Welcome back to another installment of my obviously exciting and popular blog-ish thing! This is where I cue you to hit any of the buttons below like Stumble, Reddit, or the +1! thingy.
Yes, yes, I know, this week we were supposed to do cartoons. And that article is still being drafted. But I need more input from my study group, so that one has been postponed. Instead, we are going to get down to the Magic: The Gathering rulebook. Them bones that make us cringe when a possibly infinite combo or quirky card or clever play comes up. The most prominent and necessary ones, anyways. That is to say, the ones you really need to know if you want to play in FNM or outside a casual circle.
The Comprehensive Rules are updated at least once every year. These are usually minor changes that involve inserting new keywords or abilities or interactions that may stump players. However, there are occasionally major overhauls to the may the game does things. Most recently we had the Magic: 2010 rules change, which made layering more intuitive, eliminated Mana Burn and took combat damage off the stack. All excellent decisions and a job well done. So check in yearly after the Core Set to see if theres a new version (Wizards will usually announce the updates on Daily MTG).
At this moment, I have the M11 Comp Rulebook on my screen in PDF format, and all-in-all, from section 100.1 to section 903.12a takes up 133 pages of rules. Not counting Table of content, glossary, etc. This is a staggeringly complex game, vastly more so than most would ever fathom. In this way, Magic is unlike any TCG previous to it. Every interaction comes back to the Rules, and some are less obvious than others, some completely unexpected. And they are strictly enforced in DCI Sanctioned Events. Whoa.
Luckily for us, though, there are the Judges.
The DCI has several levels of Judges, 1 through 5, ranging from players judging at local Friday Night Magics, to the Professional Level 5 Judges entrusted with coordinating things like Magic Weekend, Pro Tour, Worlds, Opens, and Grand Prixs. It's their job to know. To explain and help you understand, and make the calls yea or nea. My goal, is to help you and make their job a little easier.
There are 4 things you really need to know:
Turn Structure; The Stack; Priority; and Abilities
Let's begin, shall we?
Turns are broken up into phases and phases further into steps. This is relatively simple, but paramount to understanding just about everything else outside of combat.
The Phases and their steps are:
Beginning Phase
-Untap step: The very first thing you do is untap your permanents.
-Upkeep step: This is a very important one. Anything you control right now can tap, attack, or be otherwise activated this turn. A lot of cards and mechanics use this step to keep you from working around paying a cost. Anything that uses "at the beginning of your turn" can or will activate now, not during the Untap Step.
-Draw step: Draw a card. Obviously.
Precombat Main Phase
-This phase doesn't actually have any steps. A lot happens here. You play lands, creatures, spells, whatever. We'll expand more on this momentarily.
Combat Phase
-Beginning of Combat step: Anything that uses "at the beginning of combat" activates or triggers now
-Declare attackers: You declare who is attacking whom. You can attack players or Planeswalkers (there is some contention on this part. To support my conclusion I quote "508.1b If the defending player controls any planeswalkers, or the game allows the active player to attack multiple other players, the active player announces which player or planeswalker each of the chosen creatures is attacking.)
-Declare Blockers step: The defending player decides who is to block whom. Triggered abilities like Frenzy and Rampage trigger here.
-Combat Damage step: First Strike damage (including Double Strike) is calculated first, in a separate substep before anything else. Everything deals damage at once. The attacker decides how to dole out combat damage, then the blocker decides how to deal their combat damage. Everything dies at once to as part of whats called a "State Based Action check".
-End of Combat Step: As you may have guessed, anything thats uses "until end of combat" or "at the end of combat" will or can activate here.
Postcombat Main Phase
-Essentially the same as Precombat.
End step: You declare your turn is done. Anything that says "at the end of turn" "the beginning of your end step" or something similar will trigger now.
Cleanup: Minutiae, really. You discard down to seven cards if you need to, remove combat damage from creatures, and theres another SBA check.
This is stuff that usually comes pretty naturally after you get a handle on the game, but when we get into things like "floating" mana, per se, it becomes crucial to understand the progression, since your mana pool empties itself at the end of every step and phase.
