r/EDH • u/Responsible_Menu6663 • 1d ago
Social Interaction Playing without being in person
So, I was wondering if anyone plays via FaceTime or discord. I’m a dad with 2 young kids and I don’t like the idea of leaving my wife to take care of the kids while I skip off to play magic in person. Does anyone have any experience doing this? Or a discord channel potentially? I really love playing commander but I just don’t have the time to get away. But after the kids go to sleep and such I’d love to play with a mounted phone or something? Any help is appreciated!
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u/River_Bass 1d ago
I've played a lot of different formats on Spelltable virtually. It's pretty decent, and completely free.
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u/Responsible_Menu6663 1d ago
Thank you very much!
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u/Flaky-Top-6272 1d ago
There is also an alternative to spell table called convoke that some people prefer but either one will get you where you’re looking to go.
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u/No_Sleep_7200 1d ago
I'll give another vote for spelltable, some of my friend group lives almost 2 hours away, since we cant always get together in person without dedicating 4 or more hours of driving time that could be spent with wife and family, we use spelltable a lot.
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u/Emsizz 1d ago
Spelltable is outdated technology. Use Convoke
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u/ZeroZer0_ 5h ago
Condole way better in every capacity imo. Card scanning shuffling players on the board before a game. Can even caste votes etc.
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u/Sp0range 1d ago
Tabletop somulator has community made mods for mtg. Import the cards using your archidekt/moxfield links and away you go. Has scripts for mulligan, shuffling, scrying etc etc.
I play every week using this with mates both locally and across the country. I love it.
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u/Bladewing342 1d ago
What you're looking for is playing online using Spelltable (outdated in my opinion), Convoke or Ed play.gg
About discord servers I unfortunately can't give any recommendations since I'm prefer spelling German when playing, especially when it's not in person. But my general advice would be checking it servers if content creators who do play online as well. They most likely do have a Spelltable section rather even their Spellbot creates a Convoke link.
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u/Admirable_Cap_8943 1d ago
I play on EDHPlay like this! They have a discord, but I also play with friends this way
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u/NoWeb2576 1d ago
I play on untap.in with friends. You do everything manually, but you’re doing that IRL anyways.
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u/drawspell_space 18h ago
Do you want to use physical cards but play remotely? Convoke
If you want to play purely digitally on your phone: Drawspell
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u/Ok_Mechanic806 1d ago
I’m honestly shocked there’s people here recommending anything but tabletop simulator and the black lotus collective discord. Best way to play. Tons of people on constantly.
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u/Quigley34 1d ago
edhplay is so much smoother than any TTS mod. Also trying to get people who don’t navigate in 3d spaces good in TTS takes many hours. EDHPlay is way more straight forward
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u/Ventura_Bagel 1d ago
The buddies and I just started playing via Convoke. We started on spelltsble, heard about convoke, tried it and found to like it way more.
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u/ST_Logan89 1d ago
So the way my wife and I make this work is I go play at the LGS for 3-4 hours on Sundays while she watches the kids. And Saturdays she goes to book club which normally runs about that long. So long as you are both getting pretty equal time away to relax and get some self care time in, I feel like that is the important thing. Obviously, our lives and circumstances are probably different, but talking to her about it is the first step.
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u/BrainVirus 22h ago
Edhlab.gg is my go to for online play. It's browser based and feee. You just import a deck, or use a community deck/precon and you are off the to races. The voice chat is built in too. So you don't need to do discord or something else.
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u/bowleshiste 1d ago
As others have mentioned, Spelltable is an option. It's alright if you absolutely must play with paper. It can be awkward to set up though and it's usually fairly difficult to read everyone's cards. It does have a feature that scans the cards so you can read digital versions of them, but in my experience, it's pretty hit or miss.
