Magic: The Gathering rules

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources:  –  ·  ·  · scholar · JSTOR (October 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

The Rules of Magic: The Gathering are the rules governing the play of the card game Magic: The Gathering. The original rules were developed by the game's creator, Richard Garfield, and accompanied the first version of the game in 1993. The rules of Magic have been changed frequently over the years by the manufacturer, Wizards of the Coast, mostly in minor ways. However, major rules overhauls have also been done a few times. Furthermore with the introduction of new cards and mechanics the rules governing these are constantly added to the rulebook.

While the core rules of Magic, that a beginner needs to learn in order to start playing, are rather easy to learn, the complete rule set fills an ever-growing rulebook of over 200 pages, named Magic: The Gathering Comprehensive Rules.

In its most-played form, Magic is a game where two players bring their own set of cards, called a deck, and play each other. Players start by drawing a hand of seven cards and then take turns. In a turn a player can play one mana-producing Land, play various types of spells which require varying amounts and colors of mana, and attack their opponent to try and reduce their life total from the starting 20 to zero, thus winning the game.

Overview[]

A game of Magic in progress

A standard game of Magic involves two or more players who are engaged in a battle acting as powerful wizards, known as Planeswalkers. Each player has their own deck of cards, either one previously constructed or made from a limited pool of cards for the event.^[1] A player typically starts the game with a "life total" of twenty and loses the game when their life total is reduced to zero.^[2][3] A player can also lose if they must draw from an empty deck. Some cards specify other ways to win or lose the game.^[2] Additionally, the "Golden Rule of Magic" states that "whenever a card's text directly contradicts the rules, the card takes precedence".^[2] CNET highlighted that the game has many variants; also, "Magic tends to embrace all that house ruling, making it official when it catches on. Commander started as a fan-created format, after all".^[4]

Formats[]

There are various formats in which the Magic can be played. Each format provides additional rules for deck construction and gameplay, with many confining the pool of permitted cards to those released in a specified group of Magic card sets. Formats are divided into two main categories by the Wizards Play Network: Tournament and Casual.^[5] The term "sanctioned" refers to formats that the Wizards Play Network allows to be run at official events.^[6] Officially sanctioned events can also add additional rules such as disallowing proxy cards.^[7]

A number of other formats have been designed by Wizards of the Coast or by players themselves for custom gameplay or reduced investment cost; these are known as casual formats.^[8] Some casual formats utilize rules or sets of cards that differ from those used in sanctioned tournament play. One of the most popular formats of Magic is the Commander format which is technically a casual sanctioned format.^[9][10][11]

Formats can further be divided by if they are Constructed and Limited formats.^[12][4] Constructed formats require decks to be made prior to participation, with players allowed to use any tournament-legal cards they possess. Sanctioned Constructed formats include Standard, Modern, Legacy, and Vintage.^[12] Limited formats, in contrast, utilize a restricted and unknown pool of cards, usually formed by opening Magic products. Limited competition require players to select cards and build decks on the fly within the tournament itself. The primary two sanctioned Limited formats are Sealed Deck and Booster Draft.^[12][13]

Deck construction[]

Deck building requires strategy as players must choose among thousands of cards which they want to play. This requires players to evaluate the power of their cards, as well as the possible synergies between them, and their possible interactions with the cards they expect to play against (this "metagame" can vary in different locations or time periods).^[14][15] The choice of cards is usually narrowed by the player deciding which colors they want to include in the deck.^[16][15] Part of the Magic product line has been starter decks which are aimed to provide novice players with ideas for deck building.^[17] Players expand their card library for deck building through booster packs, which have a random distribution of cards from a specific Magic set and defined by rarity. These rarities are known as Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Mythic, with generally more powerful cards having higher rarities.

Initial setup[]

Beginning and ending the game[]

Each player uses their own deck to play the game. In most formats, a deck must have a minimum of 60 cards;^[18][3] there is no maximum deck size, but a player must be able to shuffle their deck without assistance.^[19] Some formats have exceptions or additional limitations to the above rules.^[3] In tournaments, players may be allowed the use of a sideboard containing up to 15 cards. Sideboard cards can be swapped for cards in the main deck in between games against the same opponent.

