The set’s mechanics with worked examples, then every word on the cards.
The first engine permanent gives you speed 1. Once each of your turns, an opponent losing life can raise it by one, up to max speed 4.
Thrillseeker starts speed before its entry damage resolves. That damage can raise speed to 2 on your turn; Necroregent needs max speed before its end-step Zombie trigger exists.
Each exhaust ability can normally be activated only once for that particular permanent. It is a later use for mana, not an automatic once-per-turn bonus.
Activating a discounted exhaust ability with Aetherhive present creates a Thopter from its trigger before the exhaust ability resolves. Countering the activation does not refund its once-only use.
Pay the cycling cost and discard the card to draw a card. This is an activated ability, not a spell.
Cycling Magmakin Artillerist deals one to each opponent through its separate trigger before the draw. A Scrounging Skyray already on the battlefield also receives a discard counter.
Tap untapped creatures with enough total power to make a Vehicle an artifact creature until end of turn. Crew itself can be activated at instant speed.
Flash in Burner Rocket to pump an existing creature. Later use Interface Ace to crew a Vehicle using its toughness, then resolve Ace's once-per-turn untap trigger before using it again.
During your main phase with an empty stack, tap other untapped creatures with enough total power to saddle a Mount for the turn.
Use Canyon Vaulter to saddle the Mustang in your main phase, granting flying. Its saddled attack adds a counter and untaps it, leaving it able to block if it survives.
Reduce a spell's generic cost by one for each artifact you control. Colored requirements remain, and each artifact counts once.
Several inexpensive artifacts make Voyage Home easier to cast, but you still need white and blue. Optimizer's restricted mana cannot cast Voyage Home because it is not an artifact spell.
Every word on the cards and in the deck plans, defined once. Find a term, read its wording, then see it on a card.
A +1/+1 counter adds one power and one toughness; a −1/−1 counter subtracts one of each. These counters stay until removed or the object changes zones.
Watch out: If a permanent has both kinds, matching pairs are removed as a state-based action. A temporary +1/+1 effect is not a counter.
Reduce the generic part of this spell’s cost by one for each permanent of the specified kind you control.
Watch out: It does not reduce the colored mana symbols. Check exactly what the card has affinity for.
Reduce a spell's generic cost by one for each artifact you control. Colored requirements remain, and each artifact counts once. An artifact creature is one artifact, not two, and affinity does not lower activated-ability costs.
To counter a spell or ability is to remove it from the stack without its effects resolving. A countered spell normally goes to its owner’s graveyard.
Watch out: This use of “counter” is different from placing a marker such as a +1/+1 counter on a card.
Tap other untapped creatures you control with enough total power to turn this Vehicle into an artifact creature until the turn ends.
Watch out: The crew creatures do not become the Vehicle’s attackers. A newly played Vehicle still needs haste to attack that turn.
Tap untapped creatures with enough total power to make a Vehicle an artifact creature until end of turn. Crew itself can be activated at instant speed. Burner Rocket cannot be crewed in time to become its own entry-trigger target: targets are chosen before players get priority.
Enough useful low-cost plays to act before your expensive threats.
From your hand, pay the cycling cost and discard this card to draw a card.
Watch out: Cycling is an activated ability, not casting the card. Typecycling searches for a specified kind of card instead.
Pay the cycling cost and discard the card to draw a card. This is an activated ability, not a spell. A spell counter does not counter cycling, and a card cycled out of your hand is not a creature on the battlefield.
Any positive amount of damage this source deals to a creature is enough to make that damage lethal.
Watch out: It works with a fight or other noncombat damage. Indestructible still prevents destruction.
This creature cannot attack.
Watch out: It can still block and use its abilities unless something else prevents that.
Move a permanent from the battlefield to its owner’s graveyard because an effect or lethal damage destroys it.
Watch out: Indestructible stops destruction. Sacrificing, exiling, and reducing toughness to 0 are different ways for a creature to leave.
Move a card from your hand to your graveyard.
Watch out: Discarding is not casting. It does not pay the card’s mana cost or produce its normal spell effect.
This creature deals combat damage in the first-strike damage step and again in the normal damage step if it is still in combat.
