Card Submission Tutorial
TappedOut forum
Posted on Aug. 4, 2014, 12:58 a.m. by Femme_Fatale
Pretty simple actually, make sure you have the gather page open to the card you are editing, and most of it is copy/pasta. I will be dictating everything I know about card submissions, so you'll have the most detailed run-down of the information.
You have two forms of starting the submission, going to the card page itself and clicking "Fix Card" which will bring you to the most latest edition to edit, or going to the set itself and clicking "Add/Fix Card". This prompts you to enter a card name. If the card already exists, most of the data will be inputted automatically, and you will only have to enter the set specific information.
You need to learn, so we are going to add a new card. Let's call this card ... The Kiss of Seduction. Which I'll promptly short to TKS. So you enter the name of the card upon the clicking the add/fix button on the new set that just came in. This site has no spell checker, so if you messed up the title on an existing card name, we now have two cards with different names that do exactly the same thing.
Never use any odd symbols in the name, like the AE symbol. Just right out the letters entirely.
Then you will be directed to the card submission form. You will understand everything from Name to rules so there isn't much to say. Mana Costs and Mana Produced are dictated by the capitols of their colour abbreviations, and nothing else (W, U, B, R, G), save of course the colourless number if applicable. Generally the order for the costs and produced are as listed as on the card in first come first serve basis. So if TKS costed 3BR, then you'd put 3BR in the cost, and not 3RB or R3B in there. If it has 0 cost you put in 0. If it has no cost you leave it blank. As for mana produced, if there are multiple colours produced like Noble Hierarch , then you list them in the order they are shown on the card, in caps, separated by commas. If there is more than one colour mana produced like Burning-Tree Emissary then you list them side by side. You would put in RG instead of R, G. Hybrid mana is listed with slashes. So BTE would be R/G, which ever colour is on top comes first. Phyrexian mana has /P after the colour, so Gitaxian Probe would be U/P.
Should there be a type or subtype that isn't listed, or if you are unsure of which category a certain card gets sorted into (like the enchantment creatures), just put up a forum thread and it will be discussed/fixed in due haste.
The card description is a bit different, but the same colour rules that applies to the cost and mana produced applies to the card description section. Only one exception, any symbol listed should be enclosed in curly brackets, 3RB. The tap symbol is T and the untap symbol is Q. As for the rest it is pretty self explanatory. U/R G/P 2/B. Why use the squiggly brackets? Well because that is the code that is used to find them in the rules text on the gatherer search. So it helps the common person who doesn't know about them, learn their use. Italics are easily denoted by being enclosed by asterisks. For the reminder text, only put it in if the oracle has it listed. Basically, copy pasta from the oracle. This also helps you to get that massive dash in there, as your regular dash doesn't work. Separate texts with paragraph spaces via your enter button, not < br >.
Now it starts getting tricky.
Additional colours is meant for EDH. So something like Noble Hierarch would have additional colours of U, W listed. Flashback cost is pretty obvious, same method of application applies to card cost and mana produced.
Keywords are also fairly obvious, though there are some that are kinda hidden. Tokens, counterspell, and counters are all keywords for us. So if you think something could be a keyword, try putting it in. If the tab pops up it is one.
Legal formats is also pretty obvious, though only bother with Pauper, EDH, Modern, Legacy, Vintage and Standard. All the others are really fringe formats and generally don't have much, if any, of a ban list.
Now here is the stuff that changes with each and every printing. Right below legal formats is another separate section dedicated for the printing of that card in that particular set. You will see which set you are changing by reading the information stated like ... "Journey into Nyx Printing info for Aerial Formation".
Right below that is the card's set number. This, and the artist are both shown on the bottom portion of the oracle text on the card's gatherer page. On a card they are a bit hard to see before oracle comes up, so take a look at the bottom left for info.
Next we have the flavour text. The same rules apply to this as they do for the card rules. Only, be sure to put in that large bracket, and generally, the person who said a quote is separated by a < br >, not paragraph spaces via the enter button.
