Comparison

Cantrip vs Mana Trove

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

Head to head
About

Cantrip

Easily build and manage your Magic: The Gathering decks. Search and filter cards from any set, and quickly add, remove, or sideboard cards with intuitive gestures.

Highlights
  • Powerful deck builder
  • Card search and filtering
  • Add/remove cards with swipe
  • Sideboard management
  • Supports all card sets
Features
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Cantrip is an poweful and easy to use deck builder for Magic: The Gathering. With Cantrip you can filter and search for cards from any set. Building decks is quick and easy using Cantrips deck builder which lets you add, remove, and sideboard cards with a swipe.

About

Mana Trove

Features
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Mana Trove identifies the exact printing of a trading card for Magic: The Gathering — not just the card's name, but which set it came from and which collector number it carries — in about a second, from your phone's camera. Most scanners tell you that you are holding a Lightning Bolt. There are more than a hundred printings of Lightning Bolt. MTGScan tells you which one. SCAN Hold a card in front of the lens. When the app is sure, it banks the card and you move on to the next one — no tapping, no shutter button. When it is not sure, it says so and asks, rather than guessing: a card it cannot place is flagged for you to finish, never filed under the wrong printing. Recognition runs entirely on this device. The card database ships inside the app, so scanning works with no signal at all. YOUR COLLECTION Every card you scan lands on a wall of full card faces. Sort by set, by name or by what you added last. Filter by colour, card type, rarity, finish and set, with a live count on every option so you can see how much you own before you tap. Mark copies as foil or etched. See what a printing is worth today. IMPORT WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE Already have your collection in a file? MTGScan reads CSV exports from Binder, Moxfield, ManaBox and Archidekt, and falls back to a generic reader for anything else — then tells you, row by row, exactly what it matched, what it could not, and why. Nothing is imported silently. DECKS Build decks from the cards you own. Every deck shows how much of it you actually have, card by card, and marks the ones you are missing. Pick a format and the card list narrows to what that format allows. See your mana curve, your colours and your card types. Deal an opening hand and take a mulligan before you sleeve anything up. PRIVATE BY DESIGN There is no account, no sign-in and no sync. Your collection is a file on your own device. Camera frames are read in memory and are never uploaded, never written to disk and never sent anywhere. MTGScan collects no data of any kind and contains no analytics, advertising or tracking of any sort. The only thing it ever fetches from the network is card artwork and current prices, and it asks for those by card, never by person. FREE Mana Trove is free, with no purchases, no subscription and no advertising. — MTGScan is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC. Card data and images courtesy of Scryfall. MTGScan is not produced by, endorsed by, supported by, or affiliated with Wizards of the Coast or Scryfall.

Screenshots

Cantrip4 screens
Mana Trove4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Mana Trove at weekly against Cantrip's every 4 months. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Cantrip ships an update every 4 months, Mana Trove weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and September 30, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
Cantrip versus Mana Trove: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCantripMana Trove
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.9 (15 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews57.1% of reviews—
Number of ratings15 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 4 monthsWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS18.617.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size142 MB104 MB
Age rating9+4+
DeveloperWhite Bridge LabsROY THOMAS RUSSELL

In-app purchases

None

Cantrip

No in-app purchases

None

Mana Trove

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Cantrip free?
Cantrip is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Mana Trove free?
Mana Trove is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Cantrip or Mana Trove have ads?
Neither Cantrip nor Mana Trove shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Cantrip or Mana Trove?
Cantrip ships an update every 4 months, and Mana Trove weekly. Most recently, Cantrip was updated on October 16, 2026 and Mana Trove on September 30, 2026.

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