At the beginning of a game, each player shuffles their deck. Players then decide who will start, using any mutually agreeable method. Each player then draws seven cards from their deck, otherwise known as a library, in order to form their starting hand.^[20][3] The players may choose to mulligan if they don't like their starting hand.^[21][3]

A player wins the game by eliminating all opponents. Players typically begin the game with 20 life and lose when any of the following conditions are met:

• That player has 0 or negative life
• That player is required to draw a card but has no cards left in their library
• That player has 10 or more poison counters (although cards that apply poison are not printed frequently)
• That player has taken at least 21 combat damage from a “commander” (in commander formats)
• That player concedes
• Specific cards may also dictate (or prevent) other ways of winning or losing the game

London Mulligan[]

The London Mulligan rule was implemented for all competitive Magic formats in 2019. In turn order, each player may decide to mulligan; that player shuffles their hand and library together and draws a new hand of seven cards. A player can do this as many times as they wish. They then put a card on the bottom of their library for each time they took a mulligan.^[21][22][23]

Zones[]

Magic: The Gathering zones.

At any given time, every card is located in one of the following "zones":

• Library: The portion of the player's deck that is kept face down and is normally in random order (shuffled).^[24] When drawing a card, it is always the top card of the library.
• Hand: A player's hidden hand of cards that can be played. If a player has more than seven cards in hand at the end of their turn, any extras must be discarded.^[25]

• Battlefield: The zone where cards of the permanent type are placed and stay until otherwise removed. Unlike other zones, the battlefield is shared by all players.^[25]

• Graveyard: A player's discard pile.^[24][26] Typically, "creatures, enchantments, and artifacts stay on the playing field whereas sorceries and instants are placed in your discard pile [...] after casting their one-time effect".^[26]

• The stack: This is the place for spells and abilities that have been cast or played, but have not yet resolved. This zone is also shared by all players.^[25][27]

• Exile: Cards that have been exiled by specific effects are put here. Unlike the graveyard, exile is "the place where cards go when they’re really dead and can't be replayed back into the game".^[24]

• Command: Used mainly in some variant formats of play, cards that have a special status or abilities within the game are kept here. Cards in the Command Zone can be affected by virtually nothing that affects cards in the other zones.

Terminology[]

Abilities[]

There are four general categories of abilities:

• Spell abilities: abilities that are followed as instructions while an instant or sorcery spell is resolving. Any text on an instant or sorcery spell is a spell ability unless it's an activated ability, a triggered ability, or a static ability.^[28]
• Activated abilities: abilities that have a cost and an effect. They are written as "[Cost]: [Effect.] [Activation instructions (if any).]" A player may activate such an ability whenever they have priority. Doing so puts it on the stack, where it remains until it's countered, it resolves, or it otherwise leaves the stack.^[29][28]
• Triggered abilities: abilities that have a trigger condition and an effect. They are written as "[Trigger condition], [effect]", and begin with the word "when", "whenever", or "at". Whenever the trigger event occurs, the ability is put on the stack the next time a player would receive priority and stays there until it's countered, it resolves, or it otherwise leaves the stack.^[30][28]
• Static abilities: abilities written as statements. They're simply true, and do not use the stack. Static abilities create continuous effects which are active while the permanent with the ability is on the battlefield and has the ability, or while the object with the ability is in the appropriate zone.^[31][28]

Keyword abilities[]

Some cards have abilities that are not fully explained on the card. These are known as "keyword" abilities, and consist of a word or phrase whose meaning is defined by the rules. Keyword abilities are usually given reminder text in the set in which they are introduced. There are over forty such abilities. In most cases, multiple instances of the same keyword on an object have no additional effect. Keywords can be classified into two different types: Evergreen or Mechanics.^[32][33] Evergreen keywords "can appear in absolutely any set, since its gameplay effects and flavor are flexible and generic enough to fit anywhere. Effects like trample, flying, deathtouch, first strike and haste are examples of this".^[34] Abilities classified as Mechanics are rotated in and out of the game as various expansions are released.^[35][36][37] Game Rant highlighted that "most planes have some unique rules that are only relevant on cards from specific sets" and that "new mechanics are constantly added to shake things up and give the players new tools to work with".^[36]

Mana[]

When a player uses an ability that produces mana, that mana is put in their "mana pool". There are five colors of mana: white, blue, black, red and green. Mana can also be colorless. Mana in the mana pool can be used to pay costs.^[26][38][39]

Types of cards[]

Dissection of a Magic: The Gathering card.

