iOS app for Magic: The Gathering players

Magic cards, in plain English.

Point your iPhone at any card. Plainswalker reads it, finds it, and explains what it actually does — ability by ability, in words you don't need a judge to translate.

iPhone · iOS 17+ · free · on-device AI summaries on supported iPhones

Live demo — a make-believe card, a real translation Hover any line →
Thornmarsh Sentinel 1GG
Creature — Treefolk Guardian
Vigilance, ward {2} Whenever another creature you control enters, put a +1/+1 counter on Thornmarsh Sentinel. {T}: Add {G}.
3 / 5
Plainswalker says

Thornmarsh Sentinel is a card we made up for this demo — but this is exactly how the app breaks down every real card it scans.

3,900
official rules, in your pocket
0
typing — just point your camera
0
ads, accounts, or data collected
100%
of the AI runs on your iPhone

What it does

From "what does this even do?" to "oh, that's neat."

Built for kitchen-table games, new players, and anyone drafted into "just one game" — because the fastest way to enjoy Magic is to understand the card in front of you.

Point, don't type

Live camera scanning reads the card's name right off the table. No camera handy? Scan a photo from your library instead — screenshots work too.

Search that forgives

Half-remembered names, creative spelling, "that lightning card" — fuzzy matching finds the card anyway. Or let Surprise me deal you a random one.

Every ability, one at a time

Each line of rules text is classified — keyword, triggered, activated, static — and translated on its own, so nothing blurs together.

Deathtouch
Any damage this deals to a creature is enough to destroy it.
{T}: Add {G}.
An activated ability — tap the card, get one green mana.
When this creature dies…
A triggered ability — happens automatically, you pay nothing.

Ask the rules anything

A patient judge in your pocket. Ask in plain English and on-device AI answers from the official Comprehensive Rules — the entire rulebook ships inside the app — citing the exact rules it used. Tap a citation to read the official text.

A glossary that speaks human

352 keywords, actions, and game terms from the latest Comprehensive Rules — searchable, browsable, and one tap away whenever a card mentions one.

In a nutshell ✨

On supported iPhones, Apple Intelligence sums up each card in a sentence or two — generated entirely on your device, grounded in the official definitions.

Nothing to set up

No account, no ads, no tracking. The camera reads card names and nothing else, and searches carry no identity — see the privacy label: "Data Not Collected."

Why trust it

It never invents a rule.

Rules explanations are only useful if they're right. So Plainswalker's breakdowns are generated from the game's actual Comprehensive Rules and keyword glossary — and when the on-device AI writes a summary or answers a rules question, it's handed the official text, told to stick to it, and made to show the rule numbers it used.

The same instinct runs the whole app: real rules text over vibes, on-device over cloud, and silence over guesswork.

RULES The ability-by-ability breakdownDeterministic, built from the Comprehensive Rules — works on every iPhone, even offline once a card is loaded
ON-DEVICE AI Summaries and rules answersApple Intelligence, grounded in the card's exact text and retrieved Comprehensive Rules excerpts — cited by number, never sent to a server
HONEST When Apple Intelligence isn't availableThe summary simply steps aside — no cloud fallback, no fake AI, and the rules breakdown carries the day

Under the hood

Three steps between a card and a lightbulb.

Plainswalker identifies cards by reading their names — no giant image database, no guessing from artwork.

01

Read the name

Apple's Vision framework picks the card's title off the frame — from the live camera on a table, or from any photo, at an angle, in bad kitchen lighting.

02

Find the card

The name goes to Scryfall, the community's card database, with fuzzy matching that shrugs off OCR quirks — and comes back as the exact card, every printing, every face.

03

Translate it

Each line of rules text is classified and rewritten in plain English, keywords get glossary cards, and on supported iPhones the on-device model adds a two-sentence summary.

Understand the card in front of you.

Plainswalker is coming to the App Store. Want in early — or first word when it ships? A one-line email does it.

iPhone · iOS 17+ · free · no account