Scrydex

Role: Co-Founder, Product DesignScope: Web appTenure: 2023-Present

tl;dr

Scrydex is an API toolkit for developers building in the trading card game space. We're solving the fragmented data landscape that's plagued TCG developers for years by providing comprehensive card data, real-time pricing, AI-powered recognition, and deep community knowledge through a single, developer-first API. From classics like Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering to emerging games like Lorcana, we're building infrastructure that lets developers focus on creating amazing experiences instead of wrestling with sparse, unpredictable data sources.

2018–2022

The (unofficial) Pokémon API

Andrew launches an open-source dataset and API for Pokémon

2023

Scrydex is born

Andrew and I team up to build the first open TCG data platform

2025

Public launch

Almost there! On track for a summer go-to-market.

Building digital products for a TCG audience is tough.

Brands don't offer APIs for their games. Community-run projects are often incomplete, outdated, and formatted inconsistently. After two decades working in tech, it's easy to take for granted the kind of data infrastructure that's built into most industries. Trading cards are not one of them.

My co-founder Andrew decided to do something about that in 2018, when he launched an open-source dataset and API for Pokémon. It was a classic passion project, built in a weekend by a true fan, but it resonated. Hundreds of developers started using it, and it quickly became the de facto standard for Pokémon data.

When I joined Rare Candy in 2022, Andrew was already there, using his unique expertise to inform the company's approach to TCG data. He and I connected immediately and started chatting about what it would take to turn his Pokémon API into something... bigger.

One dataset to rule them all

We kicked things off in earnest in late 2023, sketching out a plan to build a unified API for every major trading card game. While he started hunting down data for Lorcana, Magic: The Gathering, and Yu-Gi-Oh!, I started fleshing out a vision for a data-browsing experience.

I had three goals:

Establish us as a trusted source of TCG data (for devs and fans alike)
Show off the complete depth of the data we were building
Thread in-context examples of how to access that data over the API

As our data trove began to grow, I mapped the evolving UI against our data model, making sure the browsing experience was detailed enough to capture our underlying data's full scope while still being flexible enough to support new games and features.

By the end of 2024, we had a complete API ready to launch and started building a comprehensive data-browsing experience.

Game time

We're in the final stages of our private beta now, with developers in the community to already working with our standalone data. The feedback has been incredible: folks are building everything from collection trackers to pack simulators to marketplace platforms using our data.

Looking ahead, we're already working on features that will push the boundaries even further: support for international markets, expanded image recognition for games like Magic: The Gathering and One-Piece, and infrastructure to power the next generation of collecting apps. It's getting easier every day to imagine Scrydex becoming the foundational layer that every TCG application builds on.

As a product creator, I'm excited: the TCG space is about to get a lot more fun for all of us.