All objects that remain on the battlefield are called permanents. Types of permanents include lands, creatures, enchantments, artifacts, and planeswalkers. In contrast, sorceries and instants go to the graveyard immediately after they are used.^[40][41]

Lands[]

Land cards tap to produce mana that is used to cast spells and activate abilities. They cost no mana to play; however, a player may play no more than one land per turn, and only during the main phases of their own turn.^[40][24] There are six types of basic lands (Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest, and Wastes), one for each color (plus Wastes for colorless). These lands can each be tapped to produce one mana of the appropriate color. Other lands are non-basic and may produce other combinations or amounts of mana, or may have other abilities.^[24][26][41] Playing a land does not use the stack and therefore occurs immediately, with no way for any player to stop it. Players are allowed to have any number of basic lands in a deck, but nonbasic lands follow the usual restriction of four copies of any one card per deck.

Creatures[]

Creatures represent people or beasts that are summoned to the battlefield to attack opposing creatures or players and defend their controller from the attacks of enemy creatures.^[26][24] Creatures have two values that represent their strength in combat, printed on the lower right-hand corner of the card. The first number is the creature's power, the amount of damage it deals in combat. The second number is its toughness; if it receives that much damage in a single turn, the creature is destroyed and placed in the graveyard.

Creatures usually have at least one creature type, located after the word "creature" in the type line. Creature types are simply markers and have no inherent abilities; for example, having the Bird type does not automatically give a creature the "flying" ability. Some non-creature cards have the "Tribal" type, which allows them to have creature types without being creatures themselves.

Enchantments[]

Enchantments represent persistent magical effects; they are spells that remain on the battlefield and alter some aspect of the game.^[26]

Some enchantments are attached to other cards on the battlefield (often creatures); these are known as Auras. They describe what they can be attached to in their "Enchant <something>" ability. For example, an Aura with "Enchant green creature" can only be attached to a green creature. If the card an Aura is attached to leaves the battlefield, or stops matching the Enchant ability, the Aura goes to the graveyard.

Early in Magic, there was a subset of enchantments known as "World Enchantments" that affected all players equally (for example, forcing them to play with their top card of their library revealed). In addition, only one World Enchantment could be in play at a time. Such enchantments no longer need to carry the "World" designations. Later, Tribal Enchantments (Enchantments with creature types) were introduced, as were Curses, enchantments that targeted one player specifically.

Artifacts[]

Artifacts represent magical items, animated constructs, pieces of equipment, or other objects and devices. Like enchantments, artifacts remain on the battlefield until something removes them.^[26] Many artifacts are also creatures; artifact creatures may attack and block as other creatures, and are affected by things that affect creatures.

Some artifacts are Equipment.^[26] Equipment cards enter the battlefield just like any other artifact, but may be attached to creatures using their Equip ability. This ability may only be used at the same time a player would be able to play a sorcery (i.e. only during the main phases of the player who controls it). The player who controls the Equipment pays the Equip cost and attaches it to a creature they also control, unattaching it from any creature it was already attached to. In this way, the Equipment may be "unequipped" from a creature by paying the Equip cost and moving it to another creature. However, it may not be "unequipped" by choosing no creature; if for any reason the Equip ability cannot move the Equipment, it remains attached to its current creature. Like Auras, if control of the equipped creature changes, control of the Equipment does not change, nor is it unequipped. Unlike Auras, if an equipped creature is destroyed or otherwise leaves the battlefield, the Equipment stays on the battlefield unattached to anything; its controller can still attach it to a different creature by activating the Equip ability again. A player can only equip equipment to creatures controlled by that player.

Sorceries and instants[]

Sorceries and instants both represent one-shot or short-term magical spells. They never enter the battlefield. Instead, they take effect and then are immediately put into their owner's graveyard.^[26]

Sorceries and instants differ only in when they can be cast. Sorceries may only be cast during the player's own main phases,^[26] and only when the stack is empty. Instants, on the other hand, can be cast at any time, including during other players' turns and while another spell or ability is waiting to resolve.^[26]

In sets released prior to 1999, a third type of one-shot spell card existed called Interrupts. Interrupts functioned similar to instants but altered how the stack was resolved. Interrupts received an errata which stated that, from that point forward, interrupts were treated exactly the same as instants.^[42]

Planeswalkers[]

