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MTG Carpenter

A new deck-building app for Magic: The Gathering

User Guide

Card List Entry

As you create a new deck in MTG Carpenter, you might already know several of the cards you’re going to include in it. Or, maybe you see a card list of a Magic deck from a source outside MTG Carpenter, and you’d like to interact with that deck inside Carpenter.

In either case, the fastest way to get a lot of cards into this app is through a tool called Card List Entry.

(Another possible way is with the List Editor mode’s card adder tool, in which you could insert each of the deck’s card names one by one. However, that’s a slower process, and thus isn’t recommended for this purpose.)

To access Card List Entry, click the Add Multiple button in the List Editor for a deck. If you intend to use a card list copied from elsewhere, you should first create a blank deck in MTG Carpenter with the same name as that deck.

The Card List Entry page features an entry form. In the form, you can paste or write a list of the Magic: The Gathering cards that you want to put into your deck. You can enter card lists for your deck’s primary or secondary card group, or both groups together.

The Card List Entry page provides you the instructions on how to write card lists in the acceptable format. (This format is the same one used for card lists generated by the Deck Exporter.) It’s important to follow those instructions, or else you may get unexpected results. There are also some acceptable alternative entry formats.

Any single lines of your entry form that don’t match the acceptable formats will be rejected, while the rest of the lines can still pass.

You can also use Card List Entry to change the quantities of any card names that already exist in your deck. Setting a name’s quantity to 0 will remove that name from its respective card group.

Many Magic card names have had at least one reprint. You can make a card entry more precise to which print you prefer by including the set code, which is typically three or four characters long, usually all letters, but sometimes with digits. In an entry, after the card name, put the set code within parentheses or square brackets, or after a semicolon.

After the set code, you can be even more specific by entering the card’s collector number in the set. The collector number is unnecessary to include in an entry, except for cards that have print variations within a set. (Basic lands with different illustrations are common examples of such cards.)

Note that Card List Entry (unlike the List Editor’s card adder tool) can not read URLs to card pages on external websites, or a special code to get a random card.

When you’re done, click the Submit button to submit your entry form. You’ll then be shown an overview of your entry results. It tells you about every entry from your submitted form, and whether Carpenter was able to get the card names from those entries—and, if not, with the reasons why.

Alternative Entry Formats

The entry form on Card List Entry has a standard accepted format for card lists, as explained in the instructions on that page. However, the form is flexible enough to accept certain other formats, which is convenient if you’ve copied the text of a deck’s card list straight from a source that may generate lists in a slightly different way.

The valid alternative formats for card list entries include the use of times signs, omitted quantities, and star tag headings.

Times Sign

After a card’s quantity number, you can include a times sign (multiplication symbol). It may be represented by the letter X (lowercase or uppercase) or the actual times sign character (“×”).

Example:

4x Card Name

You can include any number of spaces before and after the times sign. If you use the letter X, then you must include at least one space between it and the card name.

Appending a times sign to a quantity number won’t change how the card entry is processed.

Omitted Quantity

On any line of your card list, you may optionally exclude the card name’s quantity number, having just the card name. Each name without a specified quantity will be set to a quantity of 1 by default.

You may find this list style convenient for singleton game formats like Commander.

Star Tag Heading

You can enter a special list heading to designate that the list of card entries directly beneath it will be automatically be tagged with a star shape once those card names get added to your deck. The following headings achieve that effect:

  • “Commander” (for Commander or Brawl decks)
  • “Oathbreaker” (for Oathbreaker decks)
  • “Signature Spell” (for Oathbreaker decks)
  • “Star”
  • “Starred”

If you have a star-tag list as the first card list in the entry form, then you must also enter a second list for the rest of your deck’s cards. To do so, enter the word “Deck” or “Main” as the second list’s heading.

Card list headings may have any of their letters typed in lowercase or uppercase. In order for MTG Carpenter to recognize a special heading, the heading’s keyword must not have words or numbers before it on the same line.

Example:

COMMANDER
Lathril, Blade of the Elves

DECK
Exquisite Blood
Elvish Archdruid
7 Swamp

The entries for the cards to be star-tagged will put those cards into your deck’s primary card group.

If you don’t include a primary deck list heading when it’s placed after the star-tag list in the entry form, then the entries in the star-tag list won’t be automatically tagged.

