Yesterday WotC released on Android (get real I’m an Apple fanboy, I’m not going to share an Android link) and iOS their official MtG Companion app.

So why should you be bothered about this?

Well over time this I believe is the app that WotC want you to have as your go to app for paper MtG. I’ve seen talk of eventually at store and Magicfests that you will be able to submit match results, see pairings, and standings for tournaments. Which will be pretty cool.

But before we get to that stuff and any other ideas they have planned we get this open beta that is aimed at the kitchen table players at home.

Wisely I think WotC are keeping it simple, by giving players a way to run events/tournaments at home amongst a group of friends.

There are apps and websites already out there, and have been for years that allow you to run tournaments. Such as Tourney on iOS or Challonge that is web based. Naturally being more established applications they offer more functionality, most of which is relevant to MtG players. They also have their advantages and disadvantages.

So at the moment you can create a home tournament for between 2 and 16 players. Which can be constructed, sealed or draft. With rounds that are either best of 1 (yeah WotC still hold out that this will take off, but what you do in the privacy of your own home is up to you, freaks) or best of 3.

Nitpicking but I dislike the splash screen art. The screens have an awful lot of dead space. A great example of this is the leaderboard. It looks like the name and position has had an argument with the win/loss/draw stats.

On the other hand I do like the pairings screen and how easy it is to update results.

But this is cosmetic stuff really. Easily fixed.

Functionality I’d love to see is being able to select between round robin and swiss for generating the pairings. I’d love to have the save functionality expanded from just groups, but the results of the tournaments for that group.

For me this companion app truly warrants the beta tag. Unlike Arena.

As the start of a conversation during the beta phase of this apps development, it’s a pretty good start.

You will need TestFlight installed to get this on iOS during this open beta period.

Oh and here is the original post on the WotC website announcing the app.