World & How to Play
The Multiverse, and how to play
Two players, a deck each, twenty life. Play lands, use them to cast spells, attack with creatures, and bring your opponent from 20 to 0. Here is the whole game on one page, then the worlds the cards come from.
How to play
Bring their life to 0
Each player starts at 20 life. Creatures, spells and abilities deal damage. When a player reaches 0, they lose.
Their library runs out
A player who has to draw a card from an empty library loses the game.
Ten poison counters
Some creatures give poison counters instead of damage. A player with ten poison counters loses. A few cards also say “you win the game”.
The five colours of mana
Cards that use more than one colour are multicoloured (shown in gold on this site); artifacts and other cards with no colour are colourless.
Kinds of card
Land
Play one per turn. Tap it for mana, the energy you spend to cast everything else.
Creature
Has power (damage it deals) and toughness (damage it can take). Can attack from the turn after it arrives.
Planeswalker
A powerful ally with loyalty counters. Use one loyalty ability per turn. Opponents can attack it.
Instant
A one-shot spell you can cast at almost any time, even during your opponent's turn.
Sorcery
A one-shot spell cast only in your own main phase, when nothing else is happening.
Artifact
A magical object that stays on the battlefield. Equipment attaches to creatures; vehicles can be crewed.
Enchantment
A lasting magical effect. Auras attach to a card; others affect the whole game.
Battle
Newer card type. You attack a battle to defeat it and unlock its other side.
Setting up
- Bring a deck. In most formats a deck has at least 60 cards and no more than four copies of any card except basic lands. (Commander uses 100 single cards; a draft deck has 40.)
- Shuffle and set your life to 20.
- Draw seven cards. Don't like your hand? Mulligan: shuffle it back, draw seven again, then put one card on the bottom of your library for each mulligan you've taken.
- Decide who goes first. In a two-player game, the player who goes first skips their first draw.
Your turn, in order
- 1
Beginning
- Untap all your tapped cards.
- Upkeep: some cards trigger here.
- Draw a card.
- 2
Main phase
- Play one land.
- Cast creatures, artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers and sorceries.
- 3
Combat
- Declare attackers (tap them).
- Your opponent declares blockers.
- Damage is dealt.
- 4
Second main phase
Same as the first. Many players hold spells until after combat.
- 5
End
“At end of turn” abilities happen, then damage wears off and you discard down to seven cards.
Words you will see
- Tap
- Turning a card sideways to use it: to make mana, to attack, or to pay for an ability. It untaps at the start of your next turn.
- Mana cost
- The symbols in the top-right corner. Coloured symbols need that colour; a number can be paid with any mana.
- Summoning sickness
- A creature can't attack or use tap abilities until you've controlled it since the start of your turn. Haste removes this.
- The stack
- Spells and abilities wait on the stack; players can respond, and the last thing added resolves first.
This is a summary for new players. Wizards of the Coast's official rules have every detail, and they win any disagreement with this page.
The planes of the Multiverse
Magic's stories travel between planes. These are the ones visited most often by the cards, oldest first.
- DominariaThe plane where Magic's story began. Its long history runs through the Brothers' War between Urza and Mishra, the Phyrexian Invasion, and the time rifts that nearly tore it apart.
- RavnicaA plane covered almost entirely by one sprawling city. Ten guilds, each tied to a pair of colors, run its law, trade, religion and crime.
- InnistradA gothic-horror plane where humans shelter behind the faith of the archangel Avacyn against vampires, werewolves, spirits and the walking dead.
- ZendikarA wild, adventure-filled plane of floating stone hedrons and violent land surges, and the prison of the Eldrazi titans.
- Mirrodin and New PhyrexiaAn artificial plane of metal built by the golem Karn. Phyrexian oil later corrupted it and turned it into New Phyrexia.
- KamigawaA plane inspired by Japanese myth. Its first story was a war between mortals and the kami spirits; centuries later it returned as a neon-lit, high-tech world.
- TherosA plane inspired by ancient Greek myth, where gods are shaped by the belief of mortals and heroes chase glory and fate.
- TarkirA plane of warring clans and dragons. Sarkhan Vol's journey into its past split its history into two timelines: one where the clans rule and one where dragonlords do.
- AlaraA plane once split into five shards, each missing two colors of mana, which crash back together in the Conflux.
- Lorwyn and ShadowmoorA sunlit fairy-tale plane of kithkin, elves and giants that turns every few centuries into Shadowmoor, its dark and twisted mirror.
- KaladeshA plane of inventors powered by aether, a glowing energy channelled into filigree machines. Home plane of Chandra Nalaar.
- AmonkhetA desert plane inspired by ancient Egypt, ruled by the dragon Nicol Bolas through gods he corrupted.
- IxalanA plane of jungle continents, dinosaurs, vampire conquistadors and pirates, all searching for the golden city of Orazca.
- EldraineA plane drawn from Arthurian legend and fairy tales: five noble courts in the Realm and the fae of the Wilds beyond.
- KaldheimA plane inspired by Norse myth: ten realms linked by the World Tree, home to gods, giants, elves and berserkers.
- RathAn artificial plane built by the Phyrexians as a staging ground for their invasion of Dominaria, ruled by the Evincar.
- MercadiaA plane of upside-down mountain cities and merchant politics, where the crew of the Weatherlight was stranded.
- Arcavios (Strixhaven)A plane centred on Strixhaven, a university of magic with five colleges founded by elder dragons.
- New CapennaAn art-deco city plane run by five crime families, built by angels who later fled it.
- Thunder JunctionA frontier plane in the style of the Wild West, full of outlaw gangs and the Omenpath railway.
- DuskmournA plane that is a single endless haunted house, feeding on fear.
- BloomburrowA plane with no humans, where small woodland animals live in ten families and face the great Calamity Beasts.
- UlgrothaA war-ruined plane, the setting of Homelands, ruled from the shadows by Baron Sengir.
- RabiahThe plane of Arabian Nights, the first Magic expansion, drawn from the One Thousand and One Nights.
Sources for the rules
- Learn to play — Magic: The Gathering (Wizards of the Coast) — The official introduction to the game.
- Magic: The Gathering Comprehensive Rules (Wizards of the Coast) — The complete rules, which win any disagreement with this summary.
- Magic: The Gathering — Wikipedia — Overview of colours, card types and gameplay.