Software
·
2026
Three Tree City
A free Magic: The Gathering simulator — open boosters, run drafts, and build sealed decks in the browser.
Visit the site
I remember my first Magic: The Gathering cards. Kind of. I was very little. I think a classmate gave them to me, and I can barely recall any of them specifically. I didn’t play, and the whole recess was a lot more into Yu-Gi-Oh anyways. I ended up giving the cards away to some other guy who actually was into the whole thing. It seemed foreign and complex at the time.
It wasn’t until many years laters, when I went to Art College, that I even heard of the game again. This time, however, I had a much deeper appreciation for its universe. In fact, many fellow students were deeply enamored with the idea of eventually being able to design art for the cards (some later on fulfilled that dream!). While I was never a traditional illustrator, I did like games and strategy.
The next thing I remember was finding myself along with a couple of other friends at a pre-release event. These happen every time a new set of cards is released, and you basically open new packs of new cards to build a deck on the spot, and play against other players to learn the cards and, ideally, win prizes.
Opening packs, expensive hobbies, beautiful art
Fast forward to several years later, and MTG has had a bit of a comeback into my life. Every time a new set releases, it’s a very fun experience to purchase a few packs of cards, open them, admire the art, learn the cards, and imagine the multiple pairings of decks and combos you can make with those cards.
Unfortunately, the only way you can officially do this is through buying packs on a store or digital packs through Wizards of the Coast’s online version of the game. Which is admittedly not as fun as the real thing. Both can be quite expensive.
So during a free week not long ago, I created ThreeTreeCity. It’s named after a popular card from one of my favorite sets (Bloomburrow), and it’s a website that recreates the experience of opening packs, creating combinations of decks, and it even includes a minigame or two. It goes way back to some of the original cards, probably includes some of the initial ones I had as a kid! It was a fun experience to learn a bit more about vercel, databases, shaders, and design. There is a lot that goes onto researching every set, probabilities of opening each special card and alternative arts, but it does a fantastic job to recreate the real life results and experience, and it scratches that itch without having to spend any money for it.
I even added a “spent money” counter so you can know what you could have potentially paid to open the same packs in real life, vs the value of the cards opened. Some think this is great, some think it’s depressing. I leave it up to you!
Free because it has to be fun
Three Tree City runs under the Wizards of the Coast Fan Content Policy, so charging for it was never on the table — and it wouldn’t have been anyway. The whole point is the feeling of opening a pack without the exorbitant pricing tag attached.