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Beginning the Game
Each player shuffles his or her deck of cards and then draws seven cards off the top of his or her deck. These cards become that player's hand.
Each player may look at his or her own hand, but can't look at his or her opponent's hand. Keep your cards hidden from the other player!
If a player wishes to do so, the player may mulligan. To mulligan, the player shuffles his or her hand back into his or her deck and tries again with a new hand. However, each time the player does this, they draw one less card. A player may mulligan as many times as they want until they decide to keep a hand of cards. Generally speaking, you want to keep a hand that contains between two and five lands. If your hand only contains zero or one land, mulligan. If your hand contains six or seven lands, mulligan. Otherwise, keep.
After all players have kept their hand, each player who mulliganed at least once may look at the top card of their deck. That player may then choose to either keep that card where it is, or to move it to the bottom of their deck.
Then, each player receives 20 life (keep track of this on a piece of paper), and the game begins. If you have 0 life at any time, you lose the game, so be sure to keep this number up while trying to lower your opponent's.
Parts of a Turn
Each turn is divided into several steps. Use this as a quick reference if you need to. Note that this might not make a lot of sense to you right now, but don't worry. Everything will be explained by the time you finish reading this page.
1) Untap - Turn all of your tapped cards back to the upright position, so that they are now untapped.
2) Upkeep - If a card tells you to do something during your upkeep, do it now.
3) Draw - Draw a card from your deck. (Note: If you are going first, skip this step on your first turn.)
4) Main - You can play a land (once per turn), and cast spells that you can afford to pay for.
5) Begin Combat - See the section on "Combat" below.
6) Declare Attackers - See "Combat".
7) Declare Blockers - See "Combat".
8) Combat Damage - See "Combat".
9) End of Combat - See "Combat".
10) Main - You can play a land if you didn't play one before, and cast more spells.
11) End - Announce to your opponent that you are finished.
12) Cleanup - All damage on creatures is healed, and if you have more than seven cards in your hand, you discard cards from your hand to your graveyard until you have seven.
Types of Cards
LAND
Land is the primary type of card in Magic. Your deck will contain a lot of these. You may play one land each turn. When you play a land, simply place it onto the table in front of you from your hand.
You can tap each land for mana. To do this, turn the card sideways 90 degrees. This shows that you have tapped it. From there, you can use that mana to pay for other cards. Don't worry, because your cards will untap again at the beginning of each of your turns. There are five different colors of mana.
The
symbol represents white mana, and it is produced by Plains cards.The
symbol represents blue mana, and it is produced by Island cards.The
symbol represents black mana, and it is produced by Swamp cards.The
symbol represents red mana, and it is produced by Mountain cards.The
symbol represents green mana, and it is produced by Forest cards.The cards Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest (pictured above) are referred to as the basic land cards. However, there are plenty of lands that are nonbasic. These lands might produce multiple colors of mana, might produce colorless mana (represented by the
symbol), or might have special abilities. Just read the individual card.If a card isn't a land, then it's a spell. See "Casting a Spell" below for further details.
CREATURE
When you cast a creature spell, put it in front of you on the table. It remains there until a card effect puts it into your graveyard (the discard pile).
A creature card can attack and block in combat. See "Combat" below for more details. Creatures also sometimes have other abilities, depending on the card.
ARTIFACT AND ENCHANTMENT
When you cast an artifact or enchantment, you put it onto the table in front of you. It remains there until a card effect puts it into your graveyard.
While in play, an artifact or enchantment will often have an effect on gameplay. Artifacts typically can be cast for mana of any color, while other card types typically require a specific color.
SORCERY AND INSTANT
When you cast a sorcery or an instant, you do what the card says to do, and then immediately put it into your graveyard afterwards.
Sorceries (and every other card type) can only be used during your turn, but you can cast an Instant at any time, even during an opponent's turn, even while an opponent is casting a spell of their own!
PLANESWALKER
Planeswalker cards are very powerful, but very complicated. See "Planeswalker Cards" below for more details on how they work.
