To beat counterspells, various strategies can be employed, such as using discard spells or instant-speed threats. These strategies also work against removal spells in many cases. Damage prevention cancels the effects from damage being dealt to players or permanents, meaning life and loyalty counters loss, infect, wither, or effects that trigge.
Grand Abolisher is a powerful life-replenishing “MTG” spell that can prevent damage from a source of a player’s choice with certain properties. However, it is important to note that many of these spells require large amounts of mana, making them difficult to use. Divinity of Pride is one of the most powerful life-replenishing “MTG” spells, but it is not the best.
Hexproof is a mechanic in MTG that can only affect creatures, players, and some other card types. Brave the Elements is a spell that can protect creatures from targeted removal, combat damage, or damage-based sweepers like Blasphemous Act. Temporary anti-counter cards, such as ((Silence)) / ((Orim’s Chant)) spells with the text “Can’t be countered”, can also be used to protect a card from targeted spells and abilities.
Tokens are always permanents and are affected by all rules, spells, and abilities that affect permanents. An instant or sorcery spell, an activated or triggered ability is targeted if and only if the word “target” is used in their text. In summary, protecting your enchantments from being countered involves using strategies that prevent opponents from casting on your turn or make everything you do permanent.
📹 MTG: Explaining the Play More Removal Argument
Play more removal is a phrase that gets thrown around all the time! But what does it mean and how much removal should you play …
Does preventing damage prevent infect?
Damage prevention effects prevent all five forms of damage: damage marked on a creature, -1/-1 counters on a creature, life loss of a player, poison counters on a player, or removal of loyalty counters from a planeswalker. Damage and damage effects are separate things, and the correct outcome is intuitively clear in most situations. Damage prevention effects work in detail by preventing the same damage effects on both creatures and players, ensuring the correct outcome is achieved.
Does counterspell stop on cast effects?
Despite the casting of a spell, no effect is observed. The act of countering a spell does not circumvent the stipulations set forth in the bonus action spell rule, which does not impose a limit of one leveled spell per turn. Please be advised that JavaScript may be disabled or blocked by an extension, and that your browser does not support cookies.
Can you deal 0 damage in MTG?
A source of damage does not necessarily need to be capable of dealing damage. Damage is the impairment or destruction that a creature, battle, planeswalker, or player may suffer from a certain source. It is measured by a number on the same scale as Power/Toughness, life, defense, and loyalty. Sufficient damage usually causes creatures and planeswalkers to die, battles to be defeated, and players to lose the game. Lethal damage is caused by combat between creatures or creatures attacking players.
Direct damage to creatures, battles, planeswalkers, and/or players is usually dealt by red cards like Lightning Bolt. When damage is dealt, one of several results usually occurs depending on the damage.
How do you dispel fear?
To combat fears, take time out, breathe through panic, face your fears, remember that anxiety isn’t harmful, challenge unhelpful thoughts, don’t try to be perfect, visualize a happy place, and talk about it. Everyone has fears, some common and some unique, and some may interfere with daily life. Here are 10 ways to help cope with day-to-day fears and anxieties:
- Take time out to think clearly;
- Breathe through panic;
- Face your fears;
- Remember that anxiety isn’t harmful;
- Challenge unhelpful thoughts;
- Don’t try to be perfect;
- Visualize a happy place;
- Talk about your fears.
Can you ignore triggers in MTG?
Players are expected to remember their own triggered abilities, and intentionally ignoring one may be considered cheating unless the ability would have no impact on the game. This rule is applicable at Regular REL events and is now mentioned in IPG and Tournament rules. If the trigger is your own, you are responsible for it. If you intentionally miss a trigger, it is not a violation. If a triggered ability would have no impact on the game, it is not an infraction to fail to demonstrate awareness of it.
For example, a player controlling no creatures is not required to demonstrate awareness of a triggered ability, and a player demonstrating awareness of an optional trigger with no visible effect is assumed to have made the affirmative choice unless the opponent responds.
How do you counter fear in MTG?
Fear is a evasion keyword ability in Magic, allowing only black or artifact creatures to block a creature with fear. This ability is known as “color” and “color identity”, and is one of the simplest abilities in Magic. However, “color” and “color identity” are not the same, and a card like Kenrith, the Returned King, with black in its color identity but not a black creature, cannot block a creature with fear.
How do I get rid of fear spells?
The “Remove Fear” spell is a powerful spell that grants a +4 morale bonus against fear effects for 10 minutes. It is cast in the abjuration school and can be used by bards, clerics/oracles, inquisitors, shamans, psychics, mesmerists, and spiritualists. The spell targets one creature per four levels, with no two being more than 30 ft apart. The spell has a duration of 10 minutes and is dismissible, shapeable, and has a saving throw that negates the spell’s effect. If the spell is under the influence of a fear effect, it is suppressed for the duration.
Can you get negative life in mtg?
In Magic: The Gathering, a life total is a score that a player starts with, with an increase indicating gaining life and a decrease indicating losing life. A player whose life total drops to 0 or less loses, and they are considered dead. Life is a resource that needs to be tracked on paper or a life counter. Life loss can occur from damage by unblocked creatures or direct damage from spells. Black cards can make players lose life without a drain effect, such as Blood Tribute, Burden of Greed, and Shadow Slice.
Other black cards force players to lose half their life total or pay life as part of the cost of a spell or ability. Black reverted to life loss in 2019, with the last clear damage example being Serrated Scorpion. While there are spells that can prevent damage, only Platinum Emperion can prevent the loss of life. To pay life is the same as losing life, and damage causes the loss of life.
What does prevent all damage mean in MTG?
The act of preventing damage does not result in the untapping or cessation of an attack; rather, it serves to negate the damage that would otherwise have been inflicted. It is a characteristic of creatures that they will inflict damage upon creatures that are engaged in a blocking action; however, creatures that are engaged in a blocking action are unable to inflict damage upon other creatures. This is due to the fact that your creatures will inflict damage upon blocking creatures.
What is the 75% rule in MTG?
The 75 rule in MTG represents a foundational concept that informs both the construction of decks and the decision-making process during gameplay. The 75 rule suggests that a deck should be powerful enough to win against 75 opponents, thereby ensuring a balanced and effective deck.
Is playing MTG good for your brain?
Magic: The Gathering, a collectible card game, was awarded the “Mensa Select” classification by Mensa in 1994 for its originality, challenge, and well-designed nature. Higher End Geek considers it the best game for brain-training exercise due to its complex rules and intellectual demands. Magic is a collectible game with a robust secondary market, with high-value cards like the popular dual land Underground Sea from Revised Edition constantly increasing in value.