What we're going to be looking at is just some basic interactions and Rules Tips of our own. The Stack itself is pretty straight forward; it is in essence stacking cards on top of each other as they're played. Here's how it works:
I play a Lightning Bolt. My opponent responds with Stoic Rebuttal. I respond with Reverberate, copying Stoic Rebuttal, then targeting it with the new copy. My opponent passes, and the stack resolves from the top down. Reverberate is on top, as a copy of Stoic Rebuttal. The first Stoic Rebuttal resolves, countering the Stoic Rebuttal below it (meaning that that Stoic Rebuttal does not resolve). Since the original copy targeting Lightning Bolt doesn't resolve, Lightning Bolt isn't countered, and deals 3 damage to its target.
As you can see, a lot of this is pretty straight-forward, and in moments of doubt, a consultation of Gatherer will give you the rulings on specific cards. Other than those select cards or effects, stacking is simple. Most of the kooky interaction come when you have things like Eye of the Storm, Hive Mind, and Cast Through Time all in play. Of course in a scenario like this one, everyone usually concedes after (never before) savagely beating the perpetrator(s) with blunt objects in the room.
A quick aside on targeted effects and how it affects resolution from the Comprehensive Rules:
608.2b If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal. A target
that’s no longer in the zone it was in when it was targeted is illegal. Other changes to the game state may cause a target to no longer be legal; for example, its characteristics may have changed or an effect may have changed the text of the spell. If the source of an ability has left the zone it was in, its last known information is used during this process. The spell or ability is countered if all its targets, for every instance of the word “target,” are now illegal. If the spell or ability is not countered, it will resolve normally, affecting only the targets that are still legal. If a target is illegal, the spell or ability can’t perform any actions on it or make the target perform any actions.
Priority directly ties in with the two previous facets of the game we just went over. Priority decides when who does what. On your turn, you have priority several different times. On your opponents turn, you have priority several different times. This matter a lot more than it would appear at first glance.
You see, you can only cast spells when you have priority. And even then, you have to make sure its the right spell. So, if you want to cast a spell before your opponent untaps, too bad. You can't because during either players Untap Step, no one gets priority.
You get Priority:
Now, we need to demonstrate why this is important. As an example, we'll use Lightning Bolt and Tezzie up there. A lot of newer players see 2 and 3 Loyalty 'Walkers, and assume they can simply 'Bolt them when they come out to kill them. This isn't always the case, especially not against a more experienced pilot. Heres why:
I play Tezz on my fourth turn. I know my opponent is playing Red, so his open mana isn't a problem. Tezzeret resolves and enters the battlefield. I have priority. I use Tezzeret's +1 Loyalty ability. Now, the finer points will be addressed in the next section here, but suffice for now to say Tezz is at 4 Loyalty when his ability goes on the stack. My opponent responds with Lightning Bolt. We both pass priority, and Lightning Bolt resolves first, bringing Tezz to 1 Loyalty instead of 0. Tezz is still alive, so his ability still resolves and I get an artifact in my hand.
Now, when we play, we don't usually hear or say "pass priority" a lot. In fact, its bypassed for the sake of brevity most of the time, with the understanding that its there and respect of how it works. Most people will just state they're playing a card and wait for a response, either another card or something like "okay" or "go ahead" to say it resolves. Polite players, as we are jokingly called (because I actually do this) will more or less ask permission. That is, state the play as a question, waiting for a "yes" or "no". More people appreciate this than you would think.
Triggered Abilities: Triggered abilities are pretty straight-forward. They're the "if/then" statements of Magic. They don't use the stack, so they can change things mid-resolution. They make something happen whenever a specific something else happens. The most common example is seen to the left here in my favorite Commander, Sharuum. These "enters the battlefield" (or "ETB") are probably the most common form of activated abilities. But there are others. Things like the Reflection Cycle from Shadowmoor, or Megrim (now Liliana's Caress) can do all sorts of neat things based on any condition imaginable! There are even things like Dawn's Reflection from Fifth Dawn that create mana.
