Editorial & Research Methodology

Every researched guide on Myth & Mint is meant to be reproducible. If you follow the same sources on the same date, you should reach the same card list, the same legality result, and the same total. This page states the rules that produce those numbers so you can check them.

Source hierarchy

Sources are used in a fixed order of authority, and the higher source wins whenever they disagree:

1. Rules and legality: Wizards of the Coast is the only authority. Format construction comes from the Commander format page↗ (opens in a new tab) and the Comprehensive Rules; bans come from the Banned & Restricted List↗ (opens in a new tab). The Commander rules site↗ (opens in a new tab) is used as a secondary reference for format conventions.
2. Card data: Scryfall is the source for Oracle names, color identity, format legality flags, printing details, and daily USD prices. Its card object documentation↗ (opens in a new tab) defines each field we rely on.
3. Products and availability: merchant catalog pages, mainly TCGplayer, identify the actual product a reader would buy.

Deck aggregators, social posts, video commentary, and secondhand price screenshots are not sources. Anything a guide asserts as fact traces back to one of the three above.

Deck legality checks

Before a Commander list is published it is verified against the format rules, card by card:

• Exactly 100 cards: every deck contains exactly 100 cards, including all commanders permitted for that list. A partner deck can use two commanders and 98 cards in its library.
• Singleton: every nonbasic card appears once. Only basic lands repeat, and their quantities are listed.
• Color identity: every card's Scryfall color identity is a subset of all permitted commanders' combined color identity.
• Legality: every distinct card reports Commander legal in Scryfall data and appears nowhere on the Wizards Commander banned list.
• Excluded card types: ante cards, Conspiracy cards, cards Wizards has withdrawn for cultural reasons, companion-only Lutri, Attractions, and stickers are kept out of lists.

A list that fails any of these is fixed or dropped. It is not published with a caveat.

How prices are set

Prices are USD figures from Scryfall's daily card data, captured as a dated snapshot. Every priced article identifies that capture date in visible article text, and every figure in the article comes from that same snapshot.

The printing chosen for each card is deliberate and consistent:

• Language: English printings only.
• Finish: regular nonfoil prices only. Foil and etched-foil prices are never used, even when they are cheaper.
• Printing: the lowest-priced regular-size paper printing that has a real merchant product to link to, except when the article states a deliberate theme or availability choice. Silver-bordered and gold-bordered cards, tokens, memorabilia, and joke-set products are excluded.
• Condition: the figure used is the market price for an ordinary copy of that printing. Graded, signed, and altered cards are outside the scope of these totals.

Each ledger names the exact printing used, so a price can be checked against the specific card it came from rather than against a card name in the abstract.

What a total includes

A deck total is a card-only figure. Two conventions make it reproducible:

• Ordinary basic lands count as $0. Basics are the one card type nearly every player already owns in quantity, so pricing them would inflate a budget number without reflecting what a reader actually spends.
• Shipping and tax sit outside the total. Both depend on where you are and how many sellers you buy from, so they are excluded and said to be excluded rather than estimated.

Totals are shown as arithmetic you can re-add: section subtotals that sum to the stated figure, plus the distance from the budget cap.

Stock and availability

A dated price is a snapshot of a market, not a live cart. Between the capture date and the moment you click, a listing can sell out, change seller, change condition, or move in price. Card availability is thinnest exactly where budget guides operate, on cheap singles from many different sellers.

Myth & Mint does not quote live inventory, does not promise a card is in stock, and does not report merchant fulfillment or shipping performance. Treat a linked product as the right card to look for, and confirm current price, condition, and stock on the merchant's own page before buying.

Theory versus playtesting

Deck analysis on this site is theory based. Power level, sequencing, matchup, and upgrade notes are reasoned from card text, mana curve, and deck construction, not from recorded games. When an article draws on games that were actually played, it says so plainly and describes what was played.

Myth & Mint does not invent win rates, tournament results, testing hours, or hands-on product experience. A guide that has not tested something says what it knows instead of implying more.

Dates, updates, and reviews

Three dates do three different jobs, and each guide carries the ones that apply:

• Published is when the guide first went live.
• Updated moves only for a substantive rewrite: changed recommendations, a rebuilt list, or corrected facts.
• Reviewed moves when the guide is re-checked against its sources and its merchant links without the substance changing.

Prices are deliberately not refreshed in place without a date change. A figure on this site always belongs to the date printed next to it.

Corrections

Errors get fixed, and material ones get said out loud. A factual error in a card list, a legality claim, a price, or a source citation is corrected on the page, and a correction that changes what a guide concludes is stated on that page rather than made silently. Re-checking a guide against its sources moves its reviewed date.

If something here is wrong, send it to contact@mythandmint.com. The Contact and Corrections page lists exactly what to include and how the report is handled.

Commercial independence

Coverage is not for sale. No merchant, publisher, or sponsor selects the cards, decks, sets, or products that appear here, reviews a guide before publication, or influences a conclusion. Cards are chosen because they fit the deck and the budget.

Myth & Mint has no active affiliate program, sponsorship, or advertising relationship today, and merchant links are untagged catalog references that pay nothing. If a paid relationship ever becomes active, it will be stated on the disclosure page and the commercial nature of those links will stay visible in the link attributes rather than being hidden.

How affiliate status is disclosed

One concise notice appears in the footer of every page on this site, conditionally worded because the arrangement is conditional, and it links to the full affiliate disclosure. That is the whole disclosure model: one place, every page, always reachable.

Article headers and article bodies do not repeat it. Burying a disclosure in prose, or restating it in a box beside each product, makes it easier to miss rather than harder, so the notice stays in site chrome where it can be found from any page a reader lands on.