Advanced Magic Rules

There are a few things that the tutorials didn't touch on and that is resolution order, cast speed, block/attack phase, flash, and what happens when cards leave play. The explanation is a little complicated but hopefully this guide will help newcomers to the game get into the more advanced archteypes.

Sorceries, Instants and Resolution Order

Sorcery

Includes creature spells, enchantments, artifacts, artifact equips, planeswalker activations and anything labeled 'sorcery' unless otherwise specified (flash for example). These spells can only be cast on your main phases and cannot be used in response to anything. It is worth noting that the label of the card still determines it's type (sorcery, enchantment, etc), this is referring to the casting speed only.

Instant

Includes any activation effect on a permanent (card in play) that is not a planeswalker or artifact equip, and any spell that is labeled 'instant' or 'Flash' These effects can be triggered at any time, excepting block/attack. You must have mana available (typically untapped lands) to play the card or ability at the time.

Resolution Order

All spells happen in reverse order of their casting. Effects that trigger on 'cast' will occur even if countered, but can still be responded to. Once a permanent uses an ability or enters the battlefield removing it will not stop the ability, unless otherwise specified. Sacrifice effects when used as a payment with a card already on the board occur instantly and do not use the stack.

An example of these rules in play (simple):


On our opponents turn he currently has Iroa's Champion in play and during his main phase (before combat) he casts Infectious bloodlust. Before the spell finishes we pause play and cast fiery impulse. Even if he had a second Infectious bloodlust he could not cast it, as it is at sorcery speed and cannot be used in 'response'. He could cast a titanic growth spell to save it, and it would trigger first, since it was cast last, but he doesn't have that in his hand. The fiery impulse triggers before the enchanment completes and kills his creature. The enchantment now has no target and also goes to the graveyard. He does not get a new copy because it never 'enchanted' anything to trigger the death effect.

An example of these rules in play (advanced):


Our opponent has Empty throne and blessed spirits (with 1 counter) in play and is casting suppression bonds on a priority target. We currently have 1 sorcery in our graveyard, 4 untapped mana and the options available to us are as follows:


Because both the spirit effects and Empty throne effects occur 'on cast' he is going to get both of those regardless if we counter his spell. We will however prevent him from suppression bonding whatever he chose to target. Alternatively we could disperse his target (sending it back to our hand), and wait for it to resolve, then once it hits the graveyard, firey impulse his spirits (now 3 damage) before the extra +1/+1 effect completes, destroying it and sending his suppression bonds to the graveyard (as it has no target).

Additionally since the game tends to prioritize high cast card triggers first, you could wait to see which one activates first, potentially disperse his new angel token, and still destroy his spirits with firey impulse, allowing his suppression bonds to complete normally. If the spirits trigger first though, your options are limited to the first two choices.

2nd Main Phase and End Phase

There are five main phases in magic, 10 if you count your opponents.

Upkeep

During a players upkeep they first untap any permanents they have that can untap, then pay or activate any upkeep abilities, then draw a card. Only instants and instant abilities can be used during this time. There does not appear to be any timer unless you have upkeep effects.

Main

All spells, including creature summons can be cast during this phase, creatures without summoning sickness (summoned last turn), with haste or that are granted haste from a spell, will be eligible to attack during the coming combat phase.

Combat

The combat phase is broken into it's own five phases where different actions can be taken during each phase (described in another section).

2nd Main

Identical to the main phase, except that creatures with haste are no longer eligible to participate in combat until your following turn.

End

The end phase is a short timer where instants and instant abilities can be used. This is often the time for your opponent to trigger his instants if he has open mana.

An example of these rules in play (simple):


We currently have a troll on the board and 3 open mana while our opponent has a freeblade. We also have Nyssa's pilgrimage in our hand - a sorcery that can only be cast in the main phase. However, we pass our first main phase and attack into our opponent. Seeing that we have the mana to trigger the regenerate, our opponent chooses not to block, combat ends with both creatures in tact and when our 2nd main phase starts, we cast Nissa's Pilgrimage. Had we cast this during our first main phase our opponent may have chosen to block killing both creatures.

An example of these rules in play (Intermediate):


With the following cards in hand on our opponents turn, our goals are to fiery impulse his creatures (assuming they would die) on his 1st main phase before he can attack with them or enchant them, or during combat as a 'trick'. Our aim with dismissal is to remove a priority spell on either his 1st main phase or his 2nd main phase depending on when he casts it. Our use of Epiphany is only at the very end of his end phase, if we still have mana free, so we don't end up using our own turn for nothing. You will mostly likely have to utlize the pause button (space) to do this properly.

