Top 2 iPhone Apps for Magic Players

This has been a long time coming and I apologize to everyone for the delay.

The benefit of this delay is a longer period of use, so my analysis will ultimately be more accurate.

I don’t have any personal disclaimers because I’m not currently working on any applications related to the tallying of life totals, generating random numbers/coin-flips, etc–the focus of all these mtg iPhone apps. I can say that I have been working on and off as time permits on an iPhone app so before I get into the details of my review, I want to thank all the mtg-developers out there for devoting the time needed to create iPhone apps for mtg. It’s not an easy undertaking and massive-props to each of you for taking the challenge.

I know of a few iPhone apps for mtg that are currently under development and not yet available to the public at large. This review has not included those apps within the scope. I will update/re-publish this review from time to time as new apps become available or if I find from usage that previous “non-top-iPhone-apps” become better through updates and so warrant inclusion on this list.

For clarity sake, these are the iPhone apps included in my review (no particular order):

MTG Life

M: tba

TCGBuddy

MtG Tools

CCGSeer

Sylvan Archives (which is an aggregate of a number of mini-apps published by the same developer)

Life Counter

Deck Builder

If you see an iPhone app not included on this list, please notify me and I will certainly give the app a spin. Without further ado…

Honorable Mentions here goes to MTG Life and M:tba (which I think was a mistake…tba? wtf? name your app, fool!).

MTG Life:
The application, though not my favorite is simple and in my opinion simple will always trump overly complicated (KISS). The UI is straight forward, tracking life totals via a scroll wheel. I don’t give this a “highly recommended” as I do the “top-two” because there’s no undo or “history tracking”. Those two pieces of functionality are pretty important. Just having a life total up isn’t enough. Players need to see the history in case there’s a dispute.

M: tba:
This app also does not keep track of a history of life loss/gain. I give a partial recommendation of this app for two reasons–and it’s despite a bug which I’ll get to in a moment.
First, I like the graphical interface. It reminds of me of Zelda and nostalgia can have more pull than people realize. The hearts used for keeping track of life look straight out of Zelda actually. I also like the look of the dice. They have a worn look which makes me think they’ve seen a lot of game-play. lol. That’s not really a reason for getting this app though.
Second, I recommend this app for people who play a lot of multiplayer games because the app allows you to easily add more than two players. Pretty useful in my opinion.
Generally speaking the UI is pretty good and, as I mentioned, includes a dice roll. There is a bug in this app: if you tap the dice multiple times in a row, they will enter an infinite loop and never stop spinning. Bummer. So far as the development side goes, I would recommend de-activating the spin function until it stops. Either that, or track down what’s causing the infinite loop. My only other recommendation to the developer (if he/she is reading this) is to enable the search on the comp-rules. That, or hyperlink the sections so if a user needs to jump to a specific section, it’s easily done and doesn’t require TONS of scrolling. (Creating an index based on each section could easily accomplish this).

Second-place for best iPhone, mtg-app is

MtG tools

The UI is very simple, including a life counter tracking gain/loss. The gain/loss includes an undo if you make a mistake and displays a history of the loss (i.e. -2, +6, etc). This application also includes a coin-flip for “who goes first”–or those random mtg-cards that include flipping a coin…but nobody plays those so who cares.

If you’re a TEPS player or just really have short-term memory problems, the app also includes a mana counter for keeping track of how much mana you have in your pool. I do see the reason for including this when the apps were being developed because TEPS was indeed running rampant but I personally would never use this aspect of the application. I would just use a dice or tally on a peice of paper. Reason being, it’s a bit labor-intensive to use the mana counters. This goes for ALL the apps where this piece of functionality was included.

First-place for best iPhone, mtg-app is

TCGBuddy!!

I will say this application is the most expensive but the time taken by the developer to make a solid app is worth the cost. The developer obviously spent time to thoroughly debug his app (I know he’s a dude so no back-talk about sexism). As a fellow programmer, I appreciate the labor required to debug and add polish to an application. In the end, that polish does shine through and makes this app more than worth the cost.
This application also includes a tracking of life totals (history of gain/loss) and includes an undo button. (That really is useful, folks). Going above and beyond the call for a history-track of gain/loss, users can insert notes on what was happening. This can be pretty dang useful in itself, if entering into game 3 you need to reference what was happening game 1 or game 2–for example, what cards do you need to play around, etc. It’s also an excellent tool for tournament reports.

TCG Buddy also includes a 20-sided die for who-goes-first. I feel like I can trust this dice whereas with others, I felt the randomization was a tad dubious. This anxiety may be driven by my anal, is it really random mentality.

As an example of “going above and beyond,” TCGBuddy also includes a TON of preferences, such as round limits, starting life totals and saving match-histories. If you run a lot of “private drafts” or are trying to get your play-group use to actual drafting times, this application also includes a timer, tracking both draft-times AND round times. Very usesful.

TCG Buddy didn’t stop there though! If you’re a PTQ’r and looking to Q based off DCI ranking, here’s a tool you can use for calcuating your DCI ranking after each round (if you’re considering a 2-0 drop or 3-0 drop). You can also access the Gatherer, track mana pools (again, not so useful to me but there’s probably people out there who would love this functionality). Dang, this app has everything a player needs for mtg.

Now, if you feel that your app is better than I gave it props for here, please contact me directly (james[AT]power9pro[DOT][NOSPAMPLEASE]com) and I’ll take another look at your application. For the most part, I feel that a number of applications were either rushed to the market and so corners were cut either in design or QA or the application didn’t’ make sense to me. (I won’t name any names but stick to the apps on this recommend list and you’ll be fine…otherwise, buyer beware).
If you’re not a developer of any of these apps and you have opposing opinions, feel free to leave a comment here. Developers, please contact me directly. I don’t want to start a shit-fight in the comments section.

Tags: iPhone, mtg apps