Casting a Spell
This is what a typical Magic card will look like. In order to cast it, you must pay its mana cost. The mana cost is written in the upper-right corner of the card. In this case, the mana cost is
. Eachsymbol can be paid for with one red mana. Thesymbol represents generic mana, so it may be paid with mana of any type. In this case, four generic mana are required. So, in order to cast this spell, you would need to pay a total of six mana, at least two of which must be red. It does not matter what color the others are. You can tap six Mountains, two Mountains and four Forests, or a Plains, an Island, a Swamp, a Forest, and two Mountains, along with many other possible legal combinations.Parts of a Card
Each card is divided into several different parts. Let's take a look at each one. Looking at the card above, and working our way from top to bottom, the first thing we see is its name: Shivan Dragon.
"Shivan Dragon" is the name of the card. This means that if we put this card in our deck, we can only have four cards with that name in our deck at once. Our fifth card that is named "Shivan Dragon" would not be allowed to be played in that deck.
To the right of that, we see its mana cost. This is the amount of mana that is necessary to cast it. We already went over this above, in "Casting a Spell".
Underneath that, we see an illustration. This is just there to look cool, and it has no effect on gameplay.
Underneath that, we see the words "Creature - Dragon". This tells us what type of card it is: it's a creature. After the hyphen, we see the word "Dragon", which is the type of creature it is. If there's a card in play that does something to Dragons, Shivan Dragon will count as a Dragon.
To the right of that, we see its expansion symbol. This has no effect on gameplay, and is just collector information. The symbol itself will tell you which expansion this card originally came from, and the color of the symbol denotes its rarity.
Underneath this, we see a giant text box. This tells us what the cards abilities are. The first ability says "Flying". This is the name of an ability that a lot of creatures have. What does Flying mean? Well, eventually, you'll be playing so long that you just instinctively know, but for beginners, that information is included after the word "Flying", written in parentheses and in italics. This is referred to as reminder text. "Flying" means "This creature can't be blocked except by creatures with flying or reach." See "Abilities" below for info on the more common abilities that you'll encounter on your journey through Magic.
Its next ability says "
: Shivan Dragon gets +1/+0 until end of turn." Because this ability is not frequently seen on creatures, unlike Flying, the ability is un-named. You just do what the card says. Specifically, you can pay a red mana, and then Shivan Dragon will get +1/+0 until the end of the turn. What does that mean? Well, read on.After the second ability, we see that the next line of text is written in italics. "The undisputed master of the mountains of Shiv." Because this is in italics, it is classified as flavor text, which has no effect on gameplay whatsoever. Like the illustration, it's just there to look cool.
Then, in the bottom-right corner, we see two numbers. It says "5/5". Only creature cards will have these numbers there. The first number is power, and the second number is toughness. A creature's power is how much damage it will deal in combat. A creature's toughness is how much damage it can take. If a creature has taken more damage than its toughness will allow, then the creature is placed into its owner's graveyard.
Finally, the black border at the bottom shows off the collector info and the name of the artist who drew the illustration. It has no effect on gameplay.
Combat
Each turn, you may attack with your creatures. Note that you don't have to attack with any creature if you don't want to. You also cannot attack with a creature if that creature is currently tapped or if it entered play during this turn.
For example, suppose that during our turn, we have the following creatures in play:
Assuming that both creatures are untapped, and both creatures were in play since last turn, we can attack with both of them! But we don't have to. From here we have four options: (1) don't attack with anything, (2) attack with only the Lifespring Druid, (3) attack with only the Broodhunter Wurm, or (4) attack with both creatures. Let's go with option four.
So, we want to attack with both creatures. To do this, we simply announce to our opponent that we are attacking with both creatures, and then we tap each attacking creature. Remember, to tap a card, turn it ninety degrees. Just like land cards, our creatures also untap at the beginning of each of our turns.
Note that we can only attack our opponent. We cannot attack one of his/her creatures. (You can attack planeswalker cards, but this is complicated. See "Planeswalker Cards" below for more info.)
