Carbon - MTG Utility 4+

I like the interface. I look the look. It’s very intuitive. But I’m upset I bought this app for $5. I did want the death icon and the monarchy, but for some reason I was under the impression that you can preset game types. I WANT TO PRESET GAME TYPES!!!

That’s what I thought history was. I thought I could set up a commander game and then save it so I don’t have to always be putting commander counters at set up. I also want to preset regular games so I always opened at the same two colors.

For future updates, it would also be cool if the history logged into a player database the user provided so you can keep track of either points or kills or whatever so we can set up leagues and keep track with our phone.

While the default life counter app in the official MTG companion app is actually pretty good, this app steps it up by giving additional customization options and a cleaner interface. So, I definitely recommend giving this app a try and I do believe that the additional $4 to unlock everything is reasonable. However, I have one major issue with this app that prevents me from giving it a full 5 stars.

For Commander games, I wish there was a way to keep track of whose commander dealt damage to who. Player 1 might have dealt 2 commander damage to me, but there is no way I can also show that Player 2 dealt 3 commander damage to me as well. While this can be mitigated by having dice, I think having dice defeats the point of having an app like this.

For other MTG formats and 2 player Commander games though, this app truly shines. As I mentioned earlier, the way things are presented is so much more appealing than the one in the MTG companion app that its my primary choice for Standard, Pioneer, Modern, etc. I just hope in the near future, they address the one issue I present here so I can have a better experience for Commander.

I love this app. It’s very responsive, clean and intuitive. Customization such as colors and settings isn’t lacking. It has some helpful tools. But it’s not quite complete in my opinion.

I wish I could give this a 4.5. A few things that would make this a 5 star for me: The ability to keep track of damage from multiple commanders (instead of just one, it’s kind of useless with 3+ player commander games), and secondly, the damage history (log) is also kind of useless. If I take 3 damage and I’m at 37 life, the history will just show -1 -1 -1 instead of showing -3. This makes it impossible to track down damage that was done turns ago or maybe previous steps or phases. Other apps have a short timer with the button press that will consolidate the damage to a single number, such as -3. And a few other quality of life additions are always wanted.

Overall, this is one of a few great life counter apps on the App Store. And I would gladly give it a perfect score if this app continues to see support from its developers. Don’t stop supporting this app, it’s almost perfect!