Bragster's "Learn/Teach MtG" dare

Playing is that simple - part 2

2009-07-25T15:53:00.004+03:00

Here is the remaining part of the rules you need to to know in order to start playing Magic: the Gathering.

Winning the game

Each player starts at 20 life. You win if your opponent's life reaches zero before your does. Another way to in is to have your opponent draw a card when they cannot do so for some reason (most probably because there are no cards left in their deck). These are the two most common ways a game can be won. Certain cards exist that tell let you win in an alternative way but these come up rarely and each of them tells you what the alternative condition is.

Formats of the game

There are various ways to play magic and each of them comes with a set of rules. The formats are generally divided in two types - Standard and Limited.

In Standard formats you build your deck in advance with the restriction that you can only have four copies of any given card that is not a basic land. Copies are counted by the English name of the card so if you have three English copies of a card and three German two must go. Cards with the same name but from different editions count as the same card. The minimum allowed number of cards in your deck is 60.

In Limited formats you only get to see the cards you'll be playing with when you go to the event. It is either Sealed deck - you get 5-7 15-card boosters and build your deck or Draft - 8 people open a booster pack each, take one card and pass it to their neighbour. After all the cards are taken the second booster is opened, then the third. From the 45 cards you have taken you proceed to build the deck you will be playing with. You can add as many basic lands to the pool of cards you got in a limited event. The minimum number of cards for your deck is 40.

In both limited and standard events you may have cards that are not generally useful but will help you a lot in certain matches. These are called sideboard and in standard it is either zero or fifteen cards. After the first game of each match you can exchange between your deck and your sideboard on a 1-for-1 basis. In limited each card you are not playing in your deck is in your sideboard. The exchange does not have to be 1-for-1 as long as your deck still has at least 40 cards. After the match you desideboard, i.e. return the deck to it's initial form.

Preparing for the game

In order to start the game each player must have a legal deck. Legal deck means having the minimum amount of cards and no more than 4 copies of any given card, other than basic land. It is also necessary to bring a pen and paper with you to keep track of life totals, as well as have a way to represent tokens (creatures that are not cards but are created by an effect) and counters. Counters are put on cards to note they function in a different way - a creature is bigger, a permanent has a certain number of "charges", etc. Players shuffle their decks to randomize them, then they present it to their opponent for additional shuffling. No other manipulation of the deck is allowed after it has been shuffled by the opponent. After this the decks are put face-down on the table and become player's libraries - the pile from which you draw cards each turn. The players also determine who goes first - the winner of a dice roll, coin flip or another method that generates a 50-50 outcome gets to choose if they are playing first or second.

Playing the game

The game starts with each player drawing their opening hand of seven cards. If a player if not happy with the cards they've draw they can take a "mulligan", i.e. shuffle their hand back into their library and draw one card less. Mulligans are announced simultaneously. When a player decides to stop taking mulligans they can not choose to take another later. After everybody is happy with their opening hands the game starts.

Magic is played in turns that follow a structure explained below. Turn are taken in succession, starting from the person who chose to go first.

A few definitions

Before the turn structure, I'm going to explain a few rules and terms to make things more clear.

The Golden Rule - Magic is a game that doesn't come with a book of rules. Rules are few and simple, like you've seen from my posts. Most of what you need to know in order to play is written on the cards. a lot of cards carry their own set of rules that sometimes contradict the general rules of Magic. In case a card contradicts the rules, the card wins. For example, creatures can block attacking creatures, but there are cards that change that. In this case the would-be blocker become mere spectators.

"Can't" beats "Can" - if a card or effect tells you something can't be done and another tells you it can, the "can't" wins.

Tap - Taping a permanent means to turn it 90 degrees sideways. Permanents enter the battlefield untapped with their short side facing your opponent. Taping means that they have been used for some ability or action. This is represented by the "tap symbol" on the cards. Lands tap to produce mana, creature tap when they attack and some permanents have other abilities that require them to tap. Example of these from the deck are Llanowar Elves (tap to add one green mana to your mana pool) and Tar Pitcher (tap and sacrifice a goblin to do 2 damage). And tapped permanent is considered exhausted for the turn and is unable to perform any other actions that require tapping.

