Card Types
Common card types
list of terms, sections, and words related to Magic: The Gathering
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Card Types:
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Gameplay Terms:
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Abilities:
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Actions:
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Mana and Land:
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Targeting:
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Special Actions:
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Mechanics:
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Miscellaneous:
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Card Types:
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Creature:
Represents beings like creatures, beasts, and monsters. They can attack opponents and defend against attacks.
Land:
Lands provide the mana needed to cast spells. They are the foundation of your magical power, enabling you to play other cards. Each land type can produce a specific type of mana, essential for casting spells.
Sorcery and Instant:
Spells with immediate effects. Sorceries can only be cast during your main phase, while instants can be cast at any time, even in response to other spells or abilities.
Artifact and Enchantment:
Cards that stay in play and provide ongoing effects. Artifacts are magical objects with various abilities, while enchantments attach to other permanents and grant them additional abilities.
Planeswalker:
Represents powerful characters who aid you in battle. They have unique abilities that can influence the game in various ways.
Gameplay Terms:
Enters the Battlefield:
Describes when a permanent comes into play from your hand, library, or other zones.
Tap/Tapped:
When a permanent is turned sideways to indicate that it has been used, often to show that it has attacked, tapped for mana, or activated ability.
Destroy:
Removes a permanent from the battlefield, typically sending it to the graveyard.
Sacrifice:
To destroy a permanent as part of a cost or effect. It usually involves sending it to the graveyard.
Exile:
Removes a card from the game entirely, often as a result of certain spells or abilities.
Library:
Your deck of cards from which you draw during the game.
Graveyard:
The zone where cards go after they're destroyed, sacrificed, or otherwise leave the battlefield.
Hand:
The set of cards you hold and can play from during your turn.
Control:
Refers to which player owns or is currently in charge of a permanent or spell.
Abilities:
Flash:
Allows you to cast a spell at any time you could cast an instant, often catching opponents by surprise.
Haste:
Creatures with haste can attack and use abilities immediately, without waiting for a turn.
Menace:
Creatures with menace can't be blocked except by two or more creatures.
Hexproof:
Creatures or players with hexproof can't be the targets of spells or abilities opponents control.
Indestructible:
Permanents with indestructible can't be destroyed by damage or effects that say "destroy."
Lifelink:
Creatures with lifelink cause their controller to gain life equal to the damage dealt by the creature.
Trample:
Creatures with trample can assign excess combat damage to the defending player or planeswalker if they block.
Vigilance:
Creatures with vigilance don't tap when they attack, allowing them to block on the same turn they attack.
Double Strike:
Creatures with double strikes deal combat damage twice: first during the first-strike combat damage step, then during the regular combat damage step.
Deathtouch:
Creatures with Deathtouch destroy any creature they deal damage to, regardless of how much damage is dealt.
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Actions:
Create:
Used when a spell or ability puts tokens onto the battlefield.
Destroy:
Removes a permanent from the battlefield, typically sending it to the graveyard.
Sacrifice:
To destroy a permanent as part of a cost or effect. It usually involves sending it to the graveyard.
Exile:
Removes a card from the game entirely, often as a result of certain spells or abilities.
Draw:
Take the top card from your library and add it to your hand.
Mana and Land:
Mana:
The resource used to cast spells and activate abilities. It comes in five colors: white, blue, black, red, and green.
Land:
Cards that produce mana when tapped. They are crucial for casting spells and activating abilities.
Targeting:
Target Creature:
Spells or abilities with this designation affect the creature chosen as the target.
Enchanted Creature:
When a permanent is attached to a creature, granting it additional abilities or effects.
Special Actions:
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Attach:
Connecting an aura or equipment to a permanent.
Equip:
Attaching an equipment card to a creature you control.
Mechanics:
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Scry:
Looking at the top cards of your library and rearranging them.
Mill:
Putting cards from a player's library into their graveyard.
Goaded:
Forcing a creature to attack a player other than you during its controller's next combat if able.
Cycling:
Discarding a card with cycling and drawing a new card from your library.
Miscellaneous:
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Stack:
The zone where spells and abilities wait to resolve, operating on a last-in, first-out basis.
Activate only:
Abilities that can only be activated at certain times, as specified by the card text.
As sorcery:
Describes abilities that can only be activated during a player's main phase and when the stack is empty.
Ward:
A keyword ability that protects a permanent from being targeted by certain spells or abilities unless their controller pays an additional cost.
Counter:
To prevent a spell or ability from resolving or to remove counters from a permanent.
Token:
A physical or digital representation of a creature, often
Card Symbols
Mana Symbols:
These symbols represent the different colours of mana in Magic: The Gathering. Each colour is associated with specific themes, strengths, and weaknesses.
White Mana:
Represented by a circle with a white border. It symbolizes righteousness, order, and protection.
Blue Mana:
Represented by a circle with a blue border. It symbolizes knowledge, manipulation, and control.
Black Mana:
Represented by a circle with a black border. It symbolizes ambition, power, and death.
Red Mana:
Represented by a circle with a red border. It symbolizes passion, chaos, and destruction.
Green Mana:
Represented by a circle with a green border. It symbolizes growth, nature, and strength.
Colorless Mana:
Represented by a diamond shape. It can be paid with mana of any color or with specific colorless mana sources.
Tap Symbol:
Represented by an arrow pointing to the right. It indicates that a permanent, such as a land or creature, has been tapped (turned sideways) to activate its abilities or as part of a cost.
Untap Symbol:
Represented by an arrow pointing to the left. It indicates that a permanent is being untapped, allowing it to be used again.
X Symbol:
Represented by a large "X." It represents variable mana costs or power/toughness values. The value of X is determined by the player casting the spell or activating the ability.
+1/+1 Counters:
Represented by a "+1/+1" symbol. It indicates an increase in power and toughness for a creature. Multiple +1/+1 counters can be placed on a creature to further enhance its abilities.
-1/-1 Counters:
Represented by a "-1/-1" symbol. It indicates a decrease in power and toughness for a creature. Multiple -1/-1 counters can weaken a creature or eventually destroy it if its toughness reaches 0 or below.
Loyalty Symbols:
Found on planeswalker cards, loyalty symbols represent the number of loyalty counters a planeswalker enters the battlefield with. Abilities of the planeswalker may add or remove loyalty counters.
Tribal Symbols:
Represented by various icons denoting creature types, such as human, elf, goblin, etc. Tribal symbols indicate the creature type for cards with tribal synergies or effects.
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Understanding these symbols is crucial for playing Magic: The Gathering effectively, as they provide essential information for casting spells, activating abilities, and resolving card effects.