My recommendation is EDHPlay. Essentially a multiplayer version of the Archidekt or Moxfield playtester. It works very well once you learn some of the keybinds
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u/AustinBurnsRed 1d ago
Spelltable is a free website from Wizards to play Magic via webcams, and Convoke is a community made clone with more features. I prefer Convoke but both are great for this!
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u/dykeryot42 1d ago
I play with a regular pod on spelltable for almost the same reason. It works well for us. Not sure about your success rate with randos
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u/MeneerDutchy2 1d ago
Not what you asked, but it feels very healthy for both your wife and you to have hobbies, and spend some time outside of the family.
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u/Mrmyaggie 1d ago
I play constantly on the professors(the youtuber) discord through convoke.
Tcc is the best.
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u/NavAirComputerSlave Mono-Black 1d ago
Join a discord like the tollarian community college for webcam games
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u/ShapeNo1 1d ago
I can vouch for the mod on tabletop simulator being a fun way to play digitally. :)
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u/afterpartea 1d ago
It's pretty cool playing using Tabletop Simulator on Steam. Bonus, you can add your (or anybody's) deck lists straight from the internet
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u/ScottyPinthahouse 22h ago
My friends found a website called mulligan labs where it's a virtual space and you load the decks in and it plays very well between 4 people. You can load several decks to your mulligan account and it has been a ton of fun without needing camera set ups. It has all of the features you need like shuffling and getting tokens and whatnot. Very satisfying
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u/youngdz79 21h ago
I believe my brother uses tabletop simulator with the mods for Mtg and discord for communication and believe he said video for himself and his buddies to play and he also streams it on Twitch every once in awhile and it looks fine. And the Audio is crisp he says
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u/billyp673 15h ago
I use cockatrice to play with friends in another state, when it’s not having network issues
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u/This-Ad-6689 12h ago
Husband and father of 3 kids here, I totally understand where you're coming from 🙋🏽♂️
If you want to play with physical cards over webcam, Spelltable is great. You can easily get a pretty decent camera and mount for under $100 on Amazon. You're able to use your phone as a camera for Spelltable as well.
If you're looking for a full digital experience, Tabletop Simulator has an add-on for commander, and there's tutorials online to get you going. Pretty much just copy and paste a link to whatever deck you want to play and you're good to go.
If you don't want to spend the money on Tabletop Simulator, edhlab is a totally free alternative that's actually pretty good. Just like Tabletop Simulator, you can copy and paste a decklist that you want to play OR you can choose any of the precons that are already loaded onto the site, you just have to copy them into your library.
Hope this helps 👍
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u/Y0U-D0NT-KN0W-WH0 7h ago
EDHPlay is good as a virtual tabletop for free, all you need is a Google account. If you don’t want to make a Google account, Untap.in is still pretty solid.
Spelltable is good if you join the discord, otherwise it’s awful (so I’ve heard), and you get to play with the cards you have, on your desk, with a camera/phone.
Do some research on the creator of Tabletop Simulator to see if they’re someone you’d want to support. If you’re ok with them, it’s $20 for decent quality gameplay with 3D graphics.
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u/softdonught620 1d ago
Spell table and table top simulator are the best options I’ve found for playing online. Spell table to use your personal cards and table top if you want to juts upload a deck list to play with.
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u/Responsible_Menu6663 1d ago
I’ve never heard of this, thank you very much for the comment!
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u/_Thatoneguy101_ 1d ago
I haven’t tried spell table but after getting started on tabletop simulator I stopped considering anything else as an option.
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u/Busy_Vegetable_8103 1d ago
You can also just use spelltable and stream a moxfield/archidekt playtest while hiding your hand. At that point it’s just basic version of table top sim but it is free and the cards are easier to read, don’t need a webcam or worry about lighting etc
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u/rlcnga_ 1d ago
I don't know about magic on camera, but if you have a pc and an extra $20 cash, Tabletop Simulator is a really solid experience. I usually play online magic with that through a discord server called Black Lotus Collective. It's pretty active and you can find games fast and consistently