Tips and Trick

Looking for a quick refresher on Magic: The Gathering rules or a new trick to spring on your next opponent? Browse this page for up-to-date information from the most recent Magic sets.

Tip: Bant

In the golden utopia of Bant, war is a grand ceremony. Heroes win the sigils of their supporters—emblems of advocacy imbued with might—then stride into battle as the sole champions of their cause.

Keyword: Exalted

Exalted focuses the strength of your army into a single heroic creature. Whenever a creature you control attacks alone, each creature you control with the exalted ability (including itself, if it has exalted too) gives that attacker +1/+1 until end of turn. To get the bonus, a creature must be the only one declared as an attacker. If two creatures attack, then one of them leaves combat, the remaining creature won't get the bonus.

Tip: Esper

Etherium is a metal infused with Æther, the energy of the planes. The denizens of Esper use eldritch magic to enhance their own bodies with etherium, believing it will bring them closer to immortality.

Theme: Colored Artifacts

The Esper shard is populated with colored artifacts. In fact, every Esper creature is an artifact creature! Colored artifacts have colored mana in their mana costs, they say "Artifact" on their type lines, and their frames incorporate elements of both artifacts and their native colors. As you'd expect, many Esper cards affect artifacts. These cards affect any kind of artifact, whether it has a color or not.

Tip: Grixis

Grixis is a hellscape of decay, riddled with ghouls and ruled by demons. Life force, called vis, is a precious resource here. Without it, only vile necromancy remains as a sickly substitute for natural life.

Keyword: Unearth

A creature with the unearth ability can be temporarily returned to play from your graveyard for its unearth cost. You can do this only during your turn at the time you could play a sorcery. After a creature is unearthed, it'll behave differently than it normally does. Specifically, it'll have haste, you'll have to sacrifice it at end of turn, and if it would leave play for any reason (including when you sacrifice it), it's removed from the game instead.

Tip: Jund

On Jund, a primordial realm of fire and blood, only the strong survive. Here barbaric humans and feral goblins fight to survive Jund's vicious food chain. All the while they watch the skies for Jund's ultimate predators: dragons.

Keyword: Devour

As a creature with devour comes into play under your control, you may sacrifice any number of your other creatures (or none at all). The creature with devour comes into play with a certain number of +1/+1 counters on it for each creature sacrificed this way. (That number is listed on the card after the word "devour.") The creature may also have another ability that does something based on the number of creatures it devoured!

Tip: Naya

The titanic monsters of Naya's tropical forests are worshipped as gods. The nomadic elves try to read their movements, but the humans and leonin of the steaming jungles just try to stay out of the gargantuans' way.

Theme: Power 5 or Greater

In the lush Naya shard, you'll find plenty of ways to produce extra mana—and lots of beefy creatures to play with all that mana. They're supported by a cluster of cards whose abilities care about creatures with power 5 or greater. Some of them make your huge creatures even better, some help you get huge creatures into play, and some just check to see if you control a huge creature. Since they care only about a creature's current power, effects that pump a creature's power can really pay off!

Rules Tip: Retrace

Retrace is a new keyword ability that lets you play some instant and sorcery cards from your graveyard.

If you have a card with retrace in your graveyard, you can play it by discarding a land card from your hand in addition to paying its other costs. Even though it's coming from your graveyard rather than your hand, everything else about playing the spell is normal: You have to pay its mana cost. If it's a sorcery, you can play it this way only at the time you could normally play a sorcery. The card itself moves out of your graveyard, gets played, and then goes back into your graveyard when it's finished—so if you've got another land card to discard, you can play it again!

Rules Tip: Hybrid Mana Symbols

Hybrid mana symbols like and represent a cost that can be paid with either of two colors. For example, a cost represented by the symbol can be paid with one white mana or one black mana. It's both a white and a black mana symbol. A card with the mana cost is both white and black, and its converted mana cost is 1. You choose how you'll pay for a hybrid cost at the same time you'd choose a value for X or choose whether to pay an additional cost.