The Stack - This is a term you will very rarely hear in a game of Magic but it is fundamental for how the game works. Magic is a game of interaction and there are times when both people would like to do something at the same time. Nothing in Magic happens instantly - each player has the chance to respond to an action by their opponent. This is where the stack comes in. In each phase and step of the turn, the player whose turn it is (the "active player") gets the chance to play a spell or ability first. After this his opponent (the "defending player") gets to do the same. Each time a spell is played or an ability is activated it goes on "the stack", giving the other player a chance to respond to it. If they do by playing a spell or activating an ability in response, these go on the stack to. The process repeats until no player wants to add anything to the stack. Then each this starts "resolving", starting from the last one, with the first one getting to resolve last. There is a simple principle that helps remember this - "Last in, first out". After a spell or ability has resolve, it is removed from the stack and player get another chance to play more spells and abilities. After both players pass on an empty stack the game moves to the next phase or step.

Now let's try with an example:

Imagine you have an untapped Tar Pitcher and another goblin creature on the battlefield and your opponent has Llanowar Elves and Jagged-Scar Archers. They decide to play another elf creature, which would make their Jagged-Scar Archers bigger and more dangerous. Of course, you don't like that and as soon as their elf spell goes on the stack you tap your Tar Pitcher and sacrifice the other goblin to do 2 damage to the Jagged-Scar Archers. Now this ability goes on top of the elf played by your opponent, meaning you get to send the archers to the graveyard before they get any bigger. Of course, your opponent may have Giant Growth and play it on the archers to save them, but they don't want to spoil your fun, do they?

Another classic example of the stack is the comparison with the pile of dishes. Like most of you may know, dishes tend to pile up when you don't wash them, with the last ones used going on top. When eventually you get to doing this manly task you start from where? From the ones on the top, of course. And if after you have washed some a new one gets added it goes on the top too. Then you have to "resolve" this dish first before getting to the ones on the bottom of the pile. So next time you are washing a pile of dishes, comfort yourself with the idea you are practicing resolving spells and abilities from the Magic stack.

Damage - In a fight between mages somebody is going to get hurt. Quite often this are the creature, summoned on the battlefield. What happens if they hit by other creatures? They receive damage equal to the power of the creature they fought with and deal to it damage equal to their own power. Once a creature receives damage equal or greater than it's toughness it goes to the graveyard and no stack tricks can save it. If it survives the damage stays on it (in Magic terms it is "marked on the creature") and remains there until the end of the turn. Then it gets cleared and the creature if as good as new in the next turn.

Let's go back to the example with the stack. What if your opponent did have Giant Growth? The Jagged-Scar Archers are now a 6/6 creature until end of turn (3 elves and the Giant Growth effect) with 2 damage on them. Imagine that they foolishly attack you (what can happen to such a big creature anyway) and you block with Mudbutton Torchrunner - a reckless 1/1 creature. It stops the enemy monster, even doing it 1 damage in the process (for a tota of 3 damage). Even better - as soon as he's laid to rest, it's ability kick is, gets put on the stack and you get to choose which creature it will deal 3 damage to. My suggestion is to do it to the Jagged-Scar Archers but of course you are free to do something else.

Playing lands, casting spells and activating abilities - One gets to do that a lot in Magic. It helps knowing the right way it is done. Each spell and ability has a cost. In the case of spells it is printed in the top right corner of the card. The numbers in colourless circles means this number of mana can be paid with any colour of mana you can produce. In the case of Jagged-Scar Archers (I mention them a lot, don't I?) the cost is two green mana and one mana of any other colour. Activated abilities have costs too and they are written in this manner on the cards "Do Something: Something Else happens". In the case of another card I'm netioning a lot - Tar Pitcher - it says "Tap it, sacrifice a goblin: Do 2 damage to target creature or player". Cost must be paid in full before a spell is cast and an ability to be activated. If not, the actions are taken back as if nothing happened. Lands are played for free (free lunch!), but only once each turn, only during your turn and only on an empty stack (who said there's free lunch?). Notice how some spells and abilities have targets mentioned? This means that when anouncing the spell or ability you must choose a target. The Tar Pitcher and the Mudbutton Torchrunner make you specify who/what you are targeting. Spells can target too as is the case with Afflict (that targets creatures) and Cancel (that targets another spell). Once announced, targets cannot be changed.

