Each player starts the game with 20 life. Knock your opponent down to 0 life, and you win. The most common way to do this is to summon creatures and attack with them.
Creature cards are the most important part of many Magic decks. They’re really easy to spot—just look at the lower right of a card. If you see a pair of numbers separated by a slash, you’ve got a creature card. Once it’s on the battlefield, a creature continues to attack and defend for you until your opponent can find a way to take it out.
Most games become a race to see who can deal the most damage first. Summoning the best creatures will help you win that race every time. Check out the section on casting creature spells.
Magic: The Gathering is both a trading card and digital collectible card game created by Richard Garfield.
Released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast, Magic was the first trading card game created and it continues to thrive,
with approximately twenty million players as of 2015, and over twenty billion Magic cards produced in the period of
2008 to 2016 alone
To play Magic: The Gathering, players can acquire a 60 card deck from a suitable vendor, like a local game store or an online webstore.
Click the here to find a game store near you.
All images used on this website are courtesy of Wizards of the Cost, the official owners of the game Magic: The Gathering.
This website is a non-profit fan-made website created for educational purposes only.
Summoning a seething horde of creatures is only half the task. If you want to win Magic games, you’ve got to attack!
Your opponent starts the game with 20 life, so you’ll need to attack again and again over time to seal your victory. This is why creatures are such a good deal: they can potentially deal a ton of damage over time if left unchecked.
It’s important to note that in combat, you can’t attack your opponent’s creatures directly. You always attack your opponent, and it’s up to him or her to decide how, or even if, to block. This means it’s a good idea to check the table before you attack and ask yourself how you would block if you were in your opponent’s seat.
Since your opponent can block any way they see fit, there will always be a bit of mystery to how an attack will play out. That’s OK, just remember one simple rule: When in doubt, attack!
Your cards hold all the information you’ll need to use them in the game. Let’s take a look at how that information is laid out.
1. The name of the card can be found at the top of the card. Whenever you cast a spell, tell your opponent which card it is.
2. Next to the card’s name is its mana cost. This tells you how much mana it costs to cast that card.
3. In the middle, you’ll find the card type. When in doubt, take a look at the middle of the card to find out what type of card (creature, sorcery, enchantment, etc.) you’re dealing with.
4. That symbol on the right side of the middle bar is the card’s expansion symbol. Magic has released over 60 expansion sets in its 20-year history, and the expansion symbol tells you which set the card is from. The color of the expansion symbol tells you how rare the card is. Black expansion symbols are fairly common, while gold symbols are rare.
5. The box covering most of the bottom half of the card contains the card’s abilities. This is where you’ll learn what the card does in the game. Some cards have italicized flavor text, a look into the characters and worlds of Magic.
6. If the card is a creature, it will have two numbers near the bottom. The number before the slash is its power, or how much damage it deals in combat. The number after the slash is its toughness, how much damage must be dealt to it in a single turn to destroy it.
7. Finally, the very bottom of the card contains collector information. You’ll see the card’s collector number and illustration credit.
This tour of a Magic card concludes with a few examples.