The hybrid cards in the Shadowmoor set featured pairs of "allied" colors (colors that are next to each other on the color wheel on the back of each Magic card). Eventide hybrid cards, on the other hand, feature pairs of "enemy" colors. Since the colors in each of these pairs typically don't have much in common, these suddenly friendly enemies have some surprises in store!

Rules Tip: Chroma

Eventide cards with chroma abilities count how many mana symbols of a certain color exist within the mana costs of a specified group of cards—and more is always better!

For example, Umbra Stalker says "Chroma — Umbra Stalker's power and toughness are each equal to the number of black mana symbols in the mana costs of cards in your graveyard." Not only does this ability count how many symbols are in the mana costs of cards in your graveyard, but it also gives you full credit for hybrid mana symbols like and in those mana costs! (The symbol is both a white mana symbol and a black mana symbol, so it will be counted by chroma abilities looking for either of those colors.)

Chroma abilities check only mana costs, which are found in a card's upper right corner. They don't care about mana symbols that appear in a card's text box.

Rules Tip: Is the Untap Symbol

A number of Shadowmoor and Eventide cards feature a symbol that looks like this: . This is the untap symbol. If you know how the tap symbol () works, then you already know how the untap symbol works!

The untap symbol appears only in the costs of activated abilities. means "untap this permanent." If the permanent wasn't already tapped, you can't pay that cost, so you need to find some way to get that card turned sideways first. (Hint: Attacking with a creature with a ability is good!)

Both and are affected by the "summoning sickness" rule. If one of your creatures has an activated ability with either symbol in its cost, that ability can't be played unless the creature has haste or has been under your control since the start of your most recent turn.

Rules Tip: Persist

Persist is a keyword that grants some creatures in the Shadowmoor block a macabre resistance to death.

When a creature with persist is put into a graveyard from play, check whether that creature had a -1/-1 counter on it at the time it left play. If it did, it stays dead. But if it didn't, it returns to play under its owner's control with a -1/-1 counter on it! Of course, that -1/-1 counter means the next time it's put into a graveyard, it won't come back . . . unless you manage to remove that counter before it dies again.

Many creatures with persist have comes-into-play abilities as well. If you can orchestrate one's demise, you'll determine exactly when it pops back into play and provides that ability. Watch out for your opponent's tricks, however: If a -1/-1 counter is put on a creature with persist while it's in play, or a card is removed from the graveyard in response to its persist trigger, it won't come back to life.

Rules Tip: Wither

Cards with wither, a keyword ability featured in the Shadowmoor block, deal a crippling form of damage.

Damage dealt to a creature by a normal source simply stays on that creature until the accumulated damage reaches the creature's toughness (and the creature is destroyed) or the turn ends (and the damage is removed).

Damage dealt to a creature by a source with wither doesn't behave this way. Instead, it causes that many -1/-1 counters to be put on the creature! It doesn't matter if the source with wither is in play or not. Those counters stick around as long as the creature stays in play.

Since damage from a source with wither is real damage, it follows all the other rules for damage. It can be prevented. When it's dealt, it will cause lifelink and other similar abilities to trigger. If it's dealt to a player or planeswalker, it will behave like normal damage.

Rules Tip: +1/+1 and -1/-1 Counters

Lots of Lorwyn block cards put +1/+1 counters on creatures, and lots of Shadowmoor block cards put -1/-1 counters on creatures. Like matter and antimatter, these counters annihilate each other if they come into contact!

If a permanent has at least one +1/+1 counter and at least one -1/-1 counter on it, the maximum equal number of those counters are removed from it. The counters are removed as a "state-based effect," which means it happens faster than you can respond to it.

If a creature with +1/+1 counters on it receives enough -1/-1 counters to lower its toughness to 0, it will be put into the graveyard for having 0 toughness before any counters are removed from it. This is important for abilities like persist.

Rules Tip: Conspire

Conspire is a new keyword ability in the Shadowmoor set that lets your creatures work together to create an extra copy of a spell. Conspire appears only on instants and sorceries, and it has two parts.

The first part is a rather unusual additional cost. As you play a spell with conspire, you may tap two untapped creatures you control that each share a color with the spell. Keep in mind that the creatures don't have to share a color with each other. For example, if the conspire spell is red-green, you can tap a red creature and a green-white creature to pay the cost. You can pay the additional cost only once per spell.