Finally, we have the MOST important thing about these cards, and that is their image. This image is the main reason why we are thinking of restricting people's rights to put in card submissions. People don't know where to get the cards from, nor how to crop. Currently, the best place to get images is straight from the WotC card image database, not gatherer. Here is a demonstrative link of where to find these images.
http://archive.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/zendikar/spoiler
Notice where it says Zendikar? Put the name of the set without spaces or capitols or symbols there from anywhere between Shards of Alara to New Phyrexia and you've got the card image gallery for them.
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/vintagemasters/cig
This is the one for every set after New Phyrexia until to Vintage Masters. However, I must say that none of the smaller sets are included in these. Like the from the vaults, or the duel decks. Only the large products get these databases like commander, commander2013, core sets block sets, conspiracy and the masters. Same rule applies when searching for the sets, just input the proper name where it says "vintagemasters".
Unfortunately, it seems that WotC LOVES their new visual spoiler on gatherer, so now they removed the M15 card image database, even though it had larger and higher quality images, which is what you should be getting. The larger the better. So, any card before Shards of Alara, after Vintage Masters, and any of the small sets will have to be done through the image gallery.
Now for the image crop itself. There are various cropping tools you can use. MS Paint, Gyazo, Iranview and Photoshop. MS paint everyone has. Gyazo makes things really easy by being able to crop as you take the image. It also shows the dimensions so you can remember the size each time. Both iranview and photoshop save cropping sizes and allows for quick keyboard shortcuts to crop, photoshop is better because you can open many images at once.
As for the gatherer visual spoiler, the size should be about 199x285. No black border. As for WotC image database, 239x344 is the best crop, no black border again. However sometimes they use the gather visual spoiler size in the WotC image database, so be wary of that.
The last one, wizards id, is the most hardest for people to understand because it is not listed on the card. It is to generate the link to the card on the gatherer page. All cards have the same url except for the last 6 digits. Those 6 digits are what you want to be putting in for the wizards id. Normally this it is impossible to judge which card is going to have which id, so generally this is left once cards have been uploaded to gatherer.
And that how we say, is that. Everything is accounted for, and all you have to do is click the add button on the bottom and you are done!
miracleHat says... #3
Epochalyptik, you might want to feature this that for people will actually see!
August 4, 2014 1:25 a.m.
Thanks femme. I'll have a look through and practice a bit. Promise not to screw anything up.
August 4, 2014 2:54 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #6
THE CURLY BRACKETS DON'T SHOW. I'll post an image of that specific paragraph.
August 4, 2014 6:43 a.m.
Yea I think th is should be a feature. Good read with very useful information. Good job femme
August 4, 2014 8:47 a.m.
Rasta_Viking29 says... #9
Wow great information. Answered all the questions I had about helping with the card database. No more mistakes on my part. Thanks Femme_Fatale.
August 4, 2014 11:15 a.m.
Want to make this a flatpage and we can link it from the submission page?
August 4, 2014 12:02 p.m.
This might be negligible, but maybe add that card names should have capitals in their name as if it were a book? Also you have one "capital" spelled as "capitol" haha. Otherwise, GREAT JOB. thanks for the effort!!
August 4, 2014 1:24 p.m.
Doesn't http://magiccards.info/ have higher quality on their images than Wotc?
August 5, 2014 3:15 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #15
I've noticed a handful of Gatherer scans for certain older cards that are total crap, but for the resolution things are displayed on this site, the images in their database for newer sets should be okay.
Very good guide.
August 5, 2014 4:06 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #16
I missed some mana lingo. NOOO! Pretend all brackets are squiggly brackets.
- ( ) Blank mana, basically it is an empty colourless mana circle.
- (I) Infinite mana, it is a capital i.
- (S) Snow Mana
- (|S) Half a mana, put in any regular symbol after the straight line.
