TCG Archivist vs Mana Trove
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
TCG Archivist
Manage your Magic: The Gathering card collection without sorting. Scan cards into labeled locations for instant retrieval. Track collection value, build decks from your inventory, and find any card in seconds.
- Scan cards into labeled storage
- No sorting required
- Instant card retrieval
- Real-time collection value tracking
- Build decks from owned cards
- Searchable and filterable collection
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TCG Archivist is the ultimate collection management tool for Magic: The Gathering players. We believe sorting your collection is the wrong approach. Sorting is time consuming, impossible to maintain, and never actually gives you a clear picture of what you own. TCG Archivist is built around a better system. One that the world's most efficient warehouses and retailers have used for decades. Scan your cards into labeled storage locations. No sorting required. When you need a card search the app, find the location, and have it in your hand in under a minute. Your entire collection becomes fully searchable, filterable, and always up to date. Know exactly what you own. Track your collection value in real time. Build decks from cards you actually have. Find any card in seconds. For players with larger collections the CSC100 hardware scanner makes building your digital catalog dramatically faster, but any camera will get you started today. Your collection. Always searchable. Always in reach. Terms of Use : https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Mana Trove
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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
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Mana Trove at none against TCG Archivist's 1. TCG Archivist's advantage is iOS requirement (15.5 vs 17.0). On price, update cadence, ads 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
Both are free to download. TCG Archivist sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $4.99 per month. Mana Trove asks for nothing beyond the download.
TCG Archivist ships an update every 9 days, Mana Trove weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 8, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | TCG Archivist | Mana Trove |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.3 (52 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 50.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 52 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 9 days | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.5 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 514 MB | 104 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | TCG Archivist LLC | ROY THOMAS RUSSELL |
In-app purchases
TCG Archivist
- Monthly Sub$4.991 Month
Mana Trove
No in-app purchases









