Editing Magic: The Gathering (section)

==Rules==
Each player starts with a life total of 20, it is the goal of the game to reduce your opponent's life to 0 or less. Occasionally a player's goal will involve winning through some other win condition (i.e. making the opponent draw when no cards remain in their library, give the opponent 10 or more poison counters, [http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Alternate-win_card card specific win conditions], or dealing commander damage). Each player takes a turn until only one player is left in the game. There have been many revisions to the rules since the game's release [[skub | with mixed reactions from fans,]] but the general gist is the same.
	 
===Game expressions===

*'''[[Mana]]''' - Mana is the magical resource of the game, it is what you commonly use to play cards. Mana you have drawn from a source is kept in your '''mana pool''', waiting for you to spend it. However, at the end of each phase and each step in a turn, your mana pool is emptied, so there's no saving up by constantly draining your lands. There used to be a rule called Mana Burn, in which if you didn't use all the mana you had in your mana pool you would take damage, loosing 1 life for each unspent mana. It did a few good things, like give [[Legends#Mana_Drain|Mana Drain]] a draw back, but ultimately R&D decided Magic was better off without it.	 
*'''Spell''' - Spells are any card that is currently on the stack.
*'''The Stack''' - This, children, is where [https://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature/362#splitsecond almost] all the real bullshit occurs. The stack is where almost any effect other than those that produce mana go to wait to '''resolve'''. whenever an effect (such as playing a card, activating an ability of an artifact or creature, etc.) goes on the stack, all the players in the game receive '''priority''' in turn order to respond. When a player has priority, no other player can act. When something is on the stack, only effects that are played at instant speed may be added to the stack, such as other abilities or instants themselves. You never have to put anything on the stack when you have priority, it just gives you the ability to respond to another players move if you choose. Effects on the stack resolve from the one to be put on last resolving first, this means that whenever you respond to your opponents move with, your response will always take effect before his move. <br> For example if your opponent casts a spell to destroy one of your creatures in play, and you have the appropriate amount of mana to play a counter spell, you can tap your lands and add your counter spell to the stack, targeting your opponents destruction spell. When the stack resolves, your counter spell will be the last effect on the stack, and as such will resolve first, countering your opponents spell and saving your creature. Note that your opponent also receives priority again when you play the counter spell, meaning that it'll be possible for him to add a new spell to kill your creature after you have played the counter spell, meaning he'll kill your creature anyway. But then again, you'll receive priority again as well, and so on and so on.
*'''Permanent''' - A Permanent is any card that, upon resolving, remains on the battlefield indefinitely until it is removed by another (or in some cases its own) spell or ability. Permanents include Lands, Creatures, Artifacts, Enchantments, Planeswalkers and Tokens. Many removal spells or abilities can simply refer to permanents as a whole, giving you much more flexibility in your destruction.
*'''Tap''' - Tapping is the act of turning a card 90 degrees, this is done to indicate that the card has been exhausted. You tap a land when you draw mana from it, you tap a creature to attack with it, and many abilities of creatures or artifacts require that you tap the card as well. Wizards of the Coast owns a patent on this mechanic, and they used it to run most other CCGs out of business.  That is why ''[[Legend of the Five Rings]]'' used to cause players to lose honor every time they accidentally said "tap" instead of "bow." 
*'''Ability''' - Abilities are found in a permanent's text field. Abilities can be either activated or triggered abilities. An activated ability is noted for having a cost followed by a colon followed by the effect of the ability. For example, "''Tap<nowiki> : </nowiki>Draw a card, then discard a card .''" Triggered abilities however, will be added to the stack whenever a certain condition is met, for example "''Whenever you gain 1 life, draw a card''". A triggered ability can be triggered as many times as the condition for it is met, and an activated ability can be activated as many times as you can possibly pay the cost. 
*'''Hand''' - No, not that hand, stupid. Your hand of cards. You can normally only have 7 cards in your hand when your turn ends (any more than that are usually discarded), and your hand of cards is kept so your opponent can't see it. You start the game with a hand of 7 cards, and you draw 1 card each turn, there are cards that let you draw more cards however. 
*'''Library''' - You library is your deck of cards, it must contain no less than 60 cards, and it is often ideal to not include more than 60 cards either. It also may not contain more than four copies of the same card, exempting the basic land cards (Plains, Forests, Mountains, Islands or Swamps). If you are asked to draw a card and you cannot because there are no more cards left in your library, you lose the game (or win, if you have Laboratory Maniac out), just as if you had hit 0 life.
*'''Graveyard''' - This is where used sorceries, instants and destroyed cards go. Some cards are able to return cards from here, but normally they just stay dead.  This is a place of magic and wonder for any deck that runs revive.  Until someone plays Samurai of the Pale Curtain...
*'''Exile''' - A super duper Special Snowflake Graveyard where things that aren't intended to ever be returned go. Used to be called "Removed from the Game", it was created so that you couldn't use a Resurrection sorcery on something you used Swords to Plowshares on. Naturally things got stupid when WotC started making cards that could bring cards back from exile.