- (X) Variable Mana
- (Y) Alternative X variable mana
- (Z) Alternative X and Y variable mana
- (B/G/W) Tri-Colour hybrid mana symbol. Hard to denote the order of the colours, but just do clockwise from the top.
- (|) A slash up and down. Normally used to dictate halves.
- (/) A regular slash. Normally used to dictate hybrid mana.
And yes yeaGO that would be lovely. And maybe an edit OP on the page to put in a visitor counter?
August 6, 2014 3:18 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #17
NEVER use images from another site that isn't WotC verified Duck_of_doom.
NEVER!!
The reasons? There are two.
Many cards are actually edited versions, done to try and release the card into database a lot sooner, so there is usually false information.
Cards that are hosted on other sites generally take a scan of them. Problem with this, is that the card comes out MUCH darker than it should be. We want the original colours, not the altered colours. And they also are terrible at scanning foils, as they are even DARKER. So any premium deck or promo art is incredibly dark and not like the original art at all.
August 6, 2014 3:22 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #18
I forgot to mention that the M15 core set (and possibly everything after that) and anything before 8th edition have different crop criteria.
M15 is a crop of 205x293. Interesting size change, eh? 6 more pixels horizontally, and 8 more pixels vertically. Also to note, that there must be not black border for the sides and top of the card crop, and that you should have the entire author plus one pixel of a black line underneath the author, cropped. The reason for this is, is that g's and the like have a tendency to get chopped.
Anything before 8th edition should be cropped at 198x283, in my opinion. There will be discrepancy though as pre-8ED have this "raised card border" effect going on. What I just listed was the crop to have the raised border cut out, and leave only a faint grey line. The crop could range from 200x285-196x281, so I just stuck mine in the middle.
August 6, 2014 3:37 a.m.
Yes I have noticed that the artwork i sometimes much darker on some premium/promo &Foil cards, but in the article you wrote that the Wotcs archive doesnt include smaller sets like from the vault etc. So where do you get high quality images on these cards?Some, for example urborg, tomb of yawgmoth (ftv realms) you can find on gatherer but with much lower quality than on magiccards.info(although that one looks ugly compared to the original).Force of will judge promo is another good example. I, after searching on wotc, found it in an article but it takes very long time to like search for the cards all the time. The picture I uploaded to the promo set I had got from http://www.svenskamagic.com/cardpics/judgerewards/forceofwill.full.jpgwhich looks almost exactly as that one from Wotc ( http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/arcana/arc1489_fow.jpg) with the difference that it is cropped. And can you specify what you mean by false information, is the card number different, wrong artist or what?
August 6, 2014 5:49 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #21
The darker tine is solely the reason why you won't see card submissions done with those Duck_of_doom. We can make an exception with promo arts, but be prepared for it to be replaced by a card with the proper colours.
I was also exaggerating. If you do find a site that has the proper colours and a higher quality resolution, feel free to post a couple of image example links here and the usual T/O card submission crew will judge them.
Also, WotC's new Visual Spoiler means that we don't have to worry too much about card quality. Sure we don't get the larger cards from the WotC card image database, but we can make do without since it is now really easy to find the images. I was lucky myself. I was able to hand-crop each image from the WotC database for M15 TWICE, within a few days. Why twice? I'm trying to figure out the one sure method of getting the extreme image quality that ShadowLand gets. And I'm struggling.
Also:
Awesome! Thanks for the bookmark Snowstorm!
August 8, 2014 2:44 a.m.
Well now that this is all knowledge that is more readily available, can people work on finishing the list of promos? Judge, FNM/DCI, prerelease, and gameday. There are quite a few missing.
August 8, 2014 1:34 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #23
The promo set in and of itself is practically broken. Talk to Dritz about it for more information.
August 8, 2014 7:13 p.m.
