Creating and Populating a Deck or Collection

The following tasks describing how to create and populate a Deck. For collection use same procedure but replace word Deck with word Collection (until end of the turn).

Create a new Deck

To create a deck:
  • Open a Card NavigatorView by clicking on its header.
  • Select a parent Deck folder.
  • Select New...-> Deck from the context menu (Right click).
  • Type a name of the deck in the Name field. Click Finish.
    • Empty deck will be automatically open.

    Populate a deck from printed cards

    This is procedure of how to populate a deck from the printed cards deck. If you have your deck in electronic format you may choose to use a deck import instead.

    To populate a deck.

  • Open a new empty deck, by double clicking on it in the Card NavigatorView. Deck view should open in the top part of the window
  • Activate a MTG Database View. It should open in the bottom of the window. If deck and database view overlap each other drag one or another up to make sure they arrange properly.
  • Activate Card Info view to see card image. It should be on the left
  • If your deck is made from limited number of sets, it is better to select them in the filter, to simplify the search. To do that click on Filter button on the view header (Or select Filter... from view or context menu), switch to Set Filter on the left and select one or more sets.
  • Now type Ctrl-F or select Find... from the view menu (triangle button in the view header). Search panel will be open.
  • Type name of card in the search field, you don't have to type whole name, search would show up cards as you type. If card name consists of several words, you can type only first letters of each word in capital letters, for example to find "Shield of the Righteous" type SOTR in the search field. If it is not your card you can keep typing until full name is typed or press Enter to cycle through search results.
  • If you have filter by sets enabled and card is not found, it may be because by default database contains only latest print of the same card, if you want exact set for you card you need to update database with this set. See Updating database.
  • When card is found press "+" button (or select "Add to Active Deck" from context menu or Drag a card to your deck). Card will be added to your deck.
  • If you want to enter number of cards (card count) you can either press "+" several times to achieve needed number, or double click on card in the deck and edit count of cards directly. You also can edit count in the Count cell itself.

    • Sideboard

    If you have sideboard it is stored in the separate list. To bring it up use Open Sideboard action from toolbar or view menu of Deck view. Drag and drop cards to sideboard from other sources same as for main deck. If you want to see sideboard and main deck at the same time drag sideboard view to the bottom (and have main on the top). Sideboard is linked the the main deck, tabs like Legality and Export are also looking at sideboard cards (while tabs like Mana Curve don't). Operations like deck Rename or Delete will also affect its sideboard.

    Populate a deck from the cards in the collection

    First you need to decide which method you will be using. Virtual deck or Real deck. If you will be copying cards from your collection - it will be virtual deck. If you will be moving cards to the new deck it will be real. For the later if you don't like it - you can move it back to your collection. For virtual deck right now there is no tool support to actually "materialize it" (i.e. move cards from collections to a virtual deck automatically).
  • If you are going with virtual you need to create a virtual deck, follow intriction from Create a new deck but before finishing deck creation check "Virtual" checkbox. Virtual means you don't actually have the cards or these are copies of the cards you have.
  • Next you open My Cards View and filter the locations you want to use, for example you don't want to disassemble your existing decks don't select them in a filter.
  • You can use search or other filters as in previous task (of populating deck from db view)
  • For virtual deck when card is found you either drag and "copy" drop it into new deck (be carefull if you don't "copy" drop it will just move the card!) or use "Copy To" action in the context menu. For real deck - you move the card ("drag and drop" or "Move To" menu).

    Populate a deck using import

    Importing from text format

    If you have a deck content in an electronic form you can import it using Deck import. Select a new empty deck and select Import... from a context menu (right click menu). Select a file or clipboard option and press Next. Select "Deck Classic" as a format. You will see a preview of your deck import. Click Finish to finish the importing.

    Example 1 (Deck Classic, Count last): 

    Diabolic Tutor (Tenth Edition) x4
Quagmire Druid x 3

    Example 2 (Deck Classic, Count first): 

    4 x Diabolic Tutor 
3 x Quagmire Druid

    Importing from csv format or excel

    If you have you cards in excel you can import them in the Magic Assistant deck or collection. To do that, first rename the columns to match these name exactly: 
    ID,NAME,COST,TYPE,POWER,TOUGHNESS,ORACLE,SET,RARITY,DBPRICE,LANG,COUNT,PRICE,COMMENT,LOCATION,CUSTOM,OWNERSHIP
    This is actually Magic Assistant CSV export format. The only columns which are used are NAME, SET and user data such as COUNT, PRICE and COMMENT. All columns except NAME does not have to be present. Export data from excel into .csv file with "," or "|" separator and import it into Magic Assistant. When importing select "CSV" format (or Table Piped for "|"). Check "Data has a header row" checkbox. Without header row columns has to be exact in the order as above. Preview would show if format is matching. There is way to edit some import problems right in the import wizard.

    Example 3 (CSV format, no header row): 

    ,Diabolic Tutor,,,,,,Tenth Edition,,,,4,1.99,Signed by Artist,
,Quagmire Druid,,,,,,Apocalypse,,,,2,0.15,,
,Swamp,,,,,,Tenth Edition,,,,16,0.15,,
    Example 4 (CSV format, header row): 
    ID,NAME,COST,TYPE,POWER,TOUGHNESS,ORACLE,SET,RARITY,DBPRICE,LANG,COUNT,PRICE,COMMENT,LOCATION,CUSTOM,OWNERSHIP
129525,Diabolic Tutor,{2}{B}{B},Sorcery,,,Search your library for a card and put that card into your hand. Then shuffle your library.,Tenth Edition,Uncommon,1.99,,4,0.0,,,,false
27188,Quagmire Druid,{2}{B},Creature - Zombie Druid,2,2,"{G}, {T}, Sacrifice a creature: Destroy target enchantment.",Apocalypse,Common,0.15,,2,0.0,,,,false
129757,Swamp,,Basic Land - Swamp,,,[B],Tenth Edition,BasicLand,0.15,,16,0.0,,Decks/Thrull Breader & Demon.xml,,false
    Note that for CSV format if field has "," it is it has to be in quotes.

    Piped Table format is the same as CSV but using | as separator and ignoring the quotes.

    Example 5 (Table Piped format, no header row): 

    |Diabolic Tutor||||||Tenth Edition||||4
|Quagmire Druid||||||Apocalypse||||2
    Example 6 (Table Piped format, header row): 
    NAME|SET|COUNT
Diabolic Tutor|Tenth Edition|4
Quagmire Druid|Apocalypse|2