Masters = Full DBSCG History Minus Fusion-World Groups

Context and Problem Statement

dbs-masters is the original Dragon Ball Super Card Game, launched 2017-07-28 and continuously printed since (B01 → the Zenkai block → current BT/Masters-era sets). “Masters” is just Bandai’s current branding for that same continuous line — not a new game. Its releaseDate in game-definitions.ts is 2017-07-28, reflecting the full history.

On TCGplayer, category 27 = the entire “Dragon Ball Super CCG” back-catalogue — ~105 groups spanning 2017-07-28 → present. This is exactly the Masters catalogue we want… with one problem:

• TCGplayer misfiles a single Fusion-World set inside category 27. Group 23326 (“Fusion World: Awakened Pulse”, FB01) lives in category 27 even though Fusion World is a separate game.
• Fusion World is its own CardNexus game — dbs-fusion — with its own FBxx set codes and card pool.

If the Masters importer ingested category 27 unfiltered, it would (a) correctly pull 9 years of legacy DBSCG sets, but also (b) pull the misfiled FB01/group-23326 content, which collides with the same cards imported under dbs-fusion.

Decision Drivers

• Masters is the full 2017+ line — we must not apply a naive “2024+ only” cutoff that would drop the legacy back-catalogue.
• Fusion-World cards must exist in exactly one CardNexus game (dbs-fusion), never duplicated under Masters.
• TCGplayer is the source of truth for separating the two games (category 80 vs 27); the only contamination is the misfiled FB set inside category 27.
• The rule must be a single, auditable hard rule in the importer.

Considered Options

1. Keep full history, exclude the verified Fusion-World contaminant group(s) — Masters = category 27 minus group 23326.
2. 2024 publishedOn cutoff — drop everything before 2024. ❌ Wrong: this deletes the entire 2017–2023 legacy catalogue, which Masters owns.
3. Exclude by Fusion name match — ❌ Wrong: would wrongly drop group 2532 (DBS-BE07 “Fusion Hero”), a legitimate legacy Masters set.

Decision Outcome

Chosen option: Option 1 — keep the FULL DBSCG history and exclude the verified Fusion-World contaminant group 23326.

• The dbs-masters importer keeps every category-27 group (matching releaseDate: 2017-07-28), with no 2024 cutoff — the full ~104 remaining groups.
• It excludes group 23326 (FB01 “Fusion World: Awakened Pulse”), which belongs to dbs-fusion.
• Group 2532 (DBS-BE07 “Fusion Hero”) is kept — it is a legitimate legacy DBSCG set despite the “Fusion” in its name.

The exclusion is implemented as a single module-level set FUSION_WORLD_CONTAMINANT_GROUP_IDS filtered once in init(), right after tcgCsvGroupedProducts is built (covering both the cached and fetched load paths) and before the array is consumed by getExpansions and getCards.

Consequences

Positive

• Masters carries its true catalogue: the full 2017→present DBSCG line.
• No card is duplicated across dbs-masters and dbs-fusion.
• The rule is one auditable groupId exclusion applied at a single chokepoint, easy to verify against TCGCSV group listings.

Negative / Follow-ups

• Cardmarket needs a code-based split. Cardmarket has no separate Fusion World game — everything (legacy DBS + Zenkai + Masters + Fusion World) lives under one marketplace, idGame 13 (DragonBallSuper). If/when Cardmarket pricing is wired, matching must split catalogue 13 by set code: FBxx → dbs-fusion, BTxx/legacy → dbs-masters. That is a matching project, not a config flip.
• The exclusion list is keyed on a verified groupId; if TCGplayer misfiles another Fusion-World group into category 27 in future, add its id to FUSION_WORLD_CONTAMINANT_GROUP_IDS.

Impacted Files