Set Collecting on Icarian

The problem

Set collecting isn’t about value. It’s about closure.

If you’re a completionist, you don’t want “most of the set”. You want one of each card in the release, and you want to know two things at all times:

How close am I to completing this set? What will it cost to finish?

That sounds like it should be a solved problem. In practice it usually turns into a spreadsheet, a second app, and a lot of “wait, do I already have that?”

Set Collecting on Icarian is meant to make that feeling go away.

Base sets, on purpose

Modern Magic sets are not one set. They’re a maze of promos, extended art, showcase frames, variants, and the kind of releases that make you wonder if you’re collecting cards or collecting SKU identifiers.

So we made a decision: completion is based on the base set.

By default, Set Collecting tracks base cards and ignores promos / extended art / variants. For older sets, that’s all there is anyway. For newer sets, we still show the stats for the full release, but we anchor progress on the base set because that’s the version of “complete” that most completionists actually mean when they say it out loud.

Tokens and similar ephemera are excluded. If you’re the kind of collector who tracks tokens, I’d genuinely love to hear how you do it, because it’s one of those topics that always sounds easy until you try to do it consistently.

The Collection Dashboard is the front door

Most set tools start at the set. Collectors don’t.

Collectors start at their collection and ask, “what does this imply?”

The Collection Dashboard is built for that workflow. It shows progress across every set you already have cards from, and it also gives you a separate place for sets you’ve explicitly decided you want to finish.

That distinction matters. Owning some cards from a set and targeting a set are not the same intent, and treating them as the same thing makes the UI noisy fast.

Targeting is the opt-in flag that says: I care about finishing this one. Once a set is targeted, it shows up in a dedicated section so you can keep your goals in view without losing the wider context of everything you’ve accumulated.

A set page that answers the two real questions

When you click into a set, the set page is intentionally blunt. It’s there to tell you:

Where you stand (both total and base).
What you have (owned and unique).
What it’s worth.
What it would cost to complete.

We also keep the base-only posture visible, because it’s easy to accidentally drift into “complete everything” mode without realizing you’ve just changed the definition of “done” by an order of magnitude.

From “missing” to “purchased” in a few seconds

If you’re targeting a set, the next step should be obvious and fast.

On a set page you can filter down to only the cards you’re missing, then generate a buyable list and jump out to a marketplace like TCGPlayer. The goal is simple: from “I wonder what I need” to “I have a purchase list” without the usual tab explosion.

If you want to get picky (specific subsets, specific searches), you can filter the card results first and then generate a list from what you’re actually looking at. The progress bars don’t filter — completionists want the whole set — but the action layer does.

Tracking copies the way collectors do

Set collecting is “one of each”, but collections aren’t. You end up with duplicates, multiple finishes, trade stock, and cards you’d happily move if you knew you didn’t need them.

Icarian tracks per-card attributes at the copy level, including condition, finish, and whether a copy is tradeable.

Right now we treat deck usage as orthogonal to set collecting. If it’s in a deck, you still own it. Completion is about ownership, not availability.

What’s next

The obvious next step is trade matching.

Buying your way to 100% works, but it’s rarely the most satisfying path. The collector brain wants to finish sets through momentum: trades, duplicates, and the small victories that don’t feel like clicking “checkout”.

That’s where we’re heading.

For now, Set Collecting in Icarian is the foundation: base-set completion by default, clear progress, real cost to finish, and a workflow that starts where collectors actually live — in their collection, trying to figure out what “almost done” really means.