MTG Spellbook

Out now on the App Store

Your cards, your decks, your table.

Track a collection down to the exact printing and the box it lives in. Build Commander decks out of it and read why every card was chosen. Then keep score for up to eight players when you sit down to play.

Free to download. iPhone, iOS 17 and later. One optional $4.99 unlock — no subscription, no account, no ads, nothing measured.

01 The collection grid, filters visible, total value at the top images/01-collection.png
The collection grid, filters visible, total value at the top

Collection

Area oneCollection & organisation

A collection kept the way cards are actually kept.

Not a list of names. Every entry knows which printing it is, whether it's foil, and which binder or box it physically lives in — because those are three different things and they are each worth different money.

Way in · 1

Point the camera at it

Reads the title and the collector line separately, so you get the exact printing rather than whichever one Scryfall lists first.

Way in · 2

Search by name

Results ordered by how often the card is actually played, so the one you meant is usually first.

Way in · 3

Paste a list

Moxfield, Archidekt, Deckbox and TCGplayer exports go straight in. It tells you what it couldn't read, line by line.

The scanner is honest about how sure it is

Every scanned card carries a badge before you accept it. EXACT means it read the set code and the collector number. SET means it got the set but not the number. GUESS means it only managed the name, so you're looking at Scryfall's default printing — worth a glance.

  • Foil is a switch you set, never a guess. A still frame judges foiling badly, so the app refuses to try — and puts a coral bar across the camera while the switch is on.
  • Filing as you go. Tell it which binder this box of cards is headed for and every scan lands there. You can make a new place without leaving the camera.
  • Nothing is added until you've seen it. The review screen lets you change the printing, flip the foil, change the place, set the count or throw the row away.
  • "Show what it reads" prints the raw text it pulled off the card, so a misread can be explained with one screenshot instead of a paragraph.
04 The scanner mid-scan, cards in the strip images/04-scanner.png
The scanner mid-scan, cards in the strip

Card scanner

Where a card lives is part of what it is

Binders, boxes, shelves
Name the real places you keep cards and file into them. Two copies in a binder and two in a box are two entries of two — so what is actually in that binder has a true answer.
Split a stack
Move some rather than all: 2 of 4 goes to the trade binder and the rest stay put. It is the only way to turn one row into two without deleting and re-adding cards.
Nothing here deletes a card
Deleting a place unfiles its cards. Merging moves them. The promise is written on the screen and enforced underneath it.
Fix a wrong entry
Change any entry's printing or flip its finish. Two rows that end up identical are merged and the app says so.
Printing changes follow through
Swap a card to the printing you actually own and every saved deck using it updates too — art, set and price. Basic lands are left alone on purpose.
03 Binders, boxes and shelves with card counts images/03-locations.png
Binders, boxes and shelves with card counts

Places

Finding one card in four thousand

The filter bar is two rows, kept apart on purpose, each with its own Clear — what a card is, and where it is.

Colour
W, U, B, R, G and C — colourless is a real filter that matches an empty colour identity, not a wildcard.
Rarity and type
Common through mythic; creature, instant, sorcery, artifact, enchantment, land, planeswalker.
Place
One chip per binder or box, each carrying its own countTrade binder 214 — plus Unfiled.
Sort
A–Z, most or least valuable, mana value, or recently added. Foil rows sort on their foil price.
Grid or list
Grid shows art, count, foil sparkle, price, set and place. List adds a 0–99 stepper and a long-press menu.

One card, everything about it

  • Swipe through the list you came from — the filtered collection, your search results, a deck section — with dots like Photos.
  • Tap the art for full screen, pinch to 5×, pull down to dismiss. Double-faced cards get a flip button.
  • Your copies, listed separately — one row per printing and finish, each with a stepper, its price, and a menu to move it.
  • Every printing, oldest first, with prices, and the ones you already own marked — including a warning when picking one will merge two rows.
  • Game Changers are flagged where you'll see it, with what it means for brackets 1, 2 and 3.
02 A card's own screen — art, rules, your copies, printings images/02-card.png
A card's own screen — art, rules, your copies, printings

Card detail

What it's all worth, over time

Refresh prices whenever you like and the total is plotted day by day, up to a year. Cards that only exist inside a deck are repriced too, so a deck built in March stops quoting March prices.

Refreshed by printing, never by name.

Getting your cards back out

A full backup file and a plain card list are free and always will be. Restoring merges rather than replaces, so restoring the same file twice changes nothing.

Unlock adds: Moxfield CSV · spreadsheet CSV · TCGplayer · Mana Pool · EDHREC

Area twoDeck building

Three choices, then ninety-nine cards.

Spellbook reads your commander's rules text, works out what the deck is trying to do, and fills a 99-card template around it — 37 lands, 10 ramp, 10 card draw, 8 removal, 3 board wipes and 31 cards that do your thing.

