About Scrywire

Why we built it

Paper card games are social. The rustle of sleeves, the flick of a counter, the way a friend leans in when you tap a land — none of that translates cleanly to a digital client. But finding four people, in the same room, on the same night, with the same available table space, is genuinely hard. Scrywire exists to close that gap: keep the paper, keep the ritual, drop the geography.

The project started because the founders were tired of shuffling three decks into one client and pretending it was the same game. We wanted our sleeves, our tokens, our playmats — and a way to sit down with friends across town, or across the country, and play a real match with them tonight.

How Scrywire works

You open the site, pick a game, and either host a table or join one someone already opened. Your webcam points at your play area. Everyone at the table sees everyone else's cards through their camera. On top of the video, Scrywire adds the boring stuff a paper game needs: a shared life tracker, a dice roller, a phase log, a card-search sidebar, counters, tokens, and a chat pane.

Nothing about the actual gameplay is simulated. We don't shuffle for you, we don't validate your combat math, and we don't check your deck for legality. You're playing paper — Scrywire just gives paper players a shared surface to play on.

Every game has its own custom table layout with the counters, resources, and terminology real players use. Life totals for Magic. HP and prize cards for Pokémon. Life Points in tens for Yu-Gi-Oh. Avatar life and elemental thresholds for Sorcery. If a format has a quirk that matters at the table, we try to model it at the table.

Games we support

Scrywire ships table layouts for Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon TCG, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Disney Lorcana, Star Wars: Unlimited, One Piece TCG, Digimon Card Game, Grand Archive, Riftbound, Sorcery: Contested Realm, and our in-house game Neuroscape. Each has its own resource page with a plain-English rules walkthrough — see the game resources hub for the full list.

We're not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of these publishers. Scrywire is a tool for their players; the games themselves belong to their creators.

What Scrywire is not

• Not a card simulator. There's no digital deck, no auto-resolving triggers, no rules engine. You play with cards you own.
• Not a marketplace. We don't sell, appraise, or broker singles.
• Not affiliated with any publisher. All trademarks and card imagery belong to their respective owners.
• Not pay-to-play. Tables are free. Events are free. Accounts are free. If we ever charge for anything, it'll be optional cosmetics or a tip jar — never the game.

Community and safety

Because every table has live webcams, we take moderation seriously. Every player has a profile with a reputation signal — other players can send kudos or report bad behavior after a match, and repeat offenders lose access to public tables. Private tables let you play with your regular pod without random joins.

We keep audit logs of table history and moderation actions so we can investigate reports. We do not record or store the video feeds themselves — webcam streams are peer-to-peer and disappear when the table closes.

You can read the full rules in our Acceptable Use Policy and the Terms of Service.

Who runs Scrywire

Scrywire is built and operated by Average Build LLC, a small independent studio in the United States. It's a two-person project: one engineer, one designer, both long-time paper players. There is no venture funding, no publisher deal, and no growth team. Every decision on the site is made by the people who use the site.

The best way to reach us is the contact page or by email at Info@scrywire.com. Bug reports, feature suggestions, and "why does this game behave like this" questions are all welcome.

Frequently asked

Detailed answers about accounts, webcams, tables, events, and data are on the FAQ page. Rules and setup guides for each supported game live in the resources section.