CardCastle MTG vs Gauntlet
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
CardCastle MTG
Digitally manage your Magic: The Gathering card collection. Scan cards using your device's camera to add them to your inventory, check real-time prices, and browse your collection. Build decks using the companion web platform.
- Scan cards with camera
- Real-time card pricing
- Digital card inventory
- Browse and edit collection
- Deck building (web platform)
Read full descriptionHide full description
The best Magic players are organised. Quickly and effortlessly create a digital inventory of your Magic: The Gathering cards with the CardCastle app. Browse your collection, get real-time prices and build decks on the CardCastle web platform. Features: • Use your camera to scan cards into your CardCastle collection • Check real-time prices of cards with a simple scan • Browse and edit your CardCastle collection
Gauntlet
This app helps Magic: The Gathering players track game lives, build and customize decks, and record game history. It offers detailed stats for players and decks, supports multiple players, and includes a powerful hand simulator.
- Life tracking for up to 6 players
- Deck building and importing
- Game history and stats
- Hand simulator
- Deck customization with card art
- Deck organization with folders
Read full descriptionHide full description
Gauntlet is the most feature packed Magic: The Gathering utility app available. It’s a life tracker, deck builder and record keeper of your games. THE BEST LIFE TRACKER: • Select your deck and the decks your opponents are playing. Player tiles will be updated with the cover art of each deck. • Save the results when the game is over. Select a winner, and each player will have their career and deck stats updated immediately. • Full support for up to 6 players with custom life totals, and a turn randomizer to determine who plays first. • Other features include 21 unique tile colours, 15 unique counters, rolling D6, and a game timer. THE BEST MOBILE DECK BUILDER: • Brew on the go or import your decks from other deck building sites. • Customize your deck with art from any card in the multiverse. • Pick a format and your deck screen adapts to show things like your commander or your signature spell. • Bling out the cards in your deck with foils. • Shuffle up and draw an opening 7 with a powerful hand simulator. • Stay ahead of your competition with deck list data. View your mana curve, pip breakdown, and more. • Export your deck lists as text, or share a link to your profile on social media. • Keep your decks organized with folders, and sort them by name, games played, wins, and format. YOUR GAME HISTORY IN DETAIL: • Every game is saved making it easy to go through previous games and see who played, who won, and which decks came to battle. • Track wins and losses for each deck, and see how your career wins and losses change over time. • Follow your friends to stay up-to-date with their latest brews, deck performance, and game history.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Gauntlet at weekly against CardCastle MTG's every 2 months. Gauntlet also leads on rating (4.9 vs 4.5). CardCastle MTG's advantage is iOS requirement (14.0 vs 16.4). On price, review sentiment, ratings volume and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Gauntlet holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 378 and 309 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 88% of CardCastle MTG's written reviews are positive against 83% of Gauntlet's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
CardCastle MTG ships an update every 2 months, Gauntlet weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 2, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CardCastle MTG | Gauntlet |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (378 ratings) | 4.9 (309 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 87.6% of reviews — better | 83.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 378 — better | 309 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 — better | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 89 MB | 18 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | OzGuild Pty. Ltd. | Scott Campbell |
Customer experience
CardCastle MTG
Gauntlet
User reviews
CardCastle MTG
From 378 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Quick scanning
- 👍 Intuitive and easy to use
- 🔍 Helpful for organizing collection
- 💰 Provides card values
- 🤖 Accurate card recognition
Room to improve
- 🐛 Inconsistent scanning performance
- 🔍 Difficulty identifying correct card set
- 💰 Expensive subscription
- 🔍 Limited free features
Gauntlet
From 309 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great deck builder
- 👍 Excellent life tracker
- 👍 Covers player profiles and match records
- 👍 Useful for tracking win/loss records
- 👍 Good for looking at card collections
Room to improve
- 🐛 Search engine requires precise typing
- 🐛 General load time for cards is slow
- 🐛 Scrolling on the board can be annoying
- 🐛 App appears small on iPad Pro
- 🐛 Does not track win-rate for non-primary deck in matches
Bugs and requests
CardCastle MTG
Reported bugs
3 issues- Scanning issues with certain card types
- Occasional app crashes or freezes
- Login/account problems
Requested features
4 requests- Ability to manually add/edit cards
- Improved deck management functionality
- Option to view total collection value
- Compatibility with more card types (e.g. foils, alts)
Gauntlet
Reported bugs
5 issues- Developers have seemingly given up (according to one review)
- App ruined for jailbroken phones (iOS 14 and up)
- Board scrolls every time life or counters are moved
- Does not track win-rate for the deck not shown as primary in a match
- App is very small on iPad Pro
Requested features
19 requests- Scan cars to make adding decks easier
- More precise search engine
- Faster card loading times
- Display card prices
- Scan cards in deck building
Show 14 moreShow fewer
- Add Android support
- Add tournament bracket functionality
- Deeper stat tracking
- Leave notes about each deck
- Leave notes about individual cards
- In-app purchases for donations
- Add play test cards
- Better layout for exporting decks to text
- Feature to track win/loss ratios without starting a game
- Option for locking board scrolling
- Android release (mentioned as desired)
- Manual change of player names when playing 'against yourself'
- Add friends who don’t use the app to games
- Add full deck lists
In-app purchases
CardCastle MTG
No in-app purchases
Gauntlet
No in-app purchases