Activated Abilities: This is the most common ability type. Activated abilities require a cost to be paid so that you can do something else. Usually this is tapping the card (like Lux Cannon), sacrificing a card, or paying mana. Or any combination of the three. I believe it is important to understand the nature of paying costs to properly understand this section and the next. The Comprehensive rules state: "602.1. Activated abilities have a cost and an effect. They are written as “[Cost]: [Effect.] [Activation
restriction (if any).]” The activation cost is everything before the colon (:). An ability’s activation cost must be paid by the player who is activating it." So if I have say my Arcbound Ravager and Disciple of the Vault on the field, and I sacrifice three artifacts to it for three +1/+1 counters, you can't respond by destroying any of the artifacts other than the Arcbound Ravager, as they were all sacrificed as a cost to activate Ravagers ability. And even if you do destroy the Ravager, due to Disciple of the Vault's triggered ability, you still lose 4 life.
Static Abilities: The final ability type is probably the most useful. Static abilities work simply by that permanent being in play, and are a constant effect. These are usually found on enchantments, since they constantly affect a range or players or creatures, from the whole board, down to a single creature in the case of an Aura. Another frequent use is on creatures for what's called a "Lord" effect. Lords buff other creatures of a certain color, type, or other characteristic. Examples include the Shadowmoor Liege cycle, and Adaptive Automaton. There are also things like cost reduction (Eye of Ugin/Semblance Anvil), and even better, effects like our shining star Platinum Angel over here!
Yes, yes, I know, this week we were supposed to do cartoons. And that article is still being drafted. But I need more input from my study group, so that one has been postponed. Instead, we are going to get down to the Magic: The Gathering rulebook. Them bones that make us cringe when a possibly infinite combo or quirky card or clever play comes up. The most prominent and necessary ones, anyways. That is to say, the ones you really need to know if you want to play in FNM or outside a casual circle.
The Comprehensive Rules are updated at least once every year. These are usually minor changes that involve inserting new keywords or abilities or interactions that may stump players. However, there are occasionally major overhauls to the may the game does things. Most recently we had the Magic: 2010 rules change, which made layering more intuitive, eliminated Mana Burn and took combat damage off the stack. All excellent decisions and a job well done. So check in yearly after the Core Set to see if theres a new version (Wizards will usually announce the updates on Daily MTG).
At this moment, I have the M11 Comp Rulebook on my screen in PDF format, and all-in-all, from section 100.1 to section 903.12a takes up 133 pages of rules. Not counting Table of content, glossary, etc. This is a staggeringly complex game, vastly more so than most would ever fathom. In this way, Magic is unlike any TCG previous to it. Every interaction comes back to the Rules, and some are less obvious than others, some completely unexpected. And they are strictly enforced in DCI Sanctioned Events. Whoa.
Luckily for us, though, there are the Judges.
The DCI has several levels of Judges, 1 through 5, ranging from players judging at local Friday Night Magics, to the Professional Level 5 Judges entrusted with coordinating things like Magic Weekend, Pro Tour, Worlds, Opens, and Grand Prixs. It's their job to know. To explain and help you understand, and make the calls yea or nea. My goal, is to help you and make their job a little easier.
There are 4 things you really need to know:
Turn Structure; The Stack; Priority; and Abilities
Let's begin, shall we?
Turn Structure
Turns are broken up into phases and phases further into steps. This is relatively simple, but paramount to understanding just about everything else outside of combat.
The Phases and their steps are:
Beginning Phase
-Untap step: The very first thing you do is untap your permanents.
-Upkeep step: This is a very important one. Anything you control right now can tap, attack, or be otherwise activated this turn. A lot of cards and mechanics use this step to keep you from working around paying a cost. Anything that uses "at the beginning of your turn" can or will activate now, not during the Untap Step.
-Draw step: Draw a card. Obviously.
Precombat Main Phase
-This phase doesn't actually have any steps. A lot happens here. You play lands, creatures, spells, whatever. We'll expand more on this momentarily.
