These guides explain how Manamancer turns a deck list into useful information. They focus on the parts of the product where it is easy to mistake an estimate for a rule, or a warning for a final verdict. Each guide names the data source, the calculation, and the limitation that a deck builder should keep in mind.
Last reviewed: August 2, 2026.
How to Read Your Deck Statistics
The Stats view includes exact counts, price estimates, probability tools, and text-based role heuristics. Learn which cards contribute to the mana curve, why colored mana symbols are not the same as colored sources, what is included in the headline totals, and why the ramp, draw, removal, and wipe counts should start a review rather than end one.
This guide is useful when:
- your curve looks higher or lower than expected;
- a modal double-faced card seems to affect the land count;
- a role count misses a card you know performs that job;
- you want to compare colored costs with your mana base; or
- a price or Commander estimate needs interpretation.
How Manamancer Checks Format Legality
Manamancer supports Commander and thirteen other formats. The legality result combines card-level legality from the local Scryfall index with format construction rules such as minimum or exact deck size, copy limits, sideboard constraints, and command-zone requirements. This guide explains the difference between incomplete, illegal, and legal, plus the special checks for Commander color identity, partners, companions, and Canadian Highlander's points budget.
Read it before treating a green check as tournament registration approval. Format policies and card legality can change, and an organizer remains the authority for a particular event.
How the Validated Commander Agent Works
The Commander Agent does not receive an unrestricted encyclopedia of Magic cards. It searches Manamancer's local card index, records concrete proposals through a limited tool, and passes proposed additions through deterministic server checks. The guide follows a recommendation from search to validation to the player's Apply or Dismiss decision.
It also draws an important boundary: Manamancer can prevent an invented or ineligible card from becoming an actionable recommendation without claiming that every sentence in generated prose is perfect or that every strategically legal suggestion is right for your table.
Guides, or articles?
These pages document Manamancer's own tools and are updated when the product changes. If you are after writing about Magic itself — set reviews, reprint and price analysis, Commander strategy argued from the daily price archive rather than from the interface — that lives in Articles.
How these guides are maintained
The articles describe the current Manamancer implementation, not a hypothetical product roadmap. They are reviewed when the relevant deck-statistics, format-engine, or Agent behavior changes. They do not replace Wizards of the Coast rules, a tournament organizer's instructions, the current Commander rules source, or Scryfall's underlying card records.
Found something that no longer matches the product? Send the guide URL and the specific discrepancy through the contact page. For information about the project and its data sources, see About Manamancer.