An example of these rules in play (advanced):



Currently it is our turn and we have the following cards in hand, along with a couple thopter tokens in play. Our opponent has a Reclusive artificier tapped in play that for some pretty (hopefully) obvious reasons we don't want to unsummon, so we pass all of our phases to the players turn with 4 open mana.


On our opponents main phase he casts akroan seargent, and as it it not currently a threat, we choose not to counter, he then (still on his first main phase) casts infectious bloodlust on it, allowing it to attack this turn. Now that it is a prime target for unsummon, we wait for him to commit to the attack, then cast harbinger and send the seargent back to his hand and bloodlust to the graveyard. We are now capable of double blocking his artificier and killing it if we choose. Alternatively, our opponent could have cast bloodlust on the artificer, which would have encouraged us to dismissal the enchantment, or to epiphany and hope for a better solution. Or another alternative is that our opponent could have held on to bloodlust, wary of a counterspell given our 4 open mana, in which case we would cast Epiphany only on his end step when he has no other main phase options available.

Blocking and Attacking

There are five phases of this mode.

Transition 1

This phase starts immediately after the player ends his/her main phase and allows instants or other abilities to be used before any attackers are selected or declared.

Declare attackers

During this phase no instants or abilites can be activated, and the aggressor can choose which creatures, if any, to assign to attack. The next phase starts when attackers are 'declared'

Transition 2

A short timer will start in which Instants can be cast again (including creatures with flash - very important) during a very small window before blockers are selected.

Declare blockers

During this phase no instants or abilities can be activated, and the defender chooses which creatures to block with and where. The next phase starts when blockers are 'declared'

Transition 3

Another short window for casting will occur before finalizing damage. However, It is important to note that once blockers have been declared, they continue to block damage even if killed by spell or sacrifice. (Unless the attacking creature has trample).

Transition 4 - optional

If a creature has first strike damage a second opportunity to cast spells will occur after first strike damage has been dealt, and prior to normal combat damage. This phase will not occur if no creatures have first or double strike.

Finally all these phases (except the optional transition phase) will provide a countdown timer even if there are no valid moves to declare.

An example of these rules in play (simple):


Our opponent has just cast a relatively new Zendikar incarnate and we are hoping to get rid of it, or at the very least, pump up our amazing new renown creature, so on our turn we swing into him, and after he declares zendikar as a blocker, we then hit with it fiery impulse, damaging it for 2, and allowing our first strike to finish the job. He loses his creature and we lose our 1 cost fiery impulse. Had we cast it before blockers were declared, he would not have blocked, and we would have wasted a spell. If we cast it after combat, our poor lieutenant would already be dead.

An example of these rules in play (intermediate):


Our opponent starts his turn with an undercity troll and 3 open mana. He passes his main phase, and we hold onto bounding krasis anticipating an attack, hoping to waste his turn or kill his troll, which he grants. During the countdown on transition 2 (after attackers are declared) we cast bounding krasis and he resolves in time to block for the 'declare blockers'. Once blockers are asigned, our opponent suprises us with titanic growth killing our bounding krasis. Our opponent could have cast that spell during his main phase, which would have resulted in us casting krasis during during 'declare attackers' and tapping his troll, preventing him from declaring it as an attacker and wasting the spell. He could have also cast it immediately after krasis resolved, but before 'declare blockers', discouraging the block, depending on his strategy. Or he could have simply regenerated the troll for 3 mana (use -before- damage effects). Either way his patience paid off.

An example of these rules in play (advanced):


We have the above spell in our hand and those two creatures on the board, with zendikar boasting a monstrous attack power of 9. Our opponent will surely die if he does not block it this turn. However he has a plan to turn around the game when we attack:


Seeing no threats on the table we swing with both our creatures. Given our opponent has no intention of revealing his plan with hixus, nor does he plan on blocking with it, he lets the phase pass to block. He then blocks our zendikar with his automaton and waits until the last possible moment to use Hixus. Should the effect trigger when we deal damage we will lose our mauler, and he will have board presence in addition to buying himself another turn. Now we 'could' use fiery conclusion to knock it out of the way, but we want to have the maximum effect possible, so we wait to deal damage. Before damage he again pauses and sacrifices the guardian gaining 3 life, drawing a card, and nullifying all damage from the zendikar. As soon as damage hits, the effect of hixus starts to trigger and we fiery conclusion our zendikar (the trampler is more valuable when the opponent is at low life) before he has a chance to exile the mauler and remove it's bonus +2/+2. Other options would have involved our opponent sacking the guardian first in the hopes for a better solution, or letting him take the mauler and suprising him with it later when we blow up hixus on his turn (although it would be 4/4 instead of 6/6 since it would be returning from exile).