Now, let's pretend we're on the other side. Instead of attacking, we are the player who is being attacked. For the sake of not doing another example, let's suppose that it is the above creatures that are attacking us: Lifespring Druid and Broodhunter Wurm. What happens now?
Well, let's suppose that we have one creature in play, this guy:
Let's assume that Walking Corpse is untapped. Because it's an untapped creature, we can have it block. Blocking requires that it be untapped, but note that I don't have to tap the Walking Corpse in order to block.
So, now we have three options: (1) don't block, (2) block the Lifespring Druid with Walking Corpse, or (3) block the Broodhunter Wurm with Walking Corpse.
Let's examine each option. If we choose option 1, then both the Lifespring Druid and the Broodhunter Wurm will hit us directly. Each deals damage equal to their power. Lifespring Druid has a power of 2, and Broodhunter Wurm has a power of 4. That's a total of 6, so we'd take 6 damage here, which means we lose 6 life.
If we choose option 2, then the Lifespring Druid is blocked by the Walking Corpse. When a creature is blocked, each deals damage to the other. Lifespring Druid will deal 2 damage (its power) to Walking Corpse, while Walking Corpse will deal 2 damage (its power) to the Lifespring Druid. Because Lifespring Druid only has 1 toughness, 2 damage is more than enough to destroy it, but because Walking Corpse also only has 2 toughness, 2 damage is enough to destroy it, so both creatures would be put into their owner's graveyards. Broodhunter Wurm, being unblocked, would go on to do 4 damage to us directly, so we lose 4 life.
If we choose option 3, then the Broodhunter Wurm is blocked. It will do 4 damage (its power) to Walking Corpse, more than enough to destroy it. Walking Corpse will also do 2 damage to it, but that's not enough to destroy it, because Broodhunter Wurm has 3 toughness. The Lifespring Druid, being unblocked, will do 2 damage to us directly, so we lose 2 life.
What's interesting about this situation is that there is no "correct" answer. The first option allows us to keep Walking Corpse in play, so that we can attack with it on a future turn. The second option allows us to destroy our opponent's Lifespring Druid, stopping them from attacking with it on future turns. And the third option results in us losing the least amount of life. So all three options have some benefits to them.
Now, let's rewrite that a bit. Let's pretend that, instead of having one Walking Corpse in play, we had two. Now things get even more interesting. We can block each creature with a single Walking Corpse, and that results in the damage working out the way you'd expect: both creatures are blocked, so we don't lose any life, and both Walking Corpses are destroyed, and so is Lifespring Druid. It just combines the two outcomes of option 2 and option 3. But there's another choice. We can block the Broodhunter Wurm with both of the Walking Corpses. Here's how that would work.
The Walking Corpses would deal damage to Broodhunter Wurm equal to their power (2 power each, for 4 damage total). Because Broodhunter Wurm only has 3 toughness, that's enough to destroy it. The Broodhunter Wurm deals 4 damage (its power) to the blocking creatures. The attacking player gets to choose how to divide that damage. In this case, the smart play would be to do 2 damage to each Walking Corpse, destroying both of them. Also, in this situation, the Lifespring Druid would be unblocked, so we'd lose 2 life.
Note that all damage that is dealt to creatures will "wear off" at the end of every turn, so there's no need to mark it with counters or the like.
The Stack
Up until now, I've given the impression that when you cast a spell, you get that card right away. However, this isn't completely true. It actually goes to an area called "the stack" before resolving and having its effect go off. When you cast a spell, your opponent then gets a chance to respond, by casting any Instants that they have, or activate the abilities of any cards that they have in play. Then, you get a chance to respond to their response. They can respond to that, and you to that, and so on. Once neither player wants to put anything else on the stack, then everything on the stack resolves in reverse order.
For example, suppose we have the Lightspring Druid above in play right now. We want to make it bigger, so we play Aim High, pictured below. This untaps the Lifespring Druid, gives it +2/+2, and gives it the ability Reach. However, our opponent responds by playing Outnumber while they have exactly one creature in play, also pictured below.
