A beginners guide to 'Magic: the Gathering'

ladies and gentlemen welcome I'm Josh strife Hayes and this is a complete beginner's guide to the collectible card game Magic the Gathering this guide is designed for brand-new players and will cover all the basics you'll need to understand the game world and rules build your first deck and play your first few games I won't be focusing on any specific deck or format but will instead explain all the important rules you'll need to know and look at the most common situations you're face this guide is not a substitute for sitting down with a friendly experienced player and letting them teach you the game it's designed to help you grasp the basics and show you what kind of gameplay you'll need to expect this guide will be extremely long and extremely detailed magic is a complicated game so I'll be breaking all the complex rules down into super simple easy to understand examples if you know what you're looking for you can skip to it using the time codes in the description below if you're new to magic I suggest you grab a cup of tea and settle in we have a lot to cover history of the game Magic the Gathering was created by Richard Garfield in 1993 the first corset commonly known as alpha contained 295 cards now over 25 years later there have been hundreds of expansion sets and standalone products new formats invented and several highly successful video game adaptions the magic professional circuit draws thousands of players and hundreds of thousands of viewers and as of the time of this guide Magic has over 17,000 unique cards with over 20 billion physical cards printed this number will only ever go up before we discuss the game itself let's take a quick look at the lore and history of the in-game universe Magic the Gathering is a fantasy battle between players who take on the roles of Planeswalkers a powerful being able to hop between the many planes of reality that exists within the multiverse as you travel through this fantastical journey you'll visit places meet creatures and discover spells all the things you experience eventually become your deck of car your deck is a collection of the places you've been and things you've experienced brought together to fight another player at least that's the in-game law magic and the multiverse of planes are all connected by five main colors of magic each color is focused on a different gameplay style white is about life and light healing players or protecting your creatures on the board white magic has powerful and gellick creatures or defensive spells often becoming more powerful when you have more life white mana is produced by planes blue is about control deciding and dictating the pace and flow of the battle blue magic is all about countering the spells your opponent's casts preventing them from doing things or drawing more cards for yourself so you always have answers to any problem blue mana is produced by Islands black is about death and loss of life and not always the opponent's black cards can kill creatures or harm your enemies or harm you for beneficial effects black magic sees your life as a resource to be spent to achieve your end goal black mana is produced by swamps red is anger and damage red creatures are often the most aggressive and red spells are about doing as much damage as fast as possible red doesn't care too much about being subtle or crafting it's all about attacking red Manor is produced by mountains green is focused on growth and regeneration accelerating your land and growing huge creatures green magic often helps you race ahead of your opponent by generating more mana or playing lots of creatures very quickly Green often doesn't have the damage of red or the control of blue but you'll flood the battle with powerful creatures much quicker green mana is produced by forests there is also colorless mana devoid of any of the traits of the main five colors colorless is needed by the ancient and plain destroying Eldrazi colorless mana is produced by wastes these are very general statements and won't apply to every card in that color but they'll help you get a general feel for how that color plays now we've looked at a brief history of magic and the five colors let's look at the components of a magic card components of a card the border color edging and superficial design of a magic card has changed over the years but the core layouts and information placing has remained consistent here's what each card will have name the card names will be shown in the top left if multiple versions of a card exist for example a lightning bolt printed in 1993 and a lightning bolt printed in 2019 they are still both exactly the same card as far as the game is concerned manner cost the mana cost of all cards is shown in the top right will discuss how to produce Manor later but here's how the cost works some cards will have a number in a small grey circle this is called generic manner you can spend manor of any color to pay this generic cost you may also then see any number of colored Manor symbols to the right of the generic cost these symbols can only be paid using manner of this color let's take Shivan dragon as an example Shivan dragons total mana cost is 6 4 of this is a generic cost and can be paid with any color and 2 is red and can only be paid using red manner if we look at sliver Queen we'll see her total mana cost is 5 but you must pay this using one of each type of mana the total amount of cost of a card when you add the generic and color specified manner together is known as the converted mana cost or CMC usually the better a card is the higher the CMC will be sometimes a card will have an X in the mana cost this means you're able to pay whatever you want 4x usually the more you pay the better a spell will be fireball has a cost of X and 1 red meaning you must spend one read manner and then any amount you like 4x you'll do X damage to your opponent so spend more mana and do more damage for the sake of converted mana cost X is always counted as zero so fireball despite being a potentially very strong card has a converted mana cost of one because of the one read in its mana cost some cards such as lands will not have a mana cost artwork Magic has some stunning artwork and has explored a huge variation of artistic styles from the early fantasy of the early sets all the