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A ruling is an authoritative explanation of how a Card’s effect interacts with another rule, card, or game state. Rulings are issued by the Elestrals organized-play team in response to actual questions that came up at events, and they’re the source of truth when a card’s printed text is ambiguous. Every Card carries a rulings array. Most have zero entries; a few well-traveled cards have a half-dozen.

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The shape

{
  "id": "et-100",
  "name": "Pyrotter",
  "rulings": [
    {
      "id": "rul-1",
      "date": "2024-09-15",
      "text": "Pyrotter's effect resolves before any opposing on-attack triggers."
    },
    {
      "id": "rul-2",
      "date": "2024-11-02",
      "text": "If Pyrotter is destroyed by a Counter rune in response to its activation, the effect does not resolve."
    }
  ]
}

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Fields

FieldTypeMeaning
idstringStable identifier (rul-N). Use this to reference a ruling.
datestringISO date the ruling was issued.
textstringThe ruling itself. Plain prose, sometimes referencing other Cards by name.

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How rulings work

  • Rulings do not modify the Card’s effects array. The printed text is still the printed text; the ruling is an external clarification.
  • Rulings are cumulative. A new ruling doesn’t supersede an older one unless explicitly stated. Display them all, ordered by date.
  • Rulings don’t have format scope today. A ruling on a Card applies in every format. If that ever changes, the field will become non-null non-breakingly.

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Display recommendations

The expected UI pattern is to show the Card’s printed effect text first, then a clearly labeled “Rulings” section underneath: 
<section>
  <h2>Effect</h2>
  {card.effects.map((e) => <p>{e.text}</p>)}
</section>

{card.rulings.length > 0 && (
  <section>
    <h2>Rulings</h2>
    <ul>
      {card.rulings
        .sort((a, b) => a.date.localeCompare(b.date))
        .map((r) => (
          <li key={r.id}>
            <strong>{r.date}</strong> — {r.text}
          </li>
        ))}
    </ul>
  </section>
)}
Don’t merge ruling text into the effect text. They serve different purposes and your users should be able to tell them apart at a glance.

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When rulings change

Existing ruling text is treated as immutable once issued. If a previous ruling was wrong or the rules engine has shifted, the original ruling stays in place (with its original id and date) and a new ruling is appended that supersedes it. The text of the newer ruling will say so explicitly: 
"This ruling supersedes rul-2. The effect *does* resolve on a Counter response, provided …"
This is intentional: TCG players have long memories and a ruling that silently changed would erode trust.

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Card vs Printing

Rulings live on the Card, not on individual Printings. A reprint of the same Card carries the same rulings array. There is no separate ruling system for promo-only or starter-deck cards — if a card-game-mechanic ruling exists, it’s on the Card record.

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Searching by ruling text

There is no full-text endpoint for rulings today. If you need to find every Card whose ruling mentions “counter rune,” you’ll need to fetch the Card list via the updated_since cycle and grep client-side. We track interest in a /v1/rulings/search endpoint — write to support if your use case needs it.