Because spells on the stack resolve in reverse order, this means that Outnumber will resolve first, doing 1 damage to Lifespring Druid. Because Lifespring Druid only has 1 toughness, that's enough to destroy it. It goes to our graveyard. Aim High no longer has a valid target, so it does nothing and is put into our graveyard. We do not get a "refund" on our mana. We just wasted it. Darn.
But let's rewrite this situation a bit. Suppose our opponent plays Outnumber first, to do 1 damage to our Lifespring Druid. In response, we can play Aim High. Since the stack resolved in reverse order, first, Aim High will give our Lifespring Druid +2/+2. It now has 4 power and 3 toughness. Outnumber will resolve next, dealing 1 damage to Lifespring Druid. However, since Lifespring Druid now has 3 toughness, it is not enough to destroy it. Much better.
Planeswalker Cards
Then, the planeswalker will come to your side to fight for you, shown by you putting the card into play. In the middle of the card, you see "Planeswalker - Nissa". This tells you what type of planeswalker it is. In this case, it is Nissa. You can only have one planeswalker of each type in play at once. Even if they have different names (such as "Nissa Revane", "Nissa, Sage Animist", and "Nissa, Worldwaker"), if they have the same planeswalker type, you must choose one to keep in play and sacrifice the rest to your graveyard.
However, you can have multiple planeswalkers in play at once if they have different types. So, for example, you may have a "Planeswalker - Gideon", a "Planeswalker - Jace", and a "Planeswalker - Chandra" in play all at once in addition to Nissa and you'll be okay.
Now then, on your turn only, once per turn, you may use one ability of each planeswalker. Each ability has a symbol to the left of it telling you how to use it. For example, Nissa's first ability has a "+1" symbol. To use this ability, you add 1 loyalty counter to Nissa. (Use bottle caps, pennies, dice, whatever you have available, to show loyalty.) By comparison, Nissa's last ability says "-7", so to use this ability, we would have to remove 7 loyalty counters. You can't remove counters that aren't there, so this means that we can't even use that last ability at all, until Nissa gets all the way up to seven loyalty counters.
In the bottom-right corner, you'll see a "3" symbol. This is Nissa's starting loyalty. When it first comes into play, you put 3 loyalty counters on it.
We can only use one ability per turn, but let's suppose we eventually manage to get Nissa up to 7 loyalty counters and then use that last ability. What happens now? Well, the ability will still go off as normal, but Nissa will no longer have any loyalty counters on it. This means that it is destroyed and put into our graveyard.
Now, let's flip the situation around a bit. Our opponent has Nissa in play instead. We don't want to just sit around waiting for all of these abilities to go off. Is there any way to make Nissa lose loyalty faster? As a matter of fact, there is. When we attack with our creatures during combat each turn, we ordinarily attack our opponent, and then they choose whether or not to block with their creatures. But if our opponent has a planeswalker in play, we can choose to attack the planeswalker instead. The opponent then still gets to block with their creatures as normal. But then, any unblocked creatures that are attacking the planeswalker do damage to the planeswalker rather than the opponent. (If any of the unblocked creatures were attacking the opponent, then those ones still damage the opponent as normal.)
When a planeswalker is damaged, it loses that many loyalty counters. And remember: when all of the loyalty counters are gone, that planeswalker is destroyed.
This also applies to damage that is dealt outside of combat. If I have a sorcery that deals damage to my opponent, I may choose to redirect the damage to one of their planeswalkers instead.
Abilities
Magic has been going for over 20 years now. It typically releases a new expansion every three months. In that time, there have been over 16,000 different cards made, and over 100 different abilities. To cover them all would be exhaustive, so I'll just go over the most common ones that you'll come across. Note that if you encounter an ability that isn't on this list, just check the reminder text on the card if you aren't sure how it works.
Deathtouch - If a creature has deathtouch, then whenever it deals damage to another creature, that other creature is destroyed. Even 1 damage is enough to destroy even the mightiest of creatures.
Defender - If a creature has defender, then that creature can't attack.
Double Strike - If a creature has double strike, then, during combat, it will get to deal damage before creatures without Double Strike and First Strike. That's not all. It will also get to deal damage normally as well. This means that it will do damage twice each turn, effectively doubling its power!
