We just published version 6.1 of MTG Tracker, and is all about casual formats.

We were the first ones to support EDH more than 3 years ago. Long before it got the name changed to Commander. We love casual formats, that’s why It was time to include some other formats that are getting more and more popular lately.

• Tiny Leaders is getting steam quickly, it is a smaller Commander mode with cards of converted mana cost of 3 or less, decks of exactly 50 card, 25 life points and no Commander damage. Check it out at the official site.
• Pauper is a format when you can only use commons. Very cheap to build, lots of fun. It has been a format for Magic Online for a while.
• Duel Commander is a modified version of Commander designed to play one-on-one. Different ban list and 35 life. Check the official site for details.

These formats have now a slot under the formats section, a deck type that checks for invalid cards and in the case of Tiny Leaders and Duel Commander, a game mode.

Also, business as usual, the latest set “Dragons of Tarkir” has been added to the app. The cards from “Duel Decks: Elspeth Vs Kiora” have been also added.

Enjoy.

MTG Tracker has been updating a lot, usually UI changes are made gradually, but sometimes they are big. This update is one of the big ones, and I want to take the chance to look back to all the journey.

MTG Tracker UI journey

The app started with a single screen with a life counter for 2 players. Nothing really flashy. New features were added as tabs, Mana Pool, then Stats, then Decks. Tabs were cool on the early days of mobile apps.

Then the ActionBar was presented, and with that, MTG Tracker moved to ActionBar + Dashboard. That is the other time the app had a considerable redesign.

Moving forward, and adding features, at some point the app had so many features that a Dashboard was not enough. Also, a new pattern was emerging: Menu Drawers. So, we added one, not a big change, but still important.

MTG Tracker with Material Design

And with this, we get to Material Design, the big push from Google with Lollipop. We are adopting quite some new patterns. An image is worth a thousand words.

Toolbar replaces ActionBar

The new toolbar has a more obvious drawer icon and the icon is removed from the bar, leaving some space for options and titles. It also has a very nice animation when opening the menu drawer.

There used to be a blue bar under the action bar for extra options on some screens. This is now part of the toolbar, giving am ore consistent look and feel.

Bonus points: Decks also have a Quick Return Header pattern, which hides part of the header when you scroll down and shows it again when you scroll up.

Floating Action Button

In most of the screens, there is a floating action button for the most prominent action (like add a new deck or add cards to a deck or a list).

Popup Menu replaces Quick Action Menu

The extra options for elements on a list were displayed with a quick action menu, which was cool when we started using it, but now everyone is moving to the popup menu with 3 dots, which is also more clean, so that has changed as well.

New simpler, cleaner icons

We also changed the icons of the home screen and the drawer to simpler, more clear versions of them.

Search is now an option on the menu drawer as well as in the main screen. It is much more accessible there than from the icon on the action bar.

Deck Edit is no more

Deck edit has disappeared. It was confusing and was not adding much value. The decks can be edited now at any time. As it was for Card Lists and Trades.

Something else?

I want to change some other parts of the user flow, but that will have to wait another update. No spoilers on that one.

But of course, there is a bit more:

• Added cards from Fate Reforged
• EDH banned list has been updated.
• Fixed a problem when adding the card “_______” to a deck or list.

It’s been a while since the app became version 5.X, hopefully this will be the last update before we move to 6.0, which will include material design.

But let’s focus on this release. Commander 2014 is about to hit the shelves and here is another update of MTG Tracker.

ChangeLog

• Added Commander 2014
• Added Duel Deck: Speed Vs. Cunning
• Improved filters on card lists (notice of filtering and option to clean the list)
• Fixed CMC sorting (cards with 10+ CMC were out of order)
• Fixed name of Valor, Call of the Herd & Altar of Dementia

Card Lists in detail

Until now, there was little to none information about if a list was being filtered or not, just the amount of cards displayed Vs. the total cards in the list.

In previous versions, the filter criteria was shared among card lists, which was a bug that has been solved. Now each card list has now its own criteria.

Also, filters are now cleared when you exit the card list. Before this version they were stored even among application runs, bringing lots of confusion. Combined with the previous bug, it was quite confusing. I hope to have solved all that issues.

Finally, there is a new easy & prominent way to clear the filter of a list as soon as some cards are being hidden by the filter.

Happy taping.

Another core set is here: Magic 2014 Core Set, and another update of MTG Tracker is here as well.

Apart from the new set, there are a few other improvements:

There is a new set coming out -Journey into Nyx- and as usual there is a new version of MTG Tracker, but it does not only add the cards from Journey Into Nyx and Duel Decks: Jace vs. Vraska, it also has some new features.

Multiple Card Lists

Many people was using collection and / or wishlist for keeping multiple lists by saving them and importing them again. That is quite inefficient, so now you can have as many card lists as you want.

Want a list for the top priority cards you want? What you have borrowed to someone? The cards in your Drafting Cube? Which ones you are willing to trade? The missing cards for a deck?

Now it is up to you, create a list, name it, and you can use it for whatever you want.

Playtest Improvements

Playtest is nice, but there was no way to keep track of what was tapped and what was untapped. For quick tests, you can track it in your head, but that is far from ideal.

From this version you can tap / untap the cards on the battlefield. And yes, they do untap when you click next turn.

Also, some people complained that they exited playtest by clicking back accidentally. For those cases there is a new setting to display a confirmation dialog before exiting. I know some people will love it.

Notes for Decks

Another feature requested many times is to add notes to decks. There is now a 3rd tab on each deck where you can keep your notes.

More options for prices

Card prices is one of the features people like. To save network traffic the prices are cached for 3 days, but when some cards get banned or unbanned prices may change quickly.

Since this version, you have new settings for how long you want to have the price cached (and to clean all prices manually) and the option to show Normal / Foil or Low / Avg / High (if the price provider has that).