The best MTG life counter apps in 2026, compared

A phone in the middle of the table replaced the spindown for most Commander groups years ago. The question is which app. They all add and subtract life; the differences are in commander damage, counters, how readable the screen is from four seats, and whether the app tries to sell you something mid-game.

We make Lotus, so this comparison is not neutral. We tried to make it fair anyway: every rating, price and feature below comes from the App Store, Google Play or the app’s own site as of October 2026, and we say where another app does something better.

What a good life counter needs

Before the apps, the checklist we used:

• Commander damage per opponent. A player who takes 21 combat damage from one commander loses, no matter their life total. The app should track every commander separately, partners included, since Tymna and Thrasios each count on their own. The commander damage guide covers the rule.
• Poison and the common counters. Ten poison counters kill. Commander tax, energy, experience and storm come up every week.
• Readable from every seat. In a four-player pod, two people read the phone upside down unless the layout rotates.
• Fast input. Big tap areas, a long press for steps of 10, no accidental changes when someone bumps the phone.
• No ads, works offline. Game stores have bad Wi-Fi, and nobody wants a video ad after a board wipe.

The apps at a glance

Ratings combine every App Store country and Google Play, with the number of ratings in brackets, as of October 2026.

Lotus

Lotus is the one to pick if you want everything in one place without paying for any of it. It has over 900,000 downloads and 4.7 stars from about 20,400 ratings across the App Store and Google Play, it runs in any browser at lifecounter.app, and the iOS and Android apps are the same counter. It’s completely free, with no ads, and our mission is to keep it free for every player, forever.

• Up to 10 players, with layouts that turn each card toward its seat.
• Commander damage for every commander at the table, partners included. Swipe a card sideways to deal it.
• Every counter: poison, commander tax, energy, experience, storm, rad, speed, mana and your own custom counters.
• Table-wide mechanics: the monarch, the initiative with its dungeon, and day/night.
• Game modes: Planechase, Archenemy, Bounty and Treachery built in.
• Card search with prices, format legality, printings and rulings, so rules questions get settled mid-game.
• Dice from d4 to d20, custom dice, coin flips, and High Roll to pick who starts.
• Turn tracker and game clock, with each player’s time per turn.
• Join / Create Game: everyone joins the same game from their own phone or tablet with a code or QR, no app or account needed. Any device can change any card, there is no host phone that has to stay in the game, and the next game starts on every device at once.
• Game history, recap links with a life graph to share after the game, and Cast to TV to put the game on a bigger screen.
• Your own look: player profiles, card-art or photo backgrounds (GIFs too), and custom victory and defeat messages.
• Works offline, speaks 11 languages, and an optional account keeps your profiles and history the same on every device.

Where it falls short: the timer only counts up (no countdown or chess clock yet) and there are no win-rate stats per deck.

Lifetap

Lifetap (App Store, Google Play) is a highly rated app: 4.9 stars from about 10,700 ratings across both stores, with 500K+ installs on Google Play. It’s free, with no ads and no account.

It handles 1–6 players with commander damage (partners too), poison, energy, experience, treasure, commander tax, mana, storm and the City’s Blessing, plus monarch, initiative and day/night. Planechase, Archenemy and Bounty are included. Two features set it apart: timers (stopwatch, an MTGO-style countdown and a chess clock that follows priority) and stats (a turn-by-turn log, win rates per deck, CSV export). Player backgrounds come from a library of 30,000+ card arts.

Its limits: six players at most, and no web version.

Mythic Tools

Mythic Tools (App Store, Google Play), formerly Legendary Lens, is a full Magic app with a life counter inside: an on-device card scanner, collection, deck builder and playgroups. It has 4.7 stars from about 21,100 ratings across both stores, most of them on Google Play.

The counter does 2–8 players, commander damage with partners, poison and other counters, monarch, initiative, day/night, Planechase, Archenemy, Two-Headed Giant, a Kingdoms-style hidden-role mode, best-of-three and a chess clock with Blitz. Every game is saved to playgroup stats, including win rate by seat.

The core is free with no ads. The paid parts are the Mythic+ subscription ($9.99 or $89.99) for its deck tools and life counter themes at $2.99–$5.99. The iOS download is about 680 MB because of the scanner, which is a lot if you only want a life counter.

Life Total

Life Total (App Store, Google Play) is a straightforward counter with 4.7 stars from about 13,700 ratings across both stores, most of them on the App Store. It covers 1–6 players, commander damage and tax, poison, generic counters, dice and backgrounds. It shows ads unless you pay $4.99 once to remove them.

Life Trinket

Life Trinket is a free, open-source web app at lifetrinket.com. There’s nothing to download from a store: you add it to your home screen and it works offline. It does 1–6 players with commander damage (partners included), poison, energy, experience, commander tax and the monarch, and a fun random-starting-player picker.

It’s deliberately small: no Planechase, Archenemy or day/night, no card art, and sharing a game copies it once by QR code rather than syncing it.

Moxtopper, MTG Familiar and the rest

Moxtopper (App Store, Google Play) has 4.7 stars from about 1,500 App Store ratings and does 1–10 players, chess-style turn clocks, life charts and AirPlay to a TV, with paid playmat packs. MTG Familiar (Google Play) is a long-running open-source Android toolkit with a life counter, dice, round timer and offline card search; it works, but it looks dated and has a 2.8 rating on Google Play.

MTG Codex (App Store, Google Play) is new (2026) and small, and besides Lotus it’s the only app with multi-device rooms: up to 6 players join with a code from their own phone, and each phone needs the app. Wizards’ own MTG Companion (App Store, Google Play) is mainly an event app with a basic counter. Carbon still has great reviews on iOS but hasn’t been updated since 2019.

Feature comparison

Which one should you pick?

• A regular Commander pod, 4–6 players: Lotus or Lifetap. Try both for one game each; it mostly comes down to which layout your table reads faster.
• Everything in one app, nothing to pay: Lotus.
• Big games, 7+ players or Planechase nights: Lotus (up to 10).
• You care about clocks or stats: Lifetap or Mythic Tools.
• You want one app for collection, decks and games: Mythic Tools.
• Nobody wants to install anything: Lotus or Life Trinket in the browser.
• Everyone controls their own life from their own phone: Lotus (Join / Create Game, up to 10 players, no app needed to join) or MTG Codex (up to 6, app on every phone).

Tracking it at the table

Whatever app you choose, the rule it has to get right is this one:

A player who’s been dealt 21 or more combat damage by the same commander over the course of the game loses the game.

That’s rule 903.10a, and it’s why commander damage needs its own tracker per commander instead of a note on the life total. The other number to watch is 10 poison (704.5c). Settle which phone is the counter before the game starts, put it where everyone can reach it, and if your group plays with different starting life totals, set that first.

Lotus tracks commander damage for every commander at the table and ends a player’s game at 21 commander damage or 10 poison, for up to 10 players, free.