Magic:The Gathering - All You Need To Know To Play

Object of the Game

Magic: The Gathering, or Magic, is a trading card game in which you and your opponent are rival wiazrds dueling for control of a magical plane. Reduce your opponent's life total from 20 to 0 before he or she does the same to you!

Summary of Play

Each player builds a deck of at least forty cards from his or her collection and plays that deck againt the opponent's.

Each player begins by shuffling his or her deck and drawing seven cards. Players alternate taking turns. Your turn is made up of a series of actions, such as playing cards and attacking your opponent.

There are several types of cards you can play. Lands are the most basic, providing the magical energy you need to play all other cards. Creature cards represent creatures in play to fight for you, whether by attacking your opponent or by fighting off his or her creatures. Other cards represent spells you can cast to hurt your oppenent(s) or help your creatures.

The basic strategy of Magic lies in choosing when yo play your cards and when to use your creatures to attack your opponent or protect yourself. More complex strategies involve combining your cards to make them more powerful and choosing which cards to use in you deck to make it most effective.

Producing Mana from Lands

For example, each mountain you play allows you to regenerate one red aman each turn. However, you can't store up mana for several turns by using your lands every turn. When a land produces mana, that mana is added to your mana pool and is stored there until you spend it. At the end of every turn, both players lose any mana they haven't spent. You may play only one land each turn, so building up your mana potential takes several turns.

The amound and type of mana available in your pool determines which spells you can cast. Throughout the game, you continue to play lands, increasing your mana potential. Remember, any type of mana can be used to pay generic mana costs; the colour associated with a land is important only when you have to pay mana of a certain colour. In other words, if your hand is full of green spells, playing mountains can still help you pay the more expensive ones even though mountains produce red mana.

Phases of a Turn

As a player takes his turn, he is required to go through each of the phases. During some phases, you might not have to do anything. The phases are:

Untap: Untap all your permanents. Untapping your lands, creatures, and so on makes them available for use again.

Upkeep: If a permanent does something every turn, it typically does it during this phase.

Draw: Draw one card from your library. Drawing a card usually gives you a new options duting a turn.

Main: This phase is where most of the action occurs. During your main phase, you can play any kind of card, including lands and non-fast effects. You may play only one land each turn. Once during you main phase, you may attack. Once the attack is over, your main phase resumes, and you get the opportunity to play more spells or to play a land if you haven't already. Remember, creatures enter play with summoning sickness(can't attck when creature some into play).

Discard: If you have more than seven cadrs in your hand at the end of this phase, discard down to seven

Cleanup: All damage delt to creatures during this turn is erased. Effects that last "until end of turn" wear off at the same time damage is erased. Effects that occur "at end of turn" happen at the end of this phase.

If either playe has less than 1 life at the end of any phase or at the beginning or ned of an attack, that player loses and the game is over. If both players have less than 1 life at that time, the game is a draw and neither player wins

1. Review your hand and what you ahve in play and decide which spells or abilities to play. This decision is based largely on what you can afford and how many spells or abilities you think you'll want to use this turn. The chosen card isn't considered part of your hand for purposes of the following steps.

2. Play any costs required to play the spell or ability. This is typically limited to the casting cost of a spell or the activation cost of an ability.

Some spells and abilities include "X" as part of their costs. These have a variable effect that depends on the amount of mana that's paid. To determine how much of the effect is generated, pick a value for X and pay that amount of generic mana. The spell's text explains what the X value generates, with each X becoming whatever you paid. Because the cost is variable, you decide how much mana you spend, unless X is restricted to certain values.

Some spells and abilities list additional costs in their text. Such costs aren't part of the casting cost but are still paid at this time. Spells with additional costs typically list them in the "cost: effect" format. This format may resemble an ability's, but the spell is still played and paid for only once; it doesn't grant a long-term ability.

3. Choose any required target(s). Some spells and abilites can be played under any circumstances, while others must have one or more targets. Such spells and abilities describe what they target in a phase beginning with the word "target," such as "target creature" or "target blue enchantment." You can play such a spell or ability only if you choose valid targets for it; for example, you can't play a spell that targets a creature if there aren't any creatures in play. If a spell or ability requires choosing more than one target, you can't choose the same target twice.

