The deck workshop for Magic: The Gathering
A free, ad-free browser tool that turns any decklist into an AI deck review, a Commander bracket score with a paired-swap climb path, a full goldfish playmat, a mana-base analyzer, plain-English card explanations, and auto-detected synergies and combos. Built by a new player for new players.
The 30-second pitch
Most MTG resources assume you already know how a turn flows, what "curving out" means, or how to evaluate whether a deck reliably hits its plan. Arcane Tutor is the tool I (Kyle, the founder) wanted when I started: paste any decklist, and instantly get a 5-bullet AI review, a Commander bracket score with a climb path that pairs every recommended add with what to cut from your own list, a full goldfish playmat (life totals, mana pool, mulligan with London bottom-N, tokens, equipment, commander tax — all of it), a mana-base breakdown, win-condition detection, plain-English Decipher for any card, and a glossary built for newcomers. Every card the AI suggests is verified against Scryfall before you see it, invented cards get flagged, off-color cards get flagged. No login, no ads, no tracking. Cards come from Scryfall; the Doctor and Decipher run on Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4.6.
Featured tools
Five-bullet structured review of any decklist (mana base, balance, archetype coherence, weak cards, missing pieces), with every recommended card auto-verified against Scryfall and color-checked against the deck's identity.
Commander's official 1–5 bracket score, plus a climb path that pairs every recommended add with what to cut from the user's own list. No generic best-cards advice, no commander-or-basics traps.
Land count, curve breakdown, color sources vs. colored pips with screw warnings, plus ramp / draw / interaction balance. The deep tuning that separates "feels okay" from "reliably hits its plan."
A full solo playmat. Track life totals (you / opponent / poison / commander damage), mana pool, and London mulligan with proper bottom-N. Cast your commander with tax tracking. Create tokens, attach equipment to creatures, manage poison / energy / charge / +1/+1 / loyalty counters. Toggle Strict mode for real mana-cost enforcement and summoning sickness. Or auto-run 50 games and see your average lands-by-turn, creatures, and casts. Closest browser tool to a real playmat — no account, no install, no opponent.
Click any card and the Tutor explains it in plain English, ability by ability, with concrete examples and the math worked out. The first user to Decipher a given card pays the AI cost; every subsequent user (anywhere on the planet, any browser, any deck) gets the cached reading instantly. Popular cards are explained once for the whole user base — the cache pays off forever.
Founder story
Hi, I'm Kyle. I started playing Magic recently, after years of watching friends play. Every resource I tried (YouTube channels, deck-builder sites, podcasts) assumed I already understood the language: what makes a curve good, why turn-three plays matter more than turn-five, what a bracket-3 deck actually looks like. I'd watch a 20-minute deck tech and walk away more confused than when I started.
I'm a software developer by trade, so eventually I just built the thing I needed: a browser tool that takes a decklist and explains it, simulates it, scores it, and tells me what to fix. I shared it with a few friends; they started sharing it with their friends. That's how Arcane Tutor exists.
It's still a one-person project. I run it from my own pocket: Anthropic API costs come out of donations and savings, and hosting is on Netlify. There are no ads, no tracking, no account system, and no upsells. A Ko-fi tip jar lives in the footer (and a small banner at the top sometimes) for anyone who wants to help cover the hosting and AI costs, but the core tool will always be free.
Quick facts
no tracking
StorageAll decks & settings live in the user's browser
What's interesting for coverage
If you're considering a tools roundup, beginner-resources segment, or "free MTG things to try" piece, here are the angles that tend to land:
- Built by a newcomer, for newcomers. The novelty is the perspective. It's not yet another tool by a long-time grinder, and the product reflects that.
- The AI integration is genuinely novel. Most MTG tools surface card data or run static heuristics. Arcane Tutor lets users get a structured opinion from a current frontier model on any list, with hallucinations grounded against Scryfall + EDHRec.
- A different AI cost model. Decipher uses a server-side shared cache: the first user to read a card pays the API call, every subsequent user worldwide gets the explanation instantly from the cache. As the user base grows, per-user costs drop toward zero on popular cards. It's how a one-person free tool stays free without ads.
- Bracket-aware, EDHRec-aware, color-identity-aware. The Doctor doesn't suggest a card the deck can't legally play. The Bracket adjuster's upgrade-path suggestions check the format's commander-protection rules.
- A real goldfish playmat in a browser tab. Most "playtester" features in deckbuilder sites stop at "draw 7, draw a card per turn." Arcane Tutor's plays a real Magic game alone — life totals, poison, commander tax, equipment attachment with proper aura state-based actions, London mulligan with bottom-N. No account, no install, no opponent.
- The whole app is one HTML file. A handful of small Netlify Functions handle the AI calls and a couple of API proxies; everything else is browser code. No tracking, no analytics. Instructive look at how much can be built without a database, a build step, or a framework.
Press assets
Use any of these freely. No need to ask permission for editorial use.
- Logo (full lockup, transparent PNG, 660×660): logo.png
- Logo (high-res master, 2048×2048): arcanetutor-logo-v2.png
- Social card (1200×630, used for Open Graph): og-image.png
- Sample share-image: generated per-deck inside the site. Try clicking "Share image" on any deck.
Contact
Best: the in-app contact form on the site. Goes straight to me; usually answered within a day or two.
Other ways to reach me: kyleaulerich@icloud.com for press / embargo / wire workflows.
Site: arcanetutor.gg
The site is single-developer. Replies usually within a day or two. If you have a publishing deadline, mention it in the subject line and I'll prioritize.