The game’s inception from 1993-1994 saw a large selection of high-dollar cards that continuously appreciate in value, making it a valuable brain-training exercise. The game’s robust secondary market and high-quality cards make it a worthwhile investment for players.
📹 Explaining MTG Jargon, Terms, and Common Phrases
Magic the Gathering’s player base, like all gaming communities, has invented and adopted terms for certain effects, game actions, …
I pretty much like to divide the cards in all of my decks into two categories – around 35 cards that directly correlate to the deck’s/Commander’s strategy (so, in a tribal deck, for example, that’s on-tribe creatures and tribal support) and then around 30 cards of the “oil” that keeps the deck running aka removal, ramp and card draw. so, it usually averages out to about 10 to 15 pieces of removal/mass removal. some variance depending on the deck, of course, but yeah.
While I don’t run a ton or the right amount in all of my decks I think that dranith magistrate, in my subjective opinion, acts as a check valve for a number of decks in commander. I understand why people get salty when it does come down on two, but there are ways to deal with it. If people take anything away from this comment and by extension, the article, know when, what, and how you can deal with problem cards.
Playing “on theme” removal really helps ease deckbuilding frustration. My self-mill deck has Shenanigans, a removal spell with dredge. While deck space is tight between ramp, card draw, removal, and on-theme, cards that fit multiple categories can mitigate crowding. Also, your commander can fill one of these roles! Kelsien The Plague decks don’t need much removal because he himself is removal.
This is more of a vent that’s slightly off topic but eh, user interaction. It feels you every only have like 10 slots for what you want to put into your commander deck. 37 lands, 10 pieces of ramp, 15 pieces of removal/interaction, thats over half the deck to just requirements. Granted some of these things can be on theme, but otherwise your deck sort of just fails without these. Edit: AND 10 pieces of card draw!! I knew I was forgetting something. That’s only 30 slots for things that don’t fall into any of the above categories. Granted, card draw is probably the easiest to get on theme, so it gets a little more of a pass.
I noticed when I play rakdos I have the most removal. In my olivia voldadren reanimator deck, almost every big creature I reanimate has some kind of etb/death trigger that removes an opponent’s permanent. Things like noxious gearhulk, Shoeldred, Massacre wurm, tyrant of discord, and malfegor. Another rakdos deck ive tried is zagras pingers, it seems insanely annoying to play against. If you thought kelsien the plague was an irritating deck to go against this is on the same level.
I’m really a Brawl player, so I definitely don’t think Drannith Magistrate should be legal. But Brawl surely is a different format than EDH. Since it’s 1v1, tempo play and removal suckers are really good. Since you generally want to at least have 2-3 pieces of interaction before turn 4-5 ends, a 2 drop that can suck a removal is pretty strong.
I think that the practice of goldfishing tends to underestimate the power of removal spells in our decks and dont teach us how to use them correctly. It’s hard to imagine a realistic dangerous threat or stax that we need to answer. When I am goldfishing, I use to do the question “which permanent or spell would block or put in danger my game in this moment?” and if I have the answer for this situations, I fell good. And, about Boardwipes, when I flood or whatever slows my game, I think that it would be a nice moment to Wipe the board. So, as more slower my deck is, more wipes and removals will be required, or, if my deck use to be the target on the table (at least on the early game), I will probably need less removal e more resilience/redundance/Counter/protection cards.
If I can go against the hay for a second, and I understand this is an old article, but I notice some… problematic players run up to a low power pod with their high power deck, win early, and use it as a way to gloat “Play more removal.” I certainly think there are harmful ways it can spread, even if it has good intentions
i have found my favorite commander deck in Ur Dragon, and im always happy to talk about it, i run actually very few removal cards that target creatures because my deck’s advantage card slots are 3 copies of basically “play dragon get damage” if i am ahead i can use it to maul life totals and if im behind i can use it to pick threats off the board, however my advice if you find yourself in my situation were a specific type of removal is well integrated is thus DO NOT RELY ON IT!!!!! because creature removal is integrated into my win plan i get maybe 1-2 turns before it attracts removal if it isn’t countered outright the rest of my removal is destroy/exile target permanent or one sided board wipes because dragons require you to commit major mana to the board and even a game saving board nuke will still put me too far behind
The way I have started to rationalize removal in order to get myself to actually put any removal into my decks at all, is to think of removal as shitty miniature time warp cards. Sure, it doesn’t do anything to advance my board state. But it can be such a big setback for my opponent, that it might as well be giving me a “extra turn”. Not to mention, that if I am able to get multiple cards from the opponent with a single board wipe, then it may not have drawn me any cards, but I will have more cards in my hand than my opponent. It’s advantage by getting advantage of your opponent, rather than just drawing more cards.
Removal is an important part of the format, but certain decks can easily get away with less than 10. For instance, my slivers deck plays two board wipes that all of my creatures are immune from. One will get rid of nearly everybody’s permanents except lands and artifacts, etc. But slivers presents such a huge threat with a tutoring commander that it is hard to deal with. Just by using my tutor ability reactively rather than trying to race ahead too quickly, my Slivers deck can effectively counter spot removal, survive board wipes and deal with just about any threat. It becomes impossible to stop at a certain point. Some of the slivers so work as spot removal pieces, which effectively makes all of them spot removal. So in a way, there’s up to an infinite amount of removal pieces in the deck, but I play very few targeted removal that isn’t my creatures. Any counter I use is modal so that it isn’t a wasted cascade hit. There are other decks where obscure combos to propel me into immense advantage are such a part of the deck that minimal removal is needed.
I don’t like the magic players who argue from color breaks like feed the swarm and chaos warp. It would be like trying to debate based on hornet sting, preacher, and rathi trapper. I really hate color breaks. Feed the swarm and all the green “fight” spells like infectious bite that are basically murder just make me sad.
“Dies to removal” is a bad argument for why a card shouldn’t be banned, because it often ignores the context it was or is being played in. Hullbreacher “dies to removal”, but it was usually cast at a player’s end step, once most people were tapped out, then the owner would untap and wheel. Sure, removal would have stopped it, but its effect and how it was used offset that by too much. My favorite counter-argument is this: Emrakul, Aeons Torn dies to removal, but it should definitely stay on the ban list.
“math is for blockers” to indicate that you’re pretty sure you’ll win by attacking with everything but you don’t want to figure it out yourself. “Looting” to indicate draw a card, discard a card. And it’s best friend “card selection” which is kind of like card advantage but you don’t actually get more cards (scry, surveil, looting, etc)
One thing that I think is really interesting is that I’ve actually heard a few terms that originated in Magic make their way over to Yu-Gi-Oh. One example of this is “mill,” which originated as a shorthand reference to the card Millstone and its then-unique decking out mechanic. It became such an ubiquitous shorthand for “put the top cards of your deck into your graveyard” that not only did it make its way to Yu-Gi-Oh slang, it eventually ended up becoming an official Magic keyword.
