Glossary and table etiquette

Artifact

A generally colourless permanent, playable in any deck regardless of its colours. That is what makes artifacts the glue in so many builds.

Battlefield

The shared table where permanents in play live. Anything on it is public.

Board wipe

A spell that destroys every creature at once. The great equaliser: it punishes whoever committed most to the board.

Bomb

A card that wins the game on its own if nobody answers it. The word comes up most in draft, where removal is scarce.

Deathtouch

Any damage at all, even a single point, destroys the creature it touches. A 1/1 with deathtouch deters any giant.

Enchantment

A permanent that changes the rules of the game for as long as it stays. Some attach to a creature or land: those are called auras.

Exile

A zone outside the game that things do not normally come back from. It is the clean way to remove something the graveyard would not actually stop.

First strike

Deals its damage before creatures without it. A 2/2 with first strike kills an ordinary 2/2 without a scratch.

Flying

Can only be blocked by creatures with flying or reach. The simplest way through a crowded board.

Foil

A card with a metallic finish. More sought after, but more sensitive to humidity: a badly stored foil warps.

Graveyard

The discard pile, face up and readable by everyone. Far from being an ending: black and green draw on it constantly.

Haste

Can attack and tap the moment it arrives. Red's signature.

Indestructible

Not killed by damage or by destruction effects. Still vulnerable to exile, sacrifice, and having its toughness reduced to zero.

Instant

A spell castable at any time, including during your opponent's turn or in response to another spell. This is what makes blue and red dangerous outside their own turn.

Land

The card that produces mana. One per turn, and playing it does not count as casting a spell, so nobody can respond to it.

Library

Your deck, face down. If you have to draw from an empty library you lose the game — which is a whole win condition for some decks.

Lifelink

Damage dealt by this creature gains you that much life. Completely changes the maths of a race.

Mana

The energy that pays for spells. It comes mostly from tapping lands, and it empties at the end of each step: mana cannot be saved up.

Mana curve

How costs are distributed across a deck. A good curve lets you do something every turn; a top-heavy one gives you hands you cannot cast.

Metagame

What people are actually playing right now, in your shop or at tournaments. Choosing cards against the metagame usually beats hunting for the best card in the abstract.

Mulligan

Shuffling back an unplayable opening hand to draw a new one, then putting one card on the bottom. Keeping a bad hand loses more games than mulliganing does.

Permanent

Any card that stays on the battlefield once it resolves: creature, land, artifact, enchantment, planeswalker. As opposed to instants and sorceries, which go to the graveyard immediately.

Planeswalker

A permanent ally with loyalty counters: one ability per turn, which raises or lowers the counter. It can be attacked just like a player.

Priority

The right to act at a given moment. It passes between players; when everyone declines, the top object on the stack resolves.

Ramp

Accelerating your mana production to cast things earlier than normal. A green speciality, though artifacts do it too.

Reach

Can block flying creatures without flying itself. Green's answer to flying.

Removal

Any card that gets rid of an opposing permanent. A deck without removal loses to the first large threat it meets.

Sideboard

Fifteen cards kept aside and swapped in between games of a match to adapt to your opponent. Tournament play only.

Singleton

A construction rule allowing no more than one copy of any card. It is the founding principle of Commander.

Sorcery

A spell castable only during your own turn, when nothing is waiting on the stack. More powerful than an instant at the same cost, in exchange for that rigidity.

Spell

A card while it is on the stack, before it resolves. A creature is a spell until it actually reaches the battlefield.

Summoning sickness

A creature that arrived this turn can neither attack nor use an ability requiring it to tap. Haste removes the restriction. This is the number-one new-player oversight.

Tap

Turning a card ninety degrees to show it has been used: making mana, attacking, activating an ability. A tapped card can do nothing more until it untaps.

The stack

The waiting area for spells and abilities. The last one added resolves first, which is what lets you respond to a spell — and respond to the response.

Trample

Excess damage carries through to the player when the blocker dies. Stops a huge creature being held off by a single 1/1 token.

Untap

Straightening your cards at the start of your turn. It is the first thing that happens, before you even draw.

Upkeep

The step just after untapping and before the draw. Many recurring effects trigger there — hence the phrase 'at the beginning of your upkeep'.

Vigilance

Attacks without tapping, and so stays back to block. Turns an attacker into a permanent defence.

No terms match.