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.
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.
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
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.