The Planeswalking Peddler

Magic: The Gathering - Tutorial Week 6

ountdown to the New Year begins… now.

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot…

Wait, that’s five days away. You know what this means? It means there’s still time for me to explain how artifacts and enchantments work before next year.

Without further ado, we’re going straight into an occupied battlefield between two players:

I’ve erased irrelevant abilities and removed the graveyards. For all intents and purposed, what you see is real.

White has two enchantments in play. The first is Honor of the Pure which says:

“White creatures you control get +1/+1.”

White has three creatures, all of them White and all with 2 power and 1 toughness. With Honor of the Pure on the battlefield, this squad of 2/1 creatures all become 3/2, an okay power-toughness boost.

The second enchantment is an ‘enchantment – aura’ called Pacifism, so it has to be attached to something. Currently it’s attached to some kind of Blue creature and reads:

“Enchant creature

Enchanted creature can’t attack or block.”

This means whatever creature that you attach Pacifism to can’t go into combat. If that creature leaves the battlefield, either by dying or some other means, the aura will disappear to the graveyard because it’s attached to nothing.

It’s Blue’s turn and he had attacked White down to 9 life. He better do something to shore up his defences, if not that trio of 3-power creatures will inflict 9 fatal damage on him.

After combat, he starts to do just that. He plays a creature with one ability. It says:

“When Æther Adept enters the battlefield, return target creature to its owner’s hand.”

Which, as we can guess, means that when she comes in, someone is going out. Blue’s opponent has three creatures and Blue is definitely return one of them to save his own bacon.

After doing so, Blue uses his remaining two lands to put something else into play.

It’s a simple artifact creature. Like all normal creatures, it can’t attack right away and has power and toughness. The ability of Runed Servitor is that when it dies (goes to the graveyard from the battlefield) it makes everyone happy by letting them draw cards.

With no extra resources to do anything, and having used up his one-attack-per-turn privilege, Blue sends the turn over to White.

White is not done with his enchantments. He musters another enchantment – aura but this time attaches it to his own creature.

Armored Ascension does two things.

“Enchant creature”

We know what this means. Next:

“Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 for each Plains you control and has flying.”

Simply put, the creature gets bigger the more Plains you have. White has 4 Plains, so the creature gets +4/+4. And regardless how many Plains you have, the creature has flying.

We now have a cluttered position with artifact, creatures, and enchantments with lands. The battlefield looks exactly like this:

It doesn’t really matter whether you attach auras above or below the other card. It all comes down to what you’re comfortable with.

Blue is on a pretty low 7 life. All White has to do now is attack with his enchanted Elite Vanguard and it’s game over. The Elite Vanguard gets +1/+1 from Honor of the Pure, +4/+4 from Armored Ascension, and flying from the Ascension as well. That gives him exactly 7 power. Blue can’t block with his two untapped creatures (the Æther Adept and the Runed Servitor) because neither can block a flying creature.

This section will involve artifacts, more artifacts, less enchantments, examples of how artifacts can populate the battlefield, and a list of… words.

Now, artifact is the most versatile type in Magic. They can do what creatures do, do what enchantments do, or enchantment – auras even. Some can compete with lands.

We have the following battlefield position:

It is possible to build a library (deck) made up entirely of artifacts and lands. What we have here is such a case, except not quite. A few instants and sorceries were included and we shall see them in action.

Green has at his disposal three creatures. The Golem on the left gains him 4 life when it dies. Next to it, the Runed Servitor gets +2/+1 from the Machete that is attached to it, so instead of a 2/2 creature the Servitor is a 4/3 creature. Allow me to bring up the rules regarding equipment again:

1. You play them like normal artifacts. After you pay for a piece of equipment, it comes onto the battlefield but not attached to anything.
2. To attach it to your creature, pay the equip cost. In the case of Trusty Machete, the cost is 2 colourless resources. Blue has a Warlord’s Axe which gives the creature that carries it +3/+1.
3. The equipment will give its bonus to the creature for as long as it is attached.
4. If the creature dies or goes away, the equipment stays on the battlefield, so you can equip it to another creature. In comparison, auras will disappear to the graveyard. You can also shift equipment around from one creature to another just by paying the equip cost again.
5. You can only equip at sorcery-speed, not instant-speed. So to equip something, it must be a) your main phase and b) the stack must be empty.

