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Attacks quickly and deals damage efficiently. Includes haste, double strike, first strike, prowess, and cards that grant these.

Has or grants deathtouch — kills anything it damages, effective deterrent and combat removal.

Suited for blocking and defense. Includes defender, reach, vigilance, and cards that incentivize blocking.

Difficult to block or grants evasion. Includes flying, menace, fear, intimidate, shadow, skulk, horsemanship, unblockable effects, and cards that grant these abilities.

Has first strike or double strike — trades favorably in combat.

Cannot be blocked or has an ability that makes it very hard to block.

A permanent that gives a static power/toughness boost to your creatures.

Removes multiple permanents at once. Includes destroy-all, exile-all, mass bounce, and damage-based sweepers.

A spell that deals direct damage to creatures or players.

A spell that replaces itself by drawing a card as part of its resolution.

Puts additional cards into your hand. Includes direct draw, 'look/reveal and put into hand' effects, and conditional draw triggers.

An instant-speed spell that modifies combat — pump, protection, or removal during combat.

A permanent or effect that makes spells or abilities cheaper to cast or activate.

Prevents a spell or ability from resolving.

A permanent or ability that lets you discard cards for value or at will.

A card that makes a strategy possible or consistent without being the payoff itself.

Grants one or more additional turns. A powerful tempo and inevitability effect in any strategy.

Cards that directly win the game or threaten to end it quickly. Includes 'you win the game' effects and massive threats.

A spell that prevents all combat damage for a turn.

Returns cards from the graveyard to your hand, the battlefield, or the top of your library.

Forces opponents to discard cards from their hand. Targeted discard, mass discard, and discard-or-pay effects.

Exile-based card advantage — exile cards from the top of your library and cast them temporarily. Red's primary draw mechanic.

Gains you life. Relevant for lifegain-matters strategies and general survivability.

Draw-then-discard or discard-then-draw effects that improve hand quality without net card advantage.

Helps produce colors you need. Includes multicolor lands, color filtering, and 'any color' mana sources.

A permanent with a repeatable activated ability that converts excess mana into value.

A card that rewards you for doing something repeatedly — the reason to build around a theme.

Equipment, aura, or spell that protects key permanents from removal.

A spell or ability that gives a temporary power/toughness boost.

Accelerates mana production beyond the one-land-per-turn baseline. Umbrella tag — see ramp subtypes for land ramp, mana dorks, mana rocks, and rituals.

Returns cards from graveyard to hand or library (not battlefield — that is reanimation).

Answers an opponent's threat by destroying, exiling, bouncing, or otherwise removing a permanent or spell.

Lets you sacrifice your own creatures or permanents for value. Key enabler for aristocrats strategies.

An effect that puts cards from your own library into your graveyard for value.

Creates creature tokens, Treasure tokens, Food tokens, Clue tokens, or other token types.

Creates Treasure tokens for mana or sacrifice synergies.

Searches your library for a specific card. Named after Demonic Tutor. Excludes land search (that's ramp).

An effect that untaps permanents, enabling reuse of tap abilities or mana.

To turn a face-up ongoing scheme card face down and put it on the bottom of its owner’s scheme deck. See rule 701.33, “Abandon.”

1. Text on an object that explains what that object does or can do. 2. An activated or triggered ability on the stack. This kind of ability is an object. See rule 113, “Abilities,” and section 6, “Spells, Abilities, and Effects.”

An italicized word with no rules meaning that ties together abilities on different cards that have similar functionality. See rule 207.2c.

To put an activated ability onto the stack and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. See rule 602, “Activating Activated Abilities.”

A kind of ability. Activated abilities are written as “[Cost]: [Effect.] [Activation instructions (if any).]” See rule 113, “Abilities,” and rule 602, “Activating Activated Abilities.”

Everything that appears before the colon in an activated ability’s text. It must be paid to activate the ability. See rule 118, “Costs,” and rule 602, “Activating Activated Abilities.”

The player whose turn it is. See rule 102.1.

A system that determines the order by which players make choices if multiple players are instructed to make choices at the same time. See rule 101.4. This rule is modified for games using the shared team turns option; see rule 805.6.

The team whose turn it is in a game using the shared team turns option. See rule 805.4a.

A cost a spell may have that its controller may pay (or, in some cases, must pay) in addition to its mana cost to cast that spell. See rule 118, “Costs,” and rule 601, “Casting Spells.”

Cards with a two-part card frame (one part of which is inset on the left) on a single card where the alternative characteristics include the Adventure spell type. See rule 715, “Adventurer Cards.”

A different name used on promotional or alternate-art versions of some cards. This name has no rules meaning. See rule 201.6.