Magic: The Gathering Portal Limited Beta is Coming

Wizards of the Coast

Magic: The Gathering is finally getting an official companion app for your phone to help players keep in touch with their playgroup, track their life totals, look up information such as game mechanics, and find sanctioned Magic tournaments near you. According to Wizards of the Coast, even though they had hoped to launch the limited beta test when Guilds of Ravnica comes out on October 5, Portal is still not ready and they're still working on polishing its quality.

"With Guilds of Ravnica releasing on October 5, inside that product you'll see some advertisements for MTGPortal encouraging you to try out the app," DailyMTG content manager Blake Rasmussen said. "At the time we commissioned those ads, we were optimistic about the timing of the app and went ahead and included those advertisements in the product. We were very excited to launch the new way to interact with Magic alongside a new Standard rotation and a return to one of our most popular planes."

It's good to hear that they're taking their time to develop the official companion app for Magic.

Check out the list of features from WOTC below:

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.

No release date has been announced for Magic: The Gathering Portal yet.

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