way through to Egypt pirates feudal Japan futuristic cities zombies vampires or famous cards redone in full art versions the type line will tell you what type of spell this card is the most common types you'll find are land creature instant sorcery and chant mint saga and Planeswalkers I'll explain more about each one of these later on some cards may have additional information before or after their type let's take this creature ink eyes servant of Oni as an example information on the type line is given in this order super type type subtype 1 sub type to the super type in this instance is legendary the type is creature the creature is then categorized into two further sub types rat and ninja this information is used whenever a spell specifically mentions a certain super or sub type some spells may say kill target legendary creature if this happens because ink eyes is indeed legendary it could be targeted if a spell says target ninja gains flying it could again target in guys because the type line tells us this specifically is a ninja expansion symbol on the right hand side of the type line you'll see the expansion symbol for that card the shape of this symbol will let you know which expansion or supplemental set this card came from and the color will tell you the cards rarity magic cards have four different rarity levels common cards will have a black and white symbol uncommon the symbol will be silver rare cards will be gold and mythic rare will be red if the card is from an additional special collector's set such as a from the vault edition the expansion symbol will let you know text box everything a card does is listed in the text box often when you ask what does this card do you'll be told to read the card and while this is a rather direct and rude answer magic cards really do tell you everything you need to know the text box of a card will include any specific powerful abilities this card has any passive activated or triggered abilities or any keywords which relate to this card I'll explain all these later on in this guide any text in brackets is reminder text usually placed after a key word or an ability simply to remind you what it does any italic text on the bottom of the card is known as flavor text it doesn't add any effect in the game but it does tell you more about the world and the history of the law of magic power and toughness if the card is a creature the bottom-right will show two numbers the first is its power how much damage it will do to a creature or player if it hits them the second is its toughness how much damage this creature is able to take in a single turn before it dies I'll explain how damage and blocking work in the combat section of this guide collector number and artist in the very bottom left you'll see the collector number of this card how many cards are in this specific set under that you'll see a three-letter code which relates to the specific set and then the artist's name spells you may hear me use the term spell to describe a magic card a spell is any card that is not a land so creatures sorceries instants and champions Planeswalkers and sagas they're all spells but lands are not spells formats Magic the Gathering is a complex game so to keep the game fair it's been divided down into certain formats each format has slightly different rules about which cards can and cannot be played if you're a brand new player with a set of cards you'll most likely be playing what we call kitchen table magic just use whatever you've got play with your friends and have fun all formats do contain some general rules these are your deck must be 60 cards or more it's usually not advised to go above 60 but you can if you want to you may only play up to 4 copies of a single card excluding basic lenss this means you may run 1 2 3 or 4 copies of any named card having 4 copies of a card is referred to as a play set because you'll never need more than 4 this rule doesn't apply to basic lands which are Plains islands mountains and forests you may play as many of these as you like in any deck each player begins at 20 Life Points the aim of the game is to win and the most common method of doing this is to reduce your opponent down to zero although there are many alternative wind conditions we'll discuss this later as you get more into organized play you'll play within a certain format here's a brief rundown of the most commonly played formats standard the standard magic format allows you to play cards from the latest three or four expansion blocks only cards released in the latest several expansions are allowed this is known as a rotating format when a new expansion is released the older expansion is no longer allowed to find out which expansions are currently allowed simply Google Magic the Gathering standard if a card is currently printed in a standard legal expansion you may use any printing of that card it does not have to be the exact artwork from the new set for example if lightning bolt was reprinted in a new expansion and became legal to play in standard I could use any version of the card called lightning bolt that I own modern the modern format allows all cards printed in all expansions from eighth edition and onwards eighth edition was printed in 2003 so any card printed in any set released since 2003 can be played in modern unless it's specifically on the banlist model is a non-rotating format once you own a modern deck it won't ever rotate out like standard does legacy and vintage are two older formats allowing cards from most of Magic's history including the immensely powerful and extremely expensive power 9 or the original duel Lambs if you're new to magic you won't be playing this format draft draft is one of the more random and fun formats you usually sit with a group of people purchase three booster packs each then open a single booster pack take one card and pass the remainder of your pack to the next person after opening and passing all three packs you will have a selection of cards in front of you that you've chosen you'll then build a deck from those cards and play against everyone else each local gaming store may boost a draft in different ways so ask how your local shop does it booster drafting is a great way to meet local players and slowly build up a collection while learning all the mechanics and interactions of the latest cards