- How to read a Magic Card
Card Name (Grim Draugr) – You can have up to 4 cards of the same name in a single deck, except for Basic Lands, which are unlimited.
Mana Cost – Mana is used to cast spells. To cast this spell, pay 1 black mana plus 2 of any color, for a total of 3 mana.
Type – Every card in Magic has a type, such as Land, Creature, Artifact, Enchantment, Planeswalker, Instant, and Sorcery.
Set Symbol – The color of this symbol indicates rarity – black-and-white is common, silver is uncommon, gold is rare, and orange-gold is mythic rare (the rarest of them all).
(Card) Text Box –
Rules Text – Explains special effects a card has during gameplay. Reminder text can sometimes appear in parentheses to clarify how abilities work. For common Magic keywords and effects you can visit the keyword glossary on the games website (Magic.wizards.com/en/keyword-glossary).
Flavor Text – Does not affect gameplay, but exists to provide the backstory of the card. Flavor text is always italicized.
- Set up to the Battlefield
Creatures – Cards stay on the battlefield until they’re defeated by spells or combat. You’ll also see other card types here like Enchantments, Artifacts, and Planeswalkers.
Library – This is where you put your deck of cards, face-down. At the beginning of the game, you will shuffle your library, then draw seven cards.
Lands – You’ll play up to one land card each turn (face-up). These cards create mana which you can use to cast spells!
Graveyard – When cards are destroyed or discarded they’ll be placed here. These cards stay face-up and any player can look at them at any point during the game.
Hand – Don’t show these cards to anyone! At the beginning of your turn, draw one card (more depending on spells). If you have more than seven cards at the end of your turn? Discard down to seven!
3a. Card types in Magic: The Gathering
What is a Spell in Magic? In MTG, a spell is any type of card cast by a player. Spells are usually cast from your hand, but in special cases can be cast from other areas of the battlefield like your library or your graveyard. Land cards are the only type of card that is not considered a spell.
Creatures – Creature cards in Magic serve as your primary means to attack, defend, and activate abilities during your turn. They come in a wide array of shapes, sizes, and varying levels of power, so the damage dealt and received by your creatures will depend on these factors. The abilities of creature cards differ based on factors such as color, cost, or the character represented by the card.
Creatures can’t attack the same turn they enter the battlefield; this is known as “summoning sickness.” Creatures are used to attack an opponent or to block other players’ attacking creatures. If a creature attacks and isn’t blocked, it deals damage equal to its power to that opponent. If it is blocked, it deals that damage to the creatures blocking it. Creatures are destroyed if they take damage at least equal to their toughness in a single turn. However, any creatures that are still alive recover from damage at the end of turn.
Artifacts – Use artifact cards to get a strategic edge over your opponent! Artifacts are cards that represent special objects, devices, constructs, equipment, and more! These cards will help you boost your gameplay with special abilities.
Artifacts can help you gain advantages like extra mana, drawing cards, and opening up new ways to interact with the battlefield.
Enchantments – Enchantment cards can disrupt your opponent’s strategy, protect your own, or even change how your game is played. When you cast an Enchantment card, it enters the battlefield and remains there until it is exiled or destroyed.
These cards have a lasting impact on the game and can provide you with advantages as long as the card is in play. Enchantments can amplify your creatures’ power, grant them abilities like flying, and more. Like artifacts and creatures, an enchantment remains on the battlefield after it’s been cast, unless an opponent finds a way to destroy it. This introduces an additional defensive or offensive layer to the game.
Many enchantments are auras, which are specifically designed to be attached to other permanents, such as creatures. Auras can enhance or modify the abilities of the permanents they are attached to, providing an extra level of strategy and customization to your gameplay.
3b. Card types in Magic: The Gathering
Sorceries – Sorcery cards offer powerful spells that deliver impactful, short-term effects, perfect for disrupting an opponent’s strategy or bolstering your own. These cards never enter the battlefield; instead, they proceed directly to the graveyard once their effect unfolds.
