User Guide
Deck Exporter
Once you’ve finished building your deck in MTG Carpenter, what’s next? You probably have a plan that involves more than just looking at pictures of Magic cards in this app. If so, this is when you summon the Deck Exporter.
The Deck Exporter is a workspace mode that renders copies of your deck’s card lists in various forms, and you can move these copies beyond MTG Carpenter. Here are some reasons why you could want to do that:
Shop – There are online stores that sell card singles for Magic: The Gathering, and many of them provide a tool that lets shoppers search their stock for a list of multiple cards at once. One such example is TCGplayer’s mass entry tool. From the Deck Exporter in MTG Carpenter, you can copy your card list as text, then paste it into the store’s list-searching tool. Easy card shopping!
Share – Decks you make in this app aren’t publicly viewable over the Internet due to how Carpenter stores data. The Deck Exporter provides ways for you to post your card lists outside this app, whether on social media, emails, blogs, etc.
Backup – Your decks’ data is stored only locally within your web browser. You’ll want a backup copy of your decks for recovery in case you’d somehow lose access to your stored data on your device. One way that could potentially happen is if your web browser automatically clears out your data because you didn’t revisit MTG Carpenter in a very long time.
Migrate – Transfer all your decks onto another web browser (because you’re swapping your preferred browser, for example), or onto another computer or mobile device altogether.
Print – A simple document is well suited for printing out as a hard copy (unlike the web page of the List Editor).
To activate the Deck Exporter mode, click the “Deck Exporter” tab in the mode menu, or press the 4 key while on a deck workspace page.
The Exporter provides copies of your deck’s card lists via multiple methods:
All of the Deck Exporter’s methods produce separate copies of your deck’s data, rather than move out or permanently alter the original data. So, even after you’ve exported your deck in any way, you’ll still have and can still edit your deck in the app.
The order of card names in the Deck Exporter’s card lists matches that of the List Editor’s card lists. So, if you care about the order, use the list organizer to sort the names as you prefer before activating the Exporter.
The various functions of the Deck Exporter are going to be explained in the next subchapters.
Text List Preferences
The Deck Exporter can render your deck’s card lists in plain-text formats. These text formats are TCGplayer shopping lists, clipboard-copied lists, exported text documents, and printed deck lists.
By default, text formats render each line of a card list in the format of “{quantity} {card name}.”
You can add or remove details shown in your text card lists. To do so, click the Text List Preferences button, located below the introductory section of the Deck Exporter page. A dialog box appears, which presents to you the controls to modify the text list format to your taste.
The options include whether to show or hide the quantity, the set code, and the collector number for each card. You can show these details in any combination, except that if you want to show the collector number, you must also show the set code.
If you choose to show the set code, then additional options appear that let you choose how to denote set codes in your text lists. Each code can be either between parentheses, between square brackets, or after a semicolon.
Text list settings are app-wide, not per deck. So, if you change these settings for your currently open deck, then they change in the same way for all your other decks too.
Your text list preferences have no effect on how deck archive files are generated, because deck archive files are their own distinct format that isn’t plain text.
Shop on TCGplayer
TCGplayeris a huge online marketplace for buying and selling cards of Magic: The Gathering (and of many other trading card games too, such as Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon).
From MTG Carpenter’s Deck Exporter mode, you can add at once all the cards of your deck in Carpenter to a shopping cart on TCGplayer. From your cart, you can preview how much your whole deck would cost on TCGplayer. You could also purchase any cards there, if you want.
To add your deck to TCGplayer’s cart, simply click the button in the Deck Exporter labeled “Shop for Your Deck on TCGplayer.” This takes you to TCGplayer’s mass entry page, where the entry form gets automatically filled in with a list of your deck’s cards.
As you arrive on TCGplayer’s mass entry page, you can set your shopping preferences for the cards’ finish (normal or foil) and physical condition (near mint, heavily played, etc.). Then you may either add your deck immediately to your cart, or review the mass entry form for adjustments.
Shopping List Options
The cards from your deck’s primary card group will always be included in TCGplayer’s mass entry form. By default, the cards from your deck’s secondary group (named either Sideboard or Considering, depending on your deck’s format) will be included as well.
You can omit your deck’s secondary group for shopping. To do so, in the Deck Exporter, uncheck the checkbox labeled “Include cards in [secondary group]” (located below the Shop button) before you click the Shop button. This is an app-wide setting, not per-deck.
Whether your shopping list includes specific set codes and collector numbers of each card depends on how you’ve customized your text list preferences in the Deck Exporter. Include set codes (and optionally collector numbers too) to get the most precise results for cards that exist in multiple printings. Or, exclude set codes if you don’t care about the specific printing, allowing you to buy whatever printing is currently in stock at the best price.
