Comparison

MTG Scanner vs Decksmith

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

MTG Scanner

This app helps Magic: The Gathering players manage their card collection and build decks. It offers fast searching, intuitive deck building with legalities checks, and collection organization. Discover new cards and build powerful combos with this comprehensive companion.

Highlights
  • Card collection management
  • Intuitive deck building
  • Fast and flexible search
  • Format legality checks
  • Card information and rulings
  • Collection organization
  • Discover new cards
Features
Read full description

Scan, collect, build, and playtest your Magic: The Gathering cards in one beautiful, native app. Lion’s Eye is the fast, flawless MTG companion for collectors and deck builders. NEW: Playtest your decks with friends over FaceTime, search in your own words, and find the combos hiding in your collection. PLAYTEST WITH FRIENDS — FREE Start a FaceTime call and play your decks head to head with SharePlay. Draw, shuffle, mulligan, and play out your hand on a real tabletop. No friends online? Practice against a bot (beta). SEARCH IN YOUR OWN WORDS Type or say what you want, like “goblins with haste under 3 mana,” and Lion’s Eye builds the search for you. Full support for Scryfall search syntax, with suggestions that find the exact card name without guesswork. Add cards to your collection or a deck right from the search results. BUILD BETTER DECKS Drag-and-drop deck building with easy menus for moving and editing cards. Real-time checks for format legality, commander color identity, ban lists, and companion rules. Commander, Standard, Modern, Pioneer, Legacy, Pauper, and more. Export to Moxfield in one tap. YOUR COLLECTION, BEAUTIFULLY ORGANIZED Automatically sorted by color, type, mana value, rarity, set, and format. Sort by recently added, quantity, name, release date, set number, rarity, color, mana value, type, or price. Group cards in your collection and decks, and see your collection at a glance with charts and statistics. DISCOVER Featured stories, Legend Builds, color spotlights, and new deck ideas. The latest Magic news and articles, with every card they mention. The top 50 cards in each format by price. EVERY DETAIL OF EVERY CARD Card info, related cards, every printing, legalities, and rulings. Flip double-faced cards with a gesture, and rotate Battles and other horizontal cards. A one-of-a-kind foil effect that catches the light as you tilt your phone. Show off that foil mythic you love. BUILT FOR APPLE DEVICES Native on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Siri and Shortcuts actions for card images, oracle text, and rulings. Full Dynamic Type and VoiceOver support. Mana symbols are read aloud, and charts support Audio Graphs. LION’S EYE PLUS Take your collection further: Card scanner with Auto Scan: Scan cards fast, with collector number detection to find the exact printing. Combos: See the combos your collection and decks can already make, powered by Commander Spellbook. EDHREC recommendations: Upgrade your Commander decks with built-in synergy suggestions. Collection Tracker: See which cards you already own while you build and search. Unlimited decks: Build as many decks as you want. Smart Lists and Saved Searches: Auto-updating lists of your cards, powered by Scryfall syntax. Advanced Search and Custom Syntax: Build precise searches, online or offline, including Lion’s Eye’s own Scryfall-style filters. Deck Legality Warnings: Get legality, commander, and companion alerts as you build. Tags: Organize and personalize with tags. Group, select, and filter by tag. Deck and card customization: Bulk swap cards, rate them, track condition, and add notes and photos. The full Discover experience, including News & Articles. Download Lion’s Eye free and start building your collection today. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula

About

Decksmith

Effortlessly manage your Magic: The Gathering collection with real-time card scanning and price tracking. Build and validate decks for various formats, analyze their composition, and connect with a community of players. Enjoy offline access and robust privacy controls.

Highlights
  • Real-time card scanning
  • Automatic price tracking
  • Format-aware deck building
  • Collection inventory management
  • Offline access
  • Community features
  • Privacy controls
Features
Read full description

