Look up the short words on a card, then read the rest of its ability.
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.
You may cast the Adventure half instead of the permanent half. If the Adventure resolves, exile the card; you may later play its permanent half from there, paying the normal cost and following its timing.
Watch out: If the Adventure is countered or all its targets become illegal, it does not resolve and normally goes to the graveyard. You can also cast the permanent half directly.
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.
If you have no Army creature, create the specified 0/0 Army token. Then choose an Army you control, add the stated number of +1/+1 counters, and give it the named creature type if needed.
Watch out: Amass Goblins normally grows one Army. It does not make that many separate Goblins.
Show a card of the specified kind from your hand, or choose a permanent of that kind you control.
Watch out: Beholding does not cast the card or sacrifice the permanent. Read the spell to see why the choice matters.
These named counters track whatever the card’s abilities say. Their names alone do not give a universal bonus or penalty.
Watch out: For example, vanishing uses time counters as a countdown. Read the particular card before deciding what adding another counter will do.
While paying for this spell, each untapped creature you tap can cover one generic mana, or one mana of that creature’s color.
Watch out: You may tap a creature you just played. A colorless creature can cover only generic mana.
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.
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.
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 label groups effects that count the basic land types among lands you control: Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest.
Watch out: Count types, not lands. A nonbasic land with a basic land type can count; a land with none of those types does not.
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.
Choose a Jace planeswalker token you control and add the stated loyalty counters. If you have no Jace token, first create one with 0 loyalty and abilities costing −1 to surveil 1 and −3 to draw a card.
Watch out: It cannot add counters to a nontoken Jace. Empowering an existing token does not refresh its once-per-turn loyalty activation.
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.
This is a lasting status you gain through storied. Cards that mention your enduring story use it to turn on their bonuses.
Watch out: It stays with you for the rest of the game even if you lose the permanents that earned it. It is not a token or permanent.
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.
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.”
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.
This label points to an ability that cares about controlling a creature with power 4 or greater.
Watch out: The timing and benefit come from the rest of the printed ability. The word itself adds no rules.
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.
You may cast this instant or sorcery from your graveyard by paying its flashback cost.
Watch out: Follow its normal timing. A spell cast with flashback is exiled when it leaves the stack, even if it is countered.
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.
A standard Food token is an artifact with an ability costing two mana, tapping it, and sacrificing it to gain 3 life.
Watch out: Food is also an artifact type. Turning a card into a Food follows that effect’s text; the type alone does not grant an ability.
As you cast the spell, you may promise the named gift to an opponent. The card explains the gift and any benefit you receive for promising it.
Watch out: Choose while casting; you cannot wait to see whether the spell resolves. In Two-Headed Giant, your teammate is not an opponent.
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 standard Heartwood token is a red and green artifact with a tap ability that adds one red or one green mana.
Watch out: You keep it after using its mana ability. It is not a land and does not need to be sacrificed like a Treasure.
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.
Each hone counter on an Equipment gives +1/+0 to the creature wearing that Equipment.
Watch out: The counters stay on the Equipment when it moves. They do not give toughness or attach the Equipment by themselves.
Each split mana symbol can be paid using either half. For example, {W/U} costs one white or one blue mana; {2/B} costs two mana of any type or one black mana.
Watch out: Choose separately for each symbol. A {W/U} card is both white and blue even if you use only one color to cast it.
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.
A keyword counter grants its named ability, such as trample, to the object it is on.
Watch out: A trample counter is not a +1/+1 counter. The named ability and the creature’s size are separate.
As you cast the spell, you may pay its extra kicker cost. The card tells you what changes if you do.
Watch out: You decide and pay while casting. You do not get to add kicker after the spell has resolved.
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.
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.
When its instruction makes a creature prepared, it gives you access to a copy of its separate prepare spell. You may cast that copy while the permanent remains prepared and on the battlefield.
Watch out: Pay the copy’s costs and obey instant or sorcery timing. Casting it unprepares the permanent; the creature itself remains. You cannot cast the prepare spell straight from your hand.
Choose any number of permanents or players that already have counters. Give each chosen one another counter of every kind it already has.
Watch out: You cannot add the first counter of a kind this way. If a chosen permanent has a harmful counter, that kind increases too.
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.
Draw a card, then discard a card. If the discarded card is not a land, create a 1/1 white Human Soldier creature token.
Watch out: You do not keep an extra card in hand after the draw and discard. A discarded land does not create the Soldier.
As you cast this spell, you may pay its replicate cost additional times. Its triggered ability makes one copy for each payment, with new targets if you want.
Watch out: The copies are not cast. Countering the original spell does not by itself remove the replicate ability or its copies.
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.
A Saga normally enters with a lore counter and gains another as your first main phase begins. Reaching chapter numbers triggers those chapter abilities.
Watch out: The new lore counter is not added during upkeep. When its final chapter ability is no longer on the stack, you normally sacrifice the Saga.
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.
While this spell is on the stack, players cannot cast other spells or activate abilities that are not mana abilities.
Watch out: Triggered abilities still trigger, and mana abilities and special actions are still allowed. Split second does not mean “cannot be countered.”
While you control a permanent with storied, controlling three permanents that are artifacts, legendary, or Sagas gives you an enduring story for the rest of the game.
Watch out: Count permanents, not categories: a legendary artifact is only one permanent. You do not need one of each category.
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.
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.
This label groups abilities that care about having seven or more cards in your graveyard.
Watch out: Count cards in your own graveyard. Read the ability to see when it checks the condition and what it changes.
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.
From your hand, pay the listed cost and discard the card. Search your library for the named kind of card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
Watch out: Basic landcycling finds a basic land. Mountaincycling finds a Mountain card; Halflingcycling finds a Halfling card. This does not put the found card onto the battlefield.
Vanishing N puts N time counters on the permanent as it enters. Remove one at the beginning of your upkeep; when the last time counter is removed, a triggered ability makes you sacrifice it.
Watch out: Extra time counters extend the clock. Vanishing without a number does not add initial counters.
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.