Summoning Sickness and Haste - Creatures that have just come into play cannot be tapped for attacking or activation of abilities the turn they joined your side. To be able to do so you must have controlled me the whole time since your most recent turn started. The creatures with the "Haste" ability (such as Raging Goblin) don't pay attention to such formalities and are ready to go the turn they enter the battlefield.

Mana pool - something simeple to end this section. The mana pool is simply the place where the mana you have produced goes. It stay there until you use it or until the game moves to the next step of the turn in which case the mana is lost and cannot be recovered.

The phases and steps of a turn

These are the phases and steps of each turn:

1. Beginning phase. It consists of:

Untap step - This is the time when you untap all your tapped permanents
Upkeep step - This is the step when costs associated with the upkeep of permanents are paid. Card that require upkeep cost say so in theirs rules text. If you have no such cards you don't have to pay anything
Draw step - This is the step when you draw your card for the turn. An exception to this is that the player playing first doesn't draw a card on their first turn.

2. First Main Phase (also Pre-combat Main phase) - Only during this phase you can play lands. You are limited to one land per turn. You can also play creatures and other spells and activate abilities, while the only thing your opponent can do is play instants and activate abilities.

3. Combat Phase. During this phase only instants can be played abilities can be activated. It consists of:

Beginning of combat step - The last chance for your opponent to do somthing before you send your guys at him
Declare attackers step - This is when you announce which creatures attack your opponent and tap them. Remeber - you can only attack a player, not the creatures they control. You can only attack with creature that you have controlled constantly since your most recent turn sdtarted. An exception are creaturs with "haste", who can attack the turn, they enter the battlefield.
Decklare blockers step - Your opponent declares which of their creatures block each of your attackers. Any creature that is on the battlefield and is untapped can block. Tapping it later doesn't remove it from its duty of a blocker. They are not required to block any creatures but it helps their survivability sometimes. A blocking creature can only block one attacker. An attacking creature can be blocked by any number of creatures. In this case the attacker announces the order in which their creatures will assign damage to their blockers. After this both players get a chance to play spells and activate abilities.
(First strike damage step) - This step happens only if either player has creatures with the "First strike" ability (such as Youthful Knight). As the name of the ability suggests, those creatures get to deal their damage first, before they get hit by creatures without first strike. After first strike damage is deal players can play spells or activate abilities.
Normal damage step - This is when creature deal damage equal to their power to one another (or to player if they are unblocked). Creatures that are blocked don't assign damage to players, even if the creature blocking them is no longer in combat. If a creature is blocked by more than one creature, it first has to deal enough damage to destroy the first creature in the order of blockers, before moving to the next. Enough damage is damage equal to the creature's toughness, minus all damage previously dealt to it this turn. For example if a 3/3 creature is blocked by a 2/2 creature and a 1/2 creature (in that order) it has do assign two damage to the first, before dealing the remaing 1 point of damage to the second blocker.
End of combat step - This is where the combat ends.

4. Second Main Phase - same as the First Main Step

5. End phase. It consists of:

End step - The last point in a turn where a player may cast a spell or activate an ability. This is when effects lasting "until the end step" end.
Cleanup step - This is when effect lasting "until end of turn" end and when damage marked on creatures gets removes from them. Also, if the player whose turn ends has more than seven cards in their hand, they must discard down to seven cards.

And this is all you need to know to play Magic!

The blog can just end here, because now you have all the necessary information to start playing. Everything else will come with practice. However, I have decided to continue writing in order to help you understand the more advanced aspects of the game. The next few post will anayze the deck, people who signed for the dare got from Bragster.com. I will also talk about more strategic aspects of the game, help yopu find good read about Magic: the Gathering and show you how to enter the community of people, playing and enjoying the game. In the meantime I will very much appreciate comments, feedback, suggestions and anything you would like to share with me.

Welcome to the world of Magic!

Food for Thought

2009-07-24T19:40:00.003+03:00

Before getting to the second part of the rules here's a quick list of questions to help you get a deeper understanding of the colours and card types. After reading the five decklists, the post about colours and the one about card types, think about the following:

Which of its colour main traits does each deck represent?
Why is the distribution of card types different in the decks?
Are there any themes or interactions that stand out in each deck?
Are there cards that seem stronger than others, either in a deck or across the five decks?
What strenghts of each of the five decks one has to maximize in order to have greater chance of winning?

