Scan your collection instead of typing it

Capture cards with your phone or webcam: single scans, series mode for whole stacks, and the tricks that make recognition reliable.

Entering a collection by hand is the most thankless job in the whole hobby: look at the card, search the name, search the set, tick it off. A few hundred times over. With the card scanner you hold the card up to the camera and confirm the match instead. For Magic, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Lorcana, One Piece, Star Wars: Unlimited, Riftbound, Flesh and Blood, Digimon, Gundam and Dragon Ball Super Fusion World, on your phone just as well as on a computer with a webcam.

What you need

An account on TCG-Completist and a camera. That is all. On a phone use the rear camera, on a computer a webcam; if you have neither, you can also pick an existing photo. Recognition runs on our server, so there is nothing to install.

One card at a time, or a whole stack

The scanner has two modes:

• Single: you scan one card, check image, set and number and add it straight away, with finish (normal or foil), language and quantity.
• Series: every unambiguous match goes onto a pile right away. You scan card after card without confirming in between, then calmly fix finish, language and quantity at the end, and add the whole pile to your collection in one go.

Series mode is the one for capturing a collection that has grown over the years: show a card, tap the picture, next card. Scan the same card twice and the pile simply counts it up instead of creating a second entry.

How to make recognition reliable

The server locates the card in the camera image, straightens it and compares title, info line and artwork against the card database. Four things decide whether that works first time:

• Scan without a sleeve. The most common reason for wrong matches. Reflections on sleeves blow out exactly the parts that matter. The card name and the artwork. If the scanner detects strong glare, it tells you.
• Light from the side. A lamp directly behind you is mirrored in the card. Some light from the side, or tilting the card slightly, solves it.
• Whole card in frame, ideally on a white background. A sheet of printer paper under the card works wonders: on a bright, plain surface the scanner finds the card edges at once and straightens the card cleanly. The card may sit at an angle, but it should be fully visible.
• Set the card language. At the top you choose which language the card is printed in. That steers the text recognition and at the same time decides which language the card is filed under in your collection. Why that matters is explained in Understanding card languages.

When several cards fit

Some artworks exist more than once. The scanner then shows you the candidates instead of guessing:

• Magic: the same artwork appears in several printings. The scanner also compares frame and set symbol; if it stays ambiguous, pick your printing by the set symbol next to the collector number.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: the same card sits in dozens of sets with identical artwork. Here the set code below the artwork on the right decides (on pendulum cards at the bottom left of the pendulum box), e.g. LOB-EN001. Just pick it from the list.
• Pokémon: the collector number at the bottom of the card usually settles it.

Whether you file a card as normal or foil is your call. The scanner cannot tell that from the picture reliably.

When nothing is found at all

The page then offers you a field for the card name, type it in and search from there. That is also the quickest route for heavily played, dirty or oddly lit cards.

Below the result there is also a small diagnostics box showing what the server read: recognised title, info line, sharpness, glare, and a scan ID. If something is consistently recognised wrongly, tell us that ID; it lets us trace the case.

What happens to the camera image

The image is sent to our server for recognition and processed there. It is not stored. It serves only to identify the card. Scanning is free and not limited in volume.

Very large collections

If your cards are already recorded in another app or as a list (ManaBox, Delver Lens, Deckbox or a Cardmarket export, say), the import is the faster route: upload one file instead of scanning a thousand cards. The scanner plays to its strengths where no list exists: the shoebox collection, new arrivals and working through piles of duplicates.

After that it carries on as usual: open the set, see the gaps, buy what is missing, as described in Completing a set step by step.

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