Combat Phase
-Beginning of Combat step: Anything that uses "at the beginning of combat" activates or triggers now
-Declare attackers: You declare who is attacking whom. You can attack players or Planeswalkers (there is some contention on this part. To support my conclusion I quote "508.1b If the defending player controls any planeswalkers, or the game allows the active player to attack multiple other players, the active player announces which player or planeswalker each of the chosen creatures is attacking.)
-Declare Blockers step: The defending player decides who is to block whom. Triggered abilities like Frenzy and Rampage trigger here.
-Combat Damage step: First Strike damage (including Double Strike) is calculated first, in a separate substep before anything else. Everything deals damage at once. The attacker decides how to dole out combat damage, then the blocker decides how to deal their combat damage. Everything dies at once to as part of whats called a "State Based Action check".
-End of Combat Step: As you may have guessed, anything thats uses "until end of combat" or "at the end of combat" will or can activate here.
Postcombat Main Phase
-Essentially the same as Precombat.
End step: You declare your turn is done. Anything that says "at the end of turn" "the beginning of your end step" or something similar will trigger now.
Cleanup: Minutiae, really. You discard down to seven cards if you need to, remove combat damage from creatures, and theres another SBA check.
This is stuff that usually comes pretty naturally after you get a handle on the game, but when we get into things like "floating" mana, per se, it becomes crucial to understand the progression, since your mana pool empties itself at the end of every step and phase.
The Stack
When you counter a spell, or bolt a creature, or respond to anything in anyway, you are utilizing "The Stack". If the term seems very familiar, you may have seen it in a few places. Most recently, Sundial of the Infinite. There was also a set of card in the Time Spiral block with a keyword called Split Second that locked The Stack in place and forced resolution. This is probably the most important thing to understand about Magic at any point in your time playing. Core Sets have even included it in Rules Tips cards for beginners.What we're going to be looking at is just some basic interactions and Rules Tips of our own. The Stack itself is pretty straight forward; it is in essence stacking cards on top of each other as they're played. Here's how it works:
I play a Lightning Bolt. My opponent responds with Stoic Rebuttal. I respond with Reverberate, copying Stoic Rebuttal, then targeting it with the new copy. My opponent passes, and the stack resolves from the top down. Reverberate is on top, as a copy of Stoic Rebuttal. The first Stoic Rebuttal resolves, countering the Stoic Rebuttal below it (meaning that that Stoic Rebuttal does not resolve). Since the original copy targeting Lightning Bolt doesn't resolve, Lightning Bolt isn't countered, and deals 3 damage to its target.
As you can see, a lot of this is pretty straight-forward, and in moments of doubt, a consultation of Gatherer will give you the rulings on specific cards. Other than those select cards or effects, stacking is simple. Most of the kooky interaction come when you have things like Eye of the Storm, Hive Mind, and Cast Through Time all in play. Of course in a scenario like this one, everyone usually concedes after (never before) savagely beating the perpetrator(s) with blunt objects in the room.
A quick aside on targeted effects and how it affects resolution from the Comprehensive Rules:
608.2b If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal. A target
that’s no longer in the zone it was in when it was targeted is illegal. Other changes to the game state may cause a target to no longer be legal; for example, its characteristics may have changed or an effect may have changed the text of the spell. If the source of an ability has left the zone it was in, its last known information is used during this process. The spell or ability is countered if all its targets, for every instance of the word “target,” are now illegal. If the spell or ability is not countered, it will resolve normally, affecting only the targets that are still legal. If a target is illegal, the spell or ability can’t perform any actions on it or make the target perform any actions.
Priority
You see, you can only cast spells when you have priority. And even then, you have to make sure its the right spell. So, if you want to cast a spell before your opponent untaps, too bad. You can't because during either players Untap Step, no one gets priority.
You get Priority:
- At the end of your Upkeep
- At the end of your Draw Step
- At the beginning of your Main Phases
- After triggered abilities trigger during your Beginning of Combat step
- At the end of your Declare Attackers
- At the end of your Declare Blockers (that is to say, after your opponent declares their blockers during your turn.)
