Deck Builder 3.9.0 is a big one: the app gets a whole new look you can pick yourself, collections finally feel like a home for your decks, and the card grid got the redesign it deserved. Here is everything new.
Four new Pro themes
Settings now has a Pro Themes section with four full color palettes: Onyx (near-black with warm gold accents, my favorite), Emerald, Amethyst and Rainbow, which carries a full multi-color spectrum across the app’s gradient background. Each theme works in both light and dark mode and comes with its own swatch preview, so you can see the palette before you commit.
Pro themes are part of Deck Builder Pro. Tapping one without an active subscription opens the paywall, and if a subscription lapses the app falls back to the plain theme instead of keeping a paid perk around. On the web app, the same themes and the same gate mirror the Android release.
A card back for whole collections
Collections used to be a draw-time construct only: each member deck brought its own back, and a mixed pile looked mixed. Now a collection can set its own card back, and every deck in it that does not define its own back inherits the collection’s. The priority is always card, then deck, then collection, so a specific card’s back still wins, and any deck that opts out keeps its own.
Setting it up takes ten seconds: open the collection, tap the gear icon, and pick a back under Collection Card Back, from a card design, a scanned image, or any card from any deck. A single card or deck can still override it, so nothing you set per deck breaks.
Preset backgrounds in the Card Designer
The Card Designer’s background section now has a presets button with six ready-made backgrounds: checkerboard, diagonal stripes, dots, grid, a warm gradient and a cool gradient. One tap, and the card preview updates, no color tuning needed. The presets combine with the existing border, radius and image options.
The redesigned card grid
Deck details replaced the old framed list with a clean three-column grid of frameless tiles. Cards sit edge to edge, corners follow the app’s proportional-radius rule, and each tile carries small index badges so you always know where you are while scrolling. Scrolling lingers on the badges, drag overlays are clearer, and the bottom navigation stays out of the way.
Last played, at a glance
Decks and collections now show a small “Played today / 3 d ago / 2 w ago” chip in Deck Management. The chip tracks actual play, not edits, so a deck you shuffled yesterday reads “1 d ago” even if you renamed it today. If you have never played a deck, it stays quiet. This is the first piece of surfacing your open loops right on the deck grid, aimed squarely at the “which game did we leave unfinished” question.
A shuffle you can feel
Shuffle and draw now have a deliberate haptic vocabulary: a distinct cue for shuffling, one for drawing, one for a card settling. The cues fire at the moment of the animation, respect the haptics toggle in Settings, and never stack into buzz soup. With the existing shuffle sound, the deck now feels like a deck.
And the fixes
- The Card Designer no longer bakes the focused text caret into captured card bitmaps, so exported cards come out clean.
- The reminders rationale dialog now follows dark mode.
- The signed-out account settings screen has a title and a working back button.
Getting the update
The Android update is rolling out to testers now and reaches everyone through Google Play. The web app receives the same features, since every story in this release shipped on both platforms.
If anything here does not behave, the Discord is the fastest way to reach me.
