guide By Gothic Frog

How to Play Sorcery Online, Explained

The Tabletop Simulator mod, how to install it, how to import a Curiosa deck, and where to find opponents — written down for once.

beginner online-play tabletop-simulator
Stream — via Curiosa.io

There is no native Sorcery client. No Arena equivalent, no MTGO, no in-house digital app. The official online-play platform is Tabletop Simulator plus a community-run Sorcery League matchmaking Discord. This article is the written version of a process most people learn from YouTube — written down because the SERP is YouTube-only and that isn't always what you want at 1 AM trying to get a match.

If you already own Tabletop Simulator, you'll be playing inside thirty minutes.

What you need first

  • Tabletop Simulator on Steam — $19.99 one-time, frequently $9.99 in seasonal sales. Cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux).
  • A Steam account.
  • An account at Curiosa.io for deckbuilding (free). The Curiosa explainer covers it.
  • A Discord account if you want the Sorcery League matchmaking — recommended, technically optional.

Minimum hardware: 4 GB RAM, integrated graphics, Windows 7 or newer. TTS is lightweight. The Sorcery mod doesn't change that.

Step 1: Subscribe to the official mod

Launch Steam → search "Tabletop Simulator" → confirm you own it. Then open the Steam Workshop for Tabletop Simulator and search for Sorcery: Contested Realm by publisher SorceryTCG, Workshop ID 2884846136.

Click Subscribe. The mod auto-downloads the next time you launch TTS.

There's also a separate 4-player variant at Workshop ID 3166403381 if you want multiplayer free-for-all or 2v2. The 2-player mod is the standard reference for the rest of this guide.

The mod ships with Beta and Arthurian Legends out of the box. Dragonlord and Gothic cards land via mod updates — refresh the Workshop subscription if you've been away.

Step 2: Launch the mod

Open Tabletop Simulator → Create → Multiplayer (or Singleplayer for solo testing or playing the AI) → Workshop → find Sorcery: Contested Realm → load.

The full 5×4 board, both Atlas and Spellbook deck zones, mana pool, life counter, and the four Beta preconstructed decks are all on the table when the mod opens. You can play a precon immediately without doing anything else.

Step 3: Import a deck from Curiosa

Two paths:

Use a precon. The mod ships with the four Beta elemental decks (Avatar of Air, Earth, Fire, Water) ready to grab. Good for first games while you learn the controls.

Import from Curiosa. Go to curiosa.io. Build a deck or clone someone else's — any public deck URL works, not just yours. Copy the deck URL. In TTS, use the mod's deck-import interface (look for an on-table button labeled something like "Load Deck" or "Import URL") and paste the URL. The cards spawn in the right zones automatically.

Worked example: someone in the Sorcery Discord links their current competitive Gothic list — paste the Curiosa URL into the TTS importer, the mainboard spawns in your Spellbook zone, the Atlas spawns separately, you're ready to play in roughly fifteen seconds.

Step 4: Find an opponent

Three escalating options, easiest first:

Public TTS lobby. Slowest, lowest match quality, sometimes a no-show, but it works without any extra setup. Browse Multiplayer lobbies, find one running the Sorcery mod, join.

The Sorcery League Discord. The official community matchmaking. Free, season-based — currently Season 10 — with a Discord bot that pairs you with the next ready player. Eight or more matches per season qualifies you for season-end rewards. No minimum required to just play. The current invite is in the Season 10 announcement page (season-specific invites rotate, so always start there).

Specialty community Discords. Sorcerers Summit (the ELO ladder community), Sorcerers at the Core (EU/US weekly drafts), Sorcery Marketplace (BST, but also has play channels). All have their own matchmaking channels with their own conventions. See the Tabletop Simulator and Discord Servers sections of the directory.

What the experience is actually like

Honest assessment, not a sales pitch:

TTS has its own learning curve. Moving cards, tapping (right-click rotates), manipulating decks and the board takes a few games. Independent of Sorcery itself.

Latency depends on host quality. Sub-50ms feels native. 200ms-plus is noticeable, especially on combat where timing matters. Hosts in your region matter.

Nothing is automated. You pay your own mana, check your own threshold, move your own minions. Mistakes happen on both sides; the community is patient about take-backs. This is the biggest pain point for Arena converts — you have to know the rules well enough to enforce them yourself.

Voice chat is via Steam or Discord. Steam voice works in lobbies; Discord works regardless. Most regular matches use Discord.

A practiced two-player game runs 30–60 minutes. New players are slower (60–90 minutes). Constructed is faster than Sealed/Draft because deckbuilding is offloaded to Curiosa.

Sealed and Draft on TTS

The official mod supports both. Sealed spawns each player a pool of pack contents, you build a 30+30 deck from it. Draft runs the pack-passing flow with the mod handling the mechanics. Useful for testing limited formats before paying for sealed product.

SorceryLimited.com is a separate community-run sealed-deck simulator that pairs with the TTS mod — you can build a sealed deck on the web, then import it into TTS for play.

Common pain points

  • Mod doesn't load — usually a Workshop subscription cache issue. Unsubscribe, resubscribe, relaunch TTS.
  • Cards spawn in the wrong spot — drag them where they should go. The mod isn't strict about exact placement.
  • "Where's the import button?" — varies by mod version. Check the on-table interface, the mod's pinned notes inside TTS, or a current YouTube tutorial if the layout has shifted.
  • Sorcery League Discord rejected your application — make sure you've registered via the Google Form linked in the current season's announcement post. The link rotates per season.

What online play is and isn't

Sorcery online is not Arena. It's MTGO from 2003, run by the community, hosted on a third-party platform. That's a feature for some players (full physical fidelity, no UI getting in the way, voice chat next to a friend you'd otherwise only see at a paper event) and a frustration for others (manual everything, no rules engine, depends on TTS being maintained).

If you came from Arena and want a frictionless digital queue, Sorcery online won't deliver that. If you came from paper Magic via a friend who plays MTGO, the model will feel familiar.

Where to go from here

Sources