If you have the primary deck list as the first list in the entry form, then you may omit its heading.

Migrating from Other Deck Builders

There are other apps besides MTG Carpenter in which users create decks for Magic: The Gathering. If you want to, you can quickly reproduce an entire deck—whether your own or someone else’s published deck—from another app into Carpenter.

You can do this by copying the deck’s card list in a plain-text format from the other app, then pasting that list in Carpenter’s Card List Entry for a new deck (as explained above).

Below are tailored instructions for various Magic deck-building apps on how you can export a text card list from them.

Aetherhub
  1. On the deck’s page, click the Export tab.
  2. From the Export menu, click the Text List link.
  3. From the text list dialog box, click the Copy to Clipboard button.
Archidekt
  1. On the deck’s page, click the Extras button.
  2. From the Extras menu, click Export Deck.
  3. In the Export Deck dialog box, set the export type to text, then click the Copy button.
Cube Cobra
  1. On the cube’s page, click the Export link.
  2. From the Export menu, click “Card Names (.txt).”
  3. Open the text file, select all the text, and copy it.
Deckbox
  1. On the deck’s page, click the Export link.
  2. From the Export menu, click Export to Text.
  3. On the page of exported text, select all the text and copy it.
Deckstats.net
  1. On the deck’s page, click the Tools button.
  2. From the Tools menu, click Decklist.
  3. In the View Decklist dialog box, select all the list’s text and copy it.
Draftsim
  1. On the deck’s page, click the “Copy to clipboard” button (icon of two overlapping sheets of paper).
Magic Online
  1. From your collection of decks, right-click the deck whose card list you want to copy.
  2. From the menu that appears, click Export.
  3. In the Export Deck dialog box, select “Plain TXT format” as the file type to save as, then click the Save button.
  4. Open the text file, select all the text, and copy it.
ManaBox
  1. On the deck’s page, tap the button with the horizontal dots by the top-right corner.
  2. From the menu that appears, tap Share.
  3. From the Share dialog box, tap the “As file” button.
  4. Open the text file, select all the text, and copy it.
ManaForge
  1. Open the deck’s dialog box.
  2. In the “Decklist” section, click the Copy button.
ManaTap
  1. On the deck’s page, click the “Copy decklist” button.
Moxfield
  1. On the deck’s page, click the Download link.
  2. In the Export Options dialog box, click the Copy Plain Text button.
MTG Arena
  1. On the Decks screen, select your deck whose card list you want to copy.
  2. Click the Export button.
MTG Carpenter

To transfer copies of your decks between MTG Carpenter on different devices:

  1. On your source device, produce a deck archive file of your decks to move.
  2. Deliver the archive file to the destination device (like through cloud storage, email, or a USB drive).
  3. In MTG Carpenter on the destination device, open the archive file on the Create Deck page to replicate those contained decks.

(MTG Carpenter also provides methods for copying plain-text card lists, if you’d prefer. However, in this situation of moving decks from one instance of Carpenter to another, replicating from a deck archive file is the fastest and most data-comprehensive way.)

MTGDecks.net
  1. On the deck’s page, click the Arena Export tab.
  2. Click the “Copy to Clipboard and Import” button.
MTGGoldfish
  1. On the deck’s page, click the Download button.
  2. From the Download menu, click “Text File (Default).”
  3. Open the text file, select all the text, and copy it.
TappedOut
  1. On the deck’s page, click the “Download / Export / Embed Code” button.
  2. In the dialog box that appears, click the “Copy to clipboard” button (under “MTG Arena”).
TopDecked
  1. On the deck’s page, click the Actions button.
  2. From the Deck Actions menu, click Download.
  3. From the Download menu, click Save as Text.
  4. Open the text file, select all the text, and copy it.
Untapped.gg
  1. On the deck’s page, click the “Copy to MTGA” button.

Magic: The Gathering IP is TM and © by Wizards of the Coast, LLC. MTG Carpenter is not affiliated with or explicitly endorsed by Wizards of the Coast, but is permitted under its Fan Content Policy. The trademarked names and logos of other companies are the IP of their respective owners. Data and images of Magic cards are provided by Scryfall, LLC through its public API. MTG Carpenter is not affiliated with or explicitly endorsed by Scryfall. All other IP, unless indicated otherwise, is © 2026 by Damian Schmidt of Iristorm Design.