One minor but confusing distinction is the difference between mono-red Burn decks and “Red Deck Wins” (RDW). They’re both mono-red aggro decks, but RDW is more creature-based, and Burn is more based on damaging non-creature spells. (Which also reminds me, something that confuses a lot of new players is that every card that isn’t a land is a “Spell,” even artifacts & creatures.)
More slang off the top of my head: -Wheel: An effect that makes all players discard their hand and draw some number of cards, named after Wheel of Fortune. -Pump: An effect that raises a creature’s stats until end of turn. -Combat trick: An instant that alters how combat was going to happen, like by saving a creature. Mostly relevant in Limited. -Fix/Colorfix: A card that helps you get to more colors of mana easily, but not more (so not ramp). -Manabase: The lands and mana-producing cards in your deck with which you plan to develop your game. Mainly used when discussing consistency and probability. -Dual: A land that taps for two different colors of mana, with whatever restriction or cost necessary to do so. -2 for 1: A card advantage exchange where someone ends up +1 card ahead. Often because 1 card was used to remove 2 but also used in other cases. -Hatebear: A small creature with an effect that restricts your opponent. Started out as bears (2/2s for 2) but I’ve seen it used with other stats as well. -Toolbox: A ministrategy where you play a bunch of one-ofs and a card that can tutor any of them, so that you adapt to what you need. -Trade: To block a creature with another creature such that both are destroyed in combat. -Red zone: Combat, often in regards to attacking specifically. -Instant speed: An action you can do anytime you have priority, just like how you play instants. -Sorcery speed: An action you can do during your main phase when the stack is empty, just like how you play sorceries.
Big ones that should probably be noted “Mana Dork” A creature that can (and usually only is) tapped for mana “Bolt the Bird” A piece of advice that has turned into a play sequence, using a burn spell or removal to kill a 1 drop dork like Birds of Paradise “Fizzle” When an effect fails, usually because it’s target has become invalid “Fail to Find” this one is…special. its a very creative use of rules about searching your library that has made some memorable moments. “Fetchland, Shockland” two special land card cycles that define entire formats “Cycle” A series of related cards printed across the colours “Cracking” Sacrificing a non creature permanent for it’s effect, usually used with Fetchlands
I hope one day the Duel Logs embrace insanity and starts making articles like “Top10 differences between MtG and YGO mechanics” lile the stack work or banish/exile zone, or how in MtG a 0/0 card can’t stay on the field unlike YGO. Would also be fun to point some of these differences in articles like these, so also other games players can be introduced to foreign mechanics. But I will acknowledge that would be a ton of work.
Mill was actually recently canonized as a term for sending the top card(s) of your deck to the Graveyard, based on Millstone. Another analogous term for tutor is “fetch”, particularly for lands, wherein the most famous are the “fetchlands”. (I’ve also heard “slow fetch” to refer to stuff like Evolving Wilds that bring in lands only to immediately tap them.) Lands have all sorts of nicknames, usually named for the condition (if any) for which they come into play untapped. Aside from the aforementioned fetchlands, shocklands are dual lands (any land that can tap for one of two colors) that can come in untapped by taking 2 damage, painlands let you tap for one of their two colors by taking 1 damage each time (or a colorless for free), and scrylands (a.k.a. Temples) always come in tapped and let you Scry 1 when played, among many others. In general, lands that always come in tapped get referred to as “taplands”, a supertype under which there are many subtypes. “Cycles” are any group of cards (usually one of each color / combination) that follow a common pattern, often some kind of common trigger. A recent Dominaria United cycle were the creatures that, when on the board, turn certain colors of mana on spells you cast into Phyrexian mana (which itself means mana you can pay by tapping 1 color or by paying 2 life instead). Another synonym for splashing is to call a deck by its major color(s) and to give it an adjective indicative of its splashed color (i.e. bright, dim, wet, warm…
Mana Dork – creatures that tap for mana Mana Rock – artifacts that tap for mana Sac – sacrifice Sac outlet – a card that allows you to sacrifice cards Combat trick – cards, usually instants, that modify stats or give abilities that interact with combat Milling – putting the top card from your deck into your graveyard, comes from Millstone and is now an official keyword
Also worth mentioning, if I’m not mistaken, the turn “swinging” with a creature to describe attacking with it comes from MTG as well despite seeing use in many card games. Both stemming from the idea of using your creature as a weapon (like how you’d swing a weapon at someone) and how the motion of tapping your creature while you attack with it actually “swings” one end of the card outward.
Most decks that get called control in magic are actually a subset of control decks called reactive control decks. Another name for prison decks is proactive control decks. It’s not super common terminology among the community, but fundamentally, both are trying to control the game, but classic control is trying to react with answers to opponent’s threats as or after they come down, whereas prison decks are placing answers down proactively to prevent the opponent from enacting their gameplan. Also, a pretty important shorthand for MtG is the color coding. All five colors together are referred to as WUBRG (woo-berg), for White, blUe, Black, Red, Green. Since black and blue both start with B, blue was changed to U. This makes it real easy to denote mana costs, such as 2uu for a spell that costs 2 generic and 2 blue mana. It also gets used to denote colors for decks, particularly for Temur and Sultai decks, which are RUG and BUG respectively. A further convention some have adopted is using lower case for splash colors. So for the Jeskai Black example mentioned, that’d be WURb.
There are official names for the four color decks which were announced in 2016 when the commander preconstructed decks for that year were each of the 4 color combinations, although most people don’t remember them. Non-white is “Chaos”, Non-blue is “Aggression”, Non-black is “Altruism”, Non-red is “Growth”, and Non-green is “Artifice”. Prior to those commander decks, the closest thing to a 4 color legendary card that many people allowed as a commander were the cycle of Nephilim cards from the Ravnica set. The “Chaos” nephilim is Glint-Eye Nephilim so people would refer to the combo as “Glint”, Aggression has Dune-Brood Nephilim so “Dune”, Altruism has Ink-Treader Nephilim so “Ink”, Growth has Witch-Maw Nephilim so “Witch”, and Artifice has Yore-Tiller Nephilim so “Yore”
6:06 Slight adendum to the term Stompy. Stompy decks are aggro decks that relly on very well costed and efficient creatures, acting almost as a missing link between aggro and midrange. There’s a deck in Pauper called Mono Black Stompy that uses cards like Carniphage and Sangrophage, a 1 mana 2/2 and a 2 mana 3/3 respectively which both deal damage to you every turn, to win the game quickly. Because of the raw stats of the creatures being used, the deck is called Stompy.
