The instructor of the session will first need cursory knowledge of Magic the Gathering, a fantasy role playing card game in which one player tries to get their opponents’ point total to zero, primarily through what are known as permanents (creatures, enchantments, artifacts, planeswalkers), instants, and sorceries. These are paid for using mana- which are lands- that you must draw.
Commander format is a 100 card-per-deck version of Magic which centers around a commander, the qualifier for this position being the card type- “legendary creature.” The commander usually has a powerful ability that it is strategically advisable to build your deck around. All color identities and mana in your deck have to match the color identity of your commander. So if there is no green mana in your commander’s color identity, you may not have any cards with green in their color identity, and forests (the card type that constitutes green mana) would be powerless.
From top to bottom, the elements of a Magic card are: name, mana cost, art, type line, expansion symbol, text box (which includes rules text- usually emblematic of abilities- and flavor text- which provides mood and character but does not affect play), and power/toughness. For the purpose of this lesson, you will need to know that converted mana cost is the “price” of a magic card, and contains the color identity that is allowed by your deck, which depends on your commander’s color identity. You will need to know that the vocabulary in the rules text will contain abilities that you will incorporate when demonstrating search strings- like “enchantments” or “flying.” You will need to know the type line contains the most crucial information- it is what the vocabulary in the rules text refers to, oftentimes (“enchantment” is a type), and contains the designation for commanders- the type known as “legendary creature.”
As far as basic functions of Scryfall, understanding basic search, advanced search and syntax will serve an instructor of this session well. Basic search will only search in the “name” field of a Magic card, advanced search allows filtering for every aspect of a card. Syntax searching is the most in depth knowledge an instructor will need, specifically for the three elements we teach- color identity/identity, converted mana cost and type. The syntax for color is “c:” and can be used with comparison symbols (<, >, =) to delineate having at least one of a set of colors. There are identity capabilities in Scryfall as well- “id:”- for universes within the Magic mythology that have a set color identity (the example we use is Esper, which is always only white, blue and red mana). Additionally, the Boolean operator AND is assumed in syntax strings and searches, where NOT can be signified with “-“ and OR is always also OR. The syntax for mana cost is “cmc:” and can be used with comparison symbols as well, as can type, which “t:” signifies. Type indicates the kind of card being played- creature, enchantment, instant, and many others. The embedded screencast will better contextualize syntax in commander deck construction.
After the screencast, the class can be challenged in a number of ways. One question is- what is the first step of the process for building a commander deck and how can Scryfall help with this? The answer is finding a commander, which is a legendary creature, and one can use syntax (t: legendary and t: creature OR is:commander), or use advanced searching to find legendary creatures. The other potential discussion moment is to ask students to speculate about other syntax elements. The syntax portal in Scryfall can show you all of these, and it is very in-depth; there is syntax for searching artists (a:), card text (o:), and power (p:), to name a few.
