{"id":421,"date":"2018-12-25T09:20:29","date_gmt":"2018-12-25T09:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.usmtgproxy.com\/?page_id=421"},"modified":"2018-12-25T09:20:29","modified_gmt":"2018-12-25T09:20:29","slug":"magic-the-gathering-rules","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.usmtgproxy.com\/magic-the-gathering-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"magic the gathering rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

Magic: The Gathering<\/a><\/b>\u00a0is a collectable card game\u00a0with extremely detailed, and at times, complex rules.<\/p>\n

However, only a basic understanding of the rules is necessary to play the game. The most important rule is that if the text on a card contradicts a game rule, the card text\u00a0always<\/u>\u00a0takes precedence. Magic: The Gathering is thus constantly breaking its own rules, making it a challenging and intricate game.<\/p>\n

Zones: Areas of Play<\/span><\/h2>\n

At any given time, every card is located in one of the following zones:<\/p>\n

Library<\/span><\/h3>\n

A player’s deck. These cards are kept face down and should be randomly ordered (which means, shuffled at the beginning of the game). It must contain at least 60 cards in\u00a0Constructed<\/a>\u00a0play, or at least 40 cards in\u00a0Limited<\/a>\u00a0play. There is no maximum deck size, although there may only be 4 of any nonbasic land card. It is recommended to have 25 land, basic or nonbasic, and 35 spells (creatures, instants, sorceries, artifacts, enchantments and planeswalkers).<\/p>\n

Graveyard<\/span><\/h3>\n

A player’s discard pile. When a card in play is destroyed, or an\u00a0instant<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0sorcery<\/a>\u00a0is taken off the\u00a0stack<\/a>, it is put in its owner’s graveyard. These cards are face up, and can be examined by any player at any time. Several cards, like\u00a0Disentomb<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Rise from the Grave<\/a>, allow you to take cards from a graveyard and return them to your hand, on the battlefield, or somewhere in your\u00a0library<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hand<\/span><\/h3>\n

A player’s hand of cards. They are normally kept hidden from other players; however, cards like\u00a0Telepathy<\/a>\u00a0and a number of “discard” spells can allow players to look at some or all of the cards in other players’ hands.\u00a0The number of cards each player has is public. If you have more than 7 cards in your hand at the end of your turn, you must discard until you have only 7 cards in your hand; as always, cards like the Artifact\u00a0Spellbook<\/a>\u00a0can override this.<\/p>\n

Stack<\/span><\/h3>\n

This is the place for cards that have been cast but not yet resolved. Activated abilities and triggered abilities also go on the stack until they resolve. This zone is shared by all players. See\u00a0the stack<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Battlefield<\/span><\/h3>\n

Most cards need to enter the battlefield before they can affect the game. All players share a single battlefield. All permanents stay on the battlefield unless effects or the rules instruct players to remove them.<\/p>\n

Exile<\/span><\/h3>\n

This is where cards that have been\u00a0exiled<\/i>\u00a0are placed: to\u00a0exile<\/i>\u00a0a card means to take it from its current zone and place it in this zone. The text of a card may specify that a card is exiled face-down; if it does not, the card is exiled face-up.\u00a0Some examples of cards that exile other cards are\u00a0Iona’s Judgement<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Celestial Purge<\/a>. Some cards,\u00a0Journey to Nowhere<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Oblivion Ring<\/a>\u00a0being two examples,\u00a0exile cards, but later return them to the battlefield.<\/p>\n

AWOL<\/span><\/h4>\n

This is a special exile zone exclusively when the card “AWOL<\/a>” targets an attacking creature.<\/p>\n

Command<\/span><\/h3>\n

The command zone is a game area reserved for certain specialized objects that can affect the game, but are not permanents or cards in\u00a0exile<\/a>.\u00a0 This includes\u00a0schemes<\/a>,\u00a0planes<\/a>,\u00a0emblems<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Commanders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Beginning and Ending the Game<\/span><\/h2>\n

At the beginning of a game, each player shuffles his or her deck. A randomly selected player decides which player will take the first turn. The players then draw seven cards each to form their starting hand. Each player may then decide to\u00a0mulligan<\/a>; that player shuffles his or her hand and library together and draws a new hand, but with one less card than before (six). A player can do this as many times as he or she wishes, drawing one less card each time (five, four, etc).<\/p>\n

In two-player games, the player who takes the first turn does not draw a card for that turn, but the others do. In multiplayer games, everyone draws on their first turn.<\/p>\n

A player wins the game by eliminating all opponents. Players begin the game with 20 life; if a player’s life total is reduced to zero or less, he or she loses the game. Additionally, if a player is required to draw a card but has no cards left in his or her library, he or she loses. If a player has 10 or more poison counters, he or she loses the game. Specific cards,\u00a0like\u00a0Felidar Sovereign<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Door to Nothingness<\/a>,\u00a0may dictate other ways of winning or losing.<\/p>\n

Tapping, Untapping, and Mana<\/span><\/h2>\n

Tapping<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Untapping<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n

Tapped<\/i>\u00a0is a status a permanent can have.\u00a0Tapped cards are turned sideways to indicate that you are attacking the creatures or creature on the battlefield. They may not be further tapped. At the beginning of each player’s turn, that player\u00a0untaps<\/i>\u00a0all cards he or she controls and returns them to their original orientation. The mechanic restricts the number of times a permanent can be used for certain things in a turn cycle. Untapping occurs before a card is drawn from the library at the beginning of the turn and before abilities that reference the Upkeep step are handled. Cards dealt in the battlefield must be in tapped or untapped position, if untapped, creatures are in blocking formation.<\/p>\n

Mana Cost<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Colors<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n

The vast majority of nonland cards have a mana cost. This is the amount of\u00a0mana<\/a>\u00a0that must be spent to pay for the card. Each mana symbol in the top right corner of the card represents one mana of that color that must be paid. There may be a number in a gray circle next to the mana symbols. This represents how much additional mana must be paid; this additional mana can be of any color or colorless.<\/p>\n

For example, the cards below all cost 3 mana. However, the card on the left requires three black mana, while the card on the right can be paid for with three mana of any color or combination of colors. The middle two cards require, respectively, 2 mana and 1 mana that must be black; the remainder can be any color. Note that the first three cards are black, but Disrupting Scepter is colorless.<\/p>\n

Some cards may require their owner to pay mana of two or more colors. These cards have multiple colors, and they are called multi-colored. Some cards also use\u00a0hybrid<\/i>\u00a0mana symbols: a hybrid mana symbol looks like one kind of mana symbol in its top-left and another kind of mana symbol in its bottom-left half. A cost represented by a hybrid mana symbol can be satisfied by paying whatever is normally required of either half of the symbol.\u00a0For example, the card\u00a0Deathrite Shaman<\/a>\u00a0can be played by spending either one black mana, or one green mana. Cards with hybrid mana symbols in their mana costs, like traditional “gold” (so-called because of the color of their border on the card) multi-colour cards, are always all of the colors that appear in their mana symbols: so Deathrite Shaman is always green\u00a0and<\/i>\u00a0black regardless of what was spent to cast it.<\/p>\n

Some nonland cards have a mana cost of zero, indicated by a number 0 in a grey circle – these have a mana cost that requires no mana to cast. The most famous of these is\u00a0Black Lotus<\/a>. The most recently reprinted is\u00a0Tormod’s Crypt<\/a>\u00a0(in\u00a0M13<\/a>). These cards are generally colorless.<\/p>\n

Finally there are seven nonland cards with a blank mana cost. These are:<\/p>\n