Pick a commander
Search, choose from the ones you already own, take one of the thirty most-played, or hit the dice for a genuinely random legal commander.
Or ask what it wants to be
Ways to build this ranks fifteen archetypes against what your commander's text actually says — nineteen different signals, from +1/+1 counters to draining opponents. An archetype your commander has no signal for is never offered, however popular it is.
Choose a card pool
Only cards you own, everything ever printed, or a budget you set on a slider from $50 to $1,000.
Choose a bracket
One to five. This is the choice that changes the most, and it is not a label applied at the end.
05 The Build screen — commander chosen, bracket row visible images/05-build.png
The Build screen — commander chosen, bracket row visible

Build

What each bracket actually allows

BracketGame ChangersMass land denialExtra turnsTwo-card infinites
1Exhibition — noneNoNoNo
2Core — noneNoNot chainedNo
3Upgraded — up to 3NoNone before turn 6No
4Optimized — unlimitedYesYesYes
5cEDH — banned list onlyYesYesYes

The official Commander bracket system, which is itself in beta and labelled that way in the app.

06 Ways to build this — ranked archetypes with owned counts images/06-archetypes.png
Ways to build this — ranked archetypes with owned counts

Ways to build this

The bracket changes the selection, not just the rules

Two scoring engines weigh every candidate — does this fit the commander's plan, and is it strong enough for the level — and the bracket decides how much each one counts. At bracket 1 fit is weighted up and raw power is weighted negatively: an efficiency outlier is actively unwanted. At bracket 5 that inverts.

  • Lands are chosen, not counted. Fixing is scored against this deck's actual colours, and a land that enters tapped costs a little at a kitchen table and a lot at cEDH — which is why a Triome is right in three colours and wrong in two.
  • Staples get first refusal on the slot they belong in, because Sol Ring's rules text contains nothing to match on. Capped so a green deck's ramp isn't nothing but famous cards.
  • Budgets are enforced twice — once while searching, then a swap pass that keeps replacing the priciest card with the cheapest unused card doing the same job.
  • Lock what you like and re-roll the rest. The locked cards stay exactly where they are and the deck rebuilds around them.

Area threeA finished deck

The list, and the reasoning behind it.

A decklist you have to take on faith isn't much use. Every deck opens with an account of how it wins, whether its mana actually works, what it's missing, and why each of the 99 is in there.

How this deck wins

Read off the ninety-nine cards that were actually chosen, never off the archetype label — and each route needs real support in the list before it counts as a plan.

Route to winningCards needed before it counts
A card that just wins1
A combo1
Poison5
Milling them out6
Draining the table4
Burn4
Commander damage3
Going wide with tokens8 + an anthem
Ordinary combat14 creatures

Written out in prose, with the backups named — and when combat is the only thing there, it says so: "There is no second angle here, so if the board stalls this deck struggles to break through."

08 How this deck wins, and the bracket compliance checklist images/08-winplan.png
How this deck wins, and the bracket compliance checklist

The write-up

09 The mana base report and the curve images/09-manabase.png
The mana base report and the curve

Mana base

A mana base that was actually worked out

For each colour it counts the coloured pips in every spell and the turn that spell wants casting on, looks the requirement up in a table derived from Frank Karsten's work, and reports sources present against sources needed — then discards the greediest quarter of costs so one hungry card can't size the whole thing.

36 lands — the maths wants 37 for an average cost of 3.24 with 11 cheap mana sources.

Hybrid and Phyrexian symbols count. A split card is judged on its worse half, not the sum. Fetchlands count as sources of whatever they can find. Plus a mana curve, bucketed 0 through 6+.

Does it match the bracket it claims?

A checklist rather than a badge: Game Changers counted and named, mass land denial, extra turns, and a real two-card combo check against the Commander Spellbook database — so an unintended infinite gets listed as "Krenko, Mob Boss + Thornbite Staff → infinite creature tokens" rather than going unmentioned.

And when it can't reach that database it says "combos not checked" instead of quietly reporting an all-clear. It checks combos involving your commander, and tells you that's the scope.

When your cards can't cover it

Building from your own collection usually means coming up short somewhere. Rather than substituting something worse in silence, the deck says which jobs fell short and by how much — Ramp 6/10 — then offers to fill the gaps from all of Magic, or hand you a costed buy list.

The header carries it as a number too: cards, percentage owned, average mana cost, and what it would take to finish.

And then you change it

Every card says why it's there
Grouped by the job it's doing — synergy, ramp, draw, removal, wipes, lands — and each row carries its reason and whether you own it.
Add a card by hand
Search all of Magic or just your collection. It never blocks you; it warns you — outside your colours, already in the deck, a Game Changer that would be your fourth, mass land denial this bracket doesn't allow.
Lock, remove, re-roll
Long-press any card to keep it through a re-roll or take it out. The mana base and the win plan are recalculated on every edit.
Move it into your collection
Add the cards you don't own, or the whole list. Basic lands are left out either way.
Take it elsewhere
Copy the decklist with its bracket and win plan as comments, or copy just the buy list — unowned cards, priciest first, with a total.
07 A finished deck — header, stat tiles, the card list images/07-deck.png
A finished deck — header, stat tiles, the card list

The deck screen

10 The missing-cards banner with per-job progress images/10-shortfall.png
The missing-cards banner with per-job progress

Shortfall

Area fourLife tracking

Then you actually sit down and play.

