Draw Simulator

User Guide

In MTG Carpenter, the Draw Simulator is a workspace mode where you test the process of drawing cards from your deck as a shuffled library (i.e., in a randomized order). This gives you insight into how your deck could play out during a game in Magic: The Gathering.

To activate the Draw Simulator mode, click the “Draw Simulator” tab in the mode menu, or press the 3 key while on a deck workspace page.

After a few rounds in the Simulator, it’s possible you may be disappointed in your deck’s draw results. You notice you keep getting too many lands, or not enough cheap spells, for example. In those cases, you can retreat to the List Editor mode anytime to replace cards as needed. The next time you use the Draw Simulator, your deck will be in its latest revision for testing.

The Draw Simulator contains the following elements, listed by the order of their positions on the page from top to bottom, left to right:

Draw button
Restart button
Cards Drawn statistic
“Exclude star-tagged cards” checkbox
Card list section
Card image section

Each of those elements is going to be explained in the next subchapters.

“Draw” Button

This button is how you take cards from your library during a testing round. The Draw button’s exact label and effect vary by certain conditions:

When you haven’t drawn any cards yet in the current round, the button’s label says “Draw Hand.” Click it to draw a full starting hand at once, which is normally 7 cards (according to Magic’s rules).
After drawing your starting hand, the button’s label changes to “Draw a Card.” Click it to draw 1 card at a time.
If you hold down the Shift key, then the button’s label changes to “Draw 20 Cards.” Click it to draw that many cards at once instead of the usual number. You can do this before or after your starting hand.

Alternatively, instead of clicking the Draw button, you can press the space bar (while you’re in the Draw Simulator) to do the same action.

The latest drawn card’s name appears at the top of the card list. If the card image section is visible on your device’s screen, then the drawn card’s image appears too.

You can keep drawing cards until your library is empty. (Once that happens, you can restart.)

“Restart” Button

Click this button, or press the R key, anytime to begin a new testing round. This means that all drawn cards are returned to your library, then your library is shuffled. (This all happens instantly.)

If you hold Shift while clicking the Restart button, then a starting hand is automatically drawn after shuffling.

“Cards Drawn” Statistic

This statistic shows two numbers: The first number, in a large font size, is how many cards you’ve drawn from your library since having started the current testing round. The second number, in a small font size, is how many cards your library originally has.

Your library contains all the cards from your deck’s primary card group. (Cards in the Sideboard/Considering group aren’t used in your library.) The “exclude star-tagged cards” option, when available and enabled, reduces your library’s total cards from the start of the testing round.

“Exclude Star-Tagged Cards” Checkbox

This is a checkbox that appears only when all three of these conditions are met:

Your deck’s format is Commander-style, “Other,” or undetermined.
Your deck’s primary card group includes at least one card with the tag of the star shape.
You haven’t drawn a card yet in the current testing round.

If the “exclude star-tagged cards” checkbox is present, then you may check it to prevent the possibility of drawing any starred cards during your tests. Or, have the checkbox unchecked to let every card be drawn, whether star-tagged or not.

This setting is intended to be enabled for decks in Commander and similar formats. Your deck’s commander is supposed to be the one and only card that has the star shape tag. Because Commander games always begin with your commander card outside your library, you shouldn’t want to draw it during tests in the Simulator.

Card List Section

This shows the record of the cards you’ve drawn in chronological order during the current round. The card list features card tags and card bars that work like those same elements in the List Editor.

Unlike the List Editor, however, the Draw Simulator lacks card quantity elements. This is because each item of the Draw Simulator’s card list always represents a single individual card rather than a card name of variable quantity. So, if your deck has a plural quantity of a particular card name, then the Simulator’s list will eventually repeat that name within a testing round.

A gap will always appear in the list between the 7th and 8th drawn cards. This gap distinguishes your opening hand from the rest of your deck.

Card Image Section

This works similarly to the List Editor’s card image section.

Other Notes About the Draw Simulator

The Draw Simulator performs only a simple simulation of card drawing in Magic. During a real game, you may eventually encounter an action that changes the order of the cards you’d draw—like searching your library for a card to take out from it, or returning an already drawn card to your library. Consider those possibilities when you use the Simulator.