Someone explain mtg for someone who has no idea how to play magic, but plays yugioh in under a paragraph. I want to condense all the rules so my friend can learn easier.
![101[2].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/SVoZtT2.jpg "101[2].jpg")
>>44948049
You've got 6 basic kinds of card -
Land - These are your resources.
Creature - Used to attack the other player or block other creatures
Enchantment - Used to alter the conditions of the game or a creature
Instants - Spells that can be played any time
Sorceries - Stronger spells that can only be played on your turn
Artifacts - Like creatures or enchantments
Other player has 20 life, goal is to get them to 0.
Watch Force's Friday Night Magic or something similar on Youtube. Totalbiscuit did an okay explanation vid.
Anything specific you want to know?
>>44948049
No way I can do it in a paragraph but I'm getting a friend into magic so it would be good to type this up for them.
The game is about using mana to cast spells. There are 5 colours of mana: red, blue, green, black and white. To get mana you need lands. You can have as many basic lands (lands that don't have any special effects) as you want in your deck, each correlates to a colour: swamps are black, mountains are red, islands are blue, forests are green and plains are white. You can play one land per turn. To get mana from the land, you 'tap' it, which is where you turn it sideways 90 degrees. Tapping a basic land gives you one mana of the type it correlates to. You can't tap something when it is already tapped, so most of the time you can only tap land once per turn. To play a card you need to pay its mana cost indicated in the top right. It will show you how much mana you need of each colour, and often there is a number in a grey circle; this represents generic mana, which you can pay with any kind of mana. To play it, first you tap the amount of mana you need and then play the card.
>>44948507
Turn order is as follows:
Draw phase: draw one card
Untap phase: untap all your tapped cards
Upkeep: certain card effects happen here
Main phase 1: you can play any cards you have in hand as long as you have enough mana to cast them and they have legal targets if they are instants or sorceries (covered later)
Combat: You may declare an attack with any number of creatures but must do so all at the same time. When a creature attacks, tap it. Tapped creatures can't attack. After you declare the attacking creatures your opponent decides what creatures of theirs blocks your creatures. Tapped creatures can't block. They deal damage to each others toughness equal to their power. If toughness is 0 or less the creature is destroyed. Unlike Yugioh combat damage does NOT normally carry over, it is dealt only to the creature. If the attack is unblocked the opponent takes damage equal to the unblocked creature's power.
Main Phase 2: as main phase 1
End phase: discard cards from your hand until you have 7 cards (the maximum hand size).
>>44948716
Card Types:
Creature: Basic stuff, covered above in combat phase. If the creature has an ability, like tapping it to gain 1 mana, you can use that ability at any time (The tap symbol is the grey circle with the arrow in it).
Land: Covered above. Tap for mana.
Instants: Spells you can play at any time, including in response to other player's spells (if you want an explanation, look up how the 'stack' works. pretty complicated for a new person but useful to know). If the spell uses the word 'target', there has to be an appropriate target in play. i.e, a spell that says 'destroy target creature' can't be cast unless there is a creature in play.
Sorceries: Spells you can only play during one of your main phases.
Enchantments: Change the game in some way. Can't attack, block etc; only do what is stated on the card. Stay on the field until removed from play. Can come in the form of auras, which enchant a specific card and grant it bonuses. It will say what it enchants (enchant land, enchant creature etc)
Artifacts: Like enchantments, stay in play but can't block, attack etc.
Some creatures are an artifact or enchantment in addition to other types; this only has relevance if a card specifies it effects enchantments or artifacts. Otherwise treated as creatures with no other effects.
Each player starts at 20 life. There are 3 ways to win: reducing your opponent to 0 or less life, your opponent trying to draw a card with no cards left in their deck, or (very rarely) a card effect stating 'you win the game' or 'opponent loses the game'.
First player to play does not draw a card (unless you're playing with more than 2 players); this is to offset the fact that they will effectively have access to more mana sooner than other players.
This is only a very simple guide to playing magic but it should get you through your first few games.
Any questions?