Watch out: If its blocker dies in the first step, a blocked attacker does not hit the player in the second step unless an ability such as trample allows it.
An Aura’s enchant line tells you what it may be attached to.
Watch out: An Aura cast as a spell targets what it will enchant. If it later becomes illegally attached, it normally goes to the graveyard.
Pay the equip cost to attach this Equipment to a target creature you control. Normally, activate equip only in your main phase when the stack is empty.
Watch out: The Equipment usually stays on the battlefield when the creature leaves. Moving it to another creature normally costs another equip activation.
Choose to have the permanent skip untapping during your next untap step. Exerting does not itself tap it; the ability or attack instruction supplies the other costs and effects.
Pay the listed cost to use this activated ability. That exhaust ability can be activated only once for that permanent.
Watch out: If it leaves and returns, it is a new permanent with a new allowance. Exhaust does not itself mean “only once each turn.”
Each exhaust ability can normally be activated only once for that particular permanent. It is a later use for mana, not an automatic once-per-turn bonus. A generic-cost discount does not remove colored mana, and Boom Scholar discounts other permanents rather than itself.
Move the object to the exile zone. It is separate from the graveyard.
Watch out: A card in exile cannot normally be played. You need a rule or effect giving permission, such as a resolved Adventure.
The two creatures each deal damage equal to their power to the other at the same time.
Watch out: This is not combat. First strike and double strike do not add damage steps; deathtouch and lifelink still affect damage.
If a permanent with a finality counter would go from the battlefield to a graveyard, exile it instead.
Watch out: It does not die when this replacement sends it to exile, so ordinary “dies” abilities do not trigger.
This creature deals combat damage in an earlier step, before creatures without first strike or double strike.
Watch out: A creature killed in that early damage step usually cannot deal its normal combat damage.
You may cast this spell when you could cast an instant, including during another player’s turn when you have priority.
Watch out: Flash changes when you may cast it. It does not let you cast from a different zone or avoid its costs.
An attacking creature with flying can be blocked only by creatures with flying or reach.
Watch out: A flying creature can block a creature without flying.
This creature may attack and use abilities with the tap or untap symbol even if you have not controlled it since your turn began.
Watch out: It still needs to be untapped to attack or pay a tap cost.
A permanent with hexproof cannot be targeted by spells or abilities its controller’s opponents control.
Watch out: Its controller may target it. Effects that do not target can still affect it.
An ability word linking a card's effect to cards it exiles. Read the exact abilities: the word imprint alone supplies no extra rules.
While casting the spell, each untapped artifact you tap pays one generic mana. It cannot pay colored mana, and an artifact tapped for its mana ability cannot also be tapped for improvise.
This permanent cannot be destroyed by lethal damage or an effect that says “destroy.”
Watch out: It can still be exiled or sacrificed. A creature with toughness 0 or less still goes to the graveyard.
This label groups abilities that reward a land entering under your control. The rest of each card tells you its effect.
Watch out: A land entering from a spell can trigger landfall too. The label itself adds no rules; read the actual ability.
When this source deals damage, its controller gains that much life at the same time.
Watch out: This also works for noncombat damage. It uses the damage actually dealt, not simply the creature’s printed power.
A planeswalker’s loyalty is the number of loyalty counters on it. Its loyalty costs add or remove counters, and damage removes that much loyalty.
Watch out: A planeswalker with 0 loyalty goes to the graveyard. Adding more counters does not let you activate it a second time in the same turn.
This attacking creature cannot be blocked by just one creature; at least two blockers are needed.
Watch out: It can still go unblocked. Losing one blocker after blocks are declared does not undo the original block.
An ability word for a reward that checks whether you control at least three artifacts. The printed ability determines the effect and when to check.
Put the stated number of cards from the top of the named player’s library into that player’s graveyard.
Watch out: Milling is not drawing. An empty library makes you lose when you must draw from it, not merely when its last card is milled.
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until the turn ends.
Watch out: Lands are not spells. The prowess trigger can resolve even if the spell that triggered it is countered.
This creature may block creatures with flying.
Watch out: Reach does not give it flying or make its own attacks harder to block.
Move a permanent you control from the battlefield to its owner’s graveyard.