Tbf in the earlier days of Yugioh, control decks referred to the same thing they do in magic: winning through favorable trades and card advantage. It was even the reason Don Zaloog was the most dominating monster in the game for a time period, as using a board wipe followed by a direct attack from Don Zaloog could mean a massive difference in card advantage. Thousand-Eyes Restrict was essentially the king of early control decks, eating up a monster, often then destroying another monster in battle and ultimately eating a removal spell, trading 3-1. It was also the reason the gadgets were so strong initially that they ended up semi limited: they were weak, but since they added another one to your hand you could essentially spam the removal spells you drew naturally while always keeping a gadget on the field so you’d eventually win through sheer card advantage too. Nowadays regular decks have adopted a “card advantage matters” mindset too, while control decks became more prison like.
A couple of terms i thought you missed: Bomb: a high impact card that immediatly swings the game Mono(color) decks: decks playing only a single color Hatebear: Wizards has a tradition of printing 2 mana creatures that hate on specific mechanics Tax effects: cards that have a continous cost for your opponent, if prison decks prevent you from playing those decks just make it harder to play Mana rocks: cards that generate mana (french)vanilla: creatures without effect (but with keywords) toolbox: a deck playing cards that are good in specific situations and a way to tutor them from deck (Birthing pod/collected company/etc) There are hundreds of terms you can include but you got most of the commonly used ones, although if you mentioned bears you might aswell give all the named statlines since they are quite fun to know
Mill (the process of putting a card from the top of a players library directly into their graveyard) may be a common keyword now, but it used to be always referred to with the long definition in the rules and only the players shortened it to mill, referencing Millstone which was the first major card with that effect.
I learned more in this article than I have from any of your other articles, so useful for me! In our circle, I naturally shorthanded “Tap and freeze” for “…it doesn’t untap during its controllers next untap step”, due to primarily being Blue and usually with ice themes. I only recently learned the community at large says “freeze” for the same too. Though WotC recently settled on “Stun Counter” instead of Freeze Counter, I’m guessing so that it doesn’t have to be so attached to Blue. Oh, and maybe you can add pronouncing “WotC”?
That “Holding Priority” bit is actually relevant to a card that got released in last year’s Kaldheim set: Tibalt’s Trickery. It was an Instant with a cost of 1R, and it had the effect where it counters a spell, that spell’s controller mills 1, 2, or 3 cards (determined randomly), and then they exile cards off the top of their library until they hit a nonland card, which they can then cast without paying its mana cost, then return the exiled cards to the bottom of their library in a random order. What people would do with this is on their own second turn, they would cost a 0-cost spell (such as Tormod’s Crypt, or an X-cost spell with no mana put into it), then use Tibalt’s Trickery to counter it, and then the rest of their deck would be either boss monsters (such as the Eldrazi Titans, the Phyrexian Praetors, Griselbrand, etc.), or other spells that could, themselves, cheat out those boss monsters in other ways. This effect ended up being so good, that Tibalt’s Trickery ended up getting Banned shortly after the set’s release.
I like the Yu-Gi-Oh analogy. The reason why MTG “control” isn’t as prevalent in Yu-Gi-Oh is because every deck has to run negates and removal in order for their decks to succeed. Especially how archtypes in both TCGs are vastly different. Herald of Perfection is essentially a control deck in Magic terms. In magic, Aggro decks can succeed with a few removal spells, but in some matchups it’s pretty much sided out for better options.
I don’t remember if this was mentioned, but “hand attack” refers to forcing opponent to discard. “Wishboard,” cards in sideboard intended to be accessed with “wish” spells, like the adventure half of Fae of Wishes, Granted. “Making dudes and turning ’em sideways,” a deck with only creatures in it that attacks each turn.
To note, all 5 colors together in one deck (which usually is only in commander) are typically referred to a WUBRG decks. Pronounced Wu-Burg. Since thats the abbreviation that every color gets by the player base. W = white, U = Blue, B = Black, R = Red, and G = Green. Typically, color pips in casting costs and ability costs are put in the patter of White, then Blue, then Black, then Red, and then Green with generic mana symbols going before the colored ones. U is used for Blue because Black and Blue share the first two letters, so we used the third letter of blue. 5 color decks are typically not used in other formats simply because its optimal to play decks focused on 2 or 3 colors rather than having cards with all 5 somewhere, so cards with all five colors in their casting cost are normally cheated in through some method.
Fetches or fetch lands are a group of lands that let you sacrifice the land in order to search your library for a land that shares a land type with a land type mentioned on the card (mountain, forest, plains, etc.). Some people will refer to the sacrificing of the fetch land as “cracking a fetch land”. These lands are generally considered the best lands ever printed so if you play formats where they are legal, it’s good to know what the term refers to.
For four-color combinations, another nominal notation is to use the names of the Nephilim, which are all four-colored creatures. Some sites/resources like EDHrec use this notation. The names for the combinations are listed below: WBRG: Dune-Brood WURG: Ink-Treader WUBG: Witch-Maw WUBR: Yore-Tiller UBRG: Glint-Eye Terms for 5-color decks include “rainbow” and “5 color”, which is often shorthanded into “5C”. Similarly, four color decks can be shorthanded and written as “4C”, although that wouldn’t specify which 4 colors are being used.
Couple of quick things to add on… When you mentioned priority, there was one mistake. The turn player does receive priority as the “default” when most things happen (stack empties, new step/phase starts, etc.) but when a player with priority activates an ability or casts a spell, THAT player retains priority until they decide to pass it, it doesn’t go right back to the turn player after. The graphic was correct but your script contradicted it a little, or left out that part. And in regards to the four-color combinations, this is less a correction and more just an interesting tidbit: you’re certainly not incorrect that no names for them have “stuck”, but there is a pretty accurate moniker for each of them that comes from the 4-color Commander decks a few years back. Like how you mentioned that it’s easiest to identify a 4-color deck by the color it lacks rather than the color it is, Wizards actually caught onto that too, and managed to actually form a coherent pattern for 4-color interactions around that time. Each one is defined not by some mish-mash of the four colors it is, but by the antithesis of whatever color it’s missing. To go in order: White is the color of order, stability, and fairness, so the blue-black-red-green color combination is “Chaos”. Blue is the color of intelligence, patience, and ‘mind over matter’, so the white-black-red-green combination is “Aggression” (of the implicitly physical variety). Black is the color of manipulation, selfishness, and exploitation, so the white-blue-red-green combination is “Altruism”.
I don’t know if it’s a widely accepted term, but when my friends or me play a 5 color deck, we call it a rainbow deck. I’ve heard other people call it that too. At the very least, I’ve never had anyone ask me what I mean when I’m talking about rainbow decks. It’s pretty selfexplanatory, but how many people actually use it, I have no idea.