Employ sorceries to accomplish a range of actions, such as dealing damage, generating creature tokens, destroying your opponent’s creatures, and much more. Remember that sorcery cards can only be cast during the Main Phases of your turn.
Instants – Instant cards carry a range of one-shot or short-term effects. These cards can deal damage to a target or allow you to view cards in your library. Instants can be played during your, or your opponent’s turn. Like sorceries, these cards never enter the battlefield; instead, they proceed directly to the graveyard once their effect unfolds.
Planeswalkers – Harness the power of Magic’s greatest with planeswalker cards! These formidable cards can alter the course of your battle by providing reusable abilities that grant you game advantages, such as extra draws, additional life points, or annihilating your opponent’s creatures.
Battles – Battles are transforming double-faced cards. These cards enter the battlefield face-up with defense counters on them. Defense counters indicate the amount of damage required to defeat the card.
The controller of a battle card doesn’t aim to defend it–they want to take it down. As a battle card enters the battlefield, its controller chooses an opponent to be its protector. This protector can then block creatures that attack it. Each time a battle card takes damage, that number of defense counters are removed from the card. This is not limited to combat damage. Some spells directly state that they damage battles. Spells that say they target “any permanent” can also target a battle. Once there are no more defense counters on a battle, it is exiled and you can cast the back face of the card without paying its mana cost.
Lands – Land cards in Magic: The Gathering represent terrains, environments, and locations from the Multiverse. As the foundation of the game, they produce mana, the vital resource you’ll use to cast spells or activate abilities of other cards on the battlefield. You may play one land during your turn, which must occur during the main phase, and it’s typically a good idea to play it before casting your spells.
Most lands can be tapped to produce mana of a specific color, which can then be used to cast your spells. Basic lands include: Plains, which produce white mana; Islands, which produce blue mana; Mountains, which produce red mana; Forests, which produce green mana; and Swamps, which produce black mana. Nonbasic lands are also available, offering various color combinations and special abilities. Remember that despite the mana they produce, land cards themselves do not have a color.
4 Game Actions
This section describes the actions you’ll take during a game, including tapping your cards, casting spells, and attacking/blocking with creatures in combat.
Tapping and Untapping
To tap a card is to turn it sideways to show that it has been used for the turn. You do this when you use a land to make mana, when you attack with a creature, or when you activate an ability that has the (Tap) symbol as part of its cost ((Symbol) means “tap this permanent”). When a permanent is tapped, you can’t tap it again until it’s been untapped (turned back upright). As your turn begins, untap your tapped cards so you can use them again.
Casting Spells
To cast a spell, you must pay its mana cost (located in the upper right corner of the card) by tapping lands (or other permanents) to make the amount and type of mana which that spell requires. For example, if you were casting Serra Angel, which cost 3 , you could tap three basic lands of any type to pay 8 plus two Plains to pay .
Once a spell has been cast, one of two things happens. If the spell is an instant or a sorcery, you follow the instructions on the card, and then you put the card into your graveyard. If the spell is a creature, artifact, or enchantment, you put the card on the table in front of you. The card is now on the battlefield.
Cards on the battlefields are called permanents to differentiate them from instants and sorceries, which are never on the battlefield.
5 Attacking and Blocking
The most common way to win the game is to attack with your creatures. If a creature that is attacking an opponent isn’t blocked, it deals damage equal to its power to that opponent.
The middle phase of each turn is the combat phase. In your combat phase, you choose which of your creatures will attack, and you choose which opponents they will attack. Tap your creatures to show that they are attacking. Your opponents then choose which of their creatures will block, if any. Tapped creatures can’t be declared as blockers.
Once all blockers have been chosen, each creature–both attackers and blockers– simultaneously deals damage equal to its power (the number on the left side of the slash in the lower right corner of the card).
- An attacking creature that isn’t blocked deals damage to the player it’s attacking.