Scan a whole binder page in one photo. Decksmith finds every card on it — nine or twelve pockets, or up to about 20 loose cards on the table — and adds them to your collection with artwork and live prices. Then build decks that check their own legality, track every game with your playgroup, and see which of your friends already owns the card you need. — A WHOLE BINDER PAGE, ONE PHOTO — • 9- and 12-pocket binder pages, or loose cards laid out any way round • Pick as many photos as you like in one go • Review everything Decksmith found on one screen before anything is imported • Missed a card? Find it by typing its name • Just opened a pack? Scan single cards live from the camera — THE DECKSMITH COMMUNITY — Magic is played together, so Decksmith is built for your playgroup. • Game tracker: life, poison and commander damage for the whole pod, a random first player, and a top row that turns to face the far side of the table • Every game is filed against the deck you played, with win rates per deck and per commander • Wishlist: track the cards you still want, priced separately from your collection • Search your friends' collections for your wishlist and see who owns which card • Follow players, browse their collections and shared decks, and search all your favorites at once • Share any deck with one tap and collect likes and comments • Friend requests, an activity feed and notifications keep you in the loop — KNOW WHAT IT'S WORTH — Live market prices in USD or EUR, kept next to what you paid — card by card and across your whole collection. — A DECK BUILDER THAT KNOWS THE RULES — Standard, Modern, Pioneer, Legacy, Vintage, Commander, Pauper and Casual. Decksmith enforces deck size and copy limits, gives your commander its own slot, validates companions and tells you the moment a deck is legal. Mana curve, card types and average mana value come automatically. — FIND ANY CARD, INSTANTLY — Search the full Magic card database or your own collection. Filter by color, rarity, type, set, mana cost, finish and double-faced cards. Sort by name, price or date added. — SMART LISTS — Save any combination of filters as a list that fills itself — trade binder, EDH staples, every foil under $5 — or curate one by hand. — YOUR CARDS, FULL SCREEN — High-resolution art, glowing borders on foils, pinch to zoom, swipe from card to card and flip double-faced cards with a tap. — IPHONE, IPAD AND THE WEB — Sign in at app.decksmith.community with your free account, and your collection, decks and lists are on any computer, always in sync with your iPhone. — PRIVACY YOU CONTROL — Scanning, your collection, prices, deck building, lists and the gallery all work without an account, and your collection lives on your device. A free account is only needed for sync, the Community and the game tracker. Then you decide what is visible: your profile, whether you can be found, and each deck public or private. Block or report anyone. Export or delete your data at any time. — NO LOCK-IN — Import CSV exports from the popular collection and deck-building sites, restore a full Decksmith backup, and export everything to a single file whenever you like. No ads. No tracking. No subscription. The Community is free to use until December 31, 2026. Card data and images provided by Scryfall. Decksmith is an unofficial fan app and is not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by Wizards of the Coast. Magic: The Gathering is © Wizards of the Coast LLC.

Screenshots

MTG Scanner4 screens
Decksmith4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Decksmith at 5.0 against MTG Scanner's 4.5. Decksmith also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 4) and review sentiment (100% vs 68%). MTG Scanner's advantage is ratings volume (131 vs 1) and update cadence (every 10 days vs every 5 weeks). On price 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. MTG Scanner sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per 7 days. Decksmith asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Decksmith holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: MTG Scanner has 131 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 68% of MTG Scanner's written reviews are positive against 100% of Decksmith's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

MTG Scanner ships an update every 10 days, Decksmith every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 27, 2026 and October 28, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard8 real differences · 2 level
MTG Scanner versus Decksmith: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMTG ScannerDecksmith
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (131 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews68.1% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings131 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 10 days — betterEvery 5 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS26.018.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size48 MB27 MB
Age rating4+9+
DeveloperOrlando Gabriel HerreraWaldemar Schneider

Customer experience

MTG Scanner

All ratings131 ratings
Positive86.3%
Neutral5.3%
Negative8.4%
Written reviews113 reviews
Positive68.1%
Neutral10.6%
Negative21.2%

Decksmith

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

MTG Scanner

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Scan feature automatically adds cards
  • Incorrect card prices, especially for foils
  • Crashes on load, camera issues

Requested features

5 requests
  • Ability to change card variants
  • Improved deck building experience
  • More comprehensive card database
  • Better collection analytics and reporting
  • Dark mode option

Decksmith

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

4 purchases

MTG Scanner

Subscriptions4
  • Most Flexible$0.997 Days
  • Monthly$2.991 Month
  • Pay-As-You-Go$2.997 Days
Show 1 more
  • Unlimited Annual14 Days trial$29.991 Year
None

Decksmith

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is MTG Scanner free?
MTG Scanner is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Decksmith free?
Decksmith is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, MTG Scanner or Decksmith?
Decksmith is rated higher. MTG Scanner averages 4.5 out of 5 from 131 ratings, while Decksmith averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do MTG Scanner or Decksmith have ads?
Neither MTG Scanner nor Decksmith shows ads.
Which is updated more often, MTG Scanner or Decksmith?
MTG Scanner ships an update every 10 days, and Decksmith every 5 weeks. Most recently, MTG Scanner was updated on October 27, 2026 and Decksmith on October 28, 2026.

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