Four-colors do sometimes have names people use, after the four color nephilim from Ravnica. Glint for whiteless, Dune for blueless, Ink for blackless, Witch for redless, and Yore for greenless. They’re uncommon enough that nobody is gonna drop them in a normal conversation, but if you wanted a name for it you’ve got it now.
The one name I heard for four-colour combinations was naming them after the Nephilim, ancient Ravnican gods from the Guildpact set, and the only four-colour cards for a long time (until Commander 2016 ten years later): Dune (no Blue) Glint (no White) Ink (no Black) Witch (no Red) Yore (no Green) But as he said, exactly four colours aren’t that common, and the Nephilim weren’t really all that good nor popular, so I guess it just doesn’t come up very often.
For EDH/Commander there re a few terms; Zones – Command, Exile, Graveyard, Battlefield… Different type of decks; Group Hug – where one or more players use cards that HELP everyone – fun game and usually a political type atmosphere as a table of multiple players usually like drawing extra cards, extra creatures, extra life etc – so a player that attacks the Group Hugger usually gets attacked 🙂 Tool Box – A deck where it has answers to virtually all situations regardless of board position or hand sizes. Roll – How fast the deck usually plays – slow roll for example early angel decks took a long time to get going, but once they did – they were virtually unstoppable and huge…. fast roll would be ‘aggro’ decks, or used as a term for fast deck. Team – EDH/Commander has formats where you have multiple team mates against another team. Format’s like these are ‘Two-headed Giant’ for teams of 2 v 2, and then there is ‘Emperor’ where it is a minimum 3v3 with the middle of the players the Emperor where the opposing team can not attack them unless they remove one or both ‘generals’ either side…. the Emperor can pass creatures from his board to either of his generals… All these type of formats has the team having one life total. Other MTG stuff Cube – where players do not have their decks but play from a store/friends one huge deck. Can be played as one huge library and each player draws 7 cards, then plays accordingly… or can be used to ‘Draft’ Draft – whether from a pre-made Cube, unopened boosters, or opened ‘blocks’.
I’ve been playing over a decade. I know all these terms. But when you started explaining which cards all the names came from 🤯 I learned a few new things. Who knew that lords aren’t just the iconic leaders of their tribe, all lords are lords because they’re kinda like that one Atlantis lord guy? Not I.
“Rock” meaning artifacts that tap for mana “Voltron” decks being decks that focus on buffing 1 or 2 creatures through enchantments, equipment, or a combination of both “Tribal” being decks built around a specific creature type “Group hug” when you have effects that on the surface benefit everyone “Tax” being effects that make your opponent have to spend more mana to do things
Couple others I can think of: Drake: 2/2 creature with flying for 3. not as popular as bear but I’ve heard it being used a lot more. Named after Wind Drake IIRC. Bomb: A card that can win games alone in limited. Rummage: An effect that makes you discard card(s) to draw equal amount of cards. Comes from Rummaging Goblin. Loot: An effect that makes you draw card(s), then discard equal amount of cards. Comes from Merfolk Looter. Firebreathing: An activated ability that gives you +1/+0 until end of turn. Named after the aura Firebreathing, but first was introduced by Shivan Dragon. Going off: Related to combo decks when your deck is doing their combo. Goldfishing: Testing your deck by playing your deck without an opponent. Hard cast: Paying the mana cost of a spell instead of its alternative cost, likewith Force of Will. Rainbow: A deck which players all the colors. Might also be called WUBRG decks. Impulse Draw: A card effect that exiles the top card(s) of your library and you being able to play them that turn. Possibly named after Act on Impulse. Lethal: A chance to deal enough damage to bring opponent’s life to 0. for instance: “Swinging for lethal” meaning that you attack with enough creatures to win the game. Mana sink: Cards with activated abilities that do not tap, meaning you can use it repeatedly. Nonbo: An interaction between two or more cards that is a negative/disadvantageous to you. Pump spell: A spell that increases power/toughness until end of turn. Like Giant Growth Voltron: A deck archetype where your goal is to boost a single creature with auras/equipments/pump spells to win through.
Another excellent article to refer people to! I would love more of these, maybe organized into a “Explaining Magic for Newbies” queue. I’d imagine that’s already the plan, so basically I just want to encourage that plan! 😄 I’d suggest maybe going over good entry points to paper Magic, like Jumpstart, and a list of online resources, though I know Prof just did that article. I really enjoy perusal these, please keep it up!
The Ultimate Slang Guide Broken- my pet deck has a poor matchup Cracked- I can’t afford these singles Jank- easily disrupted and flashy Loose Keep- I was too stubborn to mulligan Punt- I did not read the cards on the table Dece- a well balanced game piece Plays?- stop flicking your cards I Played To My Outs- I topdecked my single piece of interaction Magical Christmas Land- the only place your combo is possible Mise- a forced meme from the Unglued set that just means topdeck Windmill Slam- What you do when you draw Miracle cards Flood- I drew 19 of my 21 lands Screw- I drew 2 of my 29 lands Tempo- no one knows what this means Combo Control- an imaginary deck archetype, like a unicorn, or Splinter Twin Next Level Play- I still think Tarmogoyf is the best creature ever Blowout- I blocked without considering opposing removal Exactsies- the largest possible dopamine rush available to a card gamer
Personally my group has a few extra words along the lines of Blink. Blink means to exile and return immediately as part of the same effect, Flicker is to exile something and return it at the end step (named after Flickerwisp), and Banish is to exile something until the card with that effect leaves play (named after Banishing Light).
10:52 I’d like to append that ‘stax’ lists are typically separated from other prison strategies by their symmetrical nature, harming all players at the table in the same way. Stax lists therefore have extremely specific strategies that get around their otherwise extremely efficient symmetrical effects smothering most other conventional strategies because they are subject to their own prison mechanics.
The common term “Rubric” refers to all 5 colours being in the mana cost of a spell or ability. “The card’s casting cost is rubric.” rather than saying that is requires White, Blue, Black, Red and green or saying it requires all five colours. Additionally, the way most magic players will list the casting cost for cards and abilities they will say each colour symbol that appears and then a number for the colorless mana value. (you can also use the names for 2/3 colour groups.) Example: “The card’s casting cost is Blue, Blue, 3.” or “I paid Bant plus 2”.
I would say one I haven’t seen mentioned in the comments is o-ring, which is shorthand for Oblivion Ring. The effect is to exile a permanent as long as said card is on the field, and due to how it is worded it can allow some shenanigans. Its effect shows up a pretty good amount, though it’s primarily a W effect.
