You can use forward slashes // instead of quotes with the type://, t:// oracle://, o://, flavor://, ft://, and name:// keywords to match those parts of a card using regular expressions.
Regular expressions are very powerful, here are some examples of fancy searches you can make with regular expressions:
- Instants that grant +X/+X boosts
- Creatures that have a tap ability with no other payment
- Cards that mention orcs, but not other words like sORCery or ORChard
- The Thingling cycle
Scryfall Regex Flavor
Scryfall supports most POSIX regular expression constructs, many are detailed below. Our regular expressions have the following configuration and limits:
- If your expression includes forward slashes
/they must be escaped:\\/ - Scryfall regular expressions are Unicode-aware. The
.will match characters beyond the ASCII range. - Backreferences are not supported (
\\1,\\2, etc). - All regular expressions are case-insensitive (
i). - All regular expressions are “multiline” mode (
m). Line anchors will match paragraphs in Oracle text, instead of the entire block. - All characters in your expression are significant and whitespace will be matched (sometimes listed as “tight mode”).
- You cannot add configuration to regular expressions on Scryfall. For example
o:/tap/will work whileo:/tap/giwill not. - Scryfall regular expressions are match-only. Scryfall does not support extracting data from capture groups or performing substitutions.
- Scryfall uses only the
\ncharacter for newlines in all text fields across our entire database. No fields include\ror\f. - The Scryfall database does not include bells (
\a), null-bytes (\0), or other esoteric control characters.
Scryfall Extensions
Scryfall includes the following additional, non-standard regex features:
| Syntax | Feature |
|---|---|
~ |
An automatic alias for the current card name or “this spell” if the card mentions itself |
\\sm |
Short-hand escape for any mana symbol |
\\ss |
Short-hand escape for any card symbol |
\\spt |
Short-hand escape for a X/X power/toughness expression |
\\spp |
Short-hand escape for a +X/+X power/toughness expression |
\\smm |
Short-hand escape for a -X/-X power/toughness expression |
Atoms
The following atoms are supported:
| Atom | Description |
|---|---|
. |
Any single character |
[kf] |
Bracket expression matching a single character which is k or f (or any other group of literal characters) |
[^kf] |
Bracket expression matching a single character which is not k or f (or any other group of literal characters) |
[f-k] |
Bracket expression matching a single character which is between f through k in Unicode, inclusive (or any other range of of literal characters) |
(re) |
A group that matches the expression re
|
(re|fe) |
A group that matches either the expression re or fe. | is the pipe character |
\\k |
A literal escaped k (or any other character) |
k |
The character k (or another non-meta character) |
Quantifiers
The following quantifiers are supported:
| Quantifier | Description |
|---|---|
* |
A sequence of 0 or more matches of the atom |
+ |
A sequence of 1 or more matches of the atom |
? |
A sequence of 0 or 1 matches of the atom |
{M} |
A sequence of exactly M matches of the atom, where M is a number |
{M,} |
A sequence of M or more matches of the atom |
{M,N} |
A sequence of M through N (inclusive) matches of the atom; M cannot exceed N
|
*? |
Non-greedy version of *
|
+? |
Non-greedy version of +
|
?? |
Non-greedy version of ?
|
{M}? |
Non-greedy version of {M}
|
{M,}? |
Non-greedy version of {M,}
|
{M,N}? |
Non-greedy version of {M,N}
|
Anchors and Lookarounds
The following anchors/lookarounds are supported:
| Anchor | Description |
|---|---|
^ |
Matches at the beginning of a line or the beginning of the field |
$ |
Matches at the end of a line or the end of the field |
\\b |
Matches the boundary of a word |
(?=re) |
Positive lookahead: matches at any point where a substring matching re begins |
(?!re) |
Negative lookahead: matches at any point where no substring matching re begins |
(?<=re) |
Positive lookbehind: matches at any point where a substring matching re ends |
(?<!re) |
Negative lookbehind: matches at any point where no substring matching re ends |
Character Classes
The following character classes are supported:
| Class | Description |
|---|---|
\\n |
Matches a newline |
\\s |
Matches any whitespace |
\\d |
Matches a single digit character: 0-9
|
\\w |
Matches any word character: A through z and 0 through 9
|
\\uHHHH |
Matches a character whose hexadecimal value is HHHH, where HHHH is exactly four hexadecimal digits |