An example of these rules in play (advanced):


Our opponent has the above currently in play, with 1 renown counter on his leiutenant. He attacks into us with both of them, triggering the renown ability and making the maulers a 5/5. As he plans to use the passage depending how we block, he allows combat to pass to the block phase. Seeing this we plan something tricky with the following defense.


With no enchanments in play (but one in hand) our bloodknight is a sad 3/2, so we block his Lieutenant with our Orchid Knight, and block his maulers with Liliana. Our opponent, very pleased that he's going to get to kill lilliana is still unhappy with the exchange, and uses his passage on the lieutenant, but sadly for him, it is too late. The 'unblockable' designation prevents you from -assigning- blockers, and does nothing once the creature is already blocked. He missed the window to activate it. Additionally since both creatures have first strike, our orchid knight dies before the maulers ever do damage, and lilianna flips, leaving no blocker for the mauler. Unfortunately, we fail to notice the maulers have trample, and it hits us for the full 5 damage (you cannot 'sac-block' against tramplers), in addition to gaining its renown trigger. Both sides made some mistakes, but we got the worse end of the deal. Given the chance, we should have double blocked the maulers (the renown trigger from the 1 trample would happen after damage), killing it and flipping liliana.

Cards Leaving Play

Exile

A card that is exiled is removed from play completely, and cannot be accessed via graveyard mechanics. When leaving play, any cards attached to that card, such as auras, are sent to the graveyard. When returning to play, cards enter the battlefield in their base form, unless otherwise specified. Exiled cards do not trigger death effects, but the attached cards might (no such cards in this set).

Death

A card that is destroyed via spell or combat, triggers it's death effects, if any, and is now accessible from the graveyard. Any cards attached to the destroyed card are also sent to the graveyard. All destroyed cards, except tokens (that are removed from play) go to the original owners graveyard (not necessarily the current controller).

Unsummon

Cards that are unsummoned return to the original owners hand, and any attached cards (if they were not also unsummoned) are sent to the graveyard. The unsummoned card does not trigger death effects. Unsummoned tokens are considered exiled, and follow exile rules. Both flipped planeswalkers and tokens are considered to have a zero cost for unsummoning purposes (planewalkers return to the owners hand unflipped).

Discard

Cards that enter the graveyard from discard do not trigger death effects, nor are they considered to have entered or left play. They are not dead, and did not die. The graveyard is synomous with the discard pile.

An example of Death and Discard in play (Simple):


Assuming that we have liliana flipped and in play, using her ability to discard a card would NOT trigger the shaman's effect. It did not 'die' it merely went to the discard pile. Discarding the fleshbag would also fail to trigger the effect as it never entered play (the graveyard is not considered the 'battlefield'). However if we were to cast the shaman and then follow up with the fleshbag, we could trigger both effects by sacrificing the shaman (which does count as death), forcing our opponent to both discard a card and sacrifice a creature.


An example of Unsummon in play (Intermediate):


Our opponent has just cast Priest of the blood Rite and now has a beefy 5/5 token on his side, and a not so happy priest. On our side we have a possessed skab and displacement wave in our hand. With 7 lands in play we can cast a diplacement wave that will unsummon the whole board. If we do this, his priest and our skab go back to our respective hands, while his token goes away completely (to exile, it did not die). Since our skab did not 'die' he does not suffer from the exile effect on death and is avaible for play should we acquire enough mana, ad inifinitum. However his priest is also back in his hand and he can recast and obtain another 5/5 token. If we instead cast the diplacement wave for 0 (tokens and flipped planeswalkers have a cost value of 0), his token will be unsummoned and go away completely, leaving both an unfriendly priest for our opponent and a 3/2 skab for us. In any case since we do not have enough mana for the recursion effect, casting for zero is the better option.

An example of Exile in play (advanced):


With some seriously nasty, but misguided intentions our opponent has stolen Kytheon from our graveyard and is planning to attack with him as a 4/3 along with a 2/2 zombie token. In response to his attack we summon hixus and exile the both of them. Due to the zombie token being a token, even should hixus later die, the token will not return, it is gone forever. Any token leaving play for any reason does not come back. For similar reasons the 2 +1/+1 counters are removed from kythean and, should hixus leave play, kythean will return without any counters and will also trigger battlefield effects, if any. There are a lot of nuances in this play here, the first being that even though part of the text of kytheon reads that he is flipped from exile, the trigger ability to cause his exile did not happen. As he was exiled for another reason he does not flip. Just as important the text on Hixus says to return the creature to play under it's owner's control, meaning even if hixus is removed, Kytheon returns under OUR control. You might be asking, and rightly so.. what would happen if kytheon had triggered his flip ability (2 extra attackers) and the answer is incredibly annoying from a rules lawyery standpoint. Kytheon's ability triggers first because the active player has priorty, however.. Hixus's ability is suppose to trigger on the damage step, which is before the end combat step, which means' Hixus should steal him first. Ironically in this circumstance that play would still result in an awful outcome for our opponent, because Kytheon flips to his owners' control - us.

