How to Play Magic: The Gathering

The Object of Magic (MTG):

Magic is a trading-card game where knights, wizards, and monsters alike battle each other to the death for your sake, and your opponents demise. In Magic, you, as a person, start with 20 life. The person to reach zero first loses. Cards in the battlefield take lead of the game. They can fly over creatures to get the opponent, they can give you life, they can do anything their abilities enable them to.

Mana and Mana Costs

In order to summon (put down) a card, you need the right amount of mana to do it. Mana is like Energy in Pokemon. Except there are only five kinds of mana:

• Plains. Decks of this kind are known for having many small creatures to overwhelm the opponent. The symbol for Plains is a sun.

• Island. Decks of this kind have tons flying creatures to soar over enemies. The symbol for this type is a water drop.

• Mountain. Decks of this kind take a while to summon creatures, but it is worth it. The cards are likely to be dragons, orcs, or goblins. REALLY TOUGH. The symbol for Mountain is a fireball.

• Swamp. This is one of my favorites, because they have good cards, and can be summoned quickly like Plains. This can consist of vampires, skeletons, zombies, and other horror creatures. The symbol for Swamp is a skull.

• Forest. Forest decks are really good, because they can make mana really fast, to summon amazing creatures early. The symbol for Forest is a tree.

Look at this card:

If you look in the top right corner, you can see the mana cost. The two water drop symbols mean that you need two Island mana to summon this card, and the number 2 is called converted mana, which means it could be any type. I could use:

• 2 Island, 2 Mountain
• 2 Island, 1 Forest, 1 Plains
• 4 Island

And so on. In order to spend a mana, you need to:

1. Look for any mana (Lands) in your hand. If you have one, put it down (you can only summon one mana per turn).
2. If you have enough mana on the battlefield (the surface you are playing on), then tap it (rotate it 90 degrees) to spend it
3. When all the mana you need is tapped, put down the card. If you want to summon any more cards, you have to use the ones that are not tapped
4. Untap all mana on your next turn

Creatures: Attacking and Defending

All creature cards have power and toughness. Power is how much damage a creature can do, and toughness is its life. At the end of a turn, all creatures reset their health. But if their health is at zero, put it in the graveyard, next to your deck. All creatures, like Urza, show their stats in the bottom right corner of the card. Since Urza is a 1/4, he has one power, and 4 toughness.

Here is how it would go it you are attacking or defending:

1. Attacker will tap the cards they are attacking with, and untap them on their next turn. Attackers can only choose to attack a player, or a planeswalker, not a creature. Attacker cannot tap creatures who entered the game this turn, and therefore cannot attack with them.

2. If defender has cards, he can use them to defend against creatures. If a 1/3 defends against a 3/3, the 1/3 dies, since they can’t kill them, and can’t survive them. Defender doesn’t have to tap creatures to defend

3. Survivors of battle reset their health at the end of the attacker’s turn.

Certain creatures have certain abilities at the bottom of the card. A card also has certain traits:

• Flying (this card can’t be blocked except by creatures with flying or reach)

• Defender (this creature can’t attack)

• First Strike (creatures with this deal damage to blocking creatures first, instead at the same time. If a 1/1 with first strike is defended by a 1/1, the 1/1 first strike survives)

• Haste (creatures with this can attack when they enter the battlefield on their first turn)

• Trample (creatures with this deal excess damage to target they are attacking. If a 5/5 trample is blocked by a 2/2, the 2/2 dies, and 3 damage is dealt to target)

• Vigilance (creatures with this don’t need to tap to attack)

• Fear (creature with this cannot be blocked except by a Swamp creature, or an artifact creature)

• Landwalk (creatures with this cannot be blocked if defender has at least one mana of certain kind. A creature with Islandwalk cannot be blocked by opponent with Island mana)

• Indestructible (creatures with this cannot be destroyed)

• Hexproof (creatures with this cannot be the target of spells and abilities)

Planeswalkers: The Wizards of The Game

Creatures can be great in battle, but planeswalkers can do SO MANY THINGS, from creating OP creatures, to gaining life. They are the wizards of Magic.

Planeswalkers are different from creatures. They:

• Can’t attack
• Can’t block
• Can be defended by creatures

Even though they cannot attack, they are still really useful.

They still cost mana like creatures. If you look at the bottom right corner, you will see their life, or their loyalty points. The abilities they have can either take away, or add loyalty points. When the planeswalker’s loyalty points reach 0, they die. A 0 in an ability means don’t do anything. You cannot go into the negatives to do costly spells. For example, if Xenagos was at 5, he couldn’t do the -6 ability. You can only do 1 ability per turn, but you can do one when he is summoned.

Abilities, Sorceries, and Instants

Abilities are what make creatures and planeswalkers unique. Almost all creatures have one.

Sorceries are cards that can change the game entirely. For example:

For 5 mana you can get rid of almost every single card in the battlefield. You can only use them on your turn. But the nest class of spell is special.

Instants are cards that can even be played on opponents turns. If one of your cards suffers from a negative enchantment, in the middle of your enemy’s turn, you can summon Crush Contraband, and get rid of it.

Conclusion

Magic might seem hard at first, but when you learn the basics, it’s simple to play and have fun.