Yes, I'm also aware of the incomplete promo set, it's not just cards missing, but the main part of the cards there doesn't work at all. Although it seems strange as some cards added by Dritz looks to have correct information and image, but still don't work correctly.
I have forgot to mention this before, but I think it's a well written article.
August 8, 2014 7:47 p.m.
At this point, I honestly am not entirely sure what shenanigans have happened to the Promo set. The set itself is largely incomplete as there is a truly enormous number of cards and not many people uploaded images to the set. Beyond that I'm not sure what has happened to the functionality of lots of cards from there that previously functioned properly. I've been working loads of hours recently so I haven't had the free time to pour into trying to restore functionality to what is already there or to add more cards right now.
August 9, 2014 1:36 a.m.
So.... If I want to add an image, I need to download it and crop it myself? Is that right?
Also, if someone has already made a card, that isn't cropped, how do I then change it? :D
August 9, 2014 7:48 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #28
Or you can crop it and then download it, as is with gyazo. Which I think is the most superior and fastest method of them all.
Just go to the card and click the Fix Card button for the most recent set. If you want a particular set's image you have to go to the sets page through the cards tab at the top and click on the set. Then input the name manually and add in the card. If perhaps the card was missed and doesn't exist in a set, once again, click the add/fix button on the set page, put in the card name (make sure this is spelled correctly) and then add in the card via the upload option at the very button, and then click add card. The submission will go to the admins, who will accept the submission in due time.
I think I'll actually start working on the images myself now. Should be done in a jiffy.
August 9, 2014 8:08 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #29
Okay, since the bloody M15 set page will not update to the proper card images, I had to manually make a list myself on a separate deck. Took me about 2 and a half hours to do.
August 9, 2014 9:45 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #30
yeaGO, you might want to take a look at this deck list of the set. M15 cards fix list.. If you will notice, the deck list follows pretty much the same thing as the M15 set meaning that SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THE CODE ITSELF. Lots of the detailed high quality images in the description are not the same images that appear on the sets page nor the deck lists.
August 9, 2014 9:57 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #31
I have another image that may provide more evidence that things are going haywire.
August 9, 2014 11:32 a.m.
GoldGhost012 says... #32
Hey Femme_Fatale, now that we can make the actual mana symbols (
), should we start doing that in the card description or should we keep the (R)?
August 14, 2014 11:07 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #34
No GoldGhost012.
Go look at the page for Meteorite and you'll see why.
August 14, 2014 2:46 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #35
I should also mention, that for whoever is updating card images, make sure you wait until the card is loaded before adding the card otherwise the image will not go through.
August 14, 2014 4:49 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #36
Another thing I want to mention, is that the gatherer search for snow and any hybrid or phrexian mana is different from the normal r/w inclosed by squiggly brackets, which in the OP is what I implied that they were.
They are really ...
August 15, 2014 2:43 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #37
FINALLY!
Took me about ... 10 hours to do in one day, but ...
I HAVE FULLY FINISHED THE ENTIRE M15 SET!!!
Yay
The one card that was being the most bitchy? Plains . Had to fix the little bitch about 7-9 times before it finally worked.
I have also added about 400 successful card submissions to my total there. That is certainly a lot, from just one set. Just goes to show how much of a pain M15 was. Let's hope the rest go smoothly.
Now for my next sets ... I am going to do them in this order.
August 17, 2014 7:06 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #38
Okay, I've got the Vintage Masters cards fix list shown here Vintage Masters' Cards Fix List, not that the description and the deck list will be different as cards get fixed, because the deck lists, set lists, illegal cards lists and updates lists use the old information until a system reset is done or so. Not too sure how it exactly works, but I think those lists reset themselves to the proper information once every week to a month. Beyond that, forum posts, descriptions, and comments aren't affected and are fixed immediately whenever new information is uploaded.
And here is where I scream.
325 CARDS, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM HAS TO BE DONE BY SCRATCH!? GRAARGHARGHARAHGHARHAGHAGBLABGALG dies inside
August 17, 2014 8:31 a.m.