- After First Strike damage is dealt during the Damage Step
- Again at the end of the Damage Step
- At the end of your Combat Phase
- At the end of your turn, before cleanup
- Anytime the stack resolves during your turn (applies mostly to Main Phases)
Now, we need to demonstrate why this is important. As an example, we'll use Lightning Bolt and Tezzie up there. A lot of newer players see 2 and 3 Loyalty 'Walkers, and assume they can simply 'Bolt them when they come out to kill them. This isn't always the case, especially not against a more experienced pilot. Heres why:
I play Tezz on my fourth turn. I know my opponent is playing Red, so his open mana isn't a problem. Tezzeret resolves and enters the battlefield. I have priority. I use Tezzeret's +1 Loyalty ability. Now, the finer points will be addressed in the next section here, but suffice for now to say Tezz is at 4 Loyalty when his ability goes on the stack. My opponent responds with Lightning Bolt. We both pass priority, and Lightning Bolt resolves first, bringing Tezz to 1 Loyalty instead of 0. Tezz is still alive, so his ability still resolves and I get an artifact in my hand.
Now, when we play, we don't usually hear or say "pass priority" a lot. In fact, its bypassed for the sake of brevity most of the time, with the understanding that its there and respect of how it works. Most people will just state they're playing a card and wait for a response, either another card or something like "okay" or "go ahead" to say it resolves. Polite players, as we are jokingly called (because I actually do this) will more or less ask permission. That is, state the play as a question, waiting for a "yes" or "no". More people appreciate this than you would think.
Abilities
We all know what abilities are, in the strictest sense of the word. They're simply ways each card affects a certain part of the game or game environment. Tapping for mana, discarding a card, destroying, creating, taking, whatever. Anything is possible. But do we know exactly what the abilities are? And what that means?
There are five different kinds of abilities: Mana Abilities, Triggered Abilities, Activated Abilities, Loyalty Abilities, and Static Abilities. Some use the stack, some don't, and some have to be paid for. These are actually pretty simple, so we'll just jump right in.
Mana Abilities: Like the Moxen, here, some permanents are endowed with the ability to tap and/or sacrifice to add mana to your pool. Mana Abilities do not use the stack, and you do not need to have priority for them to resolve. If they did, you would have to wait for that stack to resolve before even casting a spell. But that's over-thinking it. Just keep in mind that creatures like Joraga Treespeakers or Llanowar Elves can't do this immediately due to Summoning Sickness, unless they have haste.
restriction (if any).]” The activation cost is everything before the colon (:). An ability’s activation cost must be paid by the player who is activating it." So if I have say my Arcbound Ravager and Disciple of the Vault on the field, and I sacrifice three artifacts to it for three +1/+1 counters, you can't respond by destroying any of the artifacts other than the Arcbound Ravager, as they were all sacrificed as a cost to activate Ravagers ability. And even if you do destroy the Ravager, due to Disciple of the Vault's triggered ability, you still lose 4 life.
The sacrifices never go on the stack, so you can't respond to them. This is what lets the Tezz scenario in the Priority section work, and why you can't destroy a Memnite to counter a Kuldotha Rebirth.
Keep in mind this is NOT to be confused with a Mana Ability, which is defined as such by the fact it produces mana, not whether or not it taps to do so.
Loyalty Abilities: These are solely found on Planeswalkers, and can do anything an activated ability can do. There are a few ground rules. They can only be cast as Sorceries. Which is to say, on your turn, during your Main Phase, when the stack is empty. They are further like activated abilities in that they have to be paid for, specifically by adding or removing Loyalty Counters from the 'Walker. They use the stack, and can be countered with the Planeswalker dies before the ability resolves.
I know this is a lot of specifics to try and remember, and I didn't even get to address other things I wanted to get to. But this is getting a little too verbose, and honestly, this stuff only comes up every now and again in casual games, and some doesn't even show up frequesntly in tournament settings. But it is all extremely good to know, and will help you become a better, if not more mindful Magic player!
If anyone has any questions at all, please feel free to ask in the comments, and I will do my best to answer! Until next time, stay savvy, Planeswalkers!
