Deck import is the step where first-timers stall, and it is almost always one of three things: the wrong export format, set codes the parser was not expecting, or not realising the commander has to be chosen. All three take under a minute to fix once you know what you are looking at. This guide is written against EDHMat, which I build, but the text-export part applies to every browser tabletop.
The short version
- Export your deck as plain text — one line per card,
quantity name. - Paste it into the table's deck box.
- Pick your commander from the legends it found.
- Lock it in.
That is the whole process. The rest of this page is what to do when a step misbehaves.
Getting the text out of your deck builder
Moxfield
Open the deck and use its export/download option, then take a plain text export rather than a format aimed at a specific game client. What you want looks like this:
1 Sol Ring
1 Arcane Signet
1 Command Tower
10 Forest
Moxfield's text exports often carry set codes and collector numbers, like 1 Sol Ring (LTC) 284. That is fine — the trailing part is stripped. What matters is that the card name comes right after the quantity.
Archidekt
Archidekt has a text export in the same place, producing the same shape.
Or skip the export entirely: paste the deck's URL into the deck box. EDHMat fetches public Archidekt decks server-side, which saves the round trip through the export menu. The deck has to be public — a private deck returns "not found", which is a permissions problem rather than a typo.
Moxfield URLs do not work this way, and that is not an oversight I plan to fix: Moxfield's API sits behind Cloudflare and blocks server-side fetches, so a URL paste would fail for everyone in a confusing way. Text paste is the path that works there, and it works fine.
MTG Arena
Arena's deck export is already the right shape. Paste it as-is. Sideboard and companion sections are ignored rather than counted.
A list you typed yourself
Perfectly fine. Quantities are optional — a bare list of names counts each line once:
Sol Ring
Arcane Signet
Command Tower
Nothing here needs an account. Open a table, paste, and you will see immediately whether the list resolves. Open a table in one click →
When a card does not resolve
The import tells you which lines it could not identify and lets you fix them or continue without them. The usual suspects:
Typos. Card names are matched fuzzily against Scryfall, so small misspellings usually survive. "Lightening Bolt" and its cousins can still miss.
Double-faced cards. Write the front face, or the full Front // Back. A back face alone will not resolve.
Split and adventure cards. Fire // Ice works. So does Fire, usually.
Tokens and emblems in the list. Some builders export a token section. Those are not deck cards; drop the lines. Tokens are generated at the table from your deck anyway.
Cards from your own head. Custom or unreleased cards do not exist in Scryfall and will not resolve. Nothing to be done except substitute.
You can always continue without an unresolved line and deal with it later — every card in your library is reachable through library search during the game.
Picking the commander
If your export marks a commander section, it is used. If it does not — and plain text exports usually do not — every legendary creature in the list is offered and you choose.
- Pick one for a normal deck.
- Pick two for partners, or a commander plus a background.
- The picked cards start in the command zone; everything else goes to the library.
This is also why a hundred-card list arrives as a hundred cards and not a hundred and one: the commander is removed from the library when you pick it, not counted twice.
About the printing you get
A card can have thirty printings, and which one shows up on your table had to be somebody's decision.
Scryfall's default printing of a card is its newest one. Left alone, that means a crossover set reprinting a staple takes over the table — in one of our playtest games, Command Tower came up in its Marvel Super Heroes printing, Nick Fury flavour text and all. So EDHMat scores every printing and serves the plainest available one: Universes Beyond, joke sets, promos, Secret Lairs, textless and digital-only printings all lose to an ordinary printing. A card that only ever appeared in a strange set still resolves to it, because printings are ranked rather than filtered out.
The practical effect is that your table looks like Magic, and the card you are squinting at has readable rules text.
Once the deck is in
- The list is not saved to an account, because there is no account. Paste it again next time, or keep it in your deck builder, which is where it lives anyway.
- Tokens are prepared from the deck automatically, so the creatures your cards make are ready to place.
- Shuffling is real, and a shuffle re-keys every card in the library so nobody — including you — can follow a card through it.
Next
Frequently asked questions
How do I export a deck from Moxfield?
Open the deck, use the export or download option, and choose a plain text export. You get one line per card as “quantity name”, which is what virtual tabletops read.
How do I export a deck from Archidekt?
Archidekt has a text export in its export menu. You can also paste the deck’s URL into EDHMat directly — public Archidekt decks are fetched by the server, so you skip the export step entirely.
Why did a card not resolve?
Usually a typo, a set-code suffix the parser did not expect, or a double-faced card written with only one face. Fix the line and re-import, or continue without it and fetch it from the library search later.
How does a virtual tabletop know which card is my commander?
If the export marks a commander section, that is used. Otherwise every legendary creature in the list is offered as a candidate and you pick — one, or two for partners.