Planeswalkers are extremely powerful spellcasters that can be called upon for aid.^[3] According to Magic lore, the player is a "planeswalker", a wizard of extraordinary power who can travel ("walk") between different realms or universes ("planes"); as such, planeswalker cards are meant to represent scaled-down versions of other players, with their decks represented by the card's abilities, and originally were designed to move through a roster of effects without player control, as though they had a mind of their own.^[43] Each planeswalker has a planeswalker type, which is a truncated version of their name. Only one version of a planeswalker card may be on the battlefield at one time. If two or more copies of the same planeswalker card are on the battlefield, their owner chooses one and the other is put into the owner's graveyards, though the rule was changed in Magic 2014 allowing two or more planeswalkers with the same type to exist on the battlefield if not controlled by the same player. Starting with Ixalan, all planeswalkers past, present, and future gained the supertype legendary and became subject to the "legend rule". Thus, if a player controls more than one legendary planeswalker with the same name, that player chooses one and puts the other into their owner's graveyard.^[44]

Planeswalkers' abilities are based on their loyalty, which is tracked with counters. The number printed in the lower right corner indicates how many loyalty counters the planeswalker enters the battlefield with. Planeswalkers' loyalty abilities each have a positive or negative loyalty cost; this is how many counters must be added (if positive) or removed (if negative) to activate that ability. Abilities with negative loyalty costs may only be activated if there are enough loyalty counters to remove. Regardless of the loyalty costs, a single planeswalker may only use one loyalty ability once per turn, and only on its controller's turn during their main phases.^[45]

Note that planeswalkers are neither creatures nor players, so most spells and abilities cannot target them directly. If a player attacks an opponent who controls a planeswalker, the player may declare any or all of the attacking creatures to be attacking the planeswalker instead. Those creatures may be blocked normally, but if not blocked deal damage to the planeswalker instead of the player. Whenever damage is dealt to a planeswalker, that many loyalty counters are removed from it. A planeswalker with no loyalty counters, either through use of its abilities or through damage, is put into the player's graveyard.

Gameplay[]

Phases[]

Magic officially labels its gameplay phases "as Begin, Main Phase, Combat, Second Main Phase, and End".^[26]

Begin[]

The beginning phase is composed of three parts:^[46]

• Untap step: A player untaps all cards they control.^[47][48]
• Upkeep step: Then, any abilities that trigger on the "upkeep step" happen, starting with the player of the current turn. These often include cards that require mana payments every turn.^[47][48]
• Draw step: A player then draws a card.^[47][48] In two-player games, the player who takes the first turn does not draw a card for that turn.

No player receives priority during the untap step, meaning that no cards or abilities can be played at that time. During the upkeep and draw steps, however, players can cast instants and activate abilities as normal.^[47][48]

Main[]

The main phase occurs immediately after the draw step; in this phase, the player has option to put cards onto the field. They may play any card from their hand unless that card specifies otherwise, and as long as they have the mana to pay its casting cost. This includes creature, planeswalker, sorcery, instant, land, enchantment, and artifact cards.^[47][48] In contrast, "opponents can only play instants or abilities at this time (not creatures, sorceries, etc). Main phases are also the only time that you can play lands".^[48]

Combat[]

The combat phase is split into five steps. Aside from instants, activated abilities, and spells that are specifically noted as being able to be played at any time (e.g., creatures with flash), players may not cast spells during combat. Multiple creatures may attack at the same time, but the turn player may only declare their list of attackers once.^[47][48]

• Beginning of combat: no specific actions take place at the beginning of combat step. This step mainly exists to allow players to cast spells and activate abilities that may alter how combat progresses. As the most common example, only untapped creatures may attack, so the defending player may cast instants or activate abilities that will tap a creature, preventing it from attacking.^[47][48]
• Declare attackers: the player whose turn it is declares which creatures they control will attack. Both players are given a chance to cast instants and activate abilities after attackers have been declared.^[47][48]
• Declare blockers: after the attacking player declares attackers, the defending player chooses which creatures they will block with. A creature must be untapped in order for it to block. Each creature can only block a single attacker, but the defending player may choose to block an attacking creature with more than one creature. Both players are given a chance to cast instants and activate abilities after blockers have been declared.^[47][48]
• Combat damage: attacking and blocking creatures deal damage; the stack is used to determine the order this occurs.^[47][48]
• End of combat: Like the beginning of combat, nothing normally happens during this phase. When the end of combat step finishes, all cards are no longer in combat.^[47][48]

