Core MTG Rules for Beginners — Everything You Need to Get Started

Your life total is your health bar. You start at 20 life and lose when it hits 0, so every decision in Magic is ultimately about protecting your own life while attacking your opponent's. You can gain life back with certain spells and lose it not only to attacks but also to some of your own cards, so keep an eye on the number throughout the game.

Mana is the fuel for everything you cast, and you get it from lands. There are five colors of mana — white, blue, black, red, and green — each produced by a matching basic land. You may normally play only one land per turn, and you tap a land to add its mana to your mana pool. This slow, steady growth of mana is what paces the game and decides what you can afford to cast each turn.

Spells come in several card types. Creatures are your fighters; they stay on the battlefield and have a power and toughness, like 3/2. Sorceries and instants are one-shot effects: a sorcery can only be cast during your own main phase when nothing else is happening, while an instant can be cast almost any time, even on your opponent's turn or in response to their spell. Enchantments and artifacts are permanents that stay around and provide ongoing effects.

To cast a spell you pay its mana cost by tapping lands. A new creature has summoning sickness, meaning it can't attack or use abilities with the tap symbol until you've controlled it since the start of your most recent turn. It can still block right away, though, so even a freshly cast creature helps you defend on your opponent's turn.

On your turn you can send creatures to attack. The defending player chooses how to block: each blocker can stop one attacker, and an unblocked attacker deals its damage to the player. When a creature is blocked, the attacker and blocker deal damage to each other equal to their power, and any creature that takes damage equal to or greater than its toughness is destroyed. Trading creatures wisely in combat is one of the most important skills in Magic.

A few key terms will speed up your learning. 'Tap' means turning a card sideways to use it; 'the stack' is the zone where spells wait to resolve; 'permanent' means any card on the battlefield like a creature, land, or enchantment; and 'graveyard' is your discard pile. Knowing this vocabulary makes rulebooks and card text far easier to understand.