Where We Are As a Community
Before we get into the update we want to take a moment to acknowledge something. We are rapidly approaching two million cards scanned and we expect to cross that milestone very soon.
The feedback we keep hearing from players is the same whether they are still using traditional sorting methods or fully embracing chaotic storage. Users are saving time, they finally know what they own and for the first time they can actually search their entire physical collection instantly.
Our filter system lets you combine any number of search criteria together. Color, type, mana cost, keywords, abilities, oracle text, and more. The more filters you stack the more powerful the search becomes. Want to see every card in your collection that mentions sacrifice, has a mana value under four, and fits within a Grixis color identity? You can do that instantly from anywhere.
That kind of power to actually see and utilize what you own is changing the way players interact with their collections. We are hearing from users who are building entire Commander decks from cards they already had and had long forgotten about. Users are buying fewer singles, spending less and playing more because for the first time they have full transparency of their entire collection.
That momentum is exactly what has been driving us forward. We have been heads down building for the past few months and today we finally get to share what we have been working on. This is the biggest update we have ever shipped and it completely changes the way user's utilize their collections.
Why We Built This Update
Every decision in this update came down to two things. Simplicity and user experience.
The more we worked with players the more we heard the same things. The app was powerful but it was confusing to use. The structure of the app made sense to us when we built it but it was not always making sense to the people using it every day.
So we went back to first principles. We asked ourselves what does a player actually need to do in this app and what is the fastest most intuitive way to get them there. Every change in this update is the answer to that question.
Less navigating. More searching. More doing.
A Completely Redesigned Home Screen
The home screen has been rebuilt from the ground up. There are now two main tabs at the top level. Cards and Decks. You can toggle between them instantly.
The Cards tab is where you will find everything to do with your physical collection including a new collection value trend line that lets you watch your collection value move over time as you add cards, remove cards, or as market prices shift. There is a new "recent adds" section so you can quickly see what cards have recently been added to your collection. A top nine section shows your most valuable cards at a glance and encourages users to share with friends.
The Decks tab has been completely redesigned with a new visual interface that makes your deck collection feel a lot more like the game itself. Decks now display with images rather than a plain text list, which makes browsing your decks faster and more enjoyable.
The deck building process itself has not changed. If you are already familiar with how deck building works in TCG Archivist everything you know still applies. But if you have never used the deck building features before we put together a full walkthrough video that covers everything from start to finish. Watch that here.
We also want to be transparent about where we are headed with decks. The current deck tools are just the beginning. We have deck building features in development that we are genuinely excited about and we will be sharing more on that soon. If deck building from your own collection is something you care about, stay tuned. There is a lot more coming.
We Removed the Collection Lists and Collection View Screens
This is the change we are most excited about and the one that will have the biggest impact on how you use the app every day.
When we first built the collection list and collection view screens they made sense for where the app was at the time. But the more we worked with players the more we realized they were getting in the way. Browsing a flat list of every card in a storage location is not actually that useful. It adds steps between you and the information you need and it does not take advantage of the most powerful part of the app, search. The ability to filter your entire collection by any combination of criteria and surface exactly the cards you are looking for in seconds is where we beleive the app shines, not in a generic list view.
So we removed the collection list and collection view screens entirely and moved everything into advanced search where it belongs. Every action you used to take from those screens is now available from your search results, with more flexibility and more power than before.
Search Got Significantly More Powerful
With the collection screens gone, searching is now the heart of the app and we built it to handle everything you need. Access search by tapping the magnifying glass at the top right of the home screen.
At the top of the new search screen you will see a "collection" versus "all cards" toggle. Before running a search you can switch between searching only the cards in your collection and searching every card in our entire Magic database. Looking for something you own? Stay in collection mode. Researching a card you are thinking about picking up? Switch to all cards. Same filters, same search, two completely different scopes. It is a small toggle that makes the search experience dramatically more flexible.
Also in the top bar we added a restore button and a filter clear button to make managing your searches faster. The restore button returns your filters to your last search instantly. The clear button clears all filters when you want to start fresh. Together these two buttons remove a lot of the friction that used to come with running complex searches repeatedly.
As before you can search across multiple storage locations in one search, or combine filters however you want to slice your collection. All the bulk actions you used to perform inside a collection view are now available directly from your search results. You can bulk export, move, or delete selected cards without ever leaving the search results screen. There is also a new bulk add to deck button in search results. Select any cards from your results and add one copy of each card to a deck of your choice in a single tap. This makes building decks from your collection dramatically faster.
We also added price sorting to search results so you can quickly see your most valuable cards matching any search criteria. Note: price sorting is only availble when searching your collection, not all cards.
What Comes Next
This update was built around one core idea. The app should get out of your way and let you interact with your collection as quickly and powerfully as possible. We think this update gets us a lot closer to that goal.
We expect this patch to go live very soon. Full patch notes are on Discord. That is also the best place to share feedback, report anything unexpected, or just tell us what you think. We read everything.
If you want to follow along as we keep building, please make sure you are an email subscriber (bottom of all pages on our website). There is a lot more coming.
Thank You
We said it at the top and we will say it again here. We are rapidly approaching two million cards scanned and none of that happens without this community.
Every piece of feedback shared in Discord, every review left in the App Store, every player who told us what was working and what was not, this update is the direct result of all of it. You told us the app was powerful but needed to be simpler. You told us navigation was getting in the way. You told us you wanted more from advanced search. We listened and we built.
The fact that players are saving time, finally knowing what their collection is worth, building better decks from cards they already own, and spending more time at the table with the people they love is what drives us to keep going.
We are a small bootstrapped team building something we genuinely believe in. Your support makes that possible. Thank you for being part of this. The best is still ahead.
Every Card Counts.