Is Oracle text kept up to date with rules updates?

Oracle text, the card's text field, is re-read from Scryfall's bulk data on every ingest, so an errata lands with the next run. A change fires a card.updated webhook whose changed array names the fields that moved. The previous wording is not kept: store it on your side if you need to diff.

Can I query a specific printing rather than the card?

A card record is a printing: each set, collector number and language is its own id, with its own artist, image and prices, and finishes of that printing are separate quotes under prices and printings. There is no id grouping every printing of a card; search by name to gather them.

Are double-faced cards handled properly?

They are one record per printing, with the faces joined by " // " in name, gameData.typeLine and text ("Invasion of Tarkir // Defiant Thundermaw"), and gameData.layout saying which kind it is: transform, modal_dfc, split, adventure and so on. There is no per-face array; manaCost, power and toughness are the front face's.

How is this different from querying Scryfall directly?

For Magic alone, Scryfall is excellent and free, and we would not pretend otherwise. The difference shows up the moment you add a second game: with Scryfall you write a Magic integration, then a separate Pokémon one, then a third for One Piece, each with its own auth, pagination, rate limits and price shape. Here it is one schema and one key across nine games, with marketplace prices attached. If Magic is the only game you will ever carry, use Scryfall.

Which price sources do you carry for Magic?

Cardmarket in EUR, and TCGplayer, Card Kingdom and Mana Pool in USD, each as its own quote rather than blended into one number. Card Kingdom also publishes a buylist, which comes back as listType buylist. Foil, non-foil and etched finishes are priced separately.

Are rulings or old wordings included?

No. text is the current Oracle wording, re-read from Scryfall's bulk data on every ingest; rulings are not carried and earlier wordings are not kept. When the text changes, a card.updated webhook names the field, so store the old text on your side if you need a history.

Wizards of the Coast · since 1993

Magic: The Gathering API

Oracle text, mana costs, colour identity, every frame variant and all twenty-plus format legalities.

Get an API key Query Magic now

37,158
Cards: 105,841
Printings: 955
Sets: 11
Languages: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese

Overview

What the Magic dataset covers

Magic: The Gathering invented the trading card game and still leads the market by total dollar value. TCGGraph exposes canonical Oracle text, mana value, colour identity, type lines, keyword abilities and legality across Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Commander and Pauper — plus every finish, frame effect and promo treatment as an addressable printing with its own price series.

Every finish, frame effect and promo treatment is an addressable printing with its own price series, so a Showcase foil and its regular printing never share a number.

Formats

Standard
Pioneer
Modern
Legacy
Vintage
Commander
Pauper
Brawl
Alchemy
Historic

Price sources

Cardmarket
TCGplayer
Card Kingdom
Mana Pool

REST

curl -G "https://api.tcggraph.com/v1/cards" \
  -d game=magic-the-gathering \
  -d limit=5 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TCGGRAPH_KEY"

GraphQL

{
  cards(
    filter: {
      game: MAGIC_THE_GATHERING
      gameData: { colorIdentity: "U", manaValue: 3 }
    }
    limit: 10
  ) {
    nodes {
      name
      gameData
      legalities
    }
  }
}

Schema

Magic-specific fields

Every card carries the shared core fields. These live under gameData, in REST and GraphQL alike, and each is a filter: ?cost=2 in REST, gameData: { cost: 2 } in GraphQL.

Field	Type	Description
manaCost	String	Mana cost in symbol notation, e.g. {2}{U}{U}.
manaValue	Float	Converted mana cost.
colors	[String]	Colours in the mana cost.
colorIdentity	[String]	Commander-legal colour identity.
typeLine	String	Full type line including supertypes and subtypes.
power	String	Creature power. May be a character such as *.
toughness	String	Creature toughness. May be a character such as *.
loyalty	String	Starting loyalty for planeswalkers.
keywords	[String]	Parsed keyword abilities.
layout	Enum	normal, transform, modal_dfc, split, adventure, saga…
finishes	[String]	nonfoil, foil or etched: the finishes the printing was made in.

Plus 26 core fields shared by every game — see the full reference.

Live data

Magic cards in the public dataset

Real records returned by the API right now, sorted by market value, with both the American and the European quote.