If you play with older players you might hear different shard wedge names, they are based on the old -volver cycle. The shards wedges old names are Necra for Abzan, Raka for Jeskai, Dega for Mardu, Ceta for Temur and Ana for Sultai Sultai is often also called BUG as in Black Blue Green Edit:sharded my wedges 😢
Here’s the few that I can think of off the top of my head: “Fog” for combat damage negation effects. “Turbofog” for the specific decks that run off of using fog effects and card advantage engines to control the game. “Steve” for Sekura Trobe Elder “Bob” for Dark confidant “Sadbot/Sad Robot” for Solemn Simulacrum “Wheel” for effects that allow for discard hand, draw seven effects. “Hatebear”, the portmanteau for when a “hate” effect is put on a two CMC creature with ‘bear’ stats. “- On a stick” when a common/popular instant or sorcery gets printed as an ability of a creature. I.e. magus of the moon is blood moon on a stick.
Other jargon I thought off: -WUBRG -Reanimate -Mana Rocks -Going Infinite -Looping -Cheerios’ -Card cycles -names os land cycles (fetches, painlands, etc) -voltron -format names and limited and constructed -Bombs -flample -archenemy -topdecking -decking out -impulse draw -looting -rummaging -vanilla creature -fling
Thanks for this! I started playing MTG back in early 1994, but drifted out of it around 1998 or so. I’m just getting back into Magic now, after almost 25 years away, and this article was super-helpful! I knew a lot of these terms already, and others I had picked up by context, but this definitely still filled in some blanks. 👍🏻🙂
The most common names I’ve heard for the four-color combinations are Artifice (non-green), Chaos (non-white), Aggression (non-blue), Altruism (non-black), and Growth (non-red). Unfortunately I think the main reason they never really caught on much is that a lot of those terms also refer to other things in the game (notably Chaos being decks that do lots of random stuff, Aggression getting mixed up with Aggro, and Growth being shorthand for Giant Growth and similar effects).
In regards to the 4-color combinations, I’ve heard some people referring to them by names related to the original cycle of 4-color Nephilim cards that came out in the set Guildpact. RBGW is called ‘Dune’ after Dune-Brood Nephilim UBRG is called ‘Glint’ after Glint-Eye Nephilim RGWU is called ‘Ink’ after Ink-Treader Nephilim GWUB is called ‘Witch’ after Witch-Maw Nephilim WURB is called ‘Yore’ after Yore-Tiller Nephilim And 5-color decks are typically referred to as ‘Rainbow decks’ because they include all 5 mana colors.
Tucking means to put something on the bottom of the library (used to be very common in EDH). Mana Rocks are usually artifacts that tap for mana. The different types of lands all have special names (eg shocklands, fetchlands, painlands, duelands). Your definition of Midrange is different from when I played. Midrange usually referred to playing creatures slightly larger then aggro to create virtual card advantage. Playing all of the best cards used to be called goodstuff. Fog is used for every fog effect. Tron refers to playing the Urza’s lands. Top Deck refers to playing the card you just drew.
Here are Three big ones that you missed. W.U.B.R.G- White, Blue, Black, Red, Green. But two that you used extinctively but did not explain (just shows how common people use them) are Expensive and Cheap Expensive- A card with a high CMC (Usually 5+) Cheap – A card with a low CMC (Usually 1 or 2 sometimes 3) A funny story. I was playing with a friend who is fairly new to magic and I was trying to decide whether or not I should buy a certain card for one of my decks. The pro was a very powerful effect that would greatly improve the synergy of my deck if I got it out. The con was the high CMC of the card which would make it more difficult to get out. I was basically talking to myself and I said “This is an awesome card in my deck, but it’s really expensive.” My friend looking at that card in the display responds “But it’s less than $2, it’s not that exensive, if it helps your deck then just get it.” Then I had to explain to him what I meant by expensive lol.
Rhystic Studies, in his article on the Tarmogoyf (which you actually showed in this vid) mentioned the “MtG rite of passage” that is “facing the resolve order” or something akin to that. “Tarmogoyf is a 2/3, bolt the Goyf, bolt deals 3 damage, Goyf is now a 3/4” For those who are wondering, Tarmogoyf is a ×/×+1 that gets +1/+1 per different card type in the graveyard. Creature, Sorcery, Artifact, etc. Since the Tarmogoyf was 2/3, and there were (theoretically) no instant spell cards in the graveyard, as soon as the Bolt resolves and enters the graveyard, Tarmogoyf becomes 3/4 at the same time it takes 3 damage. As for the 4-colour decks, weren’t the Nephilim 4 colours? They just never really took off when they were released, and was just super clunky to play, at least from what I remember.
When you were mentioning the khans wedges you should have mentioned the old names for them that older players still use. R/W/U or Jeskai used to be called America cause red white blue. W/B/G or Abzhan used to be called Junk because a lot of the times the decks seemed to be filled with a random assortment of junk that would just win similar to jund B/U/G or Sultai was literally called Bug in reference to the fact that that’s the word all 3 color abbreviations together made R/U/G or Temur was called Rug for the same reason as above W/B/R or Mardu was kind of the problem with the wedges because nobody really settled on a name for it, different groups would call it Brew(because if you reorder the color abbreviations you get BRW which looks like Brew), Dega in reference to the card Degavolver, Oros cause you are playing Boros(R/W) but removed the B to put it in the colors. all seemed to fit decently well so nobody could settle Another thing, older players commonly refer to something costing or making 1 of every color as costing or makes WUBRG(pronounced WOO-BURG) in reference to the order that colors appear on the color pie: White(W)-Blue(U)-Black(B)-Red(R)-Green(G) this is also the order that colors will appear in mana costs of cards for example a Grixis card(U/B/R) will always have its color costs in the order of Blue first, Black second, and Red last. meaning that something can cost 1/U/B/R (or 1 + Grixis) but never 1/B/U/R or 1R/U/B this is just a convention that mtg has used the entire time in order to maintain consistency and is interesting to point out.
Behold MTG control.. a combination of resource management to use removal/gain tempo/card advantage to outsmart your opponent by actually Controlling the phase of the game …. Instead of “YGO control” which is just set up borderline brainded negations/gameplay restrictions for No Cost… See the difference?
