Deck Builder

Deck Builder

The deck builder is where the collection management really starts to pay off. Because your cards are tracked, you always know exactly what you own versus what you need, which makes it a lot easier to build something that'll actually work at the table.

Creating a Deck

Go to the Decks page and click Create New Deck. Give it a name, pick a format, and decide whether to enable collection tracking. That's it. You're in the editor.

Starting from a Precon

If you're building from a preconstructed deck. A Commander precon, a Challenger Deck, a Starter Commander Deck, etc. You don't have to add 100 cards by hand. On the deck creation form, type the precon's name into the Precon Baseline search field (2+ characters triggers results). You'll see matching precons with their format, type, and commander listed. Pick one and the deck is created with the entire precon list already loaded. From there you tweak: swap a few cards, replace the commander, upgrade the manabase. Much faster than typing 100 cards to change nine of them.

Your Deck List

The Decks page shows all your decks as visual cards with their cover art, format badge, and build status. Drag a deck's cover art up or down to reframe how it's cropped, and it stays that way. Use the format filter in the sidebar to narrow it down, or search by name. You can also set any deck as your Active Deck, which makes it easy to add cards from the Search page with one click. Deleting a deck asks what should happen to its cards. A build deck that pulled them out of your collection puts them straight back. Any other deck offers to add its cards to your collection, worded that way on purpose: nothing was ever taken out, so saying yes creates copies rather than restoring them. Removing a single card asks the same question, including when you are only taking one copy off a stack.

The Editor Layout

The deck editor is a split pane:

Left side, Card Search. Search the full database for cards to add. For Commander decks, results are automatically filtered to your commander's color identity, so you can't accidentally add something that doesn't belong. Each result shows whether you own that card (green) or don't (red). Click to add, or drag onto the right pane. A Commander button appears on eligible creatures so you can set your commander from search results.

Right side, Deck Contents. Toggle between:

Ownership badges on each card show you whether you have enough copies (green) or are missing some (red). For Commander decks, the commander shows a crown badge.

Drag the divider between the two panes to resize them, or collapse the search side entirely when you just want to look at the deck. Whatever you set is remembered. Double-click the divider to snap back to even.

Deck Health

The deck pane header carries a live readout of the deck's shape: mana curve, colored pip counts, and a segmented bar of card types, plus your land count and average mana value. It recalculates the instant you add or remove a card, so you can watch the curve fill in as you build instead of finding out on the stats page afterward. The left sidebar shows the same numbers in a taller layout with jump links to each section of the deck.

Suggestions

The bottom pane suggests four cards for the deck you're building. Hit Suggest and it looks at your commander, the themes it can detect in what you've already got, and where the deck is structurally thin, then comes back with cards worth adding.

It prioritizes cards you already own and aren't using in another deck, three of the four, when you have enough spares, because a suggestion you can sleeve up tonight beats one you have to go buy. The fourth is something worth picking up. Each card is badged Own or Buy, tells you what job it does in the deck, and will explain its reasoning if you ask.

From each suggestion you can add it straight to the deck, push it to your wishlist, or dismiss it if it's not for you, dismissed cards don't come back for that deck. Once you've asked for suggestions the pane keeps up as you edit. Drag its top edge to make the card images bigger.

This one is metered, see AI Features.

Exporting a Deck

The Export button in the deck footer copies your list to the clipboard in plain text, MTG Arena, or MTGO format.

Importing a Deck

The Decks page imports a deck file rather than making you type a list out. Pick the source: Archidekt, Moxfield, Manabox, Dragon Shield, TappedOut, a plain text list, or auto-detect, and choose whether the new deck is catalog or build mode.

There's one option to read carefully: deduct from collection on import. Leave it off and the deck is just a list. Turn it on and every card in the file is pulled out of your collection as it imports, the same way build mode works. That's genuinely useful when you're importing a deck you've already physically sleeved, and genuinely destructive if you weren't expecting it.

Moving Cards Between Zones

Any card can move between the Command Zone, mainboard, sideboard, and attractions. Attractions are their own zone beside the deck rather than part of it, so they are counted and shown separately and never affect whether the deck reads as the right size. Sideboard cards don't count toward your deck size either, but they do count toward the format's copy limit, so a second Sol Ring in a Commander sideboard is still a second Sol Ring. The crown button promotes an eligible creature to commander, and the row actions handle the rest.

Formats

Commander-Specific Features

Commander decks get a few extra features. The Command Zone is a dedicated slot that sits outside your 99. Partner commanders and "Choose a Background" commanders are automatically detected, so the system knows when two is correct. Card search is filtered by your commander's color identity, and if anything slips through that violates identity or copy limits, you'll see an amber warning banner explaining what's wrong.

Swapping Printings

If you want a different art or set version, click the swap icon on any card in Grid View. You'll see up to 50 available printings. Click the one you want. If you already have that printing in the deck somewhere, the quantities merge automatically rather than creating a duplicate entry.

Proxies

Toggle any card as a proxy (shown with an orange badge). Proxies don't count toward whether a deck is considered "built." Cards scanned into an untracked deck come in as proxies automatically. The Stats page keeps proxy costs separate from real card costs so you can see both clearly.

Tracking Your Collection

This is the feature that ties the whole thing together. Each deck has a Track Collection toggle:

Tracked (shown in emerald) means the deck's cards appear as virtual entries in your collection. You can see them, search them, and they count toward your totals, but they're not duplicate rows. The deck is always considered "built." When you delete a tracked deck, you're asked whether to permanently add those cards to your collection before the deck disappears.

Untracked means the deck exists independently. Your collection doesn't change. Ownership badges show you what you have vs. what you need, and the deck is "built" only when you actually own enough copies of everything non-proxy.

On a catalog deck the toggle is free: flip it whenever, and nothing is added or removed. It only changes how the deck's cards appear.

On a build deck tracking is fixed when you create it, the same as mode. The two settings together decide whether the deck physically holds cards, so changing tracking afterwards would have to move the whole deck into or out of your collection and turn anything you no longer own into a proxy. That did not reverse: a card auto-proxied on the way out never came back real. If you are not sure which you want, pick catalog. It is the forgiving one.

Catalog Mode vs. Build Mode

This is a separate setting from tracking, and it's the one that actually moves cards around, so it's worth understanding before you pick.

Catalog mode is the default and it's what most people want. The deck is a list, adding a card to it doesn't change your collection. It just records that this deck wants that card.

Build mode treats the deck like a physical stack on your table, adding a card pulls it out of your collection, the way sleeving it up really would. Remove it and it goes back exactly as it left: same condition, same tags, same notes. A played copy doesn't come back Near Mint, and a foil doesn't come back non-foil. Your collection count drops as you build and rises when you take a deck apart, which is exactly right if you're tracking cards you've physically sleeved.

The part that trips people up: build mode only moves cards when the deck is untracked. A build deck that's also tracked leaves your collection alone and just marks the cards as committed. So the two settings interact, and only one of the four combinations actually takes cards out of your collection.

Mode is locked when you create the deck and can't be changed afterwards, unlike the tracking toggle right below it, which you can flip whenever. If you're not sure, pick catalog. It's the reversible one.

Public and Private Decks

Decks are private by default. Open deck settings to make a deck public. Public decks get a globe icon on your deck list and are visible to anyone who visits your profile. Private decks stay hidden even if your overall deck list is public. Each deck can be toggled independently.

Deck Stats

Every deck has a Stats page with the full breakdown, see Deck Analysis.