Get Started With Magic: The Gathering - Beginner's Guide

Types Of Cards In MTG

Lands

Before introducing lands, we should talk about Mana. It might be self-explanatory for those with general gaming experience, but Mana is the “currency” of the game, which you need to spend to play cards.

In MTG, you generate Mana by using Lands — here are the five basic lands, each producing a different Mana colour:

• Plains — White Mana (supports mechanics revolving around order, justice, healing, and small, aggressive creatures)
• Island — Blue Mana (supports mechanics revolving around knowledge, trickery, control, and flying creatures)
• Swamp — Black Mana (supports mechanics revolving around ambition, death, sacrifice, and powerful, but often costly, spells)
• Mountain — Red Mana (supports mechanics revolving around freedom, chaos, speed, and direct damage)
• Forest — Green Mana (supports mechanics revolving around nature, growth, big creatures, and mana acceleration)

Your deck will usually be made up of one type of land/colour theme. More advanced decks can include combinations of colours — but let's stick with the basics for now.

Creatures

Creatures will be your main attacking and defending units. They have a power (how much damage they deal) and a toughness (how much damage they can take before being destroyed).

Instants and Sorceries

Instants and Sorceries are spells with one-time effects that go to the graveyard after they resolve. Instants can be played at almost any time, while Sorceries can only be played during your main phase.

Artifacts and Enchantments

Artifacts and Enchantments are permanent spells that stay on the battlefield and provide ongoing effects.

Planeswalkers

Planeswalkers are powerful allies with multiple abilities you can use each turn. Make sure you protect them, as they can be attacked by creatures.

MTG Card Rarities

Each card in MTG has a rarity, which tells you how likely it is to pull it from a booster pack, but also sometimes how strong the card's effect is. Rarities in MTG are as follows:

How To Build Your First Deck

When building a new deck, you should keep in mind the following things:

• A Standard deck should have a minimum of 60 cards, with no specific maximum (as long as you can still shuffle your deck).
• Your deck should have no more than 4 copies of any card.
• Pay attention to the Mana curve of your deck — a good deck will usually have more low-cost cards and only a few high-cost cards, to make sure you can play something even in the first turns.

In terms of mechanics and playstyle, MTG decks usually fall roughly into one of the following categories:

• Aggro — Win fast with cheap, efficient creatures.
• Control — Win by disrupting your opponent's plans and playing a few powerful threats later in the game.
• Midrange — A balance of creatures and spells to adapt to the game state.
• Combo — Win by assembling a specific combination of cards that creates a powerful, often game-winning, effect.

MTG Rules - How To Play

To set up a game of MTG, each player starts with 20 life and shuffles their deck (also known as their “library”), drawing a starting hand of 7 cards. If you don’t like your starting hand, you can “mulligan” — shuffle your hand back into your deck and draw a new hand of 7 cards.

Once the game starts, each turn follows a simple order:

Beginning Phase

• Untap Step: Untap all of your cards that are "tapped" (turned sideways).
• Upkeep Step: A brief step for certain card abilities to trigger.
• Draw Step: Draw a card from your library.

Main Phase 1

You can play one land and cast any spells.

Combat Phase

• Declare Attackers: Choose which of your creatures will attack.
• Declare Blockers: Your opponent chooses which of their untapped creatures will block.
• Combat Damage: Attacking and blocking creatures deal damage.

Main Phase 2

A second main phase to play spells and your one land for the turn (if you didn't in Main Phase 1).

End Phase

• End Step: A brief step for end-of-turn abilities.
• Cleanup Step: Discard down to your maximum hand size (usually 7 cards).

The rules for Magic: The Gathering are easy to grasp, and you will find yourself decently comfortable with the rules and gameplay loop after only a few matches. The real fun starts afterwards — learning how your deck works, and all the combos and strategies you can implement turn after turn, is where the “magic” in Magic: The Gathering comes from.

While there is plenty of strategy involved, MTG does also require a bit of luck of the draw. Some hands might be filled with “dead” cards that you cannot use on that specific turn.

Before you venture into combat, it’s important to get the hang of the rules of Magic: The Gathering — it is easier than you think.

Getting Started With MTG - What Do You Need?

Gameplay rules — check. Basic deckbuilding rules — check.

Now, what do you actually need to get started with MTG? As avid players ourselves, here’s what we would get if we started our collection from 0 today:

The Starter Kit

This is the quintessential product for a brand-new player. A box containing two balanced, ready-to-play 60-card decks that you and a friend can use to battle each other straight out of the box. The decks are designed to be evenly matched so you and your opponent can have fun and competitive games.

Booster Packs

A fun way to expand your collection is by cracking open booster packs. This randomised way of collecting cards can feel exciting, but do keep in mind that you are never guaranteed to get the cards you want.

Insert a banner here with products from the MTG Sealed Products collection, with a link to the collection itself.

Single Cards

If you’re looking for that one missing piece in a strong deck, you can always buy the specific cards you want. This is a cost-efficient way to ensure you get exactly what you’re looking for, but you do need to put a lot of research into figuring out the best cards to buy, as well as tracking down each one.

Commander Decks

These ready-made Commander decks are made for playing, well, Commander. If you want to start off by experiencing this mode of play, getting one of these is certainly a good decision.