I don’t really agree with your terms of how decks are referred to. On the Yu-Gi-Oh side funnily enough. What MtG calls prison decks, Yu-Gi-Oh players call stun decks, which is what mystic mine is. Control decks are still control decks. They’re rare in Yu-Gi-Oh, but do exist. Sky Striker is the easiest example I can think of. Whittling at your opponent with smaller scale interruptions while constantly going plus until you can keep playing and they can’t.
i just started playing mtg again Started when the mirrodin cycle came out so its been like ten years and for the last 4 months i was like WTF is a grull deck, what do you mean nice Rakdos deck?…so thx for making this vid(Drawing no Mana used to be getting MANA BURN lol) cool its pretty much stayed the same tho
Yu-Gi-Oh has always had what MTG players would consider control decks. They aren’t as prevalent as they used to be back in the day but they are still a thing. Sky Striker, all the Invoked/Dogmatika/Shaddoll variants, Altergeist are all examples of control decks in the past few years. They all prefer to play a grindier game where they aim to win through card advantage and out resourcing the opponent.
Splashing Blue specifically is usually just referenced by tacking ‘moist’ in front of the color name like Moist Gruul versus calling it a Sultai deck, or my personal favorite I’ve heard is Moisdu . . . which was a hilarious way i heard someone reference their Mardu deck that splashed blue. I’m sure the rest of the color splashed have specific naming conventions attached to them, but lets be real, blue is probably the most common splash.
“Top decking”: having an empty hand, and therefore no cards to play except whatever you draw from the top of your deck at the start of your turn. “Durdling” aka “playing solitaire”: taking a long time on your turn, especially before battle, as you play and/or activate a lot of cards thay don’t affect your opponent/s
I’ll give a clarification on yugioh control decks. Control decks aren’t just prison decks most of the times. We have decks like sky striker that wins by recurring resources every turn and clearing the board, and altergeist, that wins by negating opponent’s cards through counter traps and resolving multifaker, a high value card, as many times as they can, as it returns to the hand after resolving and can trigger once per turn. Then again, we also have “prison” decks, but they’re actually just control decks that aren’t hurt by floodgates, very strong cards that restrict both players from one type of action. For example eldlich doesn’t have monsters with on field effects, so they can play skill drain that negates them all. Also, having only zombie light monster and a slow gameplay, eldlich player can run gozen match, that forces each player to play with one attribute (light), and rivalry of warlords, same thing with type (zombie). Mystic mine, the card mentioned in the article, is played in almost every deck, even aggro decks, as it can win a game for free if your opponent doesn’t have an answer. It finds a slot in almost every control deck just because you have no reason to not to play it, but most of the times it isn’t your only win condition.
Four color decks were always referred to in my playgroup by the associated nephilim i.e. Dune-Brood, Ink-Trader, Yore-tiller, etc because, before the 4 color commanders were released for the first time with Ydris, Breya, and company, we allowed people to play the nehphilim as their commanders as there was no other option at the time. Curious if this was the case for anyone else?
Along with sultai, blue black green is often called called BUG and five is called Wurberg or WUBRG White blUe Black Red Green U is used to represent blue because B is black and blue has a u in it and also makes a u sound. Bolt can also be used for 4 damage, ‘bolt you for 4’ Along with decks that are control aggro and mid range, decks can also play like another deck. Morph back in khans standard, was a mid-range deck that played like a control deck for example, using face down cards to waste or manipulate your opponents removal or board state. Specific decks styles also have their own names, like red deck wins, tron, blue pile or infect, usually based off some historic reason. Affinity for example refers to artifact based deck even if they don’t run the mechanic. Mono, refers to a single color. Deck
Bolt is not actually strictly better than shock in a game theory sense because there are conceivable cases where you want to deal exactly 2 damage instead of 3. If bolt allowed you to deal 2 or 3 damage then it would be strictly better (as in better in every scenario) in a game theory sense. This is why people like to uhmm actually strictly better cards, strictly better has the MTG definition and the game theory definition.
There are a couple of more effects that have names from older cards. “Falter” effect is a card that prevents your opponent’s creatures from blocking this turn. “pacifism” effect is an aura that prevents a creature from attacking or blocking. “counterspell” is a generic name for all spells that counter other spells, “force spike” is a counterspell that can be prevented by paying 1 mana.
I’ve seen some people have a hard time grasping why wedges are wedges and while yes they are shaped like a wedge, you could argue shards are also wedge shape. Alternatively, the two remaining colors not in a wedge will always be enemies of each other, so the wedge is splitting the color pie as if it were an axehead, AKA a wedge. A doorstop is another equivalent. It wedges between the door and the ground, so Mardu wedges between Green and Blue.
i love how You represented Jack of all trades with Jund 🤣 ps. Your mention of “Jeskai-black” reminded me of other deck referred in similar fashion, i’m talking about “Wet (or Moist if You will) Gruul” which was basically Gruul Adventures with splash only for Negate (and sometimes sideboarded Braze Borrower)
Mystic Mine is a stall deck, a type of control deck. Control decks are decks that seek to heavily influence what your opponent is allowed to do, of which stall and “prison” decks qualify. So you are wrong, “control” means the same thing in both Yugioh and Magic. Yugioh do have PLENTY non-stall control oriented decks but since Yugioh is more about archetypes, each archetype has levels of focus on control. How much focus an archetype needs in order to be considered a “control archetype” is debatable. Handtraps are inherently control cards but since every deck uses them, we’ll disregard them. For example, Zoodiacs, Skystrikers, and Eldlitch archetypes have high levels of control cuz interrupting your opponent’s play is a core part of their plays. They are NOT stall decks. Yes, Drident alone is enough to make Zoo a control archetype simply due to how crucial Drident interrupts are.
Better vs strictly better can also be applied to Yugioh. Take, for example, Raigeki, Change of Heart, and Monster Reborn. Raigeki is strictly better than Fissure and Smashing Ground. It is also better than Dark Hole, but not strictly better, since there are many situations where you’d want your monsters destroyed. Change of Heart is strictly better than Mind Control and Brain Control. It is also better than Puppet Plant, but not strictly better, since there are many situations where you’d benefit from Puppet Plant being a Plant monster. Monster Reborn is strictly better than Heraldry Reborn and Viper’s Rebirth. It is also better than Miraculous Rebirth, but not strictly better, since there are many situations where you’d benefit from Miraculous Rebirth being a Quick-Play Spell.
all great except for two things; four colored decks DO have names and are named after the ravnica nephilim, since theyre either the first or most famous 4 color creatures (cant remember which and it doesnt matter). for example, WUBG decks are named witches for witch-maw nephilim, and WGBR are named dunes for dune-brood nephilim, and so on. as an aside, four color decks arent only possible with mana fixing lands but also very very good when piloted by a competent player. very very fun in commander. and the “stacks” term isn’t used much (at least in my circles) since MTG already has the stack for priority effects and frankly shouldn’t be for anyone. It’s a stupid term that I thankfully rarely have heard. Should not be in the vid. If you can’tfigure out why, they’re two completely different things using the same word and the stack is far far more inportant so we never say “stacks” as shorthand for anything. Also for any newer players, no one really gives a crap about the jargon. If you use YGO or Pokemon jargon in a MTG almost everyone is smart enough to suss out what you’re talking about. None of it matters. Its just shorthand and most of it is all pretty intuitive anyway. Welcome to MTG! Its by gar the greatest, mosr beautiful, most intricate, and most fun TCG, but it’s still jank and broken as all hell. Always buy singles from your Friendly Local Game Store. Dont give WoTC your money lol.