The second part is a triggered ability. When you play the spell with conspire, if you paid the additional cost, you get a copy of that spell! You may choose new targets for the copy. However, since you don't play the copy, you can't use conspire to get another copy of it.

Tip: Parts of a Turn

Each turn has five phases that you follow in order:

1. Beginning phase
a. Untap step
b. Upkeep step
c. Draw step
2. Main phase
3. Combat phase
a. Beginning of combat step
b. Declare attackers step
c. Declare blockers step
d. Combat damage step
e. End of combat step
4. Main phase (again)
5. End phase
a. End of turn step
b. Cleanup step

You do something at the start of some steps, like draw or declare blockers, after which players get the chance to play spells or activated abilities (except during untap and cleanup).

Once players decide how combat damage will be dealt, that damage is "locked in." It will be dealt even if some of the creatures leave play.

Rules Tip: Legends

Legendary cards represent unique characters, places, and items in the Magic multiverse. If two or more legendary permanents with the same name are ever in play at the same time, put all of them into their owner's graveyard.

Rules Tip: Tokens

Some abilities tell you to put a creature token into play. If you don't have enough copies of the right kind of token card, don't worry! You can use coins, dice, or anything else you have lying around.

Tip: Building a Deck

A Constructed deck must contain at least 60 cards. It can include up to 4 copies of any card, but there's no limit on how many basic lands a deck can have. Choosing just two colors for your deck offers you a good mix of choices.

Lands.

A 60-card deck usually has about 24 lands.

Creatures

. Creatures account for 20 to 30 cards in a typical 60-card deck. Choose creatures that have a variety of mana costs. Low-cost creatures are potent early on, but high-cost creatures can quickly win a game once they hit the table.

Other cards

. Artifacts, enchantments, instants, and sorceries round out your deck.

Limited Formats
When you play a Limited format, building your deck is part of the fun. You and your opponents build decks of at least 40 cards out of cards you open and extra basic lands. (A 40-card deck should have 17–19 lands and about 15–20 creatures.)

Sealed Deck (2 or more players)
Each player opens a 75-card tournament pack and two or three 15-card boosters. Build the best 40-card deck you can using the cards from your packs.

Booster Draft (4 to 8 players)
Each player at the table starts with three unopened booster packs. Each player opens his or her first pack, chooses a card, and passes the rest to the left. Don't show anyone your picks or what's in the packs! Take one card from each pack passed to you and pass the rest to your left until all the cards have been taken. Repeat this process with the second pack, but pass it to the right. For the last pack, pass to the left again. Use your picks and any number of basic lands to build your 40-card deck.

Tip: Sideboarding

In sanctioned Magic tournaments, you and your opponents don't play just a single game. Rather, the first player to win two games wins the match. Your sideboard lets you react to your opponent's strategy for the second and third games. After the match, you restore your deck to its original configuration.

Your sideboard contains exactly 15 cards. Your deck and your sideboard together can include up to four copies of any card (other than basic lands). If you choose to put cards from your sideboard into your deck, you must move the same number of cards from your deck to your sideboard.

Tip: When to Play Spells and Activated Abilities

Just because you can play a spell or activated ability doesn't always mean you should play it. Often the best strategy is to wait until the last possible moment to act.

Benalish Knight has flash, which means you can play it at almost any time. Rather than play the Knight during your own main phase, you can wait for your opponent to attack. Once creatures are committed to attacking you, your opponent can't call them off. The first-striking Benalish Knightcan block and destroy a 1- or 2-toughness creature without taking combat damage itself, and you'll be able to attack with it on your next turn.

Another good time to play instants and abilities is at the end of your opponent's turn. That's your last chance to tap permanents before untapping them at the start of your own turn.

Tip: The Gatherer Online Database

Visit http://gatherer.wizards.com to go straight to the official Magic: The Gathering card database. You can search for a word, phrase, or number that appears on any part of a card—even the name of your favorite artist—and get an interactive list of cards that match what you're looking for.