>>44948716
Draw comes after upkeep (just to be clear, rest of anon's posts are solid)
>>44949258
It's also worth noting that this turn structure is very similar to YGO (and almost all TCGs)
That's cause YGO ripped it off wholesale
Paying mana and the like is pretty easy to teach as its a completely new thing to him, what you need to do is drill home the fact creatures always attack the other player (ignore planes walkers for now) not their creatures.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/316010/
>>44948826
>If the creature has an ability, like tapping it to gain 1 mana, you can use that ability at any time (The tap symbol is the grey circle with the arrow in it).
you forgot about summoning sickness
>>44948716 Here's the best I could do, it's fairly long and crude. *shrugs*
Turn order:
unsideways your sideways'd cards
resolve effects that happen at "upkeep"
draw a card (unless it's your first turn and you're going first)
play cards
attack*
play cards, again
end your turn (if you hand has >7 cards, discard down to 7)
Object types:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cards -> cards in your hand, deck, or discard
spells -> non-lands that are in the middle of being played, you must pay their cost (upper right) in resources to play them
permanents -> things that remain in play indefinitely
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lands (card -> permanent), remain in play, (sometimes have effects), can be turned sideways to generate resources
Creatures (card -> spell -> permanent), remain in play, can attack and block, (sometimes have effects), lower right corner marks their strength/health, cannot do things that would turn them sideays on the same turn their played
Sorceries (card -> spell), one-off effects
Instants (card -> spell), sorceries that can be played in response to other spells/effects, can be played outside of the "play cards" part of turns, and can be played during other players turns
Artifacts/Enchantments (card -> spell -> permanent), remain in play, have effects
*How attacking works:
attacker turns any number of their creatures sideays (all at once) to attack
defender picks any number of unsideways creatures and assigns them to block the attacking creatures
(multiple blockers can block the same attacker, but a blocker can only block one attacker)
attackers and defenders deal their damage (equal to their strength) to eachothers health, damage persists until end of turn (creatures with <1 health die)
attacking creatures that aren't blocked deal damage to their opponent
Players lose by taking 20 damage, trying to draw a card while their deck is empty, or (rarely) when an effect says they do
Players win when all of their opponents have lost, or (rarely) when effect says they do
>>44948049
>someone saved my shitty OC
Is this what being a parent feels like?
>>44953981 Why are Azorious not labeled as "Bureaucratic Red Tape"?
>>44953981
Not OP but, did you posted that recently (couple days) right? Man... im on 4chan too much.
Anyway: Advice on how to teach MTG, not the rules itself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvoweBn72tE
>>44954049 He posed it is this thread >>44890849
Here's his post >>44890960
>>44954025
Because I'm a biased little shit.
Here's a fair version.
>>44954049
>>44954137
Yep
>>44954234
>tfw I went Fertile thicket > Elvish Visionary > Shaman of Forgotten > Terra Stomper last night and literally stomped
Why does everyone hate on green again?420blzitfgt
>>44954234
>>44948049
>NEETs
What?
>>44955386
>he doesn't know about the Golgari Neet Lords
>>44954234
Fuck, Golgari was my first build ever.
I make $30K a year and have a gf, fuck off
>>44958884
You're a NEET on the inside, anon.
>>44948049
They learned how to play Yu-Gi-Oh, they can learn how to play Magic. Once you learn how to play one card game the others are just modifications of the one. All you have to do is explain the nuances.
>>44955386
The Golgari are sewer dwellers who happen to live next to zombie farmers.
They spend most of their time doing nothing.
Also, see >>44958913
>>44955224
So, that was what, turn 4? I guess that's pretty good. I have a friend who wants to make green stompy, post list?
>>44948507
>swamps are black, mountains are red, islands are blue, forests are green and plains are white
Lands are colorless.
>>>44960707 how to into reading comprehension
>each correlates to a colour: swamps are black, mountains are red, islands are blue, forests are green and plains are white
>correlates
>>44961114
You're right, but so is he: from a rules standpoint of the game, lands ARE colorless, no two ways about it. A better rules guide would remove this ambiguity:
>Lands are considered colorless, but each basic land type has the ability to "tap" for a different color: plains tap for white mana, islands tap for blue mana, swamps tap for black mana, mountains tap for red mana, and forests tap for green.
And then, of course, he explains tapping a little later on. But you see the point.
>>>44961331 from a rules standpoint of the game, lands ARE colorless, no two ways about it.