Like the title suggests, these main goal of this questions are to be food for your thoughts. I will also answer some of them in the posts that will follow the second part of the rules walkthrough. Until then keep one thing in mind -

Magic is a game that asks a lot of questions and gives few definitive answers. It's your ability to make the most of the information at hand that will help you become better.

The Green Deck

2009-07-24T02:38:00.002+03:00

Here is the list of cards in the green deck that Bragster.com can send you if you join the "Learn to play Magic or teach a friend" dare. The cards are divided according to card type.

The deck contains:

Lands

11 Forests

Creatures

1 Jagged-Scar Archers

2 Leaf Gilder

2 Llanowar Elves

Enchantments

1 Treetop Bracers

Sorceries

1 Commune with Nature

1 Creeping Mold

1 Natural Spring

Instants

2 Giant Growth

The Red Deck

2009-07-24T02:36:00.006+03:00

Here is the list of cards in the red deck that Bragster.com can send you if you join the "Learn to play Magic or teach a friend" dare. The cards are divided according to card type.

The deck contains:

Lands

12 Mountains

Creatures

2 Mudbutton Torchrunner

Sorceries

Instants

The Black Deck

2009-07-24T02:36:00.004+03:00

Here is the list of cards in the bkack deck that Bragster.com can send you if you join the "Learn to play Magic or teach a friend" dare. The cards are divided according to card type.

The deck contains:

Lands

12 Swamps

Creatures

Enchantments

1 Megrim

Sorceries

1 Corrupt

Instants

1 Afflict

The Blue Deck

2009-07-24T02:34:00.003+03:00

Here is the list of cards in the blue deck that Bragster.com can send you if you join the "Learn to play Magic or teach a friend" dare. The cards are divided according to card type.

The deck contains:

Lands

12 Islands

Creatures

Enchantments

Artifacts

Sorceries

1 Ponder

1 Sift

Instants

1 Cancel

1 Peek

2 Remove Soul

The White Deck

2009-07-24T02:29:00.004+03:00

Here is the list of cards in the white deck that Bragster.com can send you if you join the "Learn to play Magic or teach a friend" dare. The cards are divided according to card type.

The deck contains:

Lands

12 Plains

Creatures

1 Angel of Mercy

2 Apothecary Initiate

Enchantments

Artifacts

Sorceries

Instants

Playing is that simple - part 1

2009-07-24T00:14:00.004+03:00

After spending some time talking about the game in general it is time to get into more specifics. Today I am going to explain the rules of the game and by the end of the post anyone should be able to start playing their first game of Magic: the Gathering. If this sounds too optimistic I will point out to something that quite a lot of people who have been long enough in the game know:

Magic is easy to learn and hard to master.

If you have been overwhelmed by the abundance of articles and various Magic related content over the net, it is because there are many people trying to master the game. This content is there for them. Maybe soon you will also be among those looking for it trying to improve your play. Right now you are here to learn how to play and see why millions of people enjoy Magic: the Gathering. For such a simple task one post will suffice.

Elements of a card

I am going to start with briefly talking about the types of cards. There are seven of them - lands, creatures, instants, sorceries, artifacts, enchantments and plainswalkers. All cards have one thing in common - how the "fixed" elements are placed on them. Let's look at this classic green card for example:

Always in the top left corner you will find the name of the card. In this case we are looking at Llanowar Elves.

On the top right you can see see a black tree in a green circle - this is the mana cost. There are four more such symbols each associated with one of the colours. The mana cost is there to tell you how much mana you need to pay in order to cast the spell. In this case you need one green mana.

Underneath the name and the mana cost is the illustration of the card. It serves no purpose in the game but greatly helps recognize a card (especially when Magic is being printed in nine different languages). Cards that appear in different sets may have different illustration. Nevertheless, they are still considered the same card.

We get to the middle portion, where we have the card type (on the left) and the expansion symbol (on the right).

This card tells us it is a creature (you might have guessed it) and it has the types Elf and Druid (subtypes to a card type are come after the hyphen). Creature types can be important as we will see talking about the green and the red decks that Bragster.com sends in their intro packs. One last thing worth mentioning is that a card can be two or more types, e.g. an artifact creature.

