Welcome back to PlanningPuca!

I wanted to start off today by thanking everyone who’s reached out to me since starting this column. The fantastic messages with advice, suggestions, and just plain old positive feedback about the series have been really wonderful to read. When I started writing these articles a few months ago I figured most people would scan them for info on development updates and then move on, but I’ve been amazed at how many people are enjoying the behind the scenes look at how we do things here at PucaHQ. It’s great to know that so many of you find these updates so interesting!

With a little more than a week left before the early access preview of Future Site, we here at PucaHQ are busy polishing up the last few details we want you to check out. IndieGoGo donors can expect an email with instructions on how to log in to the preview site sometime next week, and Uncommon & Rare members will be getting their invites in the beginning of July. With most of the work for the preview behind us, this week we also sat down as a team for a planning meeting to begin hammering out an achievable timeframe for the functional release of the site. We’re expecting to be able to announce an official release date shortly after the preview!

Next week’s preview will be an exciting chance for us to give you all your first real look at the Future Site trading experience, and for you to give us feedback on the look and feel of the new site. If you want to read more about how you can give us your feedback during the preview, check out my article on the subject here.

Though the entire team is giddy for you to get in and start experiencing the site, there are a handful of features that we’re particularly excited to show off. Here’s the top three features that we here at the PucaHQ think you should check out after logging in.

MTGO cards/trades/search

The Paper/MTGO toggle at the top left of each screen will allow you to control whether the cards, trades, and trend data you're looking at reflects paper or digital cards

Trading cards on MTGO is much different than paper so to accommodate all the new functionality that was required, we basically separated the site into two sides: paper and digital. For those of you anxious to dig into the MTGO trading experience, the first thing you are going to want to do is flip the toggle on the upper left of your screen from “Paper” to “MTGO”. With MTGO mode selected everything you see from your outgoing trades to cards you search for will be digital. This allows you to flow through the site seamlessly as you build and manage your online collection using your same central PucaPoint balance, ledger, and profile. Don’t forget to switch back to Paper mode when you want to see your paper collection and trades!

Non-English Language

The language dropdown (located next to the Paper/MTGO toggle when you're in paper view) will display dynamic card data for any language a card is printed in.

After you switch back to paper you’ll be able to interact with a variety of different card languages via a dropdown menu on the card detail page, when adding cards to your list, and while trading with members. During the preview you can peruse the extensive collection of cards and art we’ve compiled and start to plan for which insanely confusing cards you want to get for your cube in languages that your playgroup can’t read.

Package Trading

Over the years a variety of workarounds have cropped up to make trading large packages of cards on PucaTrade easier. With Future Site we’ve internalized this process into a feature called Package View on the Send Cards page. Toggle to this view and we’ll condense all your potential trades into packages sorted by receiver. Initiate a trade for any of these to send all the cards in one click, and easily customize the package by removing cards you don’t want to include and adding other cards from the receiver’s want list - all from the same screen! Load up some cards on your Haves list and head over to the Send page to be sure not to miss this fantastic addition to the site.

But let’s be real, these top three features are way too obvious. These are the marquee features of Future Site, and I’m sure you’re all aware and eagerly anticipating them. Let’s run down a quick bonus top three of some features that you might not know of, but that have me excited!

Search from Anywhere

I’ve been using Future Site daily for the last nine months, and by far and away my favorite feature to use has been our new search function. From anywhere on the site you can access any card in magic history by typing in its name. No navigating to a search page; no clicking into a search field. It almost sounds silly, but this has made browsing cards easier and more fun for me than it has ever been. I really, really like this feature. (As a bonus to this bonus, our new card detail pages are a beautiful place to read up on all the latest oracle text).

Adding cards to Packages

I know I touched on this above, but I think it’s worth talking about a bit more. While Package Trading is a hugely useful new way to use the Send a Card page, it’s not the only way to condense multiple cards into one shipment. I always like to check my trading partner’s wants right before dropping a package in the mail to ensure that I’m sending them every card that I’m able to. With the ability to add cards to a package, it’s now easy to seek out all these last minute add ons and to keep them grouped together according to the envelope I’m sending out.

Ok with any Edition

Adding cards to your Want list will now give you the option to request one copy of the card, but allow for that one copy in multiple languages, editions, and conditions. Note the price field at the top showing you the range of prices that you are potentially signing up for.

My last recommended feature is another that appeals directly to the way that I collect cards and use Puca, and it’s one that I can’t wait to use. See, I’m no collector: I get my cardboard to play with and I think that a Fifth Edition copy of Sylvan library will draw me the cards I need in my Intet EDH deck just as well as a Fourth Edition or Legends copy will. When I want a card, I’ll take any version, any language, and any condition. On PucaTrade today it’s difficult to signify that you’ll take any edition of a card, but with Future Site you can easily add a single item to your Wants list that will tell the world that you are willing to accept the card in any of a myriad of versions, greatly increasing the potential Senders.

These are just a few of the awesome new trading options that are going to be available to play with during the preview release. We talk a lot about the big ticket items, but Future Site is so much more than just MTGO and non-English language support. I really think you’re going to have a lot of fun clicking through and discovering all the cool new things that we’ve built and added to almost every page.

I’m really interested to hear what you’re all looking forward to. Tweet at me and let me know what you want to try out first during the preview! For you Common members reading through this, if you’re pumped for the new site and don’t want to miss your chance to get in for the early access preview remember that there’s still time to upgrade to Uncommon or Rare in order to get access! All premium members will be receiving invites to participate in this preview, so take a look at our Pricing Page if you’re interested in upgrading.

Thanks so much for tuning in, everybody. I’ll see you on July 1st to talk about how the preview is going!