I fully agree with this and wasn't trying to say otherwise.
>>44960707 was saying that >>44948507 called the lands colored
and I was saying that >>44948507 associated each land with a color
That aside, your phrasing is far less ambiguous, so it's definitely better.
>>44948049
Honestly, OP, this guy is right >>44952197 .
Magic Duels is probably the best/easiest way to understand the basics of Magic. Explains pretty much everything you need to know to get started.
A fun thing to note about magic if you ever start doing format building is that decks are usually built to DO something and in specific formats there are options for how that something is done.
Some cards will help you do that something better than others. These cards usually cost more. Just because you can't pay 200 dollars for a manabase doesn't mean you can't get a good deck.
The one on the left in the picture is a $300+ deck and the right is 30. The right does a very good job of playing as a control deck against very expensive, tight decks. The left just does that even better.
>>44964002
>Azorius not Error 403
>Selesnya, the fertility cult, are "faggots"
>Izzet are just "spam"
>Rakdos not party animals
6/10 and that's being generous.
>>44964263
This. It's a good deck, but in terms of the meta right now it's practically invisiblebadumtish
>>44964482
>Azorius not Error 403
>not error 401
>>44964614
That's even better, but either makes way more sense than 404.
>>44964482
I think it's describing the players of those guilds.
Like, Izzet plays Storm (spam)
Hey guys, I figure this is the best thread to ask:
My friends almost all play Magic, but I know nearly nothing about it. I understand that lots of cards are somehow banned and you're not allowed to use them. How does that work? Is it just a GW-style cash grab? How likely is it that I'm going to spend a bunch of money on the adult version of Pokemon cards and then have the entire list declared illegal 3 months later?
I'd ask the aforementioned friends but I've already asked them a bunch of stupid questions about the game so I'd rather do it here before they get sick of answering my shit
>familiar with YGO
When I first learned magic, I had to get used to the idea that I could have a hand full of cards and still be completely able to do anything at all. Obviously as you get better at deck building (I learned the basics and then my friends took me to a draft at the FLGS) this comes up less, but as a newbie it came up a lot and really got on my nerves, since in YGO I could typically have the option to at least set a spell/trap even if I couldn't summon
>>44965253
That would make sense, but I don't think that people playing Simic were "Evil Nazi Scientists," and I'm at a loss to explain how "Error 404" could be used to describe a person.
>>44965424
Nobody plays Azorius?
>>44965267
Cards are only rarely banned, and when they are it's because they break the meta, not for a cash-grab. IIRC in standard no cards are banned currently; modern and EDH banlists are updated a couple of times a year at most. In January one card was added to the EDH banlist: Prophet of Kruphix, which was a $2 card.
>>44965741
Oh, alright. That sounds more fair. Thanks.
Also where can I read about different formats?
>>44966460
http://magic.wizards.com/
That website has all the resources you'll need
>>44966651
Thanks again m8
>>44948049
a) Fighters compare their attacks to each other's defence, there are no attack and defence modes
b) Attackers group together and target the enemy in one movement, then the enemy can pick and choose which among their creatures will block who; each defender can only block one attacker but multiple can block the same attacker, and any unblocked attacker targets life points directly
c) Cards become "tapped" - exhausted - after attacking or using certain abilities which turns them sideways like defence mode; tapped creatures cannot defend, so the creatures you used to attack last turn are unavailable on this turn's defence
d) You can play as many cards as you like (even creatures) per turn but all cards cost mana, which is MP/ammunition; cards only accept certain colours of mana, which is shown on the card
e) Lands are an exception to the above; they cost nothing, you can only ever play one a turn and they generally just produce 1 mana per turn; basic lands (the 5 for each mana colour) have no card limit in the deck
Associations of mana colours:
Green - Creatures, high general stats, mana generation, creature token generation, other resource generation, straightforward but unsubtle creature effects like Trample (piercing attacks)
Red - High attack, high speed of use and deployment, immediate/powerful but short term/unsustainable effects, direct damage (to creatures or enemy hp without blocking), sacrificing own resources, lack direct spell damage and no Flying (difficult to block)
Black - Creature destruction/death, effects concerning the graveyard, including resurrection, cards that can still do stuff in there and so on, generally nasty stuff, can't remember chief drawback
Blue - Defense is their least bad stat, lots of evasion effects like Flying, Exile mechanics (remove from play stuff), scrying decks, spying on enemy cards, lots of intel shenanigans
White - Mix of weak support and expensive lead cards, force multipliers, health regen, synergy-dep
OKAY NIGGERS
I get most of the game as a noob, but what I can't find a clear explanation on is combat.
