The Endless Atlas places every playable Magic: The Gathering card — about 30,500 of them — on a map. Cards that are similar sit close together; cards that have nothing in common sit far apart. There are six different definitions of "similar," called lenses, and switching lenses rearranges the whole map. Nothing here is hand-placed: every position is computed from public data, the same way for every card.
Each card is turned into a long list of numbers describing it (which numbers depends on the lens — see below). An algorithm called UMAP then squeezes those hundreds of numbers down to a 2-D position, trying hard to keep similar cards near each other. Finally, a density-based clustering algorithm (HDBSCAN) finds the tight groups on each map, and each group is labeled automatically by whatever most sets it apart from the rest of the card pool — a keyword, a tribe, a commander, or the thing its combos produce. Cards in sparse territory between groups deliberately get no label.
Cards are described by their character sheet: colors, card types, keywords, mana value, rarity, legendary status. Two cards are close if they're the same kind of card — cheap red creatures with haste land together, whether or not their rules text matches.
Cards are described by their rules text — the words and phrases in the box, with reminder text stripped. Counterspells wall up together, ramp spells form a green quarter, removal gathers by how it removes. Two cards can be different colors and costs and still sit side by side if they do the same thing.
Cards are described by creature subtypes (and spell subtypes like Aura, Equipment, Saga). All Goblins together, all Elves together, all Equipment in its own island — regardless of color. The crispest lens in the atlas.
"What it is" and "What it does" combined into one view — the best single answer to "which cards are most like this card?"
Cards are described by which Commander decks actually play them, using inclusion data across the 500 most-played commanders on EDHREC. Two cards are close if the same decks want them both — so staple packages, tribal cores, and archetype pieces become physical neighborhoods, labeled by their commanders. Only cards that appear in that top-500 ecosystem are shown in this lens (about 9,800 cards); the rest are hidden rather than given made-up positions.
Cards are described by which combos they belong to, using the full Commander Spellbook database (about 100,000 combo variants). Cards that go infinite together sit together, and each island is labeled by what its combos produce — infinite tokens, infinite mana, infinite mill. Only cards that appear in at least one known combo are shown (about 7,000 cards).