4. Make any other choices called for by the spell or ability. Certain spells and abilities can be used in one of several ways. Decide what the spell or ability will do when it's played this time

5. When you complete steps 2 through 4, the spell or ability is played. (If you couldn't complete and of those steps, you couldn't play the spell or ability in the first place.) If you played a spell, it leaves your hand; when it takes effect, it goes into play if it becomes a peramanent, and into your graveyard otherwise. If you played an ability, its effect is considered separate from the source - but that effect "remembers" everything true of the source at the time you played the ability. Removing or altering the sourece of an effect won't alter the effect.

EXAMPLE: Unhold Strength's card type is "Enchant Creature," so it targets a creature. Its text reads "Enchanted creature gets +2/+1," so only affects that creature.

If the target of a local enchantment becomes invalid or leaves play, the enchantment is buried in its owner's graveyard. Changing control of a permanent doesnt' change who controls any enchantments played on that permanent.

A creature that regenerates becomes tapped as a part of the regenation effect; note that since it's tapping as part of the effect, not as a cost, a tapped creature cnan regenrate. All damage successfully dealt to the creature so far this turn is erased. Because a regenerated creature doesn't actually leave play, any effects applying to it continue for their normal duration, all enchantments played on it remain in place, and so on. If the creature is attacking or blocking, regenrating it removes it from combat.

Landwalk: A group of abilities; a creature never hs "landwalk," but "swampwalk," and so on instead. If the defentding player controls any lands of the approprate type, that player can't assign any creatures to block an attcking creature with a landwalk ability.

Landhome: A group of abilities similar to landwalk. Creatures with a landhome ability can't attck if the defending player controls no lands of the appropriate type. Also, any creatures with landhome a player cntrols are buried if at any time that player controls no lands of the approrpiate type.

First Strike: When damage dealing begins, creatures are divided into two groups: those with first strike, and those without. Creatures in the first group deal their damage during the first damage-dealing step of combat; the others deal their damage the second one. If a creature is killed in the first damage-dealing step, it won't deal damage during the second one, as dead creatures don't deal damage.

Trample: Attacking creatures with this ability attempt to deal as much damage as possible to the defending player, even when they're blocked. If an attacker with trample is blocked, all damage it deals to its blockers over what is needed to destroy them is redirected to the defending player. If it can't deal damage to the blocking creatures (if none of them can receive combat damage this turn, for example), it assigns its full damage to the defending player.

Sacrifice: To sacrifice a permanent is to put it into it's owner's graveyard. Nothing can prevent this. A sacrificed creature cannot be regenerated. Sacrifices are usually made for a casting cost or as a penalty. You can only sacrifice permanents you control.

Banding: An ability with two distinct features. The first allows you to group creatuers so that they can attack your oppenent with their combined power. The second gives you control over the distinction of combat. An attacking band can contain any number of creatures with banding and up to one creature without it. Once a band's been formed, the creatures within the band attack as a group. Creatures in the band keep their special abilities but dont share them with the others in the band. Once you've finished declaring attackers, you can't choose to form any new bands or break up existing ones. Creatures with banding aren't required to be part of a band when they attack.

Rampage:Creatures with rampage get bigger as more creatures are assigned to block them. Rampage always has a certain value, written as "Rampage X." If more than one creature is assigned to block an attacking creature with rampage X, that creature gets +X/+X until end of the turn for each creature assigned to block it after the first.

Protection: A creature with protection is largely immune to spells, abilites, and permanents with a given color. This ability is written as "protection from (color)." All forms of protection provide an equivalent set of abilites. If a creature had protection from blue, blue creatures can't be assigned to block it; all damage dealt to it by blue sources is reduced to 0; and it can't be the target of blue spells, abilities, or enchantments.

Where do you want to go?

Back to Spider's Web
Magic:The Gathering - Phases of a Turn
Magic:The Gathering - House Rules and Glossary
Magic:The Gathering - Understanding the Cards