A Life Tracker for the Whole Table, and a Home for Your Pod

My pod has a running joke about our “second place” decks. There’s the Marchesa aikido deck, which spends the whole game turning everyone’s attacks back on each other. There’s Marisi, which goads the table into fighting. And there’s whatever Zedruu is. They never seem to win. But when the game ends, they always seem to be the last one standing next to the winner, one turn short. We’ve joked about it for a long time. We never actually knew whether it was true.

Then there’s the other elephant in the room: the slow guy. Every pod has one. Everyone knows who it is, except sometimes the slow guy. If you can’t think of who yours is, it might be you. You may be in denial.

Both arguments run on vibes. We wanted numbers. So we built a life tracker that keeps the whole game: who went out in what order and how, who won, and how long every single turn took. Now we have the data to dig in.

It’s live today, along with pods and the game log.

One phone, every seat

Open Play from the menu and put your phone in the middle of the table. Each player gets a panel that faces their edge of the phone, so everyone reads their own life total the right way up.

Each panel shows that player’s commander art, with the artist credited. Partners split the panel on a diagonal. The player whose turn it is glows in their colours. Life turns amber at 10 and red at 5. When someone goes out, their art fades to grey under an OUT stamp.

Tap the left side of your panel to lose life and the right side to gain it. Hold to count by 10. Commander damage gets its own full-screen sheet, turned to face you, with one row per opposing commander: their art, their player’s name and a big number. Your life drops as you add damage. A commander that has dealt you 18 turns red, because you’re three hits from losing. Poison, the Monarch and the Initiative are all there too.

A clock that only runs on your turn

Back to the slow guy. The turn timer settles it with numbers instead of sighs.

It works like a chess clock. Only the active player’s clock runs, and tapping Next turn passes it on. Every panel shows that player’s total time, and whoever is up also sees how long this turn has run. Nobody has to say “are you still thinking?” The clock says it for them.

Food arrives? Tap the game clock to pause. The whole board freezes under a Paused card until someone taps Resume, so a bumped phone can’t quietly change the game, and nobody’s clock runs while you’re eating.

Tables that don’t want a clock can turn it off at setup. The phone remembers.

The end of the game

When one player is left, the winner’s commander art fills the screen, with confetti in their colours and their name in big type. Below that:

• Life over the game: a line per player showing their life at the end of every turn. You can see exactly when the game turned.
• Turn times: each player’s average turn, the single longest turn (whose it was and in which round), and how long each round took. This is where the denial ends.
• Finishing order: who went out when, and how. “Out T7, 21 commander damage.”
• How did it end? Combat, combo, commander damage, alt-win, concession. Optional, one tap.

Then tap Rematch to sit the same players down again in the same seats, or Exit to open the game and rate it.

Every game saves itself

Each saved game keeps the players, decks, commanders, winner, end turn, finishing order, how each player went out and everyone’s turn times. Everyone who played and has an Icarian account gets a notification and sees the game in their history. Each player can rate how fun it was, from 1 to 5.

Every time Marchesa finishes one spot behind the winner, it’s in there. Every 40-minute turn is in there too. Each of your decks also shows you its played record, with games, wins, win rate, the turn your games usually end and your average fun. Not playing with the tracker? You can still log a game by hand in about 30 seconds.

Pods: your playgroup, on Icarian

A pod is the group you play Commander with. Create one, name it after your night (“Thursday Night Commander”), and add people. Friends on Icarian join by username. Friends who aren’t get added by name (“Sarah from the LGS”), and when they sign up, a claim link moves every game they’ve played onto their account.

Pods are private. Only the people in them can see them. A pod page shows its recent games, each member’s games and wins, and the pod’s most fun decks. When you start the tracker, pick your pod and your table is a few taps from ready. It even remembers the commanders your friends have played, so you don’t have to search for them every week.

No account needed to play

Anyone can open the tracker and use it, signed in or not. You only need an account to save the game. If you’re signed out when you tap Rematch or Exit, you sign in or sign up first, and the game waits on your phone until you’re back.

Set it up before your next game night. Settle the second place argument. Find out who your slow guy is.

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