Built with trusted MTG data sources.
Milkman Combo Trainer is mostly direct integrations with the same data sources serious cEDH players already trust — Commander Spellbook, Scryfall, the Commander Rules Committee, and Wizards of the Coast's official Brackets system. AI handles less than you'd think. Here's the honest breakdown of what's powered by what.
Most of the site has zero AI in the loop.
The Combo Trainer, the Deck Analyzer, and My Decks all run on direct API calls to established MTG data sources plus our own curated logic. AI shows up in exactly one place: the Play Coach. And even there, it's reasoning over data we already fetched and structured for it — Claude doesn't go look anything up itself.
What each tool actually uses
| Tool | Data sources | Uses AI? |
|---|---|---|
| Combo Trainer | Commander Spellbook, Scryfall | No |
| Deck Analyzer | Commander Spellbook, Scryfall, Commander RC banlist, WotC Brackets, our cEDH staples list | No |
| My Decks | Moxfield/Archidekt, Commander Spellbook | No |
| Play Coach | Commander Spellbook, Scryfall, Moxfield/Archidekt, WotC Brackets, plus Claude (Anthropic) via OpenRouter | Yes |
The data sources, one by one
The open-source combo database that catalogs every two-, three-, and four-card combo in Commander. We hit their find-my-combos endpoint with your decklist and get back two lists: combos you already have, and combos you're 1-2 cards away from. No AI involved — it's structured data going in and structured data coming out.
The card database every serious MTG tool runs on. We use Scryfall for oracle text, mana cost, color identity, type line, and legality status. When you see a card image anywhere on the site, it's served directly from Scryfall's CDN. We don't store card data ourselves — every lookup is real-time.
scryfall.com ↗The official rules from the Commander Rules Committee. We check decks against the live ruleset for deck size (100), singleton, color identity, and Partner / Background / Friends Forever pairings. Pulled at analysis time so any rules update auto-applies.
mtgcommander.net/rules ↗The Commander RC's banned list, checked against every card in your imported deck. If a card you're running was banned in the latest update, the analyzer flags it. We also use Scryfall's legalities.commander field as a second source of truth.
Wizards' official 5-tier power-level system, based primarily on Game Changer card density. We classify imported decks into Brackets 1-5 using their 50-card Game Changer list as the primary signal. The Play Coach uses your bracket to scale recommendations — Bracket 5 gets cEDH-tight lines, Bracket 2 gets practical fair plays.
magic.wizards.com Brackets announcement ↗WotC's full rules document. We don't programmatically query this — it's referenced so you can check edge cases yourself. The Play Coach has rules knowledge baked into Claude's training data, but for any tournament-grade ruling you should always verify against the source.
magic.wizards.com/en/rules ↗When you paste a deck URL, we fetch the public deck JSON directly from Moxfield's or Archidekt's API. We get the card list, commander, and color identity. We never sign in as you, never fetch private decks, never modify your deck on either platform. Read-only, public-only.
moxfield.com ↗ archidekt.com ↗Our own curated data and scoring logic — a hand-maintained list of cEDH staples (~150 cards) categorized into Fast Mana, Interaction, Tutors, Win Cons, and Card Draw, each with color-identity tags. The Deck Analyzer scores your deck against this list filtered to your color identity. The flashcard quiz logic is our own — pulling combos from Spellbook and presenting them in three quiz modes.
Where AI actually shows up
The only AI feature is Play Coach — the Premium tool that gives you a recommended best play based on your hand, board, mana, and opponents. Here's the exact flow:
- You submit your game state via the form (hand, board, mana, opponents' boards, deck URL).
- Our server fetches the data sources first. Before any AI call, we hit Scryfall for oracle text, Spellbook for combos, Moxfield/Archidekt for the deck list, and run the bracket classifier against the Game Changers list.
- We build a structured prompt with all that grounded data plus your game state.
- The prompt goes to Claude (Anthropic's model) via OpenRouter — a routing service. Claude reads only what we give it; it cannot call out to the internet, look up cards, or fetch combos itself.
- Claude returns a structured recommendation with a best play, reasoning, risks, and a backup line.
- We render that back to you.
So when the Coach says "Tutor for Demonic Consultation, you have Thoracle in hand" — that recommendation is grounded in real data we already pulled from Spellbook and Scryfall. Claude is the reasoning layer, not the data layer.
What AI does well here
- Synthesizing many small signals into one recommendation (your hand + your mana + opponent's threat + bracket + bracket-appropriate caution)
- Writing out the reasoning in plain English so you can decide whether to trust it
- Naming alternative lines if your first choice gets countered
What AI does poorly (and we've safeguarded against)
- Counting mana symbols. Models reliably miscount things like {2}{U} as 4 mana instead of 3. We pre-compute total CMC from Scryfall and pass it as an explicit number so the model never has to count.
- Inventing cards. The system prompt explicitly tells Claude not to invent cards. If a name isn't in the deck or oracle text we provided, it won't recommend it.
- Missing interactions. This is unavoidable at the edge — Claude can miss a replacement effect or a static ability. The output is always labeled as "AI-generated, double-check before committing."
What we don't do with AI
- We don't use AI to generate combos. Spellbook's database does that.
- We don't use AI to score deck power. Our cEDH staples list + Game Changer count does that.
- We don't use AI to personalize ads or recommendations. We have no ads.
- We don't train AI models on your data. Period.
The honest summary
If you stripped the AI feature out tomorrow, every other tool on the site would still work. Combo Trainer would still drill combos. Deck Analyzer would still find combos in your 99 and score your power level. My Decks would still save your decklists.
The Coach is a useful AI layer on top of trusted data — not the load-bearing wall of the product. Most of the work is structured integrations with sources cEDH players already trust.
Try the tools that don't need AI at all.
Free Combo Trainer and free Deck Analyzer. Premium adds saved decks, Play Coach, and weak-spot drills.
Milkman Combo Trainer is an independent fan-made tool. Magic: The Gathering and related marks are property of Wizards of the Coast. This site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or approved by Wizards of the Coast, Scryfall, Commander Spellbook, or the Commander Rules Committee.