2026 Roundup
Best Magic: The Gathering Companion Apps (2026)
The short answer: install the official Magic: The Gathering Companion, because it's the only one that gets you into sanctioned events at a store — and then pick something for everything it doesn't do, which is most of what happens at a Commander table. There, TurnZero HQ is our pick, free on iOS, Android and the web. It's the only app here that shows up in every category below — it counts life and Commander damage, runs the whole night across as many pods as the room needs, builds and rates decks from a camera scanner, settles rules questions about your actual board, and pairs a store's Commander event. The specialists are still worth knowing, and each is the better second app for one job: Lifetap or Carbon for a bare single-game counter, Lifelinker for the simplest setup, Mythic Tools or Scryfall for card lookup and prices, Moxfield or Archidekt for collections, and Playgroup.gg for season-long ELO.
Start Here: Magic: The Gathering Companion
Official · install this one
Magic: The Gathering Companion
Best for sanctioned play, and the only app that can do that job
Wizards publishes this one, which is the whole reason it's a must: it finds the stores near you, gets you into sanctioned events, and runs the pairings and standings. No third-party app is permitted to do that. Free on iOS and Android, with a life counter built in.
It stops there. The counter forgets the game the moment it ends — no Commander damage by attacker, no deck records, no standings across a night — and it doesn't build decks or track a collection. Its subject is the event, not the game. The rest of this page is for everything it leaves.
Our Pick: TurnZero HQ
Our pick
TurnZero HQ
Best overall MTG companion app for Commander
TurnZero HQ sits in the Commander game-night category specifically, and the thing it's actually built around is the social half. A join code brings the whole playgroup into one night that guests can join without an account; if the room is bigger than one table it splits into pods that all play at once under a single standings race. Moments give the night a shared feed of the plays worth remembering, friends who couldn't make it can watch live from anywhere, and TV mode puts it on a screen for the room. Underneath that sit the table basics (life totals, Commander damage broken out by attacker) plus Elo-style deck MMR with per-version history, Personal Mode, Board State, and an AI recap of each game and the night. It supports 1v1 duels, multiplayer pods up to six players, and Two-Headed Giant, and it's free on iOS, Android, and web with a premium tier for the AI extras. Commander is where it runs deepest, with Draft support expanding beyond it.
That's why TurnZero HQ leads every category on this page. It counts life, it tracks the night, it builds decks with a camera scanner and rates them, it settles rules questions on your actual board, and it pairs a store's Commander event, plus an MCP server that hands your decks and history to Claude and other AI assistants, which nothing else here has. Most apps on this list are excellent at one of those jobs; being in all of them is the point.
It's worth being just as clear about the edges. My Library tracks a collection now, but it's newer and smaller than a dedicated tracker's; it has no store locator and doesn't handle sanctioned play; and while the deck page has card search with prices, that lookup doesn't sit behind the camera the way Mythic Tools' does. Where it's genuinely furthest ahead is the category nothing else attempts: several pods running at once under one standings race, a shared Moments feed, friends watching the night live from anywhere, and a recap when it's done.
Life Tracking / In-Game
These apps are built for the moment-to-moment of a single game: life totals, Commander damage, and not much else layered on top. TurnZero HQ does that part too, and is the only one where the numbers survive the game they were counted in.
Our pick
TurnZero HQ
Best for a Commander table that wants the game to count for something
Life totals and Commander damage broken out by attacker, on 1v1, pods up to six, and Two-Headed Giant — and then everything that happens after the game ends: the result, the deck that played it, and the standings it feeds.
Lifetap
Best pure counter for counter variety
A fast, ad-free counter with a wide range of counter types and card-art player backgrounds.
Carbon
Best for the fastest tap-based counting
The simplest, fastest tap-based counter, especially well-regarded for 2-player games.
Lifelinker
Best for the simplest possible setup
Built by The Command Zone podcast. The most minimal setup, ideal for new players and pickup games.
Mythic Tools
Best counter with a card scanner attached
A customizable counter for up to eight players with poison and Monarch, paired with a camera card scanner that pulls Oracle text, rulings, and prices.
Commander Night / Session Tracking
Only a couple of apps are built to connect multiple games into one picture, rather than resetting to zero every time you start a new game. This is the category TurnZero HQ was built for, and the one where the gap is widest — it's the only app here that runs the night live while it's happening rather than recording it afterwards.
Our pick
TurnZero HQ
Best for running the whole night, not just recording it
Runs the whole gathering: several pods at once under one standings race, a shared Moments feed, friends watching live from anywhere, TV mode, deck MMR, and AI recaps. Nothing else on this page attempts the live half.
Playgroup.gg
Best for ELO leaderboards across a season
Groups games into custom Leagues with ELO leaderboards and deck power ratings benchmarked platform-wide. The closest thing here to TurnZero HQ, and the stronger choice if what you want is a season-long table rather than a live night.
Deck Building & Collection
These tools are for building, pricing, and organizing decks before you ever sit down to play. TurnZero HQ builds decks from a different direction: with a camera scanner rather than a search box, against the targets a template sets, and it's the only one that then tells you how each version of the list actually performed. It reads decklists imported from Archidekt, Moxfield, or Manabox as well, so it fits next to whichever builder you already use — and My Library now covers the collection side too, in the same account.
