Player guide
One device hosts.
Everyone plays.
A Pay the 2 table has one host — the device that runs the referee. It holds the shuffled decks, enforces the rules, and deals each player exactly the information they’re allowed to see. Everyone else joins from their own device and just plays. No shared screen, no manual bookkeeping, no honor-system life totals.
Hosting on your home network
This is the original, LAN-native way to play — everyone in the same room, on the same Wi‑Fi:
- Pick the host. Any desktop or tablet at the table with the app installed — the beefiest device is a fine choice, since it runs the rules engine for everyone.
- Tap Host. The host screen shows the table’s local address.
- Friends tap Join on their own devices (same Wi‑Fi) and pick the table.
- Everyone submits a deck, the host hits start, and the referee takes it from there — priority, triggers, the stack, all of it.
Your game never leaves the room: no server, no account, nothing uploaded anywhere.
Playing over the internet — room codes
The internet version of the same idea: the host’s device still runs the game — a tiny relay just carries messages between the table’s devices, so nobody has to touch router settings or forward ports. The host creates a room, reads a short room code aloud (or texts it), and friends anywhere can join with it.
The relay is deliberately dumb: it can’t see hands or libraries, doesn’t know the rules, and stores nothing about you. Which leads to the standing promise:
What you need
- The host always runs the app. Hosting means running the entire rules engine, and that lives in the installed app (desktop or tablet) — a browser tab can’t host yet (see the status board below).
- A device per player — tablets are the first-class experience; phones and desktops work too. Today players join from the app as well; joining from a browser with no install is in development — but even then, the host stays on the app.
- Decks — paste a deck list to import; card text and images come from Scryfall.
- For home-network play: everyone on the same Wi‑Fi. For internet play: just the room code.
Where things stand today
Honesty is the house rule here (it’s how the engine itself works), so here is the real status board rather than a marketing one:
Curious what the referee is actually doing under the table? How the engine works →