Second main phase[]

The second main phase is identical to the first; players may cast spells and play lands. Any unspent mana is discarded.^[46][47]

End[]

The ending phase has two steps:

• End step: abilities that trigger "at the beginning of the end step" go on the stack. This is the last chance players have to cast instants or activate abilities this turn.^[47][48]
• Cleanup: the active player discards down to their maximum hand size, then simultaneously, all damage marked on permanents is removed and all "until end of turn" and "this turn" effects end.^[47][48] "Additionally, no one can play spells or abilities during this step unless an ability specifically triggers to allow that to happen".^[48]

After this phase is completed, the next active player starts their turn at the beginning phase.^[47]

Paying costs[]

Tapping and untapping[]

The tap symbol, which appears on cards to indicate that a certain skill requires the card's tap to be used. This is the first version of the symbol, printed on cards from the Revised Edition to Fallen Empires.

Some spells or abilities require the player to tap a permanent as part of their cost. To indicate that a card in play has been tapped, it is turned sideways. An ability or spell that requires tapping cannot be used if the permanent is already tapped. Furthermore, a tapped creature cannot be declared as an attacker or blocker.

Instead of a cost, tapping can also be the effect of a spell or ability. In such a case, it makes no difference if that permanent was already tapped. A creature that attacks also gets tapped, unless it has vigilance, but a defending creature does not. Unless stated otherwise, tapping does not stop continuous abilities (e.g. enchantments or equipments) or triggered abilities from taking effect, nor does it disallow the use of abilities that do not require tapping.

At the beginning of each player's turn, that player untaps all cards they control (unless otherwise stated by a card's effect) and can be tapped again as normal.

Mana costs and colors[]

Most cards other than lands have a mana cost. This is the amount of mana that must be spent to cast that card as a spell. Each mana symbol in the top right corner of the card represents one mana of that color that must be paid. A number in a gray circle next to the mana symbols represents how much additional generic mana must be paid; this additional mana can be of any color or colorless. Some cards may require their owner to pay mana of two or more colors. These cards are multicolored. Some multicolored cards also use hybrid mana, which can be paid with one of two different colors. If a player has leftover mana, called "floating", it can be used any time during the remainder of the phase. Any floating mana left over when a player proceeds to the next phase is depleted. Additionally, some cards have Phyrexian mana in their costs. Phyrexian mana can be paid with either one mana of that color or with 2 life.

Screen Rant commented that "One of the more important aspects of constructing a deck is the mana ratio. This ratio determines how many basic land cards players will need in their deck in order to 'cast' spell cards for combat and defense when playing a game. Too much mana can lead to players becoming 'mana swamped' or pulling out mostly basic mana cards and not enough spell cards to attack. The opposite can also happen where players become 'mana starved' and have too little mana to play their spell cards. [...] There are a number of ways the calculate or estimate this more specifically, but a quick rule of thumb is that basic mana should make up approximately one-third of their Magic: The Gathering deck, or 20 to 24 cards in a 60-card deck".^[49]

Timing[]

The most versatile aspect of Magic is that after most spells and abilities are cast or activated, but before they actually take effect ("resolve"), all players get a chance to "respond" to them. This means they can cast a different spell or activate another ability that will resolve first, often either invalidating or reinforcing the effect of the first spell. The mechanism that accomplishes this is called "the stack". It is where spells and abilities go to wait for any responses that may get played.

Spells that are permanents that end up on the battlefield; sorcery spells; and abilities that say "activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery" cannot be cast or activated as responses. They can only be cast or activated when the stack is empty, only on the turn of whoever casts or activates them, and only in a main phase. In contrast, activated abilities, instant spells, and spells that have the ability flash can be played on anybody's turn and in most steps of the game, go on the stack "on top of" anything that is already there, and will resolve first. Many players refer to this difference as "speed", but that is a misleading term, because neither is "faster" than the other; the only difference is when they can be played.

Playing lands, most abilities that produce mana, and certain other special actions do not use the stack; they bypass the rules below and take effect immediately.

The stack[]

When a player casts a spell or activates an ability, it does not immediately take effect. Instead, it is placed on the stack. That player then receives priority again, which gives him or her a chance to respond to it with spells or abilities. Each new spell or ability is put on top of the stack in turn, with the newest on top and the oldest at the bottom. A player with priority can add as many spells or abilities to the stack as they can pay for, but is not required to; if a player declines to respond to the latest spell or ability, they "passes priority" to the next player in turn order.

