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Product Vision - MTG Casting

/ 2 min read

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Table of Contents

The Problem

Magic: The Gathering tournament streaming is manual and error-prone. Casters must:

  • Manually identify cards being played (often incorrectly)
  • Update life totals by hand
  • Track game state across multiple matches
  • Coordinate between production roles without shared tooling

Viewers experience delays, errors, and inconsistent information. Tournament organisers spend more time managing tools than running events.

The Product

A casting overlay system that:

  1. Identifies cards automatically from video feed
  2. Synchronises game state across all displays in real-time
  3. Provides role-specific views (caster, life tracker operator, admin)
  4. Integrates with deck databases (Moxfield, other sources)

Core Use Cases

UC-01: Create Game

Tournament admin creates a new game session. System generates:

  • Unique URLs for casting view, life tracker, admin panel
  • Time-limited access (URLs expire after configurable duration)
  • Player slots with metadata (names, nationalities, deck names)

UC-02: Track Life

Life tracker operator (typically at the table) updates life totals. Changes propagate immediately to:

  • Casting view (what viewers see)
  • Admin panel (for verification)
  • Any connected clients

UC-03: Import Deck

Admin imports deck list from URL (Moxfield) or text input. System:

  • Parses deck list format
  • Resolves card names to card database
  • Enables card recognition to match against known cards

UC-04: Detect Played Card

When a card enters the camera frame:

  • System extracts frame from video feed
  • Matches visual features against deck list cards
  • Displays detected card on casting view
  • Logs to game history

UC-05: Authenticate Access

Users authenticate via:

  • OAuth (Google, Facebook)
  • Email/password
  • Passkey (WebAuthn)

Tournament organisers control access via email approval workflow.

Technical Constraints

  • Real-time: Life updates, card detection must be sub-second
  • Multi-device: iPad for life tracking, laptop for admin, streaming PC for video
  • Offline-capable: Core functions must work without internet (except auth)
  • Self-hostable: Tournament venues may need local deployment

What We Don’t Know Yet

  • Card recognition accuracy on live tournament footage (prototype tested on recorded Twitch streams only)
  • Whether passkey auth works reliably across venue hardware
  • Performance characteristics under tournament load (multiple concurrent games)
  • Integration requirements for major streaming software (OBS, Streamlabs)

Revenue Model

Not determined. Options under consideration:

  • Per-tournament licensing
  • SaaS subscription for recurring organisers
  • White-label for large tournament series
  • Free tier with premium features

This document captures current thinking. It will change as we learn more.