commander commander is a multiplayer format where you pick a legendary creature to be your commander then build a 100 card deck you can only have one of each named card and each card can only contain the manor colors that your commander also has so if your commander is a legendary creature with red green and black in their mana cost you can only add red green or black cards into your commander deck each player starts with 40 life instead of the usual 20 commander is usually played by a large group of players and can be very fun and very time-consuming the limit of one of each card means you can focus more on having fun than building a competitive edge that's a few of the more popular formats you won't need to master them all just be aware that magic is much more than just kitchen table battles for the purpose of this guide we're going to use the standard or modern format recent expansions 60 card minimum for of a card limit and 20 life order of a game for this guide I'm going to explain the phases and parts of a turn in detail and give examples to show exactly how they work it may sound complex as I'm explaining it but believe me when I say it will become extremely simple and easy within two or three games before the game starts you'll shuffle your deck your deck is also referred to as your library and I'll use both words in this guide present the shuffle deck or library to your opponents for them to shuffle it this isn't essential at kitchen table level but it's needed at higher levels of competitive play so you know your opponent hasn't stacked their deck once both decks are shuffled and handed back you'll place your deck face down then decide on who will go first usually done by rolling a dice once you know who's going first each player will draw seven cards if you're happy with your opening hand of seven you'll keep your hand if you're unhappy with your opening hand you can shuffle them back into your deck shuffle the deck again and draw seven again this is known as a mulligan however each time you do this you will then have to choose one more card from your hand and put it on the bottom of your deck this means if you mulligan twice you'll then have to choose two of these seven cards you've drawn and place them on the bottom of your library before the game begins ideally you don't want to mulligan too much once you're both happy with your opening hands the game starts each turn in magic must follow several phases in order these phases are untap upkeep draw pre combat main phase combat which is broken down into declare attackers declare blockers and damage post combat main phase end step and clean up when the game first starts for the very first turn of the game only you will skip the untap upkeep and draw step this is to reduce the first turn advantage by preventing the player going first from drawing a card on their very first turn let's imagine that game has been going a while and go through these steps in order one untap tapping a card means turning it sideways there are many reasons you tap a card lands can be tapped to generate mana creatures tap when they attack usually a card can only be tapped once a turn and when it's tapped it cannot be used again until it untapped which happens here during the untapped step turn all of your tapped cards back straight up to upkeep sometimes there will be cards on the field such as creatures or enchantments that say on them during your upkeep something happens this is that time if I happen to have a fountain of renewal on the battlefield which says at the beginning of your upkeep you gain one life this is when I'd gain it once all upkeep triggers have been followed you move on to the next step step 3 draw once you've untapped and follow any upkeep triggers you can now draw a single card from the top of your library into your hand pre combat main phase after untap upkeep draw comes the pre combat main phase this is an important tactical time you get two main phases in a turn pre combat before attacking and post combat after attacking each main phase follows the same rules during either of the main phases you can play a land this means you can put one land card from your hand onto the battlefield you can only play one land per turn if you play a land during your pre combat main phase you can't play another in your post combat main phase basic lands always enter the battlefield untapped meaning you'll set them straight up lands are usually played closest to yourself play creatures to win magic you want a battlefield full of powerful creatures once cast creatures will remain on the battlefield until an effect destroys them either combat or spell damage creatures are usually placed onto the battlefield above lands closer to your opponent to get a creature from your hand onto the battlefield you simply need to pay its mana cost the mana cost will be listed in the top right to generate mana you tap land tapping a land card simply means turning it sideways tapping land doesn't cause it to die or be destroyed when you tap a land card on the battlefield it will give you one manner of that color this manner exists in a place known as your mana pool and you then spend mana from your mana pool to pay the casting cost of spells for example let's say I have two mountains on the battlefield and in my hand I have carries F sky ship Raider Shivan dragon blight steel colossus and grave crawler i only have the ability to tap two lands and produce two mana so Shivan dragon and blight steel colossus are both impossible for me to cast right now their mana cost is too expensive grave crawler despite only needing one needs black manner and I only have mountains so I can only produce red so I can't cast that either but carry Zev I can cast she has a cost of one generic which I can pay with any color in this case a single red and one red specific which I am able to pay with the other mountain I tap both my mountains generating to read manner then immediately spend it to put carries EV onto the battlefield that manner cannot be spent on anything else this turn it's already been used to cast carries F mana in my mana pool the stuff created by tapping lands remains there until I choose to go to the next phase of my turn when you move from one phase to the next any manner in your mana pool simply disappears it's wasted you can play as many creatures