Magic: The Gathering is a trading card game created by Richard Garfield and produced by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
In Magic , the players represent powerful wizards battling control for a plane of Dominia. You have to drive your opponent from the plane, leaving you in sole control.
Players begin with 20 life each. You win if your opponent's life total drops to 0 or less or if your opponent can no longer draw a card.
To play, each player needs a deck of at least 40 cards, a way to keep score, and a large, flat area for laying out cards.
To begin the game, both players shuffle their decks. If you're playing for ante, each player turns over the top card and lays it face up. This card is the ante; whoever wins the game will get to keep both cards.
Each player then draws an opening hand of seven cards from his or her deck. The rest of your deck becomes your draw pile, or library . Near your library is space for a graveyard , or discard pile. Most of the cards you play go into your territory , or your half of the playing surface. A few of your cards may go into your opponent's territory instead.
Determine randomly who goes first.
There are two basic types of cards, spells and lands , which provide the mana , or magical energy, for your spells. You can lay out one land per turn and use it as soon as it's in play.
To get mana from a land, tap that land by turning it sideways. Cards untap at the beginning of your next turn.
There are five different types of basic lands , each of which produces mana of a different colour.
Black Magic : Its power thrives on death and decay, and its traditional foils are green and white .
Blue Magic : It thrives on mental energy and uses the elemental forces of air and water. Its traditional foils are red and green .
Green Magic : It gets life from the forest and can bring both peace and destruction. Its traditional foils are blue and black .
Red Magic : Masters of earth and fire, red magicians specialize in the violence of chaos and combat. Red's traditional foils are blue and white .
White Magic : It focuses on spells of healing and protection, and also on the chivalrous arts of war. Its traditional foils are black and red .
Instants (considered fast effects ) are one-time effects that go to the graveyard right after casting. You can cast fast effects during your opponent's turn.
Sorceries are also one-time effects that go to the graveyard right after casting, but you can only cast them during your turn.
Enchantments (including enchant worlds), artifacts, and creatures are permanent spells that remain in play when cast. Once a permanent is in play, you don't have to pay the casting cost again. You can cast permanents only during your turn.
- Beginning:
- Main
- Combat:
- Beginning of combat
- Declare attackers
- Declare blockers
- Combat damage
- End of combat
- Second Main
- End:
Your turn starts with your beginning phase. Any of your cards that were tapped become untapped. After untap is upkeep. Some cards require you to perform a particular action during this step. If you don't have such a card in play, then you don't have to do anything during this step. Next, draw one card from the top of your library. If you don't have any cards left to draw, you lose.
During your first and second main phases, which are separated by the combat phase, you may do any or all of the following, in any order:
- Put one land per turn into play
- Cast spells
You may cast sorceries, enchantments, artifacts, and creature summons before and after the attack, but not during it.
The end phase has two steps: end of turn and cleanup. The end-of-turn step works just like the upkeep step. When it begins, abilities that start with "At end of turn" occur. When the cleanup step begins, discard down to seven cards. Then all damage on creatures is removed and effects that last "until end of turn" end.
Crystal Keep - Magic: The Gathering - Some of the information includes rulings summaries, tournament rules, banned/restricted lists, and the comprehensive rules.
Wizards of The Coast - Rules for casual and tournament players.
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