the etched border not as visible for example.
Our previous method of dealing with these alterations was haphazardly placing these as artwork variations, individual sets, retroactively applied to everything even if it didn't have it, or straight up ignored. With this system the site can now have an accurate table of every alteration a card might have. At the present moment, the mystery booster stuff is being kept as is and not be a part of these alterations, purely because they've been in the system for too long and can't be easily removed.
As for price connections, I recommend card kingdom. Bless card kingdom for their user friendly SKUs that make auto-connecting 5,000+ card alterations SOOO much easier. It's still a work in progress but at least Card Kingdom gives us data that makes it possible to connect.
UPDATE: Upgraded users can now, through the card add/fix form, add in alterations to a card or variation. So if you are an upgraded user and notice that some alterations are missing, please do make submissions!
Would love to see an actual category for Altered / painted cards again. I have several altered cards in my library that I wish I could tag again, even if it's just the big fat A next to the card name again.
January 31, 2022 2:36 p.m.
Polaris Mobile should be fixed soon.
Oquirrh altered cards never stopped working. You can upload your own image in the alters section and then just tag a card using the generated code, like this:
Mana Leak *A=299*
January 31, 2022 3:23 p.m.
P i o g r e 
says...
#6
So this change is really cool, and I've been going through adjusting my custom CSS to make use of the changes.
I've encountered a small hiccup regarding styling for altered foils
Previously, the card links for foil cards had the class "foil-card" -- they no longer do.
Now, most foil cards instead have the attribute data-foil=true that I can select with CSS, but the alters don't have that. Etched and stamped foils have a data-alteration attribute I can select (IE data-alteration*="alterations/f-pre.png") -- it's even there on alters. However regular altered foils don't have an attribute I can select:
as you can see in the screenshot, I can't select the popover box either -- whereas most foils have style attributes finding either the foil overlay or the data-alteration image I can hook into, the altered regular foil popover box has none of these.
Would it be possible to get the .foil-card class, or data-foil=true, or "alterations/f.png", or something else added to these so I can consistently style foils in custom CSS?
February 1, 2022 7:56 a.m.
DragonWolf420 says... #7
why am i getting notifications for this? i'm not subscribed to this.
February 1, 2022 12:21 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #8
DragonWolf420 did you accidentally subscribe to the "site updates" forum? You'll get a notification about any new thread if you are subscribed to the whole forum. Check your user settings, at the top there should be a "watched forums" section.
February 1, 2022 12:34 p.m.
mistarilledawn says... #9
Any chance you could implement an alteration marker for signed cards? It would make a lot more sense to have a quick notation for that as opposed to uploading an altered picture for each one, though having that option is pretty cool in any case.
February 1, 2022 1:29 p.m.
DragonWolf420 says... #10
Femme_Fatale i'm not subscribed to anything. the "watched forums" section is blank.
February 1, 2022 1:30 p.m.
P i o g r e
We restored the foil class for foil cards (even altered ones). You might need to re-save a deck if it has the old html.
mistarilledawn You can mark a card as signed like this:
Brainstorm *S*
February 1, 2022 4:07 p.m.
P i o g r e says...
#13
ivaggione thank you, this is great and lets me style the cardnames consistently
Would it also be possible to get something on the popover boxes (that display the card image on hover) so they can be styled as well?
See below, a popover box for a regular foil has a style attribute I can select with CSS:
An altered Prerelease foil also has style attribute I can select:
However, regular altered foils don't have anything that can be easily selected:
Would it also be possible to add something CSS-selectable to that popover window? If it's not reasonably feasible I think I can make a workaround, though it's time-consuming and skirts best practices.
February 2, 2022 7:06 a.m.
P i o g r e says...
#14
Addendum: I think it should be feasible as it appears that card printings which are only available in foil like the Duel Deck Niv below do get the overlay (which is selectable):
But alters of cards available in non-foil, even if they're marked as foil in the deck list, don't get it.
February 2, 2022 9:34 a.m.
P i o g r e Added a class for foil popovers, that should help you.
February 3, 2022 8:42 a.m.
P i o g r e says...
#16
ivaggione This appears to have addressed everything, thank you so much :)
February 3, 2022 8:07 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #17
Upgraded users can now, through the card add/fix form, add in alterations to a card or variation. So if you are an upgraded user and notice that some alterations are missing, please do make submissions!
Polaris says... #2
These look nice! But FYI, card borders are cut off on mobile so these alterations aren't visible when browsing the site on a phone or tablet. It might take some changes to get them to display, though as I looked at this I realized mobile also cuts off the planeswalker mark that usually denotes a List card.
I think the prerelease promo in particular might be good to have the top word in embossed gold as a reference to the gold date stamp on these cards? Just a thought.
January 31, 2022 8:37 a.m.