per turn as you like as long as you can pay the mana cost for each individual one play sorceries and instance sorceries and instants are single time spells powerful effects you pay for cast resolve then they go to your graveyard sorceries can only be cast during your pre combat or post combat main phase while the stack is empty and you have priority instance can be cast whenever you have priority we'll look at the specifics of priority and the stack later for now let's look at a sorcery cultivate is a green sorcery with a converted mana cost of 3 to generic and one green being a sorcery it can only be cast on my pre or post combat main phase if I have the mana to play it I can cast it then I'll do what the spell says in this case search my library for two basic lands reveal them and put one on to the battlefield tapped and the other into my hand then shuffle my library once any sorcery or instant spell has been cast it is placed into the graveyard a graveyard is a collection of already cast instant or sorcery cards dead creatures or Planeswalkers or destroyed are two facts or enchantments all graveyards are face-up and any player can see what is in any other player's graveyard at any time play enchantments artifacts sagas or Planeswalkers while on my first or second main phase you can also cast enchantments artifacts sagas or planeswalker spells these are usually powerful static spells that remain on the battlefield and provide an advantage or a constant reusable ability most artifacts or enchantments don't have a power or toughness like creatures because they can't attack or defend they just remain on the board and benefit you some creatures are also artifacts as shown in their type line sagas and Planeswalkers are complex card types and are explained later in this guide once I feel I've done all I can do on my pre combat main phase I've played my land for the turn or cast my creatures or sorcery spells I can move to the combat phase combat combat in Magic the Gathering is mainly about killing your opponent you'll use your creatures to damage their life total until it reaches zero combat is broken down into several smaller steps one declare attackers if it's your girl and you've moved to combat you will now declare every creature you wish to attack with a creature cannot attack the same turn it enters the battlefield it's said to have summoning sickness it must survive one upkeep before it can attack however the keyword haste removes this limit if a creature has haste it can attack the same turn it enters keywords are discussed later in this guide to declare a creature as an attacker simply tap it which is turning it sideways if that creature is already tapped it cannot be declared as an attacker you must declare every creature you want to attack with once you've finalized your decision you can't go back and change it you can attack with as many or as few creatures as you like but once you've declared your attacks it's final in magic you do not attack your opponent's creatures you attack the opponent themselves when declaring an attack you cannot say I attack your creature with my creature you simply say I attack you let's use an in-game example I control two creatures with two power and two toughness we refer to these as two two creatures my opponent controls two creatures with one power and one toughness referred to as 1/1 creatures I declare both my creatures as attackers once all the attacks have been declared it moves to the next step to declare blockers now it's the opponent's time to make decisions they have creatures attacking them they can either do nothing and take the damage or block using their own creatures for a creature to be declared as a blocker it must be untapped a tapped creature cannot block all blockers must be declared at the same time you may block with as many or as few creatures as you want and you may block a single attacker with multiple blockers for this example let's say I block each - - with a 1/1 once blocks have all been declared we move on to the next step step 3 damage attacks have been declared blocks have been declared damaged now happens all damage happens at exactly the same time and even though you will likely resolve each creature step by step remember that one individual creature will not attack or die first all calculations are solved instantaneously if a creature is not blocked it will hit the defending player that player will lose life equal to the unblocked creatures power remember power was the first number if a creature with 5 power attacks and is not blocked it will reduce the opponent's life by 5 if a creature is blocked then the attacking creature will hit the blocker and the blocker will also hit the attacking creature back at the same time each creature deals damage to the other the damage dealt is equal to that creatures power if the damage dealt to it is greater than that creatures toughness it will die and go to the graveyard this sounds complex but it's really very simple in the above example the blocks looks like this so the damage would be this the first 2/2 creature does two damage to the blocking 1/1 the blocker only has one toughness so will now die but it also hit back at exactly the same time it hit its power in this case one against my attacker however my attacker has two toughness so will not die this happens for both blocks the result of this blocking combination is the opponent will take no damage because both attacks have successfully been blocked however both blockers will die and both attacking creatures will remain alive when a creature blocks it will absorb all incoming damage from the attacker even if that blocker only has one toughness and the attacker has ten power the blocker will protect me from all damage throwing a smaller creature in front of a much larger creature simply to shield yourself from taking damage is known as chump blocking you will lose the creature but you'll keep your health this rule is broken if a creature has the keyword trample creatures with trample will assign as much of their power as they need to kill the blocker equal to its toughness then any remaining power will be trampled through on to the defending players life total but what have we returned to the previous example and we block differently the attack declares two to two bears and we have two 1/1 