Enchant - Sometimes you might encounter an Enchantment that says "Enchant [whatever]". This ability means that the Enchantment is an Aura. Put that Aura onto a [whatever]. For example, if it says "Enchant creature", put it on a creature. If it says "Enchant land", put it on a land. And so on. Typically, you show this by putting the Aura behind the card that it is enchanting. While in play, the Aura will grant certain bonuses or abilities to the card that it is enchanting. If the card it is enchanting is destroyed, then the Aura is destroyed as well.
Equip - Sometimes you might encounter an Artifact that says "Equip [mana cost]". This ability means that the Artifact is an Equipment. When an Equipment comes into play, it starts out unattached to anything. Then, you may pay its Equip cost (you can only do this on your turn), and then attach it to one of your creatures. Like an Aura, it will remain attached to that creature and grant it any bonuses or abilities that the Equipment says it will. Unlike an Aura, you can move the Equipment around to another one of your creatures later during your turn (or even on a future turn). Just pay the Equip cost again. When a creature that is equipped with Equipment is destroyed, the Equipment remains in play, but is no longer attached to anything. You'll have to pay the Equip cost again to attach it to a creature.
First Strike - If a creature has first strike, then, during combat, it will get to deal damage before creatures without First Strike and Double Strike. Unlike Double Strike, though, a creature with First Strike will not deal damage normally as well. It only gets one strike. But being able to do damage first means that it will survive combat more often, since it has the opportunity to destroy the opposing creature before it gets hit.
Flash - Remember how you can only play cards on your turn, unless they're Instants? Well, if a card has Flash, you can play it even on an opponent's turn, despite it not being an Instant. Cool, right?
Flying - A creature with Flying cannot be blocked except by another creature with Flying, or a creature with Reach.
Haste - Remember how a creature can't attack on the turn you play it? Well, if that creature has the ability Haste, then it can attack the turn you play it!
Hexproof - If a creature has Hexproof, then it is immune to the opponent's card effects. However, this only prevents cards that specifically target it. For example, if a card says "Destroy target creature", then the Hexproof creature is immune. But if it says "Destroy all creatures", then it will still be destroyed.
Indestructible - A card with indestructible cannot be destroyed. It is immune to anything that would destroy it.
Lifelink - When a creature with lifelink inflicts damage, regardless of whether the damage is dealt to a creature, a player, or a planeswalker, then you gain life equal to the amount of damage that was dealt. This happens in addition to the normal damage. Isn't that awesome?
Menace - A creature with Menace cannot be blocked by a single creature. You need to block it with more than one creature at once in order to block it.
Prowess - If a creature has Prowess, then each time you cast a non-creature spell, that creature will get +1/+1 until the end of the turn.
Reach - A creature with Reach can block creatures with Flying, despite not having the Flying ability itself.
Trample - When a creature with Trample deals damage to a creature, if that damage is enough to destroy the creature, then the rest of the damage is dealt to the thing that it's attacking (either the player or the planeswalker). For example, if a creature with 6 power has trample, and it is blocked by a creature with 2 toughness, then it will deal 2 damage to the creature, and the other 4 damage will be dealt to the opponent. By comparison, a creature without trample would just deal all 6 damage to the creature that blocked it.
Vigilance - Ordinarily, when a creature attacks, you tap it. However, if that creature has Vigilance, then you don't tap it. It can stay untapped while it attacks. This lets you later use it to block, or to activate any abilities that would require it to tap.
Glossary
Here's some other common terms that you'll find on cards as you play.
Control - To control a card is to have it in play on your side. By comparison, the cards that your opponent has in play are under their control. There are some cards that change control, so that you can use your opponent's cards and they can use yours. In this case, be sure to always return the cards back to their proper owners at the end of the game.
Counter [a spell] - To counter a spell is to negate its effect and put it into the graveyard as though it weren't cast. The player who cast it does not get a "refund" on mana.
