Scryfall (and before it, magiccards.info) has been outdoing Gatherer for years, but I don’t think Wizards of the Coast can afford not to have a searchable card database that they control. For all I know, they’ve offered to contract the work out to Scryfall, but Scryfall refused, or it would have been too expensive. But if WotC decides to just leave it up to Scryfall, and Scryfall folds, or makes an editorial decision WotC doesn’t agree with, that would put them in the difficult position of having to revive and update Gatherer on short notice. They need a resource that they own. And as a player, I would rather they not own Scryfall. I think Scryfall is better because they get to make their own decisions.
WotC needs gatherer because of errata and oracle text. Like you said, they can’t afford to have a third party in control of it. Like what happens at a Pro Tour and a judge makes the wrong call because of a typo or something in the database? An official database is needed to have the final word.
I don’t think the site needs a visual overhaul. I think it’s just the code was written in 2009 and it’s poorly optimized for web browsing in 2025.
the unspoken reason for keeping gatherer around is that they want the official source of card images to be low res images that make for bad proxies
The only update that gatherer needs is the ability to pick two or more cards and have it tell you how their rules interact.
“Let’s crash Arena” mode
@nokturne213 @MysticKetchup I wish computers were that smart. That’s a task that has to be done by hand for most of the scenarios we’d actually care about
That’s a task that has to be done by hand for most of the scenarios we’d actually care about
They’d better start typing.
Honestly just CNAME gatherer to Scryfall and call it a day. Scryfall is so much better than WOTC’s implementation, and competing against it seems pointless if they can somehow find a way to collaborate instead.
At this point they should just make it redirect to Scryfall.
I remember hearing in one episode of Rosewater’s podcast, he actually implies he’s looking at Scryfall while talking about some list of cards.
Yeah, the new look is nice but I can’t imagine it’s as functional as Scryfall