What happens when combat damage is applied?
Do blockers get X -1/-1 tokens?
Do attackers get damaged at all?
>>44970602
Woops I mistook one paragraph for another, that "lack direct spell damage and no flying" was meant to go on Green. It's very much NOT true for Red.
>>44970726
No, apart from attackers with the Venom rule or whatever. Tokens linger on until manually removed, which would mean normal defenders couldn't recover.
Of course they do, it wouldn't make sense if an attacker couldn't get destroyed.
>>44970726
Combat Phase:
Beginning of combat step
Declare attackers
Declare blockers
Damage step
End combat step
Beginning and end of combat are only for effects that say "when it's [beginning/end] do a thing"
In the declare attackers step, the 'active player,' the guy who's turn it is, choose which creatures he wants to attack with. YOU ONLY ATTACK PLAYERS. He 'taps' those creatures (they are exhausted and can't tap for other things).
In the declare blockers step, all defending players can choose untapped creatures to block any creatures that are attacking them and only them. These creatures do not tap to block.
During the damage step, ALL CREATURES DEAL DAMAGE SIMULTANEOUSLY. Unblocked creatures deal damage to the players they are attacking, blocked creatures deal damage to the creatures that are blocking them, and blocking creatures deal damage to the creature they are blocking. All damage is equal to the creature's power (the first number, their 'attack').
Creatures deal all damage to their blocker/blockee. If an attacker has more power than it's blocker's toughness, the rest DOES NOT spill over to the defending player.
Damage is 'marked' on a creature. The wording is ambiguous so you can choose to remember the damage however you want to. Damage wears off at the end of each turn. Damage is not -1/-1 counters, damage does not affect power/attack.
When a creature has more damage on it than its toughness/defense, it 'dies' (gets put from the battlefield into the graveyard).
##################################################################
If nobody has mentioned it so far, magic is a game of exceptions. If the text on a card changes the rules, the card wins.
>>44971146
There are also creature mechanics/rules exceptions that are so common that most people don't need reminder text to tell them what it does, such as haste, trample, first strike, flying, and others. These are known as 'evergreen' abilities (since they're present all year round) and learning them really helps simplify pretty much all cards that don't strictly explain what they do.
Additionally these evergreen abilities have different concentrations among the five colors, which also helps give them different flavor and play style.
For example White, which often plays the defensive role, has almost all the Vigilance cards. Vigilance means the creature does not tap to attack (though it has to be untapped to attack still) and thus can attack on your turn and block on your opponent's turn.
Another example is Haste, which allows a creature to use tap effects (rarely useful) and attack (most of the point) the turn you get it. This allows Red, the quick burning candle, to pump out damage as fast as possible. It additionally lets cards that let you borrow someone else's creature for a turn actually use them for an attack.
>>44972315
>which allows a creature to use tap effects (rarely useful) and attack (most of the point) the turn you get it
OR attack*
It still taps if you use a tap ability.
>>44948049
>>44954234
>>44964002
can someone post a blank
![tumblr_m78mx1MgaU1rw1hwqo1_1280[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/09nbNDY.png "tumblr_m78mx1MgaU1rw1hwqo1_1280[1].png")
>>44977228
How the game works is exaxtly ike yu gi oh: you buy cards. The player with the most expensive cards wins, until wizards arbitrarily places the card that they sold and continue to sell on a ban list. Then you fine a new expensive and overpowered card to buy.
>>44977586
>until wizards arbitrarily places the card that they sold and continue to sell on a ban list
Actually, they usually stop selling those cards. The secondary market keeps selling them, not wizards. Unless you're talking about Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time in modern and standard for a bit there, but even then Treasure Cruise was never that expensive. That shit was a common, yo.
>>44977395
ty bb