Counter [on a card] - To put a counter on a card is to mark it with a bottle cap, a penny, a die, etc. Usually, this is used to mark a permanent change on the card that won't wear off at the end of the turn.
Dies - To say that a creature "dies" means that it was in play, and then later put into the graveyard.
Exile - To exile a card is to set it aside. It is not in play, but it is not in a graveyard either. It's just gone. Even if a card lets you get cards back from your graveyard, you cannot get back exiled cards. You still get the exiled card back at the end of the game, though.
Fight - When a card instructs two creatures to "fight", it means that each deals damage to the other equal to its power.
Mana Pool - This is where your mana goes when you don't use it. If you don't use your mana pool by the end of one of your steps in your turn (see "Parts of a Turn" above), then that mana is lost. This is so that you can't save mana up from one turn to the next.
Next Damage - If a card refers to the next damage, it means the next time that that card receives damage. For example, the ability "prevent the next 2 damage that would be dealt to target creature" means that the next time 2 damage would be inflicted on that creature, it isn't.
Next Time - If a card refers to the "next time" that something happens, this follows the same criteria.
Permanent - A permanent is any card that is currently in play, whether it is a land, a creature, an enchantment, an artifact, or a planeswalker. Instants and sorceries are not permanents. Note that there's no formal rule on how to arrange the permanents that you have in play, but most players like to play with their lands as close to them as possible, and all other permanents in front of the lands.
Regenerate - To regenerate a creature is to prevent its destruction. For example, a creature that says "Pay 2 life: Regenerate this creature" as an ability would allow you to pay 2 life, and then, the next time that this creature would be destroyed, it isn't. Neat, huh?
Sacrifice - To sacrifice a card is to put it into your graveyard. You can only sacrifice your own cards, not your opponent's.
Scry [number] - If a card asks you to scry, and then gives a number, it means to look at the top [number] cards of your deck, then put any of them you want on the top of your deck in any order you want, and the others on the bottom in any order you want.
Tap - To tap a card is to turn it ninety degrees. It can be done for a variety of reasons, such as using a card effect, attacking with a creature, or getting mana from a land.
Target - When a spell or ability refers to a "target", then you get to choose that target at the time that you put that spell or ability onto the stack. You cannot target your opponent's creatures if they have the Hexproof ability (see "Abilities", above).
Token - If a card tells you to put a token into play, it means to put an imaginary card into play that has the stats defined by the card that created the token. Booster packs come with cards that you can use to represent the tokens, but these are not required. You can use whatever you want to represent a token, such as glass beads or dice.
Untap - To untap a card is to turn it upright again after it has already been tapped.
X - Some cards have an X in their effect. In that case, you get to choose what number you want X to equal when you play the card, but you must choose the same number for every X on that card. Similarly, some cards feature
in their cost, which means that the mana you spend on them is X generic mana. As an example, see below.
This card costs any amount of mana you want, plus two red mana. Then, it will deal damage equal to the amount of generic mana that you paid for it. For example, if you paid two mana, plus the two red mana (four mana total), then it'd deal 2 damage. If you paid six mana plus the two red mana (eight mana total), then it'd deal 6 damage. As long as the value of X is consistent throughout the whole card, you can have it be whatever you want.
Further Reading
Like I said, Magic is complicated. This page should get you through just about everything you need in order to survive 99% of the games you encounter, but the truth is that this page only covers about 1% of the full rulebook. When you have a game with over 16,000 different interlocking pieces, situations come up when you play two cards together that weren't really meant to be played together.
If you want to take a look at Magic's full rulebook, you can do so. However, be forewarned that this is NOT very beginner-friendly at all. It's over 200 pages long and it reads like a federal tax manual. It's good for just looking up quick things just to see how things work if you encounter a situation but cannot figure out how to proceed through it. It's not meant to be read from one end to another. Having said that, if you absolutely must check out the full Comprehensive Rulebook, WHICH I CANNOT RECOMMEND AGAINST DOING ENOUGH, you can do so here. If that still doesn't answer whatever rules question that you had, you can consider contacting the Magic Customer Service people here.
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