A Thorough Guide to Magic: the Gathering, Part 1 - The Absolute Basics

Magic: the Gathering is a well-loved game spanning nearly 25 years, started in 1993 by the legendary Richard Garfield. Millions of players around the world play Magic everyday with friends at their kitchen table, at their local game shops, or even in high-level tournaments to prove that they are the best. It's no wonder that Magic is so popular, as it is considered the grandfather of all other trading card games, including YuGiOh!, Pokémon, Cardfight Vanguard, and many more.

You may be thinking, "Gee, mister! How could I ever learn how to play such a complicated and widespread game of which I have no chance at being good at?" First of all, quit being pessimistic. Secondly, don't worry your head, little Timmy/Johnny/Spike. For I, 7Demented, am here to guide you through the wondrous game that is Magic: the Gathering!

Over the course of these lessons, I will explain core concepts of the game, such as how to play, how to build a deck, and more. Stick with me, and you'll be on the road to becoming a master Planeswalker!

In this first article, we will go over the absolute basics of Magic the Gathering that must be understood to play the game, namely the elements of the Magic playing space, setting up, and how a turn proceeds. Ready? Let's get started.

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Magic is played within a moderately defined space, consisting of your library, graveyard, battlefield, hand and exile. It's important to learn where and what these zones are as many cards reference them in their effects. Below is an example of how the space can be divided up.

1. Battlefield - Many of your cards will be played here. Some card types do not stay on the battlefield and go to the graveyard after resolving their effects.
2. Your hand - This is where cards can normally be played from. You cannot look at your opponent's hand without instruction from a card effect.
3. Exile - Cards that are exiled or removed from the game go here and cannot be returned to play under normal circumstances. You may look at all exiled cards.
4. Graveyard - Cards that were destroyed or had their effects resolve go here. You may look at both yours and your opponent's graveyards, but you cannot rearrange the order of the cards within them.
5. Library - This is your main deck. You draw cards off the top of your library during your draw step or when instructed to do so. You may not look through or shuffle either your or your opponent's library without being instructed to do so by a card effect.

In a common game of Magic, two or more players each bring their own constructed deck of a minimum 60 cards to play. Each player shuffles their deck, decides who goes first (by coin flip, rock-paper-scissors, dice roll, or any means accepted by both players) and draws an opening hand of seven cards. A player may elect to take a mulligan during this point, meaning they shuffle their hand back into their deck and redraw their hand. If a player does take a mulligan, they draw the amount of cards they shuffled back in minus 1. So a mulligan from seven cards would go down to six. Players can take as many mulligans as they like, but must follow the rule listed above; i.e. hand of six cards down to five, five to four, etc. It is possible to mulligan down to 0, but why you would do that willingly is beyond me.

If someone will start the game with less than 7 cards in their opening hand after their mulligan(s), they may look at the top card of their deck. They then may put that card on the top or bottom of their deck as they choose.

When everyone playing is ready to go, the game begins and the first players takes their turn. A turn proceeds as follows:

• Untap step
• Upkeep
• Draw step
• Main phase
• Combat phase
• Main phase
• End step

During the Untap step, a player untaps all of their cards in play (more on tapping/untapping in a later article). The Upkeep step is used for some card effects that occur during this step. Then follows the Draw step, where a player draws the top card from their library.

Note! If you take the very first turn of the game, you DO NOT draw a card on your first turn! The player who goes second, however, will draw a card on their first turn. The first player will draw cards as normal when they get their next turn.

The Main phase is where you play most of your cards. A player may play one land onto the battlefield per turn, unless otherwise designated by a card effect. This phase occurs both before and after the Combat phase.

The Combat phase is where creatures attack. The attacking player will declare which creatures they are going to attack with, and the defending player declares which of their creatures will block the attacking players'. We'll discuss the finer details of combat in another article later.

The End step is essentially the clean-up step. Any effects that say they last until the end of the turn end here, and some effects activate during this step. If the player has more than 7 cards in their hand, they must now discard cards to the graveyard until they have 7 cards in their hand. Once the End step is complete, it is now the next player's turn, and the process repeats until the game is over.

A game of Magic ends when one of the following occurs:

• A player's life total is reduced to 0 or less; both players start out with 20 life each game.
• A player cannot draw a card from their library when instructed to do so.
• A player has 10 or more poison counters.
• A card effect declares that a player wins or loses the game.
• A player concedes the game, leaving only one player left in play.

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This is the end of the first article, congratulations! You've taken your first step to becoming a Magic player. As of reading this article, I hereby commend you the title of Willing to Learn!

Next time, we will go over the different card types that make up a deck and how they interact with each other, as well take a look at an overview of deckbuilding. Until then, good luck out there!