The expansion symbol tells you from which expansion this card is. I will go into detail about the importance of this when I talk about different formats in a future post. The colour of the expansion symbol represents the rarity of the card. It can be black (as with Llanowar elves), which stands for common, silver, which stands for uncommon, gold meaning rare and platinum, which is found on the cards of mythical rarity. The rarity shows you the likelihood of finding a certain card in a booster box. Since this has nothing to do with how the game is played, it will also be covered in another post.

In the lower part of the card, taking almost as much space as the illustration are the rules text and the flavor text. Either one may or may not be present and the latter is for flavor reasons only, it doesn't affect the gameplay. The former, on the other hand is pretty important since it tells you what the card can and can't do and how it is used. In our case we are looking at a card that has the ability to add one green mana to your mana pool. What's mana pool? You'll find out in just a few paragraphs.

Finally, there are the figures in the bottom right corner. These are only found on creature cards and represent their power (first number) and toughness (the second one). The power tells you how much damage the creature does to other creature, players and planeswalkers. The toughness is there to tell you how much damage the creature can take before it dies. For example if two Llanowar elves fight on the battlefield each one will receive 1 damage from the other and will die.

You may notice I am missing the text in the bottom left corner. This is because it contains information relevant for collectors of the cars such as number of the card in the set, artist who did the illustration, etc. This information does not affect the games played.

Card Types

With this being said, let's go back to the card types and see what is the difference between them. First I am going to set lands outside and refer to the other six types as spells. The reason for this is that in Magic all the non-land cards you have in your deck are the tools for achieving victory. To be able to use your tools you have to pay mana, which you get from your lands. This is why lands are more of a resource than a tool. Lands come in five basic types, each producing a single colour of mana - plains for white, islands for blue, swamps for black, mountains for red and forests for green. There are also lands that produce more than one colour and ones that produce colourless mana, which can be used to cast spells whose cost can be fully or partially paid with any colour of mana.

Next I am going to separate the cards into permanents and non-permanents. The permanents enter the game area (known as "the battlefield") and stay there until something destroys them and puts them into the zone known as "the graveyard". They include the creatures, enchantments, artifacts, planeswalkers and lands. The instants and the sorceries have one-shot effects and the cards that represent them go straight into "the graveyard".

Finally the cards can be divided, according to when they can be played. Since this has a lot to do with the turn structure covered in part 2 of this post, I'll leave it at that. Now I will just go through each card type one by one:

Land - a permanent used to pay for spells

Creature - a permanent that can attack and block as well as have additional abilities

Enchantment - a permanent that affects the game in some way. Enchantments with the type Aura need to be attached to another permanent to have their effect

Artifact - a permanent, much like the enchantment in function. Artifacts with the type Equipment can be equipped on creatures you control

Planeswalker - a permanent representing an ally, fighting on your side. They are a bit complex and quite cool, which mean they get a separate post

Sorcery - a spell that can only be cast during your turn

Instant - a spell, that can be cast at any time

Quite a lot to read and digest, right? Trust me, knowing all this will become a second nature after only a couple of games. And after reading all this you are almost ready to start playing. Part 2 is coming really soon but in the meantime you can put everything you just learned about card types in context by looking through the thousands of cards in Wizard's card database The Gatherer or by looking at the descriptions of the Bragster decks I am about to post.

The Colours of Magic

2009-07-19T02:53:00.002+03:00

There are five coluours in Magic: the Gathering - white, blue, black, red and white. Today I am going to briefly describe what each of them is about just to give you a general idea about how a deck centred around a single colour feels and plays. Of course the colours can be combined in an atempt to overcome the weaknesses each of them has. Yet, this is a concept that is beyond the scope of this blog, plus it is better to let you experiment and figure it out on your own.

I will only give a summary for each colour's traits, plus a link to an article by Mark Rosewater (Head Magic Designer). These articles are pretty long and might require some previous knowledge of the game so you might consider reading them at a later point. For now the short story should do. So here we go:

Red

"Act now, think later"

Red is fast, furious and fierce. Red is led by emotions and passion. It cares what happens now, not what will or may happen later. Fire, agression, speed, mischief are all common weapons for this colour. It's most typical creatures are goblins, barbarians, minotaurs and dragons. The enemies of red are white and blue.