Watch out: Sacrifice is not destruction: indestructible does not stop it. You cannot sacrifice a teammate’s permanent unless an effect specifically permits it.
During your main phase with an empty stack, tap other untapped creatures with enough total power to saddle a Mount for the turn. Canyon Vaulter grants flying only if it crews or saddles during your main phase; a combat-phase crew activation misses that trigger.
Look at the stated number of cards from the top of your library. Put any number on the bottom and the rest back on top, choosing their order.
Watch out: Scry does not draw a card. Cards you move to the bottom do not go to the graveyard.
Repeated useful late cards may suggest an open color; one card is weak evidence.
The first engine permanent gives you speed 1. Once each of your turns, an opponent losing life can raise it by one, up to max speed 4. Several engine permanents or several damage events do not automatically add several speed increases in one turn.
If a permanent with a stun counter would untap, remove one stun counter instead and leave it tapped.
Watch out: The counter does not tap an untapped permanent by itself. Several stun counters can stop several separate untaps.
The actual cards and mana that let a payoff work.
Look at the stated number of cards from the top of your library. Put any number into your graveyard and the rest back on top in your chosen order.
Watch out: Surveil does not draw a card. Unlike scry, unwanted cards go to the graveyard instead of the bottom.
Tap means turn a permanent sideways; untap means return it upright. A tap symbol in a cost means you must tap that permanent to pay.
Watch out: Being tapped by another effect does not activate an ability or produce mana. Creatures normally cannot pay their own tap-symbol costs until you have controlled them since your turn began.
An attacking creature can assign excess combat damage to what it is attacking after assigning lethal damage to every blocker.
Watch out: It does not automatically send all damage past a small blocker. Trample on a blocking creature does not send damage to the attacking player.
A standard Treasure token is an artifact you can tap and sacrifice to add one mana of any color.
Watch out: A Treasure is not a land. Using it spends the token; it does not remain for another turn.
Attacking does not tap this creature.
Watch out: It must still be untapped to be declared as an attacker. Vigilance does not remove summoning sickness.
When an opponent’s spell or ability targets this permanent, ward triggers. That spell or ability is countered unless the opponent pays the ward cost.
Watch out: Ward is not hexproof: the opponent can target it and choose whether to pay. An effect that does not target does not trigger ward.
Risen Necroregent
Rangers' Aetherhive
Scrounging Skyray
Interface Ace
Canyon Vaulter
Guidelight Optimizer
Aatchik, Emerald Radian
Adrenaline Jockey
Afterburner Expert
Demonic Junker
Gearseeker Serpent
Memory Guardian
Diversion Unit
Spectral Interference
Spell Pierce
Air Response Unit
Apocalypse Runner
Boommobile
Back on Track
Agonasaur Rex
Basri, Tomorrow's Champion
Chitin Gravestalker
Coalstoke Gearhulk
Engine Rat
Pit Automaton
Ticket Tortoise
Aetherjacket
Broken Wings
Cavalier of Dawn
Avishkar Raceway
Burnout Bashtronaut
Loot, the Pathfinder
Pacesetter Paragon
Flood the Engine
Lightwheel Enhancements
Roadside Assistance
Rover Blades
Ancient Vendetta
Chrome Mox
Plow Through
Gastal Thrillroller
Brightglass Gearhulk
Leonin Surveyor
Pedal to the Metal
Fang Guardian
Silken Strength
Brightfield Glider
Amonkhet Raceway
Bloodghast
Chandra, Spark Hunter
Bulwark Ox
Defend the Rider
Whir of Invention
Gloryheath Lynx
The Aetherspark
Boosted Sloop
Clamorous Ironclad
Galvanic Blast
Aether Syphon
Carrion Cruiser
Dredger's Insight
Riptide Gearhulk
Endrider Spikespitter
Fang-Druid Summoner
Hazard of the Dunes
Broodheart Engine
Alacrian Armory
Alacrian Jaguar
Autarch Mammoth
Cloudspire Coordinator
Spotcycle Scouter
Voyager Glidecar
Stall Out
Grim Bauble
Grim Javelineer
Bestow Greatness
Gilded Ghoda
Gonti, Night Minister
Monument to Endurance
Captain Howler, Sea Scourge
Guardian Sunmare
Oildeep Gearhulk