Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Object of the Game
Each player starts at 20 life. You win a duel if any of the following happens to your opponent:
- Their life total drops to 0 (or below).
- They must draw a card from an empty library (deck).
- They get ten poison counters, or a specific card says they lose.
The Deck
A constructed deck has at least 60 cards, with no more than 4 copies of any single card (except basic lands, of which you may have any number). Players also keep a separate sideboard for multi-game matches. In Limited play (Sealed/Draft), a deck is at least 40 cards.
The Five Colors and Mana
Magic has five colors of magic, each tied to a basic land that produces its mana:
- White (Plains) — order, protection, small creatures in numbers.
- Blue (Island) — knowledge, control, countermagic.
- Black (Swamp) — death, sacrifice, resource drain.
- Red (Mountain) — chaos, speed, direct damage.
- Green (Forest) — nature, big creatures, growth.
Mana is the resource used to cast spells. A spell's mana cost appears in its top-right corner: numbers are generic mana (payable with any color) and colored symbols require that specific color. You produce mana mainly by tapping lands.
Card Types
- Land: not a spell; play one per turn (no cost). Tap a land for mana. Basic lands are Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest.
- Creature: a permanent that can attack and block. It has power (left) and toughness (right) at the bottom. A creature has summoning sickness — it can't attack or use tap abilities until you've controlled it since the start of your most recent turn.
- Artifact: a permanent, usually colorless, representing a magical object.
- Enchantment: a permanent representing an ongoing magical effect. An Aura attaches to another permanent.
- Planeswalker: a powerful ally with loyalty abilities, activated once per turn.
- Instant: a spell you may cast almost any time, even on an opponent's turn; goes to the graveyard after resolving.
- Sorcery: like an instant but castable only during your own main phase when the stack is empty.
Permanents (lands, creatures, artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers) stay on the battlefield; instants and sorceries take effect once and go to the graveyard (discard pile).
Starting the Game
- Each player shuffles their deck (library) and randomly determines who goes first. The player going first skips their first draw step.
- Each player draws an opening hand of 7 cards.
- Mulligans: if you dislike your hand, you may mulligan — shuffle it back, draw 7 again, then put a number of cards on the bottom equal to the number of times you've mulliganed. Repeat as needed.
Turn Structure
Each turn has five phases, in order:
1. Beginning Phase
- Untap step: untap all your tapped permanents. (No player may act.)
- Upkeep step: triggered abilities that happen "at the beginning of upkeep" occur; players may cast instants.
- Draw step: the active player draws a card (the very first player skips this on turn one).
2. First Main Phase
You may play a land (one per turn) and cast any sorceries, creatures, artifacts, enchantments, or planeswalkers, plus instants. This is your chance to build your board.
3. Combat Phase
Combat has five steps:
- Beginning of combat.
- Declare attackers: the active player taps the creatures they wish to attack with and chooses what each attacks (the opponent or a planeswalker). Tapped or summoning-sick creatures can't attack.
- Declare blockers: the defending player assigns untapped creatures to block attackers. One creature can block one attacker (unless a card says otherwise); multiple blockers may gang up on one attacker.
- Combat damage: each creature deals damage equal to its power simultaneously. An unblocked attacker deals its damage to the player or planeswalker. Blocked creatures deal damage to each other.
- End of combat.
4. Second Main Phase
Identical to the first main phase — cast more spells, play a land if you haven't yet.
5. Ending Phase
- End step: "at end of turn" triggers occur; instants may be cast.
- Cleanup step: discard down to your maximum hand size of 7, and all damage on creatures is removed. Normally no one acts.
Casting Spells and the Stack
To cast a spell: announce it, put it on the stack, choose targets, and pay its cost (usually by tapping lands for mana). Spells and abilities on the stack resolve in last-in, first-out order. After any spell or ability is put on the stack, each player gets a chance to respond with instants or activated abilities before it resolves — this is called priority.
Tapping
Turning a card sideways is tapping it. You tap lands to produce mana and tap creatures to attack or to use abilities with the tap symbol. Tapped permanents untap during your next untap step. A tapped creature cannot block.
Damage, Toughness, and Death
- Damage marked on a creature stays until end of turn. A creature with damage equal to or greater than its toughness is destroyed and put into its owner's graveyard.
- A creature with toughness 0 or less (from effects) dies immediately as a state-based check.
- Combat damage to a player reduces their life total.
Common Keyword Abilities
- Flying: can only be blocked by creatures with flying or reach.
- First strike: deals combat damage before creatures without it.
- Deathtouch: any amount of damage it deals to a creature is lethal.
- Trample: excess combat damage beyond a blocker's toughness carries over to the player.
- Lifelink: damage it deals also gains you that much life.
- Vigilance: doesn't tap to attack.
- Haste: ignores summoning sickness (can attack the turn it enters).
- Hexproof / Shroud: can't be targeted by opponents / by anyone.
- Reach: can block creatures with flying.
- Menace: must be blocked by two or more creatures.
Zones
- Library: your deck, face down.
- Hand: cards you hold (max 7 at cleanup).
- Battlefield: permanents in play.
- Graveyard: discard/destroyed pile, face up.
- Stack: spells and abilities waiting to resolve.
- Exile: cards removed from the game.
Winning a Match
Duels are usually played as a best-of-three match. Between games, the loser of the previous game decides who goes first, and players may swap cards with their sideboard. The first player to win two games wins the match.
Mulligan and Deckbuilding Notes
A well-built deck balances lands (commonly ~17 in a 40-card Limited deck, ~24 in a 60-card deck) against spells so you reliably have mana to cast what you draw. Colors, curve (distribution of mana costs), and synergy between cards are the heart of deck construction — the essence of Magic beyond these basic rules.