TurnZero HQ
Best for building against targets and finding out whether the rebuild worked
Builds decks in-app with a camera scanner that reads a card, or a whole stack, straight into the list, plus card search with price lookup on the deck page. Keeps a version history and splits results per version, so you can see whether a rebuild actually worked, and Rate My Deck scores the list against the official brackets. My Library covers collection tracking separately, with total value and per-copy source breakdown.
Moxfield
Best for sharing lists with the wider community
A widely used deck-building and collection platform with strong community sharing features.
Archidekt
Best for tagging, playtesting and collection tools
A deck builder with flexible tagging, playtesting, and collection tools.
Command Tower
Best for price alerts on a Commander collection
A Commander-focused deck builder, collection tracker, and price-alert tool.
Rules & Card Lookup
Two different questions live under this heading. "Who wins this interaction, right now, on this board" is an adjudication problem, and TurnZero HQ is the only app here that answers it. "What does this card say and what's it worth" is a lookup problem, and Scryfall is the reference standard for that.
TurnZero HQ
Best for settling an interaction on your actual board
Rulings answers a question about the board in front of you (tag the cards involved, attach a photo) and returns a judge-style outcome with an explanation and cited rules sections, saved so the table doesn't argue it twice. It adjudicates a live interaction rather than indexing the card database.
Scryfall
Best for looking a card up
The go-to card search engine for rulings, prices, legality, and high-resolution card images. The reference standard, and the right tool when the question is about a card rather than a board.
Magic: The Gathering Companion
Best for official rules text alongside events
The official app carries rules and card lookup inside its event toolset, which is handy when you already have it open for a store event. It's a reference rather than an adjudicator, and it's the must-have covered at the top of this page.
Tournament / Event Play
TurnZero HQ
Best for a store running its own Commander night
TurnZero HQ's tournament mode runs Swiss-style pairing, rounds, and standings for a Commander event, with TV mode driving the shared display the room reads them off. It has no store locator and doesn't handle sanctioned play, so it isn't a replacement for the official app at a competitive event, but for a store running its own Commander night, the pairing and the life tracking live in the same place.
For sanctioned play it's the official app, covered at the top of this page →
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the best MTG companion app in 2026?
Install two. The official Magic: The Gathering Companion from Wizards of the Coast is the must-have: it finds your local game store and pairs you into sanctioned events, and no third-party app is permitted to do that. It stops there, though — its life counter forgets the game the moment it ends, and it doesn't build decks or track a collection. For everything it leaves, our pick is TurnZero HQ, free on iOS, Android and the web. It's the only app in this roundup that turns up in every category: it counts life and Commander damage at the table, tracks the whole night across as many pods as the room needs, builds and rates decks with a camera scanner, settles rules questions about your actual board, and pairs a store's Commander event. Most of the alternatives are excellent at exactly one of those jobs — Lifetap and Carbon as counters, Moxfield and Archidekt as builders, Scryfall for lookup — so the right second app depends on which one you want to go deeper on.
What's the best app for a Commander playgroup?
TurnZero HQ. For a recurring playgroup that wants life totals, Commander damage, deck records and a recap of the night, it's the one built to run the session as it happens: one join code, several pods at once under a single standings race, a shared Moments feed, friends watching live from anywhere, and an AI recap at the end. Playgroup.gg is the other app in this category and the better fit if what you want is ELO leaderboards and custom Leagues across a season rather than a live night. Either beats a single-game life counter if your group plays regularly with the same decks.
Is there an MTG app with AI recaps?
TurnZero HQ is the app in this category with an AI-generated recap feature. It closes out each game and the whole night in one of five voices, from a play-by-play commentator to an outright roast, and the recaps land in the same Moments feed as the night's highlights. This isn't a common feature elsewhere in the space as of this writing.
What app tracks Commander games across a whole night?
TurnZero HQ and Playgroup.gg are both built for this specifically, in different ways. TurnZero HQ runs the night as it happens: one gathering holding as many pods as the room needs under a single standings race, a shared Moments feed for the highlights, friends watching live from anywhere, TV mode for the room, and an AI recap at the end. Playgroup.gg leans on the stats side, grouping games into custom Leagues by night, pod size, or format, with ELO rankings and platform-wide deck power benchmarks. Most other MTG companion apps (life counters, deck builders, rules apps) are scoped to a single game or a single deck, not a recurring session.
Does TurnZero HQ build decks or look up card rules?
Both, in its own way. Decks are built inside TurnZero HQ, and its card scanner adds cards straight from your camera, one card or a whole stack in a single shot, while the deck-detail screen also reads lists imported from Archidekt, Moxfield, or Manabox. Rulings answers a rules question about your actual board mid-game with a judge-style outcome, an explanation, and cited sources. The deck page also has card search with price lookup, and My Library tracks the collection those cards come from, separately from any single deck.
Try the app built for the whole night, not just one game.
Life totals, Commander damage, deck records, and AI-generated recaps. Free to start.
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