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The old Magic search page has been rewritten from the ground up and is once again available for use. The functionality is more or less identical to that of the old version, but the user experience is much improved.

Search page screen shot

Improvements

• Short, memorable URL: search.mtg-apps.com. (Those who remember the old address will appreciate the significance of this change!)

• The filter panes have been rejigged to provide the same powerful options in a clearer, more compact format. Also, the panes no longer take up the whole screen if JavaScript is disabled.

• Flavour text and artist names can now (optionally) be included in the output, and are searchable.

• The annoying image pop-ups have been removed.

• The CSS has been optimized and now takes advantage of several CSS3 features in the leading browsers.

• Gorgeous sticky buttons allow toggling of non-essential information (images, flavour text, and artist names). Toggle images in Safari, Chrome, or Opera to see CSS3 transitions in action!

• Results are no longer paginated – instead, the first 20 results are loaded and additional results are loaded 20 at a time as one scrolls to the bottom of the page. This means that even if there are thousands of results only the first 20 card images will initially be downloaded by the browser.

• Under the hood, the PHP spaghetti code that powered the old site has been replaced by Python code (which is still rather spaghetti-like, actually).

I'm thrilled with the improvements that have been made to the user experience, although I've noticed that the server's response is sometimes quite sluggish.

I love receiving feedback, both positive and negative. Within ten minutes of Chris checking out the site for the first time he'd sent me two screenshots of glitches that needed attention. Feel free to do the same!

Some thoughts on HoM5.

I support EDH as a format. I think it will be challenging, fun and just as skill intensive as previous HoM. The concern I had was the length of the draft to complete 100 picks.

One solution would be to use 60 card decks, but I think this creates a problem in itself, being that EDH is actually supposed to be about casting Elder Dragon like creatures, which if we went the standard 60 card / 20 life structure, would give significant advantage to aggro decks such as isamaru etc.

60 cards / 40 life is a possibility but could lend itself to being too combo friendly, as deck density is thin compared to the time (life total) provided to complete your combo.

How about this… standard EDH structure of 100 cards / 40 life but solving the lengthy draft time by making each round of the draft award 2 picks per player. Each player submits 5 (or more if deemed necessary) cards and get the first 2 that don't clash. This way the draft only lasts 50(ish) rounds, shorter than normal!

I am not sure what the correct number of draft rounds is. A 100 card deck has a significant number of basic lands, so 50 double pick rounds maybe enough, even to make a sideboard. The problem I see is there are more than 50 sets in HoM, so either some sets need to be removed or more rounds are required as it seems bad to exclude recent sets just because they are outside the first 50 released. As much as I enjoy extracting maximum value from terrible sets like FE, Dark, Homelands etc, with all players required to sink 2 picks into each round, it maybe in the best interest of the draft to exclude the low density sets.

To be true EDH, I think the 21 general damage = GG rule is important, which is obviously more relevant with 40 life.

Would you propose the games are single game matches or best of 3? If best of 3 I think it would be good to allow General changes between games, swapping with a different Legendary creature that is either in your main deck or sideboard. The rules of EDH only allow on-colour cards in both those zones, so this would not create any messy legality issues with General / colour of cards being used.

This site has been somewhat neglected of late. Hopefully, that's about to change. Over the past few days I've extricated the site's content from the WordPress installation on which it had run previously. It's now powered by Mango, developed by Chris and yours truly.

While I was at it I thought I'd give the site's style sheet a bit of attention. I'm really pleased with the recent changes. Let me know what you think!

The eagerly anticipated History of Magic 3 match reports have now been published. There are certainly entertaining moments throughout, and the final match of the tournament was a real nail-biter.

Comments, as always, are welcomed.

View the decklists from the third History of Magic draft.