Magic: The Gathering is Getting Its Own Official Companion App

Who needs a pen, paper, and Boogie Boards when you can use an official app that counts life and does a lot more?

Wizards of the Coast showed their love for Magic: The Gathering players by giving them the gift of announcements about their future products and an official companion app. It's called Magic: The Gathering Portal (not to be confused with the Magic starter sets) and it's capable of " tracking life and counters, managing and inviting friends to home tournaments, looking up rules, and so much more."

The companion app is packed with useful features that will allow players to:

Create, manage, and track home tournaments complete with pairings, invitations for friends, brackets, and playgroup stats. Want to run a massive Commander play-day at home? We've got you covered. Itching to test out eight Modern or Standard decks with friends? Set up a tournament, invite friends, and keep track of the results. All from your phone.

Look up card information on the fly, including searchable rules databases for card rulings, keywords, and mechanics, all streamlined for showing your friends that, yes, Fungusaur is indeed a Dinosaur now.

Keep track of life totals as well as wins and losses across multiple devices to show just how you stack up against your friends. Think you're the best in your playgroup? Find out. Looking to improve your record over time? Watch as those 1-2 records turn into 3-0s. Or just claim bragging rights when you finally grab your playgroup's win-loss crown from the local ringer.

Stay up-to-date on Magic news with a customizable hub. You can focus your feed to read just about what you want—whether that's news from the very people who make the game, updates to the official Magic story, or results from the latest Pro Tour. As much or as little news as you like will be right there at your fingertips.

Keep in touch with your playgroup through social linking that lets you invite friends to events, simultaneously track life totals, and manage a friend list.

Learn more about Magic through access to video tutorials, glossaries, and rule lookups. New players can learn together, and experienced players can settle rules disputes with a flip of their phone.

Last month, it was announced that players will no longer be able to use dice to keep track of life at competitive REL events. A lot of players complained about that but now, I'm glad that Wizards of the Coast is offering an alternative to the classic pen-and-paper.

The new app will be available for iOS and Android phones, and it will be available in all languages in which Magic publishes cards. The app is expected to release sometime in 2018.

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