Two to eight players, each seat turned to face the person sitting there. Tap the left half of your rectangle to lose a life, the right half to gain one, hold to run. The screen stays awake and the game is still there when you come back to it.

  • Commander damage, per opponent — and because it is combat damage, adding it moves your life total with it. One tap, two numbers.
  • Poison, energy, experience, rad and tickets, plus the monarch and the initiative. A seat only shows a chip once that counter isn't zero.
  • It states what happened, it doesn't enforce it. A seat at zero dims and says OUT OF LIFE — but keeps its total and can come back if the table says so.
  • Real undo. A held thumb that took thirty life off is one press to take back, not thirty.
  • A running log of every change with the resulting total, plus dice, a coin, and who goes first.
11 The life counter board with four seats images/11-life.png
The life counter board with four seats

The board

12 A dungeon map mid-run, with the next rooms offered images/12-dungeon.png
A dungeon map mid-run, with the next rooms offered

Dungeons

All four dungeons, properly

Lost Mine of Phandelver, Dungeon of the Mad Mage, Tomb of Annihilation and Undercity — real room names, real card text, and the branching enforced, so you're only ever offered a room the one you're standing in leads to.

Rooms that move life totals do it for you where the card leaves no choice. Where it says "unless they discard a card", the app has no idea who discarded, so it waits for you to press the button — and Trap! asks which player takes the five.

Each player ventures separately, so four people can be in four different dungeons at once.

How it behaves

No account. No ads. Nothing measured.

There is no sign-up

No email, no password, no profile. Your collection lives on your phone and goes to iCloud only if you switch that on.

Nothing is tracked

No analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising, no third-party tracking of any kind. Requests go to Scryfall and Commander Spellbook, and carry nothing about you.

Your cards stay yours

A full backup to a file is free and always will be — including if you never buy the unlock. You shouldn't need anyone's permission to keep your own records.

The camera keeps nothing

Card text is read on the phone with Apple's Vision framework and the frame is discarded. No photograph is stored or sent anywhere.

It tells you when a save fails

A failed write puts a banner over the tab bar naming the file, rather than losing the change quietly. Unreadable files are set aside, never overwritten.

It says what it doesn't know

"Combos not checked" when a database is unreachable. "Guess" on a scan that only managed the name. Silence would be easier and worse.

Price

Free to use. One payment if you want more room.

Deck building is unlimited on both — any commander, any bracket, as many as you like. The life counter is free in full. The unlock is about how much you keep.

Free

Free  forever

  • Unlimited deck building, every bracket
  • Up to 100 cards in your collection
  • One saved deck
  • Your first 25 cards scanned by camera
  • The life counter, all of it
  • Full collection backup, and a plain card list

Questions

Before you download.

Is this Commander only?

Yes. The deck builder builds 100-card Commander decks and nothing else — no 60-card formats, no sideboards, no companions, and one commander per deck rather than partners or backgrounds. The collection and the life counter are useful whatever you play.

Where do the card data and prices come from?

Scryfall, the free public Magic card database, for text, images and prices. Combo detection is Commander Spellbook. Prices are Scryfall's US dollar figures and are a guide, not a quote — they move.

Does the scanner send my photos anywhere?

No. The frame is read on your phone with Apple's Vision framework and then discarded. What leaves the phone is the same thing that would leave it if you typed the name yourself: a card name, or a set code and collector number, sent to Scryfall to look up.

It also can't count duplicates or detect foil — a camera genuinely can't tell one Lightning Bolt from a second identical one, so copies are a number you set and foil is a switch.

Does it track card condition or language?

No. It tracks the printing and whether it's foil. Condition, language, grading and non-English printings aren't recorded, and exports mark everything Near Mint and English.

Do my decks reserve cards from my collection?

No. Two decks can both be built around the same physical Sol Ring — nothing marks a card as already spoken for.

Do I need an internet connection?

To add cards, refresh prices or build a deck, yes — card data comes from Scryfall. Your collection, your saved decks and the life counter all work offline.

What happens to my collection if I delete the app?

It goes with it, unless you have iCloud sync on or you saved a backup file. Backups are free on both tiers — take one.

iCloud sync is a copy, not a merge: per file, the newer one wins. Edit the same thing on two offline devices and the last save is the one that survives. The app says so where you turn it on.

Is there an iPad or Android version?

No. It's an iPhone app, portrait only. It will run on an iPad in compatibility mode but it isn't designed for that screen.

Is this made by Wizards of the Coast?

No. It's an independent app, unofficial Fan Content under the Fan Content Policy, and not approved or endorsed by Wizards of the Coast.

Point it at your card box.

Free to download, and the deck builder is not the part behind the paywall — build as many as you like at any bracket before you decide whether you want more room to keep them.

Download on the App Store

iPhone, iOS 17 and later. Questions before you start? The support page covers most of them.