Something that bothered me about this was that your example of Control Decks in yugioh were actually Stun decks. Control in Yugioh is mostly about getting 1 for 1 interactions much like in Magic. It’s just that we haven’t seen proper control be good in so long some people started referring Stun decks as control which irritates me to no end
Small feedback: Showing cards that don’t fit what you’re talking about is confusing. Yes, Telling Time and Combo Attack have words in their name about what you’re talking about (tempo and combo). But someone who doesn’t know these cards or is learning these concepts will think they are examples of the concepts of tempo and combo and, well, they’re not.
Voltron decks are a type of agro deck that wants to use lots of equipments or auras to beat over their opponent with a large and indestructible creature. Very popular deck type, and has created a different named deck called hammer time. Hammer time is a voltron like deck popular in modern revolving around equipping the card colossus hammer and killing an opponent in one or two hits
Couple of other terms I hadn’t seen in the article or comments. “EOT” is End Of Turn. Consequently “FOFEOTYL?” is Fact or Fiction End Of Turn You Lose? Not used much anymore nor as scary as it used to be but an old control card advantage card that, often if it was played eot you were so far behind in card advantage to the control deck that you were probably losing. “Tapped out” is another meaning all your lands are tapped. “Ship it” or “send” it is another one for mulliganing. “Goldfishing” is a term for when combo players are going off ie storm or eggs. I’ve seen it used 2 ways one is to describe the comboing because it’s usually pretty non interactive the combo player usually sits for a while doing a bunch of math in their head and might do it a few more times based on what they draw so there’s a good amount of sitting and waiting. I’ve seen it used more as a specific phrase for practicing the combo where as the 1st definition applies as a verb to executing the combo in any fashion like in practice or game, the 2nd definition only applies as a verb for practicing specifically ie you shuffle your deck draw 7 and play as if you were playing with an opponent trying to see how fast or consistently you can assemble your combo. “Win more” similar in a way to magic christmas land, is a term for cards that are more beneficial once your in a winning position ie true conviction or cathars crusade. Sure in some cases those cards are blow outs but when it’s a blow out you’re probably already wining and if you’re on an empty board both of those are useless and you’d be way happier with an elspeth or sun titan.
4 color decks do have a system which from what I know is most common, but like you said, it still doesn’t come up much. A 5 color deck (known as either WUBRG deck or all colors depending on who you talk to, both are pretty common) comes up more. But the 4 color decks are normally called either not insert color here (abbreviated NR for example) or referred to by the nephilim. I’m more of a fan of just calling them by the first way, but online resources I use most like the second better.
11:34 No love for Cartel Aristocrat? It took both that and Falkenrath Aristocrat for Sam Black to come up with the Aristocrats deck. The deck really began life with Cartel Aristocrat, while Falkenrath Aristocrat was included much later in its development, so it’s arguable that more credit should go to the former rather than the latter in forming the deck and immortalizing the term “aristocrat”. Credit and citation to the Star City Games article about the deck, titled “Building the Aristocrats”. It’s an insightful read on the deck type, I recommend it.
Strictly better strictly depends on what purpose you intend behind the card you play. Say you have a Death’s Shadow that you want to cast as big as possible without dying, so you can enchant it with Phyresis and ward off an imposing Blightsteel Colossus from possibly attacking and dealing trample damage on a future turn. You are at 3 life, and have a Shock and a Lightning Bolt in your hand as the only current means of losing life in that moment. Which will you cast? Suddenly Lightning Bolt isn’t so strictly better lol
Technically Cantrip refers to any card that replaces itself regardless of mana cost but usually the cheap ones don’t do anything else but filter or find cards for u so people r less likely to call 4 colour Omnath a Cantrip card but technically it is. N how did u end the article on colour combo terms but not mention Penta? Even Grey for cards like Thought-Knot Seer n Reality Smasher is a term I was expecting to hear but u didn’t even mention Pentacolour which is sad 🙁
I’d love to see a article in this style explaining the common nicknames and key goal for meta decks in formats such as Modern. I recently started playing magic again after quitting around the release of Scars of Mirrodin so I’m familiar with a few decks such as “Titan” but I’d have no clue what I should look out for against “Hammer Time”
when you mentioned cards that are in “prison” decks, you named two cards that are mainly “answer” cards to specific decks or only stop certain decks and forgot to name the ultimate and original “prison” card in Magic that defined the “original” prison deck long before even Yu-Gi-Oh even existed; Stasis.
Ramp is specifically about adding Land, because if you played a “Mana Rock” (an artifact that can generate Mana) as a “ramp” its not really because Lands are Lands and not Artifacts The same when you cheat out a “Mana Dork” (a creature that can generate mana) to “ramp” up. To “Ramp” is specially to play extra Land when you could only play the 1 land drop.
One term I frequently hear while playing magic is people going ‘I’ll sac and crack my fetchland’ to indicate sacrificing 1 life and cracking windswept heath to fetch a land. Which also leads to the next term I was missing which is ‘colourfixing’ to fix getting colourscrewed. Apart from that, I think most terms have been named, nice article!
There are fewer combinations of four colors (there are 5) than there are of two (there are ten). It wouldn’t take that much time to say what they are and 5 are easier to memorize. My mnemonic for them (toned down to a more PG version) is “Gosh Darn I Want You”; i.e. in color wheel order “Glint” (no white, see no light only a glint); “Dune” (no blue, think Arrakis); “Ink” (no black, my printer makes black by using each other color in equal measures); “Witch” (no red, dkw); “Yore” (no green, maybe as in days of yore, so far back the forest wasn’t even here then). Also thought I would hear WUBRG (pronounced WOO-borg) which names the one and only all color combination. ‘U’ is the convention for giving a single letter shorthand for black, to keep it distinct from ‘B’ for blue. Other than that this is a useful and well made article. Keep up the good work!
You didn’t mention mana rocks, tapping, or Uber. Mana rocks are any card that makes 1 mana of any color for 1 generic mana, usually by tapping it. Tapping is when you set a card sideways showing that it has been “used”. Cards that are tapped generally can’t be untapped unless by card effects and otherwise don’t until until your untapped step on your turn. Last thing with Uber is when you use all 5 colors of mana to cast a spell. Funbexamples recently include world tree and jodah the unifier