The rules of the collectible card role-playing game Magic: The Gathering were originally developed by the game's creator, Richard Garfield, and accompanied the first version of the game in 1993. The game's rules have frequently been changed by the manufacturer Wizards of the Coast, mostly in minor ways, but several major rule changes have also been implemented.
In its most-played form, Magic is a game in which two players play each other using their own deck of cards. Players start by drawing a hand of seven cards and then take turns. In a turn, a player can play one card that produces resources (termed "mana"), play spells that require varying amounts and colors of mana, and attack their opponent to reduce their life total from the starting point of 20 to zero, and thus winning the game.
Overview
A typical game of Magic involves two or more players who are engaged in a battle, acting as powerful wizards known as Planeswalkers. Each player has their own deck of cards, purchased and constructed from a limited pool of available cards. A player typically starts the game with a "life total" of twenty and loses the game when the total is reduced to zero. A player can lose the game if they must draw from an empty deck. Some cards specify other ways to win or lose the game. One of the "Magic Golden Rules" is: "Whenever a card's text directly contradicts these rules, the card takes precedence". According to CNET, the game has many variants; "Magic tends to embrace all that house ruling, making it official when it catches on. Commander started as a fan-created format, after all."
Formats
Magic can be played in various formats; each format provides additional rules for deck construction and gameplay, with many confining the pool of permitted cards to those released in a specified group of Magic card sets. There are two main categories mandated by the Wizards Play Network (WPN): Tournament and Casual. The term "sanctioned" refers to formats the WPN allows to be run at official events. Officially sanctioned events can add additional rules, such as the disallowance of proxy cards.
Players have also invented alternative formats for playing the game, some of which Wizards of the Coast has accepted. Some of these formats use rules or sets of cards that differ from those used in sanctioned tournament play. One of the most popular formats of Magic is Commander, which is a casual sanctioned format.
Formats can be further divided into Constructed and Limited formats. Constructed formats require decks to be made prior to participation; players are allowed to use any tournament-legal cards they possess. Sanctioned Constructed formats include Standard, Modern, Legacy, and Vintage. Limited formats, in contrast, use a restricted and unknown pool of cards that is usually formed by opening Magic products. Limited competition requires players to select cards and build decks during the tournament. The primary two sanctioned Limited formats are Sealed Deck and Booster Draft.
Deck construction
Deck construction requires strategy; players must choose cards to play from thousands of options, requiring players to evaluate the power of their cards, the possible synergies between them, and their possible interactions with the cards they expect to play against. This "metagame" can vary by location and time period. The player restricts the choice of cards by deciding which colors to include in the deck. Starter decks, which are part of the Magic product line, are aimed at giving novice players ideas for deck construction. Players expand their card library for deck construction through booster packs, which have a random distribution of cards from a specific Magic set and are defined by rarity. These rarities are known as Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Mythic Rare; more-powerful cards are generally the rarest.
Initial setup
Beginning and ending the game Each player uses their own deck to play the game. In most formats, a deck must have a minimum of 60 cards; there is no maximum deck size. Some formats have exceptions or additional limitations to these rules. In tournaments, players may be allowed to use a sideboard containing up to 15 cards that can be swapped for cards in the main deck in between games.
At the beginning of a game, each player shuffles their deck and draws seven cards to form their starting hand. The players may choose to mulligan if they do not like their starting hand.
A player wins the game by eliminating all opponents. Players typically begin the game with 20 life and generally lose when their life-total reaches zero or they run out of cards in their deck, although there are other ways of losing the game.
London Mulligan The London Mulligan rule was implemented for all competitive Magic formats in 2019. In turn order, each player may decide to mulligan; that player shuffles their hand and library together, and draws a new hand of seven cards. A player can do this as many times as they wish. They then put a card on the bottom of their library for each time they took a mulligan.
Zones
At any one time, every card is located in one of the following "zones":
Library: The portion of the player's deck that is kept face down and is normally in random order (shuffled). Hand: A player's hidden hand of cards that can be played. If a player has more than seven cards in hand at the end of their turn, any extras must be discarded. Battlefield: Cards that are in play and actively influencing the game. Graveyard: A player's discard pile. Typically, "creatures, enchantments, and artifacts stay on the playing field whereas sorceries and instants are placed in your discard pile ... after casting their one-time effect". The stack: This is the place for spells and abilities that have been cast or played, but have not yet resolved. Exile: Cards that have been exiled by specific effects are put here. Unlike the graveyard, exile is "the place where cards go when they're really dead and can't be replayed back into the game". Command: In the Commander format, each player's commander is put here at the start of the game and returns when it leaves the battlefield.
