Recording an MTG League Game: How to Log Results to Your League
Recording a league game on Nerd Leagues is the same flow as recording any Magic game on the site, with one extra dropdown — and that one dropdown wires the result into your league's standings, your per-league ELO, your deck's per-league ELO, every active season, and your league's Discord channel. Pick the league at the top of the form, fill out the rest, submit. The fan-out is automatic.
This article covers both ways to record a league game (the manual form and the Life Tracker auto-record path), what the League dropdown actually triggers, and where the result shows up afterward.
Two ways to record a league game
The Record Game entry point is the Play Game link in the top navigation, which lands on the Record Game choice page. From there you have two cards:
- Already Played — you're logging a game that already finished. Goes to the manual form. Best when you forgot to start a live lobby or you're catching up after the fact.
- Start New Game — opens a Life Tracker lobby with a shareable invite code. Players track life totals from their phones, and the result is recorded automatically when the game ends.
Both paths run through the same league pipes. Whichever one you use, picking the league is what makes a game count toward league standings.
Path 1: The "Already Played" form
The manual record form opens with a Game Setup panel where the very first field is League. The dropdown is sourced from the leagues you're a member of, plus two static options at the top:
- Select a League — the default. The form won't submit until you pick something else.
- Non-League — record the game without linking it to any league. Counts toward your all-time ELO and your deck's all-time ELO, but stays out of every league's standings.
Below that, you set Format, Sub Format, and Number of Players. The format list covers EDH, Standard, Historic, Pioneer, Brawl, Historic Brawl, Pauper, Pauper EDH, Draft, and Pack War. Sub-formats include Multiplayer (default), 1v1, Two Headed Giant, Multi Two Headed Giant, 3v3, Sphere of Influence, and Emperor. Player count goes from 2 to 12 with a default of 4.
You then add a row per player. Each row has a username field (autocomplete from your friends and yourself), a deck dropdown (filtered by that player's decks for the chosen format), and a winner checkbox. Add notes if you want — Nerd Leagues parses [[Card Name]] tokens in notes into card links, so you can call out a key play. Submit when at least one winner is checked.
One thing worth knowing: the players you record don't have to already be in the league. If you add a friend who isn't a member yet, submitting the game adds them to the league automatically.
Path 2: Auto-recording from the Life Tracker
The Life Tracker path skips the manual form entirely. You create a lobby, share the invite code, players join from their phones, and the result is recorded the moment the game ends — no form, no remembering.
League selection happens up front when you open the lobby. The League dropdown on the lobby create form is required — there's no Non-League option for live lobbies — and the lobby's league is locked in at creation time. When the game ends, the same league fan-out described below fires automatically.
What picking a league triggers
When you submit a game with a league selected — manual form or Life Tracker, doesn't matter — Nerd Leagues runs a chain of inserts and ELO updates in a single transaction:
- The game gets linked to the league. It shows up under the league's game history and counts toward its stats.
- Any non-member players are added to the league. If you record a friend who isn't yet in the league, submitting the game inserts them as a member. They start at the league's default rating of 1000 ELO and immediately have their first league game on the books.
- Decks auto-register to the league. Every deck in the game gets a per-league scoreboard the first time it's played in a league game. There's no separate "add a deck" step — playing a game with the deck is what registers it.
- Per-league ELO updates immediately for every player and deck. Each player's per-league rating moves up or down based on the result, and so does each deck's per-league rating. Yearly per-league ELO snapshots update in the same step.
- Active seasons get a per-season ELO update. If the league has any non-archived seasons whose date range covers the game's recording date, a separate per-season ELO update fires for each of them. A single game can count toward multiple overlapping seasons at once.
- The league's Discord webhook fires. If the commissioner has configured a Discord webhook, an embed with the game result is posted to that channel. The main Nerd Leagues feed is also notified.
- Email and in-app notifications go out. Every player except the recorder gets a "you were recorded in a game" notification.
If you picked Non-League, none of the league-flavored steps fire — the game still records, your all-time ELO and stats still update, but it stays out of every league's standings.
After the game is recorded
After a successful submit you land on the success page with three buttons:
- View Game Details — the public game page, where any participant can comment, flag the game if something's wrong, or share to Discord manually.
- Record Another Game — back to the choice page.
- Your Account — your account stats page, where you can see updated ELO, win/loss totals, and per-league panels.
The new ELO numbers are already live by the time you see the success page. You'll see them on the league's standings tabs (Members, Decks, ELO History), on your My Stats page under the League Performance panel, and on each player's public profile.
If you realize you submitted the wrong winner, the wrong deck, or the wrong league, every participant in the game can flag it from the View Game page. The league commissioner can then Dismiss Flag, Edit Game, or Archive Game from that same page.