If you play both Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon, the idea of a single app that scans both is appealing. A few apps offer this, with TCG Stacked being the most prominent. It supports MTG, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Lorcana in a single interface, claims 95%+ accuracy, and has a clean modern design. However, the multi-game approach comes with meaningful tradeoffs for dedicated MTG players.

The core issue with multi-game scanners is that MTG has by far the most complex identification challenge of any trading card game. Magic has over 27,000 unique cards across hundreds of sets spanning 30 years, with dozens of variant treatments including borderless, extended art, retro frame, showcase, foil etched, and Secret Lair exclusives. Pokemon has variants too, but the identification complexity is a fraction of what Magic requires. A scanner optimized for multiple games cannot dedicate the same resources to MTG-specific edge cases.

Lotus Scan is built exclusively for Magic: The Gathering, which means every aspect of its recognition engine is optimized for the unique challenges of MTG scanning. It handles the full range of Magic variants, frames, and treatments with accuracy that multi-game scanners simply cannot match because they are splitting their development effort across multiple games.

If you have a substantial collection of both MTG and Pokemon cards, the practical recommendation is to use a dedicated app for each game. Lotus Scan for your Magic collection and a Pokemon-focused scanner for your Pokemon cards. The few seconds of switching between apps is a trivial cost compared to the accuracy improvement you get from dedicated recognition engines.

That said, if you only casually collect one of the two games and want the convenience of a single app, TCG Stacked is a reasonable choice. Its MTG scanning is decent for standard cards from recent sets. Where it falls short is on the edge cases that matter most to serious collectors: Secret Lair variants, old border cards, foil etched treatments, and Japanese alternate art printings.

For players whose collection is primarily Magic with a small amount of Pokemon on the side, start with Lotus Scan for your MTG cards and evaluate whether you need a separate Pokemon scanner based on the size of that collection.