Green

"In harmony with nature"

Green is about the community, growth and adaptation to the environment. Green hates everything artifical and uses only what nature provides. It follows natures laws and gets rewarded with the power to accelerate it's development and punish everybody who is violating those laws. Green is typically represented by elves, insects, trolls and beasts. The enemies of green are blue and black.

White

"United we are strong"

White cares about social organization and order. It believes that laws must exist and be enforced. White specializes in armies where the whole is more than the sum of it's parts. It protects its own and punishes those who oppose it. The creatures that symbolize white are soldiers, knights, clerics and angels. The enemies of white are black and red.

Blue

"Knowledge is power"

Blue is patient, planning and elitist. It seeks power through knowledge and despises everything else. It is the colour that is least interested in warfare, instead focusing on other ways to emerge triumphant. Blue is the colour of counterspells, control and defense. It's creatueres are most often illusions, drakes, levithans and sphinxes. The enemies of blue are red and green.

Black

"Power at any price"

Black will pay and do anything to win. For it's readiness to pay any price it is rewarded with the ability to destroy creatures, discard it's enemy's spells before they are cast and reanimate creatures after they have been laid to rest. Black's armies usually consist of skeletons, zombies, vampires and demons. The enemies of black are green and white.

To wrap it up here is a nice diagram, known as "the colour pie" that visualizes everything you just read:

Intermission

2009-07-19T02:48:00.003+03:00

I promised to tell if the badge I got from the promo pack helped. It seems I forgot to charge it the first day, winning two, drawing one and losing two games in my first Magic 2010 (that's the latests set so far) Prerelase. The next day, though, I played in a Two-Headed Giant (a 2 vs 2 variation of the game) prerelease tournament where me and my partner made the cut to top 4 after losing only one in 5 rounds. There were nearly 20 teams so I might say we did quite well.

The Bragster Pack

2009-07-11T03:03:00.008+03:00

Welcome to the second post in the blog that will help you learn how to play Magic: the Gathering. In my first post I mentioned the free pack Bragster.com sends everybody who signs for the dare. Interested to know what is inside? The pack I got contained:

1 Playmat - not very good to play on but definitely cool. At least if you like the images of Chandra Nalaar and Liliana Vess, that is

2 Premade decks (a blue and a black one) - the core of the content in this blog. I'll be talking a lot about them soon

1 Alara Reborn booster pack (no longer available due to the large volume of requests) - we'll get to it's contents and purpose in the final posts

2 Planeswalker symbol stensils - No idea what the Planeswalker symbol is? Check here

3 Planeswalker stickers - along with the stencils both these are handy if yo want to try your hand in another M:tG dare on Bragster

1 "Here I Rule" sticker - Useful on it's own, no prizes for sticking it anywhere I'm afraid

1 Badge - not so "emo" as it may sound. I'll wear it at the prerelease tomorrow to see what happens.

Still don't get the picture? Let's try this way:

Excited already? Or jealous? Nice.

Next time I'm going to tell you what each of the five colours in Magic represents, what are their strenghts, weaknesses and philosophies. After that I will let you see what's inside each deck, what each card does and purpose it serves and give you a good idea what the best way to play the deck is.

Your Magic road starts here

2009-07-11T00:34:00.009+03:00

Hello,

I am Ivan from Bulgaria, a Magic: the Gathering player since 2002 and a Rules Advisor as of recently. Welcome to my blog. If you are here reading this you are either curious what Magic: the Gathering is or you are want to learn how to play it. Or both.

You have come to the right place. Over the next ten or so posts in this blog I am going to walk you through the essentials of Magic: the Gathering, teach you how to play and ultimately show you how to join the millions of people enjoying this game. I will do this using the starting pack that bragster.com so kindly offers for the dare "Learn to play Magic or teach a friend". This blog is my shot at the prize but it is also a way to do something I have wanted to do for so long now - get other people into the game.

If you share my motivation but find a different approach better, you can sign up here. You will also get the pack and if your entry for the dare is the best you are also getting the prize. All this is not for free though. It comes at the cost of you doing something fun.

Do you think you have what it takes?