untapped creatures during the declare blockers step this time we assign both of our one ones to block a single attacker the damage step now happens there's an unblocked bear so two damage is going through to go on to the player no matter what but the other attacker has been double blocked if the attacking creature is blocked by more than one blocker the attacking creatures controller can choose how to divide the attacking damage you could choose to do two damage to a single enemy or one damage to both of them in this scenario it's best to split the damage and do one damage to both as this will kill both of the blockers but the blockers hit back one each against the bear the bear now has to damage marked on it which is enough to kill it once the damage step is resolved this time the two blockers have died the blocked bear has died as well and the defending player has taken to damage once all damage has been resolved the turn continues into the post combat main phase post combat main phase after combat there's another main phase you can do anything you would normally do in a main phase play LANs cast creatures sorceries and chapman's artifacts sagas or Planeswalkers remember you can only play a total of one land per turn so if you played one pre combat you can't play another post combat once you're happy you've done everything you want to you declare the end of your turn end phase when you declare the end of your turn the turn doesn't actually end instantly there are a few things that happen behind the scenes any excess manner is removed from your mana pool and all damage marked on any creatures wears off a creature does not carry damage over from turn to turn meaning if a creature has four toughness you can't do two damage on one turn and then two damage on the next and add it together for a total of four you must do all the damage needed to kill a creature in a single turn your opponent now has the choice to begin their turn or not there are several advanced interactions that actually involve doing something on your opponent's end step before your turn begins but for now let's just say whenever you declare the end of your turn your opponent begins theirs that's a whole turn your opponent will then begin this following the same order untap upkeep draw pree combat main combat post combat main end remember if your opponent goes to combat and declares attackers you can only declare untapped creatures to be blockers so attacking may seem good at the time on your turn but attacking requires your creatures to tap meaning creatures that attacked won't be able to block your opponent next turn during that section I mentioned the stack and priority this is one of the most complex parts of Magic the Gathering it's something advanced players still get wrong and for beginner basic games it won't come up as an issue much but it's an important game mechanic so I'm going to explain it slowly in detail with examples the stack and priority Magic the Gathering is a game about casting spells you tap your land for mana and use that manner to cast spells with the exception of instance you can only cast spells when it's your turn the stack is empty and you have priority when you cast any spell creature planeswalker sorcery or any other it's placed onto what we call the stack the stack is a list of queued up spells that have been cast but not yet resolved that means they're ready to happen but haven't happened yet the stat also uses or lists abilities or other things that need to happen think of it as an invisible tower above the game with a list of spells that need to happen on it priority is what a player has when they are able to place something onto or interact with the stack and is passed between each player whenever a phase moves to the next phase or a spell or ability is placed onto the stack the stack resolves in reverse order known as first in last out shortened to phyllo sounds complex really isn't here's an example it's my go and it's my pre combat main phase I have priority because it's currently my active turn and the stack is empty there's no spell on it right now my opponent has a creature on the field and I want to kill it so I tapped my land for one red manor and cast lightning bolt targeting the creature lightning bolt is now on the stack it's waiting to happen because something has been added to the stack priority now passes to my opponent even though it's my turn they gain priority for a moment while you have priority you can cast an instant speed spell you'll know it's instant because it will say instant on the type line this will place your spell on the stack above whatever is currently there this is often known as responding if a player casts a spell or activates an ability and another player says in response it means they're about to add something onto the stack that will happen first with my opponent having priority they tap three islands and cast cancel cancel is an instant speed spell and says counter target spell counsel is now on the stack above my lightning bolt counsel is the latest thing to be added so it will happen first this is the resolves in reverse order mechanic with a new spell added priority passes back to me I could if I want choose to cast an instant spell and place it above cancel but I don't have any manner available so I choose to do nothing and pass priority back if priority has been passed between both players and they both do nothing the stack will begin to resolve things added last happen first cancel resolves this means it is cast successfully and that spell allows the casting player to counter any target spell they target my lightning bolt counsel is placed into my opponents graveyard as it has been cast and lightning bolt gets countered before it actually resolves which removes it from the stack and places it into my graveyard think of it as they've made my spell fizzle before it actually happens the stack now continues to result it's looking for my lightning bolt but as it's been countered it's no longer there with the stack now empty priority returns to the active player in this case me because it's my turn and the game continues the stack can have an unlimited number of things or actions on it that need to happen and will always resolve in reverse order after playing a few games you'll begin to grasp how it works priority is a state