- An attacking creature that is blocked deals damage to the creature or creatures that are blocking it, and vice versa.
If damage is dealt to your opponent, they lose that much life.
If one of your attacking creatures is blocked by multiple creatures, you decide how to divide its combat damage among them. You must assign at least enough damage to the first blocking creature to destroy it before you can assign damage to the second one, and so on.
If a creature is dealt damage equal to or greater than its toughness over the course of a single turn (whether it be combat damage, damage from spells or abilities, or a combination of both), that creature is destroyed, and it goes to its owner’s graveyard (or “dies”). If a creature takes damage that isn’t enough to destroy it in a single turn, that creature stays on the battlefield, and the damage wears off at the end of the turn.
5b Attacking and Blocking (cont.)
The following examples, an opponent is attacking you with a variety of creatures:
Eager Construct deals 2 damage to you (unblocked).
Eager Construct (blocked and) destroyed.
Both creatures (attack each other) survive.
Dwarven Priest is destroyed.
In this example, Mesa Unicorn is attacking, and you have two creatures that can block. When you block one attacker with two or more creatures, your opponent must choose the order in which your blockers will take damage. Remember, the attacking player always chooses the order in which blocking creatures receive damage.
Eager Construct and Dwarven Priest will deal a total of 4 damage to Mesa Unicorn, which is enough to destroy it. Meanwhile, Mesa Unicorn can deal enough damage to destroy Eager Construct , but not enough to destroy Dwarven Priest. Since your opponent’s Mesa Unicorn will be destroyed in either case, they order Eager Construct before Dwarven Priest so that at least one of your creatures will be destroyed.
Once blockers have been ordered, damage is dealt. Mesa Unicorn deals 2 damage to Eager Construct, destroying it.
Advanced Topics
One of the most fun and interesting aspects of the Magic game is the tremendous number of unique cards you can play with, which in turn provide an incredibly wide range of things that could happen in any given game. This section is a reference for when you need to know more details about the rules of Magic.
5c Attacking and Blocking (cont.)
Targeting
Some spells and abilities use the word “target” to describe something that the spell or ability will affect. You must choose all targets for a spell when you cast it, and for an ability when it triggers or when you activate it. If you can’t meet the targeting requirements, you can’t cast the spell or use the ability. For example, if a spell has the text “Destroy target creature,” but there are no creatures on the battlefield, you can’t cast that spell because it has no valid targets.
If a spell “deals damage to any target,” you can choose any creature or player (or planeswalker, if a player has one) as a target for that spell.
Once you choose targets, you can’t change your mind later. When the spell or ability resolves, it checks the targets to make sure they’re still legal (that is, they’re still there and they still match the requirements of the spell or ability). If a target isn’t legal, the spell or ability can’t affect it. If none of the targets are legal, the spell or ability does nothing at all.
The Stack
The stack is a game zone shared by all players (like the battlefield) where spells and abilities wait to resolve. Resolving a spell or ability simply means that its effect happens.
Using the Stack
When you cast a spell or activate an ability, it doesn’t resolve right away–it goes on the stack. Spells and abilities remain on the stack until both players choose not to cast any new spells or activate any new abilities. Triggered abilities also go on the stack until they resolve.
When you have finished putting spells and abilities on the stack, priority then passes to the next player in turn order, who may want to use a spell or ability or their own in response. Subsequent players (including you) can then respond to that player’s response, and so on–the result is a “stack” waiting to resolve. Spells and abilities remain on the stack until all players choose not to cast any new spells or activate any new abilities.
A general rule is that spells and abilities on the stack resolve one by one, beginning with the last one put on the stack.
Responding to Spells and Abilities
Each player has an opportunity to cast an instant spell (or activate an activated ability) in response to any spell or ability goes on the stack on top of what was already waiting there. When all players pass–that is, decline to do anything more–the top spell or ability on the stack will resolve.