===Structure of a turn===
The first step in a turn is the '''untap step''', here all the cards in play that are tapped are untapped. The next step is your '''upkeep''', nothing happens here by default, it is only in place for some cards to trigger different effects at the start of your turn.
	 
After your upkeep is your '''draw step''', here you simply draw a card from the top of your library.
	 
Next is your first main phase, here you can play any spells that are played at sorcery speed, this is things such as artifacts, creatures, enchantments, planeswalkers, land (lands are weird, playing them doesn't use the stack and as such can't be responded to, so one could make the case that in some ways they are faster than instants, also lands can NEVER be "PLAYED" when it is not your turn where as other things considered sorcery speed can be instant speed through things like Flash). and sorceries themselves.
	 
After your first main phase is your combat phase, this is broken up into several subphases itself. The first thing to happen is that you declare any creatures you want to '''attack''' to attack by tapping them, you opponent is then given the choice of '''blocking''' your creatures. Only an untapped creature can block, and a creature can only participate in one block each combat. However, several creatures can be picked to block the same creature at once, meaning that it is possible to 'gang up' on attackers in order to kill them. When creatures are in combat with each other they will deal each other damage at the same time, meaning that two 1/1's will kill each other at the same time. In the case of multiple creatures blocking one creature, the attacker assigns the damage that his creature would deal out to the blocking creatures as he wishes, for example a 2/2 blocked by two 1/1's could deal 1 damage to both creatures and kill them both.
	 
Any unblocked creatures will deal their damage to the opponent.
	 
Once all damage has been assigned, the '''clean up''' step follows, where all creatures that have taken lethal damage will be sent to their owner's graveyards.
	 
After combat you have your second main phase, where you can do exactly the same as in the first.
	 
After the second main phase, you have the end of turn step, pretty much the same deal as with the upkeep, nothing really happens here unless a card says so. Lastly, after your end of turn step, you discard down to the maximum hand size if you have exceeded it, so if you for example have 9 cards in hand, you will have to discard 2 of them to meet the required of 7.
	 
===Types of cards===
The game of Magic contains several different '''supertypes''' of cards:
	 