Be aware that TCGplayer’s scheme of Magic set codes is very similar but not identical to MTG Carpenter’s, which follows Scryfall’s scheme of set codes. These code inconsistencies mostly only apply to the sets released before 2002 and a few special sets. Since a set code provided by Carpenter isn’t guaranteed to be understood by TCGplayer, you may be misled to believe that cards from a certain set are unavailable when they’re not. If you do encounter that issue, you can resolve it by deleting the disputed set code in your TCGplayer mass entry form, or by excluding set codes altogether in your text list preferences.
To comply with TCGplayer’s certain format requirements for mass entry, two of the text list preferences are overridden only in this case. The overridden preferences are the quantity, which must be shown, and the set code style, which must denote codes within square brackets (if codes are shown).
MTG Carpenter Affiliation
MTG Carpenter is an affiliate partner of TCGplayer. Whenever you click any links or buttons in this app that direct you to a page on TCGplayer’s website, Carpenter will get credited as the referrer for a 48-hour period. If you buy anything on TCGplayer within that time, then TCGplayer will pay the creator of Carpenter a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
You’re not obligated to buy from TCGplayer. If you won’t, but you’d still like to financially help the creator of Carpenter in another way, you can donate to the creator directly.
Copy for Pasting
The Deck Exporter has a section presenting your deck’s primary and secondary card groups as a plain-text list of cards. If a group is currently empty, then its card list is excluded here.
Both card lists have a “Copy” button. Click either button to have the respective whole list copied to the virtual clipboard of your computer or mobile device. While on the clipboard, you can then paste that list elsewhere.
If your deck has cards in both its primary and secondary groups, then the Deck Exporter reveals an extra button, “Copy Both Together.” Clicking this button adds to the clipboard a batch of text that comprises the primary group’s list, then a blank line, then the secondary group’s list.
If your deck is in a Commander-style format, then any cards that have the star shape tag (signifying the deck’s commander) are always repositioned to the top of the card list, followed by a blank line separating them from the other cards.
Save to Deck Archive
MTG Carpenter can work with deck archive files, which are special files that contain the data of certain Magic decks made in this app. Anyone who has a deck archive file, whether yourself or someone you’ve sent it to, can replicate those decks in Carpenter from the file’s data.
A deck archive file keeps the complete app data about each of its contained decks. This even includes some data that’s left out of a plain-text document, such as cards’ tags and user-specified card prints.
For that reason, a deck archive file is best for migrating your whole deck collection onto another device running MTG Carpenter, as well as for making a backup copy of all your decks for potential data recovery. A deck archive file is also good for sharing your decks with people who are already users of Carpenter. (For sharing with anyone else, however, plain-text card lists are better instead.)
To produce a deck archive file, first click the “Save to Deck Archive” button in the Deck Exporter, which takes you to the Archive Decks page.
On the Archive Decks page is a checklist of all your decks stored in the app. Select at least one deck, then click the Save Selected button. The app generates the archive file containing the copied data of the decks you’ve selected, and saves it on your device to wherever your web browser puts downloads.
If you archive one deck alone, the archive file is automatically named the same as that deck’s name. If you archive multiple decks at once, the file is automatically named “My Decks.” You may rename an archive file anything, as long as you keep its .deck file extension.
MTG Carpenter can’t modify existing deck archive files. If you’d want to do so, then instead make your intended changes within this app, then save a new archive file, overwriting the old one.
To replicate the decks from an archive file, go to the Create Deck page.
Export as Text Document
You may want to have your deck’s card lists in a plain-text (TXT) document. Any text-editing app on any operating system (Windows Notepad, macOS TextEdit, etc.) can open the plain-text file type.
The universal accessibility of a plain-text document lets you readily share your deck with other people. In contrast, a deck archive file requires the use of MTG Carpenter to view its contents, which some people may find inconvenient. (On the other hand, an archive file includes extra deck information that a plain-text card list lacks.)
In the Deck Exporter, if you click the “Export as Text Document” button, then a dialog box appears. It lets you choose to save either your currently open deck alone, or every deck you’ve got stored in the app into one text document. It gets saved on your device to wherever your web browser puts downloads.
If you have a printer, you can produce your deck’s card lists on paper and ink directly from MTG Carpenter. To do so, click the “Print” button in the Deck Exporter. It opens your web browser’s standard print dialog box, where you can select a printer and the print settings.
When you print from the Deck Exporter, it automatically applies some basic styling to the card lists’ text. If your deck has a large total number of names, the printout will have the lists laid out into three adjacent columns, helping conserving paper.
Only if your deck’s chosen format is a Commander-style format, then the printout will include a “Commander” section. The card that appears there is the one that you’ve tagged with the star shape.
Whether the printout includes the list for your deck’s secondary card group depends on your deck’s format. If the secondary group is named Sideboard, then it’s included. If it’s named Considering, then it’s excluded.
If your deck has a long card list, you should print it in the portrait (not landscape) paper orientation. The list of a 100-card Commander deck can fit on one sheet of paper in common paper sizes like U.S. Letter or A4.