When you say fix 325 card, is it only the cropping of the cards that you refer to or is it other information that is also incorrect? Because I have also thought of fixing some cards from vintage masters as it is very irritating with these uncropped cards.
August 17, 2014 9:36 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #40
There are 3 things that I'll be doing with the Vintage Masters set, and probably the Conspiracy set to. Number one, card cropping. It'll take me about ... 8 hours to get every card cropped for Vintage Masters. Hell maybe 10 hours, because of the constant changing between post and pre 8th edition formats. Number two, the collectors' wizards set number. Basically this is the amount of cards that are in the set, and the individual cards' placement in them. Like ... Black Lotus
could be, card # 286/325 and you would put down 286. Number three, is the aesthetics. Basically putting in squiggly brackets where appropriate to dictate mana costs and tap symbols in the rules text,
's in the flavour text for quotes, and asterisks for italics in both the flavour text and rules text.
My images are all going to come from the WotC visual spoiler, since those contain newer artworks than the gatherer, even though many are MTGO only. Which is where the highlighted keywords come from, or the hashtags to represent italics ... etc etc.
All in all, I think this entire set would take me ... 28 hours to do. Translates into about 5 days. My grandparents are coming to visit between 19-21 though, and I have other life stuff to do. Probably be about 10-15 days before it is fully done.
August 17, 2014 10:03 a.m.
Thanks. This is helpful. I was trying to add some promotional printings and that can't really be done from a card's page.
August 17, 2014 3:07 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #42
Well, I've finally started on VMA. Took me an hour to crop all the blues. Gonna finish the rest tomorrow, but now I'm gonna shower and sleep.
August 22, 2014 3:55 a.m.
Thanks so much for this. Im going to start adding the images for cards I have for trade that are missing :3
August 28, 2014 12:51 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #44
CODING NOW WORKS IN THE CARD DESCRIPTIONS!!
WOOOOO!!!
September 14, 2014 2:57 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #45
With that being said, here are the two main symbols that are used in the rules boxes.
• and — are • ; &mdash ; respectively, without the space before the semi-colon.
The mana symbols among other things I'll put here later. It is late and that is a long list.
September 14, 2014 3:04 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #47
All of these follow this syntax: [ [symbol:] ] where the symbol code goes right after the colon. All codes are uppercase unless specified. Mana is just their symbol, so W or B. Hybrid mana is the two mana in the order they appear, like WB or UR. Phyrexian mana is with the P at the front. PW or PG. Tap is T, untap is UT. Numbers are numbers. X, Y, Z are X, Y, Z respectively. Snow is lowercase snow. Infinity is lowercase infinite. All loyalty symbols start with loyalty- and then their code, which is all in lowercase. All loyalty (except 0) goes to 99. So we have loyalty-plus1 and loyalty-minus1 and loyalty-zero and loyalty-initial1 and that is all of them. Enjoy!
- +1
- +99
- -1
- -99
- 0
- 1
- 99
September 14, 2014 12:25 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #48
Okay! I am Reanimate'ing this thread because I have made a new set specifically for users to test out proper card submission etiquette. It is called "Tappedout's Testing Grounds" and you'll find it right above the Promo Set in our Cards page. Please do remember to put a "really random name" in the name box, one that WotC will not ever use. In fact, what you should do is put your name in the name box, and then some sort of string of numbers or letters to indicate which one it is so you can keep track.
For example, a card that I might submit there would be:
Femme_Fatale's ABC
This way you can keep track of all of your tests. I will do periodic cleaning out of this custom set once a month, and will occasionally comment on your profile about the test cards you submit about things you should or should not do to get your submissions better.
Also: Should I make another one of these, edited so it contains all of the features and changes I mentioned in the comments?
Femme_Fatale says... #2
Here ya go ChiefBell, it was far too long to put in your comment :p
August 4, 2014 12:59 a.m.