Methodology
Card data
Card names, oracle text, set data, and images come from Scryfall's public bulk data, read fresh on each ingest. Each card page uses the earliest Premodern-legal printing; images are hotlinked from Scryfall's CDN and never stored or altered. Legality follows the legal-set list mirrored from premodernmagic.com.
Banlist verification
The banlist and dual-land legality are checked automatically against premodernmagic.com (Martin Berlin's canonical list) on every nightly build; the banlist page carries the latest verification date. We mirror any change within 24 hours and never assert a contested ban before Martin Berlin posts it.
Prices & the finance dashboard
Prices come from MTGJSON, ingested daily into a database that is the source of truth. Each card carries a headline price (TCGplayer USD), corroborated against Card Kingdom (USD) and Cardmarket (EUR); when the USD markets diverge by a meaningful margin the card is flagged, so a single outlier never drives a figure unchecked. The Premodern Price Index (PPI) is a 50-card weighted basket of format staples, base 1000 = 2026-03-01, indexed daily from the 7-day median price per card. Movers and spikes are computed from the trailing 7/30/90-day history (minimum $1.00 price to filter penny noise), and the Reserved List page joins the curated RL-in-Premodern set to live prices. Archetype build cost and cheapest decks sum a representative decklist per archetype (mainboard plus sideboard) at those prices. All figures are indicative, dated, and not buy/sell quotes.
Tournament & metagame data
Metagame context draws on mtgtop8 (PREM), the MTGO Premodern Challenge series, and the Duress Crew Premodern Data Analysis Project. Monthly snapshots currently cite published figures with attribution; full automated win-rate aggregation is in progress.
Editorial review
Pages are published under a three-tier model. Reviewed before publish: archetype primers, matchups, guides, banlist history, metagame snapshots, and hubs. Spot-reviewed: decks, events, player bios, programmatic pages, and glossary terms. Automated and audited: the ~5,400 card pages and the computed finance pages, which are mechanical and regenerated from typed data. Banlist changes are never asserted ahead of Martin Berlin's post and are mirrored within 24 hours of any update.
Update cadence
Prices refresh nightly; card-image health is checked weekly; metagame snapshots publish monthly. Corrections are welcome via contact; full source attribution is on the attribution page.
Browse premodernmtg.com
- Cards Every Premodern-legal Magic: The Gathering card.
- Decks Curated decklists, archetype primers, and the meta board.
- Meta Metagame analysis: tiers, trends, win rates, and matchups.
- Learn What Premodern is, the rules, legal sets, and how to start playing.
- Matchups Head-to-head archetype data and sideboarding notes.
- Events Lobstercon, MTGO Challenges, national championships.
- News Ban announcements, MTGO updates, and metagame shifts.
- Guides Beginner, intermediate, and advanced Premodern references.
- Banlist Every banlist event with citations and effective dates.
- Glossary Premodern terminology, from Stiflenought to Pande-Burst.
- Metagame Monthly archetype snapshots and post-ban meta shifts.
- Prices Daily Premodern Price Index, movers, staples, archetype build cost, and budget decks — USD and EUR.
- Search Search every card, archetype, deck, matchup, and glossary term.