So now that you know the basics of the game, let's try one
out.
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1. So, at the beginning of a game, you pick up cards. 7
cards to be exact.
*NOTICE- Here, right after you pick
up 7 cards, there is an optional move you may make. It is called
"mullagan". What you do is if you're not satisfied with your hand (no
mana, no creatures, no spells, etc.), you say "I mullagan." Then you
can put your cards back into your library, shuffle it, then pick up
new 7 cards. However, BE WARNED! You can only do this once, so choose
if you are going to do this wisely.
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2. Choose who goes first (let's pretend that it's you).
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3. If you do, put down a mana (remember, you can only put
down 1 MANA PER TURN) (also remember that you call the place where
you keep manas "Mana Pool").
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4. Enemy turn.
He puts down a red mana card on his mana pool.
He ends.
5. Your turn, so you pick up a card, which is a forest!
You put that down as well, and you have enough for a
creature!
As you can see on the top right, that shows how many mana
you need to pay for this creature. It says: "1, and 1 forest". A "1"
means 1 mana of ANY COLOR. Same for any other number (i.e. "4"= 4
mana of any color). Now you have to tap your mana to put this Grizzly
Bear out. To tap, all you have to do is this:
Yup. Just turn it so that it looks like this. But
remember, you have to wait til your next turn until you can "untap"
(which means to turn them back to their original positions) the mana.
This way, already tapped mana is used as a "cost". With me so far?
Here is another thing to remember about creatures; once
you put out a creature onto the field, you have to wait until your
next turn for it to attack. This is called the "Summoning Sickness".
So now it's your enemy's turn.
He just picks up a card, and it's your turn.
Now the first thing you must do is to untap your forest
manas so they look like this:
And now you can attack the enemy!!!!
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We'll stop the game here for now. Let's study more about
the Grizzly Bear card.
This section in red shows the creature type. There are all
kinds of creatures such as: wurm, bear, wolf, horror, dragon, zombie,
goblin, elf, etc. The reason why this is important is because some
cards effect only certain types.
One of the most important parts of the card. This shows
how strong it is on the right (called the power), and the resistance
on the right (called the toughness). So for example, let's say it
attacked. Then it would have to tap, like we did with the manas
above. However, it would give 2 damage to the enemy.
So their life would be: 20--> 18, because they start
with 20, and you subtracted their life by your power (the number on
the creature's left number!!). But what if the enemy had a creature
too?
Let's say they summoned this card right before this turn.
Ouch. A bashing 6/6er. Let's say he put it out just before
this turn, and now it's your turn after picking up a card and
untapping your mana. Let's say now you attacked with your Grizzly.
Your Grizzly is 2/2. His Orgg is 6/6. A creature (on the
enemy's turn) can do something called blocking. If the enemy
says "block!" right after the Grizzly attacks, he would tap his Orgg,
and then he would block. As I said before, the toughness is
the number on the right. The Orgg has a 6, and you have an attacking
of 2.
2 and 6? Doesn't sound fair, does it? But if the enemy
decides to block, and the enemy has a bigger toughness than your
power, your creature dies.
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Let's take a look at other kinds of cards.
Looks baffling? Well, this isn't a creature, to start off.
As it is in red, it is an artifact. After you pay the mana
cost (which is 4 of any mana in this case), it stays on the field
until the enemy destroys it. As this card says, it keeps making the
cards change!!! This annoying effect will last until one of the
players can manage to destroy it. Remember, even the player the put
the card out CANNOT JUST THROW IT AWAY.
Here is a fun one. This is an instant. Instants can
be used ANYTIME of the game, and I mean it! Some players use it right
before they attack, or right before they defend.
This is an enchantment. This is like an artifact,
except that these have colors (white, red, etc.).
Here is another creature card. Now, some cards have an
effect called "____walk". This anaconda has swampwalk. As it
says in underlined form, this creature cannot be blocked unless the
enemy has a black mana (in other words, a swamp).
Finally, one more thing about cards. Some cards have this
sign: .
This means "tap!". There are two common uses for this
tapping. Let's look at this card:
See how it says "Haste"? Creatures that have that ability
(as it says) can attack or "tap" to use an ability. This basically
means that that creature does NOT have summoning sickness.
This is an example of another tapping. You can tap the
card instead of attacking to use it's ability!
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That's enough for 1 lesson. Be sure to study the overview!
Lesson Overview
-Starting of a game
-Basic knowledge of "tapping"
-Parts of a card (cost, power/toughness, creature
type)
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