Regeneration and other oddities

Regeneration and First Strike

Regeneration is already an odd cracker to most people, but to briefly explain, you must activate it prior to the damage effect completing. If the spell effect or combat completes before doing so, it is already too late, and your work must stop... sorry hehe. Anyway, there is an additional function of regeneration vs first strike (or double strike) written in fine print. That is to say that the regeneration does NOT allow the creature to continue fighting, it becomes tapped and leaves combat. In the case of Lieutant vs troll, the troll will fail to kill the lieutenant and still have to regenerate to prevent death. You could also use a damage spell to force the regenerator to tap, even if it doesn't die, or you could damage it a second time, after it has regenerated to kill it. Regeneration is a one time death prevention each use.

Indestructibility

Indestructible is on only two cards and it's function is not very intuitive. To put it simply, any damaging or destroy effect, whether from spell or combat, will fail to kill the target or remove it from combat. It will continue headlong into whatever is in it's path unimpeded. However, Indestructible creatures can be exiled or even killed (and trigger death effects) if it's toughness reaches zero from -1/-1 effects (it's actual toughness must equal zero, it cannot be from a combination of damage), or if it is sacrificed. Indestructible is immune to 'destroy' effects, but subject to many others.

Running out of Cards

Regardless of the number of creatures on the board, your life total, or your opponents, drawing with no cards left in your library ends the game for you, and gives victory to the other player. Of course the reverse is also true, and while I really wanted to highlight the cards from the origins set, I felt it important to make the distinction between the two draw cards, which is more than just a discard effect. Epiphany makes you draw cards, while Inspiration makes your 'target' draw cards, which can include your ally in 2HG or your opponent! By making your opponent draw cards, with no cards in his library, you can end the game on your turn, as apposed to waiting for his turn to start.

[bodomchild]

@Evalis ah, yeh I actually noticed that after my post. Great guide though, very helpful

[Evalis]

While that is a reasonable way to look at it, in the case of the fleshbag it is the 'enter the battlefield' effect that is triggering, not the sacrifice effect, but I will adjust it for clarification.

As far as madness is concerned, none of this posting has included rules from traits outside of the base playset. I'm not really up for organizing that at the moment - My apologies.

[Purpleganja]

Small mistake in resolution order : ''Sacrifice effects always trigger instantly and function outside of resolution order.'' Only sacrificing as a payment do that, triggers like fleshbag marauder's do have to resolve normaly to have an effect.

[bodomchild]

Also take note that have the madness ability can be cast anytime it could be discarded granted you have enough untapped mana to pay the madness cost.

[Evalis]

Yes. Absolutely any card or effect that says 'destroy' is negated by indestructable.

[Quiche078]

Does indestructible stop Deathtouch from working?

[Evalis]

I altered a bit to hopefully prevent confusion. Also the first strike example you pose is not wrong, just a little too complicated than what I was going for.

Thanks for the feedback ^^

[Tears of Asariel]

(sorry about the triple post, character limit stopped it, read in reverse order lol)

if you want to add an example of the first strike damage step, have gurmag swiftwing, bloodflow coinnoissuer enchanted with necromantic thirst. opp has no blocking creatures to stop the bloodflow (either by the 2/1 bird that can only block flying, or cuz we killed them last turn or something, or the rogues passage land) attack with the bat and bloodflow, let the bat deal first strike damage, then before the normal damage, sac the bat, boosting bloodflow's damage, then when bloodflow deals damage to the player, you can pull the bat back from the GY

[Tears of Asariel]

then cards leaving play explination OR the combat break down, would fit in either order, followed by the other, but correct the combat break down, and lable each phase:

phase 1 - transition: going from main phase to combat phase

phase 2 - Declare attackers

phase 3 - transition

phase 4 - declare blockers

phase 5 - first strike damage

phase 6 - transition

phase 7 - normal damage

(hidden)phase 8 - damage resolution (not currently needed i dont think, but if they add other cards it may become noteworthy)

[Tears of Asariel]

overall i like the guide, but i think it really needs to be re organized, aswell as correct some (not exactly errors, but some confusing points or left out details)

i would put the turn sequence first

followed by the speed and resolution order of cards (and edit it so that you dont call creatures/enchantments/artifacts as sorceries, they are just cast at the same speed as a sorcery. it may confuse players that are planning on using a card with spell mastery thinking a creature in thier GY is a sorcery)