Deck Builder & Free Form View

The Deck tab of the Builder is where a list becomes a deck. This chapter covers how cards move around it and also reviews the Free Form view in detail.

Four Ways to See the Deck

The toggle beside the search field switches between views. All four show the same deck; only the presentation changes.

The sort control next to the toggle (Type, Mana Value, Color, Tag, Set, Rarity, and more) groups the first three views. In Free Form the similar groupings are available as Arrange presets from the toolbar.

Moving Cards Around

ArcaneMetriX is drag-and-drop throughout on desktop:

• Search → Deck: drag a card from the Search panel and drop it on the deck list to add it. Drop it on the Sideboard or Maybeboard section to add it there instead.
• Deck → Sideboard / Maybeboard: pick up a card from the deck and phantom drop strips appear for the other lists. Drop on one to move a copy there; drop on the Delete strip to remove a copy.
• Command zone: in Commander formats, dropping a legendary creature (or any card that can lead a deck) on the command zone makes it the commander. Cards that cannot lead a deck are refused with a message.
• Search → Playtest: while Playtesting, cards from Search can be dropped straight onto the battlefield; dropping one on the Deck Notepad inserts a link to it.
• Touch: on phones and tablets the same moves work with press-and-hold, and a floating preview follows your finger.

Every card also has a right-click context menu (long-press on touch) with the same moves, plus tags, highlights, and “Open card details”.

Undo, Redo and Quick Save

Every edit to the deck is tracked as an action and can be undone.

Undo and Redo are also in the command bar’s overflow menu, between Share and Layout & Sort. Quick-save needs you to be signed in; the full Save button opens the Deck Saved dialog where you can rename the deck, change its format, copy a share link or post it, playtest it, or create a snapshot (if PRO).

Note

A save is refused while any Free Form sticky note contains explicit language; the note is badged Can’t save, and the message names it. Edit the note and save again.

Card Suggestions

The Suggest button in the toolbar opens the suggestion strip: a row of cards the intelligence engine believes fit the deck you’re building, each with a plain-language reason (“Pairs with Bitterblossom: turns every token into two cards”). Deck cards named in the reason are clickable, and hovering a tile shows the full list of interactions it enables. Add puts the card straight into the deck; the × dismisses a suggestion for the session.

For Commander decks, the Bracket target selector keeps suggestions inside the bracket you’re building toward; no Game Changers past the bracket’s cap, no forbidden categories, and no cards whose raw power would push the deck’s estimate above your target. This also shapes the suggestions’ character too: cEDH targets lean into cheap ramp, efficient repeatable draw, low-cost interaction and combo pieces, while low brackets favor fun, thematic picks. The choice is remembered per deck.

Suggestions are entirely optional. Hide the strip (the Hide button or the toolbar toggle) and the choice persists. While hidden, the builder makes no suggestion requests at all.

The Free Form View

Free Form is the fourth view: the whole deck on one table, with the Command Zone, Sideboard and Maybeboard as boxes on that table. It exists for two kinds of people; the builder thinking through a list with cards spread out, and the streamer or content creator showing a deck to an audience. The arrangement is saved with the deck, so it is there next session and travels with a public share as a visual primer.

Getting around

The controls are the same as Playtest’s battlefield:

• Drag the background to pan. Scroll to zoom about the pointer, or use the − / % / + control (click the percentage to reset). The fit button (or F hotkey) fits everything on screen, and the view always opens fitted.
• Click a card to select it. Ctrl/Cmd-click or Shift-click adds to the selection. Shift-drag across the table draws a marquee that selects everything it crosses including cards, notes, frames, arrows and widgets.
• Drag a card to move it. Dragging a selected card moves the whole selection together.
• Right-click anything for its menu; right-click empty table for the table’s own.
• Double-click a card to open its details, or open the context menu and select “Open card details”

Piles

Copies of the same card stack exactly on top of one another and wear a count badge, like the Stack view. Drop a copy within one grid cell of its twin and it squares itself up on the pile automatically. Tidy snaps everything to the grid and squares up any near-piles. Stack and Spread act on the selection (two or more cards).

Zones

The Command Zone, Sideboard and Maybeboard are boxes you can drag by their header and resize by their corner. Dropping a card inside one moves it to that list of the deck; dragging it out onto the open table brings it back to the main deck. A zone’s menu offers Select everything here, Tidy into a grid, Move all to main deck and Remove all.

Annotating the table

Beside the Note button on the toolbar are the tools that turn a layout into a primer. They all go under the pointer when it is over the table (or the center of the view), always on a clear patch of table so nothing you have arranged is disturbed, and the view scrolls to show what you just added.

Everything is an object in the same selection: select any mix, then move, nudge with the arrow keys, color it from the toolbar swatches, Duplicate (Ctrl/Cmd + D), Delete, or Bring to front from the context menu. Arrows paint above everything by default so they can point at notes and widgets.

Note

A table holds up to 100 notes, frames, arrows and widgets in total. This keeps a deck’s saved data small; the toolbar tells you when the table is full.

Highlights and spotlight

With cards selected, the toolbar shows six highlight colors. Spotlight dims everything except the current selection to highlight specific cards during presentation.

Presenting

Present (or P) fills the screen with the table on a clean surface, collapses the tools into a floating strip, and shows whatever card is under the pointer large beside the table with its text so viewers can read along. Double-faced cards show the face that is up; split, adventure and other multi-mode cards show every mode. The filter bar is available while presenting, and card details and the Stats explainers open on top of the stage.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcuts apply while the Free Form view is on screen and you are not typing in a note or caption.

On desktop the deck’s controls are one row at the top of the pane, the command bar. It never wraps: as the pane narrows it drops labels for glyphs, folds the counts down to numbers, and finally moves its controls into the overflow menu at the right, where Layout & Sort is always available. See The Desktop Workspace.

Saving and sharing

The table saves with the deck. Ctrl/Cmd + S or the Save button includes every card’s place, the zone boxes, notes, frames, arrows, widgets and paint order, all stored compactly. A public deck shows its table to everyone who opens it when it is public as a way to create visual primers for players. Reset throws the arrangement away and deals the deck out by type again.