*'''Lands''' - Lands are the player's most basic resource and they are tapped to allow the player to play their other cards that have a '''mana cost'''. You can normally play only one land from your hand per turn. [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=45491 Example of a non-basic Land card.] 
**'''Basic''' - A supertype currently found only on land cards. There are formerly five, now six basic lands: Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest and (the only addition) Wastes. A deck can contain any number of the same basic card. [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=983 Example of a basic Land card.] 
*'''Creatures''' - Creatures are the players soldiers and guardians, they primarily participate in combat, although as with all things in Magic, there are many exceptions this. Creatures have many '''subtypes''', these are commonly referred to as '''creature types''', most creatures have a race and a profession creature type, for example "''Creature - Human Warrior''". Creatures have a toughness and a power score, portrayed as P/T on the bottom right corner of the card. Power determines the amount of damage the creature can cause in combat whereas toughness is how much damage it can take before it is destroyed. Damage assigned to a creature is cleared at the end of each turn, meaning that if a creature isn't killed by the amount of damage it has sustained, it'll return to its full toughness at the end of the turn. This means that the same creature will often participate in several combat steps before it is finally killed. Damage assigned to players however, is never healed by any other means than other cards that give the player an amount of life upon being played. [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=129586 Example of a Creature card.]
*'''Token''' - A ''token'' inclusion, these are "permanent" cards that are generated directly onto the battlefield by spells or abilities from ''other'' cards in your deck. 99% of the time, tokens will take the shape of creature cards, though you can create token copies of other permanent types with the right cards. Tokens can only ever stay on the battlefield and, when removed for any reason whatsoever, simply cease to exist.
*'''Enchantments''' - These are raw magic that you create, they can do all different kinds of things, and generally have a constant effect on the game, until they are destroyed by your opponent. There are global and local variants of enchantments, the local being a subtype called '''auras''', these are attached to other cards in play to enhance them or weaken them. A lot of competitive players dislike auras since they are destroyed if their 'host' is destroyed, meaning that it is easier for your opponent to make a lot of you cards obsolete by destroying one card. [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=129572 Example of a positive Enchantment card.] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=50233 Example of a harmful Enchantment card]
*'''Sorceries''' - Sorceries are spells that you can only cast on your own turn, and when nothing is on the stack, they'll have some kind of immediate effect on the game, but they are not persistent like enchantments. This means that it is common for sorceries to simply just destroy something else in play or to give a temporary boost to a creature or something like that. The more massive destructive effects in the game are commonly found in sorceries, such as globally destroying all lands or creatures in play. [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=129808 Example of a Sorcery card.] 
*'''Instants''' - Just like sorceries, however an instant can also be played in an opponent's turn, they'll often do the same as sorceries, but stuff like counter magic, that is a spell that prevents your opponent's spell from resolving, are only instants. [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=190535 Example of an Instant card.] 
*'''Artifacts''' - All kinds of magic items, like a staff or some other kind of stuff. Normally this is stuff used by the player himself, but some artifacts, known as '''Equipment''', can be equipped by the player's creatures, making them work like auras, only they do not need a 'host' to be in play, and as such are a lot more persistent than auras. Some artifacts are also creatures, this is stuff like golems or other kinds of magical constructs. Artifact are generally colorless, with some exceptions, so almost all of them are suitable for any deck. [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=129704 Example of an Artifact card.] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=76637 Example of an equipment card.]  The most recently added type of artifacts are '''Vehicles'''; vehicles are artifacts that can become artifact creatures for a turn by tapping other creatures.  Originally a one-off mechanic in Kaladesh but the concept proved very popular and they now appear whenever appropriate.
*'''Legendary''' - Much like Basic, Legendary only appears together with another supertype. If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners' graveyards. Legendary cards are often stuff like characters from the plot line of Magic, or somehow else very special things like specific places in the case of legendary lands. ''Generally'', legendary creatures also tend to be more powerful in some shape or form than generic creatures. For the Commander format, each deck is required to have at least ''one'' legendary creature as their "commander". The colors that each commander deck are allowed to use are determined by the mana symbols in the commander's mana cost or activated abilities. [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=26793 Example of a Legendary card.] 
*'''Tribal''' - A newcomer among the supertypes, a Tribal card lets a noncreature card have creature types. For example, a card that would allow you to destroy a goblin card would work on any goblin creature, as well as a Tribal Enchantment - Goblin. Sadly the "Tribal" card type is unlikely to be printed on new cards. [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=146167 Example of a Tribal card.] 
*'''[[Planeswalker]]''' - Another newcomer, a Planeswalker is similar to an enchantment. Planeswalkers come into play with a certain amount of loyalty counters on them. Once per turn a planeswalker can use one of its activated abilities during his main phase whenever he may play a sorcery, either adding or subtracting the indicated amount of counters. As of War of the Spark in spring 2019, they can also have static or triggered abilities like other permanents. A planeswalker can be targeted for either spells or abilities that deal damage, and can be targeted in an attack phase like a player. For each damage a planeswalker takes, instead remove that many loyalty counters. If a planeswalker has no loyalty counters left on it, it is destroyed. All planeswalkers are legendary, so if a player controls two planeswalkers that share a name, that player chooses one of them and the rest are put into their owners' graveyards. This was changed from what was called the "planeswalker uniqueness rule", which meant you couldn't have two different cards representing the same dude. Lore-wise this made sense, but has been sacrificed for gameplay reasons. Planeswalkers can do some really awesome shit, such as create 5 4/4 dragons or force your opponent to mill 20 cards from their library. Keeping one alive can be a royal pain in the ass. [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=140222 Example of a Planeswalker card.]