When all players have passed priority in succession, the top-most spell or ability on the stack resolves. If it was a sorcery, instant, or ability, the player carries out the instructions; if it would create a permanent, it enters the battlefield. Every time a spell or ability finishes resolving, players (starting with the player whose turn it is) can once again add more to the stack; if they don't, the new top-most spell or ability will resolve.

When the stack is empty, the player whose turn it is gets priority first. If all players pass priority while the stack is empty, the game proceeds to the next step or phase of the turn.

Countering[]

Certain spells (and abilities) allow a player to counter other spells (or abilities). These spells must be cast while the spells they will affect are still on the stack. If a spell is countered, it is moved from the stack to its owner's graveyard when counterspell resolves. It does not resolve, and has no effect unless the card states otherwise. If the spell would create a permanent, it never enters the battlefield. Some spells state that they cannot be countered.

History[]

Magic's Comprehensive Rules^[50][51] aim to "stabilize the rules" with errata and outline "special-case rulings".^[52] In April 1994, Wizards of the Coast made "the first attempt to formalize and simplify Magic rules" with the Revised Edition card set.^[52] This codification of rules streamlined many cards, introduced or clarified many terms, removed "the need for multiple artifact types" and "introduced the tap symbol".^[52] The most important change was that it introduced the system of timing that is in similar form still used in the game today: LIFO ("last in, first out"). This timing "system brought an end to simultaneous spell resolution and the arguments it created."^[52] Spells were now announced in 'batches'. However, over the next year it became clear that the game needed a more detailed rulebook. This led to the development of the Comprehensive Rules which were introduced in mid-1995 with the Fourth Edition card set.

The Comprehensive Rules were again overhauled for the 1997 Fifth Edition card set.^[52] The "Fifth Edition rules were an attempt to formalize the whole game rules into a complete system for the first time. Instead of case by case rulings, card interactions should follow logically from the comprehensive rules. "Fifth Edition rules changed interrupts to work remarkably like instants, simplified the attack, and introduced several 'new' concepts that had never had formal names (including phase costs and triggered abilities)."^[52] Fifth Edition also introduced on-card reminder text to keywords with the goal of helping beginners to learn the various keywords of the game more easily. The rules were reworked more drastically for the Classic Sixth Edition core set in 1999. Instead of spells resolving as complete batches players could now interact on the "stack" at any point, interrupts were removed from the game, combat damage used the stack, and the rules deactivating tapped artifacts and preventing tapped blockers from dealing damage were removed.

The next major rules update was a decade later with the Magic 2010 core set.^[53] Several rule changes were made with the goal of making the game terminology more flavorful such as renaming the "in play-zone" to "battlefield". The main change was that combat stopped using the stack, a change that was considered by many veterans of the game to reduce the strategic depth of combat situations although it was generally accepted that in many cases the difference would not affect the combat situation.^[54]

Banned and restricted cards[]

Individual cards may be listed as "restricted", where only one copy can be included in a deck, or simply "banned", at the WPN's discretion.^[5] These limitations are usually for balance of power reasons, but have been occasionally made because of gameplay mechanics.^[55][56][57] For example, with the elimination of the "play for ante" mechanic in all formal formats,^[58] all such cards with this feature are banned.^[55] More recently, older cards have been banned from all formal play by Wizards due to inappropriate racial or cultural depictions in their text or illustrations in the wake of the George Floyd protests, and their images have been blocked or removed from online Magic databases.^[59][60] This included a card called "Invoke Prejudice," which was displayed on the official card index site Gatherer "at a web URL ending in '1488,' numbers that are synonymous with white supremacy."^[60] During the COVID-19 pandemic which drew more players to the online Magic games and generated volumes of data of popular deck constructions, Wizards was able to track popular combinations more quickly than in a purely paper game, and in mid-2020, banned additional cards that in specific combos could draw out games far longer than desired.^[61]

References[]

Further reading[]

• Wylie, Tom (Fall 1994). "Murk dwellers: The Magic rules you've never heard of". The Duelist. No. 3. Wizards of the Coast. p. 14-15.
• Wylie, Tom. "Murk dwellers". The Duelist. No. 4. Wizards of the Coast. p. 20-22.

External links[]

• Magic: The Gathering Comprehensive Rules