Terminology
Abilities Types of abilities include:
Activated abilities have a cost and an effect, which are separated using a colon. A player may activate such an ability at any time by paying the cost. Triggered abilities begin with the word "when", "whenever" or "at". The ability is put on the stack when the trigger event occurs. Static abilities are written as statements that modify the rules of the game.
Keyword abilities
Some cards, which are called "keyword abilities", have abilities that are not fully explained on the card and consist of a word or phrase whose meaning is defined in the rules. Keyword abilities are usually given reminder text in the set in which they are introduced. There are over forty such abilities. In most cases, multiple instances of the same keyword on an object have no additional effect. Keywords can be classified as Evergreen and Mechanics. Evergreen keywords "can appear in absolutely any set, since its gameplay effects and flavor are flexible and generic enough to fit anywhere. Effects like trample, flying, deathtouch, first strike and haste are examples of this". Abilities classified as Mechanics are rotated in and out of the game as expansions are released. According to Game Rant: "most planes have some unique rules that are only relevant on cards from specific sets" and "new mechanics are constantly added to shake things up and give the players new tools to work with".
Mana
When a player uses an ability that produces mana, that mana is put in their "mana pool". Mana can be white, blue, black, red, green or colorless. Mana in the mana pool can be used to pay costs.
Types of cards
All objects that remain on the battlefield are called permanents, types of which include lands, creatures, enchantments, artifacts, and planeswalkers. Sorceries and instants go to the graveyard immediately after they are used.
Lands Land cards tap to produce mana that is used to cast spells and activate abilities. They cost no mana to play but a player may play no more than one land per turn, and only during the main phases of their own turn. There are six types of basic lands; Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest, and Wastes, one for each color plus Wastes for colorless. These lands can each be tapped to produce one mana of the appropriate color (colorless is not a color as defined by the rules). Other lands are non-basic and may produce other combinations or amounts of mana, or may have other abilities. Playing a land does not use the stack and therefore occurs immediately and no player can stop it. Players are allowed to have any number of basic lands in a deck, whereas all other cards are limited to four copies per deck.
Creatures Creatures represent people or beasts that are summoned to the battlefield to attack opposing creatures or players and defend their controller from attacks by enemy creatures. Creatures have two values that represent their strength in combat; these are printed on the card's lower right-hand corner. The first number is the creature's power, the amount of damage it causes in combat. The second number is its toughness; if it receives that much damage in a single turn, the creature is destroyed and placed in the graveyard. Creatures are divided into creature types, such as "goblin" or "wizard". Creatures of the same type often synergize well with each other, causing players to build decks based entirely on one type of creature.
Enchantments Enchantments represent persistent magical effects; they are spells that remain on the battlefield and alter some aspect of the game. Some enchantments are attached to other cards on the battlefield—often creatures); these are known as Auras. These enchantments affect that card in some way, and are automatically put into the graveyard when the card they are enchanting leaves the battlefield.
Artifacts Artifacts represent magical items, animated constructs, pieces of equipment, or other objects and devices. Like enchantments, artifacts remain on the battlefield until something removes them. Some artifacts are Equipment. Each equipment has a Equip cost; a player can pay to give that equipment to one of their creatures, strengthening the creature. Unlike Auras, which are destroyed when the object they are enchanting leaves play, equipment can be re-equipped by another creature if its original user leaves play.
Sorceries and instants Sorceries and instants represent one-shot or short-term magical spells. They never enter the battlefield but take effect and are immediately put into their owner's graveyard. Sorceries and instants differ only in the time they can be cast. Sorceries may only be cast during the player's own main phases, and only when the stack is empty. Instants can be cast at any time, including during other players' turns and while another spell or ability is waiting to resolve.
Interrupts Prior to the introduction of the stack in the 6th Edition, there was another type of spell called an "Interrupt". Interrupts functioned similarly to instants; they could be played at any time but players could only respond to interrupts with other interrupts and could not use instants or activate abilities.
Planeswalkers According to Magic lore, the player is a planeswalker, a wizard who can travel between different realms or universes (planes); as such, planeswalker cards represent scaled-down versions of other players, whose decks are represented by the card's abilities. Planeswalker cards were originally designed to move autonomously through a roster of effects without player control. Most planeswalkers are legendary and subject to the "legend rule"; if a player controls more than one legendary planeswalker with the same name, that player chooses one and puts the other into their owner's graveyard.