The Overview
*Check the end of the article to find out how to win a promo code.
There are dozens and dozens of apps in the App Store that help you play Magic: the Gathering – life total trackers, deck trackers, price guides, etc. but the two Big Daddy apps that combine tons of features are TCGBuddy and The Sylvan Archives. Of course, they serve a niche market, but it is a large niche market that loves to spend money. So, is TCGBuddy worth the large price tag versus buying a few smaller apps that do specific tasks really well?
The Features
TCGBuddy has a slick interface that keeps track of life for individual games and even match records. It keeps track of round time and even has a draft timer that counts down the time for each pick out loud.
There is a counter screen for mana, storm and poison. It also allows you to add your own counter types.
TCGBuddy includes a calculator designed specifically for life changes with doubling, halving and rounding. There is also a probability calculator that determines your chance to win based on your and your opponent’s DCI rankings.
Dice and coins are provided to determine who goes first.
The Breakdown
The Good
TCGBuddy has tons of features and is extremely customizable. It has an interface that is slick and fits in completely with the look and feel of an iPhone app.
It keeps track of all your matches so you can look back and see how you did at last week’s Friday Night Magic.
The Bad
The life counter sometimes is laggy and skips numbers. At first, I just thought it was my device, but it seems that a lot of people have reported this in comments on the App Store. Some suggestions say that a +/- button should be added, but I prefer to think that having the top third of the life total icon be tap to increment and the bottom third be tap to decrement would be better.
Instead of sending you to Wizards of the Coast’s website to get individual card information, it would be nice to have the Oracle database available for offline perusing. Even if you have to spend some time to download the Oracle rulings and MtG FAQs separately due to copyright issues, I would love to see that.
Also, the developer sells a separate app that looks up card prices. Having to switch out of TCGBuddy to get to MTG Prices is a pain. Adding it in as part of TCGBuddy, even as an in app purchase, would make the app better.
The Verdict
TCGBuddy is definitely worth the money. It sells itself when other gamers see it in action. Not having to deal with pen and paper or dice to keep track of life can be accomplished by tons of cheaper apps, but TCGBuddy contains tons of other features that players will find invaluable. If you play Magic: the Gathering, go get this app!
To win one of five TCGBuddy promo codes, simply leave a comment saying how you currently keep track of your life totals and why TCGBuddy would be better or retweet the review.
Our Rating
TCGBuddy
- Developer: Daniel Too
- Category: Utilities
- Released: Sep 10, 2008
(currently 2.11.1)
(currently 4.99)
Currently using dice =(
It’d be great to have an electronic system to be able to skip out on the time rotating a die looking for the number. The dci stuff and the game tracker is nice for fnm. Here’s hoping as suggested the developer adds in the oracle/faqs. ty for the review
i wanna win!
I currently use the spin-down counters that they keep on sending me in fat-packs.
While I have grown used to them, my friends have issues utilizing them.
This would help a great deal!
Currently using the pen and paper method for keeping track of my life when I play MTG. This would be a great addition to have so that I can keep track on a more up to date method.
Currently using MTGlife for iPhone. It’s ok, but just that. Also using prixeon deck builder as well which has been AWESOME. Email from the app is great.
We have a few spin-down counters and dice; I even have a little pewter wizard on a numbered pedestal. But, we usually just use a pad of paper.
Does the TCGBuddy app have a variable coin toss setting; single, dual or more coins at the same time?
I currently use dices, not to count life points for MTG, but to count honor for L5R CCG.
In the store where I play, I was just surprised by the counter of one of my friends, mtg’s player, using TCG buddy. I asked him to tell me more about this app, and when he showed me that this app was fully configurable (in L5R ccg we start with an honor counter between 0 and 7 wich can evolve from -20 to 40), I knew that this app will be the best one for L5R too!
So thank you so much for this app, and remmember: it doesn’t only works for magic or yu-gi-oh, for L5R too!
Aenggis