each player has during their active turn and must pass to their opponent whenever they move from phase to phase place anything on the stack or activate an ability creature sorcery enchantment planeswalker saga and artifact spells can only be cast when it's your turn there's nothing on the stack and you have priority instant spells or activated abilities can be cast and used anytime you have priority even if it's not your turn now we've looked at the basic breakdown of a magic card how the turn works and the order of the phases how to cast spells using the stack and respond to spells using priority let's look at each individual card type and discuss what they actually do card type breakdown land land cards are used to generate mana you can play one land per turn moving it from your hand onto the battlefield once on the battlefield the land can be tapped to produce one manor of its color a land is not a spell and a land card often has a converted mana cost of zero as it doesn't have a casting cost land is either basic or non basic basic land says-- basic as the super type on the type line the five main lands planes islands wants mountains and forests are all basic lands and enter the battlefield untapped meaning they can be tapped to generate mana of that color the same turn they enter lands can also be non-basic a non-basic land will often have a more complex interaction let's look at a few examples fowl orchard a non-basic land card this card lets us know that it always enters the battlefield tapped so it cannot be tapped to generate manner on the same turn it enters however it also shows us its ability tap which is that little circle with the right flicked arrow is the tap symbol to add either black or green to your mana pool the downside of foul orchard is you can't use it on the turn it enters the upside is you can then choose which color manner you want to produce every turn another non-basic land you'll see often evolving wilds evolving wilds has the following text tap sacrifice evolving wilds to sacrifice a card you must move it from the battlefield to the graveyard if you do this search your library for a basic land card put it onto the battlefield tapped then shuffle your library evolving wilds can't actually tap to produce any mana itself it doesn't have that ability instead it can go and find you any basic land useful if you have lots of lands and need to go and find a specific color creature creatures will be your primary source of damage and board dominance when you cast a creature you pay the mana cost place it onto the stack pass priority to your opponent and wait to see if they have any response and if they don't the stack resolves and your creature enters the battlefield creatures may sometimes have enter the battlefield affects certain things that happen when this creature enters we'll look at a few of those later on sorcery a sorcery is a single time spell that can only be cast when it's your pre combat or post combat main phase you have priority and the stack is empty this means they're not as versatile as other spells because they're limited to your turn but they're often more powerful to make up for this when a sorcery either resolves or is countered it goes to the graveyard instant an instant spell is like a sorcery except you can cast it whenever you have priority even if it's not your turn or the snack is already being used this allows you to respond to things using instants enchantment an enchantment is a constant effect that will remain on the battlefield some enchantments simply go onto the battlefield in general here's an example using shapers sanctuary it costs a single green manner and will give you the constant passive effect of whenever a creature you control becomes the target of a spell or ability and opponent controls you may draw a card some enchantments must target and be cast onto a creature already on the battlefield if that's the case the enchantment will say aura on the type line and the textbox will tell you to enchant creature here's an example of an aura using battle mastery it costs two generic and one white mana and will give the enchanted creature double strike double strike is a keyword and will be explained in the keywords section of this guide artifact an artifact is similar to an enchantment artifacts stay on the battlefield and provide additional effects here's an example of an artifact using aether spell balm it costs one generic manner to play and then when it's on the battlefield it has two different activated abilities the first requires you to pay one blue mana and sacrifice aether spell balm to return a target creature to its owner's hand the second requires you to pay one generic manner of any color and sacrifice it to draw a card these are both activated abilities which were explained later in this guide sometimes creatures will also be artifacts shown here with the example of platinum Imperium often artifacts will only have generic manner as a casting cost and will not be associated with a certain color artifact creatures can be affected and target by any spells or abilities that target creatures or artifacts planeswalker you within the story of magic are a planeswalker a powerful being with the ability to move between realities but within the rules of the game you're referred to as a player when we talk about planeswalker cards we're talking about these a Plains Walker is a powerful card type let's break them down a Plains Walker will have a casting cost and be played just like any other spell if it resolves and manages to enter the battle field it will enter with a certain number of loyalty counters shown by the number in the bottom right during your turn you may activate one of your Planeswalkers abilities for each planeswalker you have you may only activate them anytime you could play a sorcery spell so during your pre or post combat main phase with an empty stack when you have priority you may only activate each planeswalker once per turn planeswalker cards look a little different they'll often have several abilities to choose from each ability will have either a plus or minus amount on the left this is how many loyalty counters you have to add or remove to make the ability happen abilities that add loyalty are usually weaker while abilities that remove loyalty are often very powerful let's take the