Colors and Costs

While Magic cards can represent costs and colors using printed symbols, the Comprehensive Rules and Scryfall’s API use a text representation of these values.

Color Arrays

Whenever the API presents set of Magic colors, the field will be an array that uses the uppercase, single-character abbreviations for those colors. For example, ["W","U"] represents something that is both white and blue. Colorless sources are denoted with an empty array []

Common places were you might see this kind of array are a Card object’s colors and color_identity. When a color field is null or missing, it implies that that information is not pertinent for the current object. It does not imply that the object is colorless.

Color arrays are not guaranteed to be in a particular order.

A list of color representations is provided below:

Abbr. Color Basic Land Mana Symbol Examples

W

White

Plains

{W}

Example Cards

U

Blue

Island

{U}

Example Cards

B

Black

Swamp

{B}

Example Cards

R

Red

Mountain

{R}

Example Cards

G

Green

Forest

{G}

Example Cards

Mana Costs and Other Symbology

Whenever the API presents mana costs and other card symbols, it does so using the official plaintext notation for that symbol set forth in the Comprehensive Rules. For example, “{2/W}, {T}” is written as {2/W}, {T}.

An exhaustive list of all symbology is provided below. You can also retrieve this information programmatically using the /symbology method.

Note that some symbols use UTF-8 characters outside the ASCII range.

Symbol Printed Mana? Mana Value Description Examples

{T}

{T}

No

Tap this permanent

Example Cards

{Q}

{Q}

No

Untap this permanent

Example Cards

{E}

{E}

No

An energy counter

Example Cards

{PW}

{PW}

No

Planeswalker

Example Cards

{CHAOS}

{CHAOS}

No

Chaos

Example Cards

{A}

{A}

No

An acorn counter

Example Cards

{TK}

{TK}

No

A ticket counter

Example Cards

{X}

{X}

Yes

0.0

X generic mana

Example Cards

{Y}

{Y}

Yes

0.0

Y generic mana

Example Cards

{Z}

{Z}

Yes

0.0

Z generic mana

Example Cards

{0}

{0}

Yes

0.0

Zero mana

Example Cards

{½}

{½}

Yes

0.5

One-half generic mana

Example Cards

{1}

{1}

Yes

1.0

One generic mana

Example Cards

{2}

{2}

Yes

2.0

Two generic mana

Example Cards

{3}

{3}

Yes

3.0

Three generic mana

Example Cards

{4}

{4}

Yes

4.0

Four generic mana

Example Cards

{5}

{5}

Yes

5.0

Five generic mana

Example Cards

{6}

{6}

Yes

6.0

Six generic mana

Example Cards

{7}

{7}

Yes

7.0

Seven generic mana

Example Cards

{8}

{8}

Yes

8.0

Eight generic mana

Example Cards

{9}

{9}

Yes

9.0

Nine generic mana

Example Cards

{10}

{10}

Yes

10.0

Ten generic mana

Example Cards

{11}

{11}

Yes

11.0

Eleven generic mana

Example Cards

{12}

{12}

Yes

12.0

Twelve generic mana

Example Cards

{13}

{13}

Yes

13.0

Thirteen generic mana

Example Cards

{14}

{14}

Yes

14.0

Fourteen generic mana

Example Cards

{15}

{15}

Yes

15.0

Fifteen generic mana

Example Cards

{16}

{16}

Yes

16.0

Sixteen generic mana

Example Cards

{17}

{17}

Yes

17.0

Seventeen generic mana

Example Cards

{18}

{18}

Yes

18.0

Eighteen generic mana

Example Cards

{19}

{19}

Yes

19.0

Nineteen generic mana

Example Cards

{20}

{20}

Yes

20.0

Twenty generic mana

Example Cards

{100}

{100}

Yes

100.0

One hundred generic mana

Example Cards

{1000000}

{1000000}

Yes

1000000.0

One million generic mana

Example Cards

{∞}

{∞}

Yes

Infinity

Infinite generic mana

Example Cards

{W/U}

{W/U}

Yes

1.0

One white or blue mana

Example Cards

{W/B}

{W/B}

Yes

1.0

One white or black mana

Example Cards

{B/R}

{B/R}

Yes

1.0

One black or red mana

Example Cards

{B/G}

{B/G}

Yes

1.0

One black or green mana

Example Cards

{U/B}

{U/B}

Yes

1.0

One blue or black mana

Example Cards

{U/R}

{U/R}

Yes

1.0

One blue or red mana

Example Cards

{R/G}

{R/G}

Yes

1.0

One red or green mana

Example Cards

{R/W}

{R/W}

Yes

1.0

One red or white mana

Example Cards

{G/W}

{G/W}

Yes

1.0

One green or white mana

Example Cards

{G/U}

{G/U}

Yes

1.0

One green or blue mana

Example Cards

{B/G/P}

{B/G/P}

Yes

1.0

One black mana, one green mana, or 2 life

Example Cards

{B/R/P}

{B/R/P}

Yes

1.0

One black mana, one red mana, or 2 life

Example Cards

{G/U/P}

{G/U/P}

Yes

1.0

One green mana, one blue mana, or 2 life

Example Cards

{G/W/P}

{G/W/P}

Yes

1.0

One green mana, one white mana, or 2 life

Example Cards

{R/G/P}

{R/G/P}

Yes

1.0

One red mana, one green mana, or 2 life

Example Cards

{R/W/P}

{R/W/P}

Yes

1.0

One red mana, one white mana, or 2 life

Example Cards

{U/B/P}

{U/B/P}

Yes

1.0

One blue mana, one black mana, or 2 life

Example Cards

{U/R/P}

{U/R/P}

Yes

1.0

One blue mana, one red mana, or 2 life

Example Cards

{W/B/P}

{W/B/P}

Yes

1.0

One white mana, one black mana, or 2 life

Example Cards

{W/U/P}

{W/U/P}

Yes

1.0

One white mana, one blue mana, or 2 life

Example Cards

{2/W}

{2/W}

Yes

2.0

Two generic mana or one white mana

Example Cards

{2/U}

{2/U}

Yes

2.0

Two generic mana or one blue mana

Example Cards

{2/B}

{2/B}

Yes

2.0

Two generic mana or one black mana

Example Cards

{2/R}

{2/R}

Yes

2.0

Two generic mana or one red mana

Example Cards

{2/G}

{2/G}

Yes

2.0

Two generic mana or one green mana

Example Cards

{P}

{P}

Yes

1.0

One colored mana or two life

Example Cards

{W/P}

{W/P}

Yes

1.0

One white mana or two life

Example Cards

{U/P}

{U/P}

Yes

1.0

One blue mana or two life

Example Cards

{B/P}

{B/P}

Yes

1.0

One black mana or two life

Example Cards

{R/P}

{R/P}

Yes

1.0

One red mana or two life

Example Cards

{G/P}

{G/P}

Yes

1.0

One green mana or two life

Example Cards

{HW}

{HW}

Yes

0.5

One-half white mana

Example Cards

{HR}

{HR}

Yes

0.5

One-half red mana

Example Cards

{W}

{W}

Yes

1.0

One white mana

Example Cards

{U}

{U}

Yes

1.0

One blue mana

Example Cards

{B}

{B}

Yes

1.0

One black mana

Example Cards

{R}

{R}

Yes

1.0

One red mana

Example Cards

{G}

{G}

Yes

1.0

One green mana

Example Cards

{C}

{C}

Yes

1.0

One colorless mana

Example Cards

{S}

{S}

Yes

1.0

One snow mana

Example Cards