Magic Reports

So you may have noticed I make those snazzy printouts of the Cube's stats. I do this using a reporting program called Crystal Reports (that I use at work). Unless you have a few hundred dollars to spare, it's not too accessible (plus the learning curve is through the roof).

However, the way it works is by pulling the data from an existing data source. In my case, I use Excel since it's pretty simple and easily accessible. You can see my Excel template here.

I can "trick" Crystal Reports into running a report on anything that follows that Excel template. I can even sort and filter it to show me only a subset of the information (say, just the unfoiled cards in the Cube).

What this means is that if you download the Excel template and replace my Cube data with your, say, Big Deck data, then I can produce a full report just by clicking a button.

I like this report because it not only does a nice layout of the cards, but it also charts cards by CMC, both by color as well as overall. Of course, this only works if you actually fill all the information in on the Excel sheet. The "Promo/Foil" and "Special" fields are more for my organizational purposes, but with everything else in there, it will work just fine.