red planeswalker Chandra the firebrand as an example she has a converted mana cost of four three generic and one red and will enter the battlefield with three loyalty counters during your turn if you choose to activate her +1 ability she'll deal one damage to any target creature or player and you put one loyalty counter on her her minus two removing two counters allows you to copy your next instant or sorcery spell you cast this turn choosing new targets for the copy if you want and her minus six deals six damage to each of up to six target creatures or players you can have as many Planeswalkers on the field as you like but you can only have one of each specific name this is part of the legendary rule this means you can control Chandra the firebrand and Chandra ablaze at the same time because the cards have different names despite both being Chandra but you cannot have two copies of Chandra the firebrand at the same time Planeswalkers are not creatures and cannot be declared as attackers or blockers during your declare attackers step of the combat phase if your opponent has a planeswalker you must declare which creatures are attacking the opponent directly and which creatures are attacking any Planeswalkers they control damage done to Planeswalkers removes their loyalty counters one counter for each one point of damage if a planeswalker is ever reduced to zero loyalty counters either through activating an ability which kills them or damage removing loyalty counters they are sent to the Graveyard sagas a saga is a newer car type and looks very different simply put a saga is a short repeatable event that happens as it enters the battlefield and whenever a law counter is placed on it let's work through an example using history of burn alia history of burn alia has a converted mana cost of three one generic and two white when it entered the battlefield you will place a law counter on it and then perform the action related to how many law counters it has shown on the left in this case you will create a 2/2 white night creature token with the keyword vigilance as the remainder text at the top says after your draw step add a law counter then perform the action related to that number of counters two counters in this case is exactly the same as one at three law counters night creatures you control will receive plus two plus one meaning a power increase of two and a toughness increase of one until the end of the turn this saga is designed to work with itself Knight is a subtype of creature and is exactly the same as the tokens you've just made once a saga reaches over the maximum law counters it is sacrificed and placed into the graveyard tokens that saga previously produced tokens so let's look at those a token is often a creature a token creature can only exist on the battlefield any action that causes that token to change zones such as being returned to your hand placed in the graveyard removed from the battlefield in any way or sent back to the library will destroy the token tokens can only exist on the battlefield and nowhere else abilities passive triggered and activated you may have heard the phrase ability used an ability is something a card has or can do and is broadly broken down into three main styles passive triggered or activated let's take a look at all of them a passive ability is something a card has that will remain constant as long as the card remains on the battlefield here's Talia Guardian of three bin' she's a legendary human soldier creature with a converted mana cost of two one generic and one white she has the keyword first strike and then a passive ability which reads non creature spells cost one generic manner more to cast if she is on the field all non creature spells become a worn generic manner more expensive this can slow down an enemy's plan significantly this is a passive ability it does not require anything to be active it simply always is active as long as the Lea is on the field the next is a triggered ability this can be identified by looking for the words when whenever or act on the card it's an ability that requires something to happen before it will do whatever it does that event that happens is known as the trigger here's an example using the artifact worms tooth it's a two manner artifact costing too generic and has the triggered ability whenever a player casts a green spell you may gain one life the ability has the trigger of whenever a player casts a green spell and the reward ability of you gain one life some creatures like this blade splicer here will have enter the battlefield abilities these cause certain things to happen whenever the creature resolves from the stack and enters the battlefield all enter the battlefield abilities are triggered abilities the final type of ability is an activated ability this is an ability which you have control over and will have a cost and an effect it's easy to spot an activated ability by looking for the : if a card has a colon it's broken down into the cost before and the payoff after here's an example using soul ring soul ring is an artifact CMC one generic and has one activated ability the cost is tap this card and the reward is add to generic manner to your mana pool activated abilities use the stack when you activate one it will be placed onto the stack and you'll then have to pass priority to your opponent and they will have a chance to respond activating abilities can also be activated at instant speed meaning you can activate an ability of a creature or artifact in response to something being placed onto the stack that's a basic rundown of the three types of ability next let's look at some key words key words sometimes an effect or interaction will become so famous and so well known in magic that the car won't fully explain what it does it will simply have a keyword experienced players will immediately know what it does but newer players may be confused so here's a breakdown of some common keywords haste remember how a creature cannot attack or tap the same turn it enters the battlefield because of something we call summoning sickness well haste removes that a creature with haste can attack and tap the same turn it enters the field flying a flying creature can fly over the heads of other creatures a flying creature can only be blocked by other creatures that have flying or by a creature