Carbon - MTG Utility

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!

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.