Gatherer is the perfect tool to help you build decks. If you're making a Goblin deck, you can search Gatherer for cards with the word "Goblin" on them. You can filter your search to show just the cards from an given set or those allowed in a particular play format.

Tip: The Stack

A spell or ability doesn't resolve (have its effect) right away—it has to wait on the stack. Both players get a chance to play an instant or an activated ability in response. If a player does, that instant or ability goes on the stack on top of what was already waiting there. When both players decline to play anything, the top spell or ability on the stack resolves.

Here's an example. You control Grizzly Bears, a 2/2 creature. Your opponent plays Incinerate to deal 3 damage to it. The Incinerate goes on the stack. You respond to Incinerate with Giant Growth, which gives the Bears +3/+3 until the end of the turn. Giant Growth goes on the stack,on top of Incinerate. Giant Growth resolves first, making the creature 5/5. When Incinerateresolves, it doesn't deal enough damage to destroy the pumped-up Bears. (If Incinerate had been played in response to the Giant Growth, things would have turned out very differently . . . .)

Rules Tip: Creature Types

Many Magic creatures have two creature types on their type line. The first is its race, such as Elf or Merfolk. The second, if it has one, is its class. This is the creature's role in society, such as Wizard or Assassin.

Cards in the Lorwyn set focused exclusively on creatures' races. Morningtide cards take a broader view. You'll still find cards that care about Goblins or help all your Kithkin, but you'll also find cards that care about Soldiers or help all your Archers. Many others just care that other cards share any creature types with them, regardless of whether the shared type is a race or a class. Keep your eyes peeled for cards that help each other out, and you'll be well on your way to building a brand-new deck!

Rules Tip: Kinship

Kinship abilities appear on Morningtide creatures with a strong sense of tribe.

All kinship abilities start out the same way: At the beginning of your upkeep, you may look at the top card of your library. If it shares a creature type with the creature whose kinship ability is resolving, you may reveal it. (The revealed card doesn't have to be a creature. It might be a tribal card.) What happens next is different on each creature, but the bonus is always good!

The card you reveal stays on top of your library, so it'll probably be the card you draw that turn. If you have multiple creatures with kinship abilities, you'll wind up looking at the same card for all of them, unless you have some way to change what the top card of your library is.

Rules Tip: Prowl

Prowl is a Rogue ability in the Morningtide set that rewards you for sneaking into your opponent's territory.

If a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, then for the rest of the turn any cards you want to play that have a prowl ability and share a creature type with that creature are enabled. Now you can play those cards by paying their prowl costs instead of their normal mana costs! Either the prowl cost will be cheaper than the regular cost, or you'll get a bonus for paying the prowl cost, or both.

You don't necessarily need to deal combat damage with a Rogue to enable your prowl cards. For example, if your Goblin Warrior hits your opponent, you'll then be able to play Stinkdrinker Banditfor its prowl cost because they're both Goblins.

Rules Tip: Clash

Some Morningtide cards tell you to "clash with an opponent." If one of your cards says this, first you choose an opponent, then the two of you clash.

To clash, each involved player reveals the top card of his or her library and checks its converted mana cost. Then both players (starting with the player whose turn it is—not necessarily the player whose card said to clash) decides whether to leave his or her card on top of his or her library or put it on the bottom.

If the converted mana cost of one of the revealed cards is higher than the other, that player wins the clash. If they're the same, neither player wins the clash.

Some cards let you put them back in your hand if you win the clash. If this happens, the spell has its effect, then you put the card into your hand instead of your graveyard. You can play it again later!

Rules Tip: Equipment

The Morningtide expansion features a cycle of five tribal Equipment cards that each have a bonus ability related to a specific creature type. You can attach an Equipment to one of your creatures—of any type—to make it better. But when a creature of the specified type comes into play, you can attach Equipment to it immediately . . . for free!

Remember, Equipment is a special kind of artifact that represents a weapon, a piece of armor, or some other magical implement a creature can carry. An Equipment comes into play unattached. Any time you could play a sorcery, you can pay the equip cost of one of your Equipment to attach it to a target creature. You can play an equip ability even if the Equipment is already attached to one of your creatures. If an equipped creature leaves play, the Equipment doesn't—the creature drops it and it remains in play.