5d Attacking and Blocking (cont.)
After a spell or ability resolves, both players again get the chance to respond. If no one does, the next thing waiting on the stack will resolve. If the stack is empty, the current step of the turn will end, and the game will proceed to the next step.
Example of Spells on the Stack
Your opponent casts Shock targeting your Eager Construct, a 2/2 creature. Shock goes on the stack. You respond to Shock by casting Titanic Growth. Titanic Growth goes on the stack on top of Shock. You and your opponent both decline to do anything else.
Titanic Growth resolves, making Eager Construct a 6/6 until the end of the turn. Then Shock resolves and deals 2 damage to the pumped-up Eager Construct, which is not enough to destroy it.
What would happen if Titanic Growth were cast first?
The Shock would go on the stack on top of Titanic Growth, which means it would resolve first this time. Shock would still deal 2 damage to Eager Construct, but this time that damage is being dealt before Titanic Growth can resolve and take effect–so 2 damage is enough to destroy Eager Construct!
6a Parts of the Turn
Each turn proceeds in the same sequence. Whenever you enter a new step or phase, any triggered abilities that happen during that step or phase trigger and are put on the stack. The active player (the player whose turn it is) gets to start casting spells and activating abilities, then each other player in turn order will too. When all players decline to do anything more and nothing is on the stack waiting to resolve, the game will move to the next step.
Beginning Phase
- Untap Step
You untap all your tapped permanents. On the first turn of the game, you don’t have any permanents, so just skip this step. No one can cast spells or activated abilities during this step.
- Upkeep step
Players can cast instants and activate abilities. This part of the turn is mentioned on a number of cards. If something is supposed to happen just once per turn, right at the beginning, an ability will trigger “at the beginning of your upkeep.”
- Draw Step
You must draw a card from your library (even if you don’t want to). The player who goes first in a two-player game skips the draw step on their first turn to make up for the advantage of going first. Players can then cast instants and activate abilities.
First Main Phase
- You can cast any number of sorceries, instants, creatures, artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers, and you can activate abilities. You can play a land during this phase, but remember that you can play only one land during your turn. Your opponent can cast instants and activate abilities.
Combat Phase
- Beginning of Combat Step
Players can cast instants and activate abilities.
- Declare Attackers Step
You decide which, if any, of their untapped creatures will block your attacking creatures. If multiple creatures block a single attacker, you order the blockers to show which will be first to receive damage, which will be second, and so on. Players can then cast instants and activate abilities.
6b Parts of the Turn (cont.)
- Declare Blockers Step
Your opponent decides which, if any, of their untapped creatures will block your attacking creatures. If multiple creatures block a single attacker, you order the blockers to show which will be first to receive damage, which will be second, and so on. Players can then cast instants and activate abilities.
- Combat Damage Step
Each attacking or blocking creature that’s still on the battlefield assigns its combat damage to the defending player (if it’s attacking that player and wasn’t blocked), to a planeswalker (if it’s attacking that planeswalker and wasn’t blocked), to the creature or creatures blocking it, or to the creature it’s blocking. If an attacking creature is blocked by multiple creatures, you divide its combat damage among them by assigning damage to the second one, and so on. Once players decide how the creatures they control will deal their combat damage, the damage is all dealt at the same time. Players can then cast instants and activate abilities.
- End of Combat Step
Players can cast instants and activate abilities.
- Second Main Phase
Your second main phase is just like your first main phase. You can cast any type of spell and activate abilities, but your opponent can only cast instants and activate abilities. You can play a land during this phase if you didn’t play one during your first main phase.
Ending Phase
- End Step
Abilities that trigger “at the beginning of your end step” go on the stack. Players can cast instants and activate abilities.
- Cleanup Step
If you have more than seven cards in your hand, choose and discard cards until you have only seven. Next, all damage on creatures is removed and all “until end of turn” effects end. No one can cast instants or activate abilities unless an ability triggers during this step.