Cardsmith Blog

Giant Growth


Artwork by Matt Cavotta

In 2011, Cardsmith was just a tiny blip on the web, but it was decided we could just store all card images and thumbnails in a single folder - how big could it possibly get? Fast forward four years later, and that single directory held over 148,000 card images, wreaking havok on server memory and generally keeping us awake at night. On Apr. 9, we took care of it, moving existing cards into nice clean directories, and updating the way we save cards going forward. Let the growth continue!

Other Improvements:

  • The primary Card Saving script finally got some attention, resulting in a permanent fix to a pesky bug that could occur when cards with the same name were being saved. (Looking at you 1/1 Soldier tokens.) This should be resolved now, if you see anything along those lines, please let us know!
  • Cleaned up another 5GB of dead card images, reducing the doom countdown on server space by a month or two (at current pace).
  • Development can sleep at night once again, which means we can get back to working on more planeswalker improvements (read on!) and account awesomeness up next!
  • Ninja Update: Planeswalker ability box dimensions have been extended slightly, allowing more text to fit the frame correctly.
  • Ninja Update: Planeswalker card color can now be selected separately from the mana cost, giving you more choices for overall look and flipwalkers. A great idea from Looverse on the forums!
  • Ninja Update: Leaving the ability cost blank will hide the loyalty box for that ability, thanks to an idea from Chairforce. Check out an example.
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Apr 11, 2015 by MTG Cardsmith
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New Community Forums


We've been working behind the scenes to improve how members can communicate with each other, organize member contests, custom sets, and request feedback for cards.
With these features in mind, this week we introduce our new Community Forums. The best part is, if you are already signed into your MTG Cardsmith account, you can log in directly with a single click!



Also, keep track of the latest member contests directly from the updated footer on MTG Cardsmith. No more chasing around token contest announcements, the new forums have them all in one place. As forum usage increases, we'll keep an eye out for other site and profile integrations that might be possible. But for right now, we really want need to work on some planeswalker card makers.


See You Space Cowboy..
Mar 04, 2015 by MTG Cardsmith
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Into the Light


Here's a quick update to share what we've been working on behind the scenes and some new features you can check out right now.

1. Fancy new italics/flavor text auto-format button:

2. New updates to our Terms of Use and account moderation, allowing us to continue to keep an open, healthy community. Check 'em out.

3. Server tweaks and database optimizations. We've cut pageload time in half over the weekend, so thank you for bearing with us!

4. A new Latest Comments page to get an (almost) realtime stream of the latest comments and criticism other cardsmiths are sharing. (Updates every 2 minutes.)

Cardsmiths have been going bananas lately with awesome card creations and user-made contests! Keep up the fresh ideas and share them/spread the word. We've got some big things in store for the next couple months and are happy to have you with us.


Treat them with honour, my Brothers. Not because they will bring us victory this day, but because their fate will one day be ours. -Codex: Blood Angels
Feb 08, 2015 by MTG Cardsmith
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Fancy 2014 Member Survey Results



First, a great big THANK YOU to everyone who gave us feedback and ideas for the next year! We want to build the best MTG Cardsmith experience for everyone, and knowing what is important to the community helps us deliver on that promise. On to the results:

Most Important Area of Focus:

  • 1. Improved Card Generators - Score: 3.07
  • 2. Better website interface - Score: 2.41
  • 3. Member Account / Card Organization - Score: 2.35
  • 4. New Community Features - Score: 2.17

An overwhelming majority of all respondents would be extremely/quite disappointed if Cardsmith went offline, but just over half wish to support ongoing server/development costs in some way. (That's okay too!)


Feature Wishlist Overview:

MTG Card Generator
Site and Member Requests

What Happens Now?

Well, the community has spoken, and we're going to take the top requested items and come up with plans for how to accomplish as many as possible. Planeswalkers are definitely due. Hybrid Card frames are a popular request, but we need both art and dev time resources. The site design is also a huge priority to us and something we're already discussing.

Needless to say, it's going to be a busy year, thank you for being part of it!

Damn, this post just got fancy. I suggest you bow, or at least enter tapped.
Jan 19, 2015 by MTG Cardsmith
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New Feature: Complete Card Text


Last night we added something new to our view card pages. Below the card image and sharing tools, you will find a selectable display of card and rules body text. This text is automatically being saved for all regular and planeswalker cards from this point forward.

For members that like to adjust and remake cards based off of community feedback, we hope this will serve as a useful addition. And for anyone asking, there are many complexities around creating a full "Edit Published Card" feature that we may tackle someday, but right now there are other priorities (as we are seeing from the results of our 2014 Member Survey.)

Speaking of our survey, we will be shutting it down at the end of this week (1/16), so please fill it out if you already haven't. Shortly afterwards, you can expect a fancy Survey Results post to be headed your way. Cheers!
Jan 11, 2015 by MTG Cardsmith
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