with the keyword reach reach this creature is not flying but it is able to block creatures that do have flying lifelink any damage this creature does to either another creature a player or a plane's Walker is then given back to you as life points if a creature with life link hits the enemy for three damage you'll gain three life death touch if this creature deals damage to another creature by blocking it or being blocked by it it will destroy that other creature it doesn't matter how tough the other creature is it will die first strike a creature with first strike gains an advantage in combat remember how when calculating damage all calculations happen at exactly the same time both creatures hit each other simultaneously in a blocked situation well first strike changes that first strike allows the creature with first strike to hit first and if that hit would be enough to kill the other creature that creature is killed without a chance to respond first strike damage happens first any changes to combat are then checked then the regular strike damage happens double strike a creature with double strike will hit twice dealing both first strike and regular strike damage keywords can be combined and often a creature can have multiple keywords on it here's an example using the brilliant vampire Nighthawk costing one generic and two black it's a creature sub type vampire Sharman power to toughness 3 but has all the keywords flying death touch and life link there are many more keywords I'll leave a link in the description below to a list of all the keywords and you can look them up as you discover each of them in a game protection protection is a more complex keyword and a lot of players get it wrong so I want to go over it quickly whenever the word protection is used we use the acronym DET de bt a creature with protection from something cannot be damaged enchanted blocked or targeted by anything of that specific thing so here's an example using the creature miron crusader it has protection from green and black meaning if it blocks a green or black creature it will receive no damage in combat it cannot be enchanted by a black or green enchantment if it is declared an attacker it cannot be blocked by any creature with a black or green mana symbol in its mana cost and it cannot be the target of any spell with a black or green mana symbol in its casting cost to see the potential crazy power of this keyword see the creature progenitors which has protection from everything deck building tips before you play the game you need to build your deck to gather your creatures and spells together let's talk about the basics of simple deck building while you can have 5 colors of magic to choose from it's not a great idea to play all 5 in a single deck you'll stretch your mana base too thin you won't have the lands to produce the color Manor you need to cast your spell's reliably so for now let's stick to two colors a basic deck should have around 40 percent mana producing cards this means in a sixty card deck around twenty four of these should be lambs or creatures that can tap to produce mana this isn't a hard and fast rule but instead a general beginners guideline with twenty-four land that leaves room for 36 spells most of these spells should be creatures as creatures will remain on the battlefield and be your main source of damage and blocking there are decks that run either very few or no creatures at all but as a beginner it's advisable to run a lot of creatures now you'll need to consider your mana curve the mana curve is the rate at which converted mana costs of your spell's increases and it should look something like this you have several one cost spells meaning they're converted mana cost is 1 and you can cast them on turn one several converted mana cost to spells meaning you can now do something on turn two then fewer spells that cost three four or five and then even fewer that costs six or more Shivan dragon is a great card but if you put four of them into your deck the maximum you're allowed and you draw all four of them early in the game you won't be able to cast them until turn six which will limit what you can do one turns one to five the best decks have things they plan on doing turn one two and three and then multiple possibilities after turn for alternative wind conditions reducing your opponent's life from twenty to zero is the main way to win but it's not the only way if your opponent goes to draw a card from their library and they have no cards to draw then you win this is known as milling them based on the old card mill stone which makes your opponent put cars straight from their library into their graveyard if an opponent receives ten poison counters gained from taking damage from creatures with the infect keyword they will die door to nothingness is an artifact costing five generic manner with the activated ability of pay two of each color of manner and sacrifice door to nothingness target player loses the game there are many alternate win conditions if you find one you like build a deck specifically designed to achieve it ending if you've made it this far through the video then well-done we've covered components of a card card super typed types and subtypes formats the phases of a turn how combat works keywords the stack priority and more it is an intimidating amount of information but now you have a basic grasp of how it all works together you are much more prepared to sit down with a magic player and learn ask questions and improve I hope this guide has been helpful if you have any questions or feedback please feel free to leave a comment below or come chat to me live on Twitch I'm usually streaming a variety of games over at twitch TV forward slash Josh strife Hayes thank you very much for your time if this video has been useful at all then alike would be much appreciated have a great day

Channel: Josh Strife Hayes

Views: 204,283

Rating: 4.9706573 out of 5

Keywords: magic, the, gathering, beginners, guide, help, new, player, walkthrough, tap, untap, draw, main phase, the stack, priority, creature, attack, block, defend, damage, instant, arena, planeswalker, dotp, duels of the planeswalkers, competetive, deck building, deck, enchantment, responding

Id: 8YNbo_SRUwY

Length: 61min 33sec (3693 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 12 2019