Decked Drafter vs MTG Scanner
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Decked Drafter
Practice Magic: The Gathering draft and sealed deck skills with a full simulator. Get expert strategy tips, card ratings, and AI opponents to hone your deck-building abilities. Test your creations and improve your game.
- Draft simulator against AI opponents
- Expert card ratings and strategy tips
- Practice with various Magic expansions
- Deck building and testing tools
- Card sorting by color, type, and rarity
- View card prices from TCGplayer.com
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Decked Drafter is the only app designed to help Magic: the Gathering players improve their draft and sealed deck skills, featuring a full draft simulator and expert strategy tips and card ratings. The perfect app for any draft or sealed deck fan, players can pick the Magic the Gathering expansion they would like to practice with, then launch into an event against seven other A.I. opponents. Open powerful cards from sets like Scars of Mirrodin and easily sort the contents by color, type and rarity. Then pick the best card for your deck and pass the rest to your opponent, working to build the most powerful deck at the table. Making the right draft pick is never easy, but for the first time ever you're not alone. Marlon Egolf, DraftMagic.com columnist and Grand Prix Boston 2009 Champion, provides a full strategy analysis for each Magic card contained within the app. Improve your strategy skills with the help of these card ratings, which give a detailed look into the power level of each card. His expert ratings are also used to tune the A.I. opponents, making Decked Drafter the closest experience to actually drafting with the pros, and an incredible strategy resource. After the draft is finished, build your deck using the simple interface, swapping cards around with a simple touch. Once the deck is built, test it in the draw simulator, email the list to your friends, or print out the decklist and assemble the deck with your own collection! Or access the handy card ratings and strategy tips at any time, making Decked Drafter the perfect pocket guide for your next draft event. Whether you're a seasoned drafter looking to refine your skills, or a Magic noob just learning how to play, this is the app for you! Learn from the pros by practicing with Decked Drafter, and you will be sure to dominate your next draft! Features - The only Magic the Gathering draft simulator available for the iPhone or iPod touch - Practice drafting against skilled virtual opponents, learning which cards to pick and why - Access ratings and strategy tips for every card on-the-fly Improve your draft and sealed deck skills! Drafting and Sealed Deck - Open virtual packs from actual Magic the Gathering expansions - Sort the contents of each pack by color, type or rarity - Easily pick and pass cards using the simple interface - Stop the action at any time to examine your picks, or sneak a peek at your opponent's - Having trouble? Check Marlon's strategy tips; or press the Suggest button! - View the price of a card, courtesy of TCGplayer.com -- decide if it is worthwhile giving up your pick to select a card that will pay for your entire draft! Deck Building - Add and remove cards from your deck with a simple touch - Easily sort draft picks by type, cost, color or name - Test draw from your deck to see how it performs - Email your decklist to your friends, or print it out and play in real life! - .Dec support lets you easily import your decklist to Decked Builder, Magic Online or Apprentice New to drafting? Learn the rules with the included guide! Notes: Comes complete with access to the entire Scars of Mirrodin expansion. Additional expansions are available for purchase, including Mirrodin Besieged and New Phyrexia. Each of these expansions improves the Decked Drafter A.I. so it can draft with this new set of cards, and of course, features full analysis and strategy tips for every card in the set. We try to target about 100 words of writeup for each card on average, which results in about 23,000 words of strategy tips for just Scars of Mirrodin alone.
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.
- Card collection management
- Intuitive deck building
- Fast and flexible search
- Format legality checks
- Card information and rulings
- Collection organization
- Discover new cards
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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
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: MTG Scanner at 4.5 against Decked Drafter's 2.6. MTG Scanner also leads on update cadence (every 10 days vs monthly) and ratings volume (131 vs 17). Decked Drafter's advantage is iOS requirement (8.0 vs 26.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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. Decked Drafter sells 10 one-off in-app purchases and MTG Scanner sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
MTG Scanner holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 2.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: MTG Scanner has 131 ratings behind it against 17, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 59% of Decked Drafter's written reviews are positive against 68% of MTG Scanner's.
Decked Drafter ships an update monthly, MTG Scanner every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Decked Drafter | MTG Scanner |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.6 (17 ratings) | 4.5 (131 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 59.3% of reviews | 68.1% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 17 | 131 — better |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Every 10 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro — better |
| Requires iOS | 8.0 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 28 MB | 48 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 4+ |
| Developer | TJ Soft | Orlando Gabriel Herrera |
Customer experience
Decked Drafter
MTG Scanner
User reviews
Decked Drafter
From 17 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Clean and intuitive user interface
- 📚 Expert card ratings and commentary from experienced players
- 🎮 Effective practice tool for improving drafting skills
- ⚡ Works offline without requiring WiFi
- 🤖 Functional AI drafting opponents
Room to improve
- 💰 Expensive per-set pricing ($2.99-$5.99 each)
- ⏱️ Slow updates for new set releases
- 🤖 AI drafts unrealistically, ignoring color signals
- 🐛 Frequent crashes and stability issues
- ❌ Missing card art and image loading problems
MTG Scanner
From 131 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great app for organizing the collection
- 👍 Wonderful app, full of features
- 👍 User-friendly and visually appealing
- 👍 Fantastic scanner, best on iOS
- 👍 Responsive and helpful developer
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes constantly on macOS
- 🐛 Buggy and glitchy
- 🐛 Scanner issues, pairs wrong cards
- 🐛 Performance issues, lags and freezes
- 💰 Subscription model, no one-time purchase
Bugs and requests
Decked Drafter
Reported bugs
15 issues- Card art fails to load, showing only card backs
- Database update stuck at version 78
- App crashes when adding lands to decks
- Crashes when clicking feedback button
- In-app purchases not delivering purchased content
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- Unable to download new sets after purchase
- Pack generator hangs at 'downloading 6 images left'
- Crashes on recent iPhone updates
- Two-finger swipe required to read cards (poor UX)
- Inconsistent pack generation (missing guaranteed cards)
- Redundant cards appearing multiple times in packs
- Rare cards appearing too late in packs
- Purchase restore functionality broken
- RSS feeds broken
- Image fetching causes UI flickering
Requested features
16 requests- 4-pack sealed draft mode
- Multiplayer drafting with human opponents
- Locally stored card database and collection system
- Ability to save and review drafted decks
- Landscape mode support
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- Bundle pricing for multiple sets
- Free access to rotated-out sets
- MTGO cube draft support
- Older set availability (Ravnica, Urza's, Time Spiral blocks)
- Card storage/bookmarking feature
- Deck rating based on card power levels
- One-time purchase option instead of per-set fees
- Ad-supported free version with limited sets
- Ability to set default draft set
- Improved bot color-fixing logic
- Pre-release set availability before official launch
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
In-app purchases
Decked Drafter
- Mirrodin Besieged Set$1.99
- New Phyrexia Set$1.99
- Magic 2012 Set$1.99
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- Innistrad Set$2.99
- Magic 2013 Set$2.99
- Return to Ravnica Set$2.99
- Gatecrash Set$2.99
- Magic 2014 Set$2.99
- Theros Set$2.99
- Shadows over Innistrad Set$3.99
MTG Scanner
- Monthly$2.991 Month
- Pay-As-You-Go$2.997 Days
- Unlimited Annual14 Days trial$29.991 Year






