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How to automatically get the release date of the latest Magic: The Gathering Standard set?
I’m building a tool to check Magic: The Gathering deck legality in custom formats and want to update my formats with the same frequency as the Penny Dreadful format. Penny Dreadful updates when a new Standard-legal set is released but typically ignores smaller supplemental sets.
Is there a programmatic way to fetch the release date of the latest Standard set, ideally via an API or a reliable data source?
1 answer
This code uses the What's in Standard API to fetch all Standard-legal sets, filters to those already released, finds the most recent, and updates a local timestamp to track the latest Standard set. It automates detecting when a new Standard set enters rotation.
import requests
import json
import os
from datetime import datetime, timezone
LAST_UPDATED_FILE = "last_updated.json"
WIS_SETS_API = "https://whatsinstandard.com/api/v6/standard.json"
def fetch_sets_data():
"""Fetch data from What's in Standard API."""
response = requests.get(WIS_SETS_API)
response.raise_for_status()
return response.json()["sets"]
def load_saved_updated_at(file_path=LAST_UPDATED_FILE):
"""Load previously saved updated_at from file."""
if os.path.exists(file_path):
with open(file_path, "r") as f:
data = json.load(f)
return data.get("updated_at")
return None
def save_updated_at(updated_at, file_path=LAST_UPDATED_FILE):
"""Save updated_at to file."""
with open(file_path, "w") as f:
json.dump({"updated_at": updated_at}, f)
def check_for_update(latest_updated_at, saved_updated_at):
"""Return True if update detected, else False. Print 'updating' if True."""
if saved_updated_at is None or latest_updated_at > saved_updated_at:
save_updated_at(latest_updated_at)
return True
return False
def main():
now = datetime.now(timezone.utc)
sets = fetch_sets_data()
# Filter to sets already released
released_sets = [
s
for s in sets
if s.get("enterDate", {}).get("exact") # skip sets with null
and datetime.fromisoformat(s["enterDate"]["exact"]).replace(tzinfo=timezone.utc)
<= now
]
if not released_sets:
print("No sets released yet")
return
# Find the most recent released set
latest_set = max(
released_sets,
key=lambda s: datetime.fromisoformat(s["enterDate"]["exact"]).replace(
tzinfo=timezone.utc
),
)
latest_updated_at = latest_set["enterDate"]["exact"]
saved_updated_at = load_saved_updated_at()
if check_for_update(latest_updated_at, saved_updated_at):
print(f"Updating to latest released set: {latest_set['name']}")
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
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