Card	Set	Number	Rarity	TCGplayer	Cardmarket
Sygg, River Cutthroat	The List	ZNC-103	rare	$10.90	€7.86
Meteorite	Avatar: The Last Airbender Eternal	54	mythic	$0.81	€0.50
Grim Flayer	Double Masters 2022	502	rare	$0.71	€0.49
Qasali Pridemage	Time Spiral Remastered	383	special	$0.31	€0.27
Crushing Vines	Commander Legends	221	common	$0.25	€0.03
Palace Guard	Magic 2011	24	common	$0.11	€0.12
Hedron Rover	Worldwake	125	common	$0.10	€0.10
Black Lotus	Limited Edition Alpha	232	rare	—	€33,768

The most valuable Magic cards and their prices — each printing with Cardmarket and TCGplayer quotes, per language and grade.

The European market for Magic

Cardmarket is the largest Magic singles market outside the United States, and for European-language cards it is effectively the only liquid one. Italian Legends and German Revised have their own collector base and their own price curve; converting a TCGplayer number will not get you close.

Traded on Cardmarket in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian beyond English. How European pricing works.

Sets

Notable Magic sets

LEA
Limited Edition Alpha
295 cards · 1993-08-05
USG
Urza's Saga
350 cards · 1998-10-12
MH3
Modern Horizons 3
303 cards · 2024-06-14
FIN
Final Fantasy
309 cards · 2025-06-13
SPM
Marvel's Spider-Man
286 cards · 2025-09-26

Modelling

Working with Magic data

The decisions that catch people out when they first integrate Magic. Each of these is a bug we have watched somebody ship.

Colour identity is not colour
A card's colours come from its mana cost. Its colour identity also includes mana symbols in the rules text, which is what Commander deckbuilding actually uses. A card with no coloured mana in its cost can still be off-limits in a mono-white deck. Filter on colorIdentity for Commander and colors for everything else.
One name, many records
Lightning Bolt has been printed dozens of times, and each printing is its own card record: its own id, set, collector number, artist, image and prices. There is no id that groups every printing of a card as one rules object, so gather them by name, and key a deck list on the name rather than on a printing's id.
Double-faced cards are one record
Transform, modal double-faced, split and adventure cards are a single record per printing. The faces are joined with " // " in name, gameData.typeLine and text, gameData.layout says which kind of card it is, and manaCost, power and toughness describe the front face. There is no per-face array to walk.
Legality is read, not filtered
legalities carries all 23 formats, each legal, not_legal, banned or restricted. There is no legality filter on /v1/cards: filter on the card's properties, then read legalities.commander (or any format) on what comes back. A ban announcement fires a card.legality.changed webhook per format that moved.

Recipes

Common Magic queries

Three requests that cover most of what applications in this game actually ask for.

Two-mana blue cards with flash

Deck builders combine colour identity, mana value and a keyword in a single filter.

colorIdentity and keywords are lists, and a filter on a list matches any card carrying the value, so multicolour cards with blue in their identity come back too.

GET /v1/cards
  ?game=magic-the-gathering
  &colorIdentity=U
  &maxManaValue=2
  &keywords=Flash

The cheapest printing of a card, in euros

Price tools want the least expensive copy across every set it has appeared in.

source picks the marketplace that price sorts on, in its own currency. Every printing still carries all of its quotes.

GET /v1/cards
  ?game=magic-the-gathering
  &name=lightning bolt
  &source=cardmarket
  &sort=price
  &limit=100

Every transforming card

Card renderers need to know which records have a back face before they draw one.

layout also takes modal_dfc, split, adventure, saga and the rest of Scryfall's layouts.

GET /v1/cards
  ?game=magic-the-gathering
  &layout=transform
  &limit=100

Glossary

Magic terms, and the fields that hold them

What players call a thing on the left, what you query on the right.

Term	Field	Notes
Mana value	gameData.manaValue	Formerly converted mana cost. A number, so minManaValue and maxManaValue bound it.
Colour identity	gameData.colorIdentity[]	Colours in cost and rules text, as W, U, B, R and G. What Commander legality is checked against.
Type line	gameData.typeLine	The full printed line, em dash included, both faces joined by " // ". A filter on it matches the whole line.
Layout	gameData.layout	normal, transform, modal_dfc, split, adventure, saga and so on. How the card's faces fit together.
Power / Toughness	gameData.power	A string, not a number: it can be * or 1+*. Null on non-creatures.
Finish	prices[].finish	normal, foil or etched on Magic; the full closed list is on /docs/prices. Each finish is priced separately and grouped on printings[].

FAQ

Magic API questions

Anything not covered here, email hello@tcggraph.com and a human who knows Magic answers.

Also available

Add another game without another integration

Your Magic key already works for every other game in the catalog. Change the MAGIC_THE_GATHERING enum and the rest of your code stays as it is.

Get an API key See pricing