To the right of the Servitor is a creature with the following ability:

“: Add to your mana pool.”

What it does is exactly what lands do. By tapping the creature (by turning it sideways) you get a green resource. Green lands (Forests) and other lands all work in the same exact way, so this creature is a bit like a land that can attack, block, and carry equipment. Some basic variations of this “mana” ability would be:

“: Add to your mana pool.”

“: Add to your mana pool.”

“: Add to your mana pool.”

“: Add to your mana pool.”

The first means you get 1 White resource. The second means you get 1 Blue, and then 1 Black, and finally 1 Red. “Mana” is the Magic word for “resource”. Whenever something refers to a resource, the word “mana” is used in its place.

Lands, as cards that produce resources, have mana abilities inherently even though it’s not always spelt out.

The last card on the far right of Green’s half of the battlefield says that whenever someone plays a Green card, Green gets to gain 1 life. “Cast something” is the Magic phrase for “play something” while a “spell” is any card with a cost, meaning a spell is any card except lands.

Now a look at Blue’s position. He has one tapped (sideways) creature, a 6/4 with no abilities. He has a creature carrying a Warlord’s Axe, and when this creature dies it can target something to deal 2 damage to it. Then there’s a 4/4 creature with no abilities. On the extreme right is a creature with this ability:

“: Untap Soliton.”

It’s a simple ability. It just means that you can pay 1 Blue mana (1 Blue resource) to change its position from tapped to untapped (meaning to change its position from sideways to straight). Since a tapped creature can’t attack or block, Soliton is useful when Blue requires untapping shenanigans. And you can untap it as much as you want per turn, as long as you can pay 1 Blue mana. Blue has 3 straight (untapped) lands this turn so he can do it three times, although presently this gains no apparent benefit.

I was going to go into some complex calculations with this battlefield, but I think it’s time I brought forth a glossary of Magic terms. Keep these terms handy for future reference. The Magic terms will be bolded on the left with the explanation on the right.

Artifact: any card with the word “Artifact” directly beneath the illustration

Artifact – Equipment: any card with the phrase “Artifact – Equipment” directly beneath the illustration

Creature: any card with power and toughness numbers

Enchantment: any card with the word “Enchantment” directly beneath the illustration

Enchantment – Aura: any card with the phrase “Enchantment – Aura” directly beneath the illustration

Equip: an artifact ability that allows you to attach equipment to your creatures. Same timing restriction as sorceries.

Flying: a creature ability that makes it unblockable to other creatures without flying or the ability to reach up to the sky

Instant: any card with the word “Instant” directly beneath the illustration, a one-shot card

Land: any card with the word “Land” directly beneath the illustration

Library: deck

Life: the measure of how healthy a player is. Players start a game with 20 life each and lose when they have 0 or less life.

Mana: resources needed to make payments, usually obtained from lands, available in five colourful flavours. Mmm-mm.

Mana pool: imaginary pool where mana is stored (not unlike a swimming pool but without the gorgeous swimmers)

Permanent: any card that stays on the battlefield (any card that isn’t an instant or socery)

Sorcery: any card with the word “Sorcery” directly beneath the illustration, a one-shot card

Spell: any card that goes onto the stack. Playing lands do not go through the stack. Every other card type does.

Stack: the spell/ability queue. When a player wants a spell or ability to happen, it goes into the stack and the other player may respond to it by adding another spell/ability and stacking it above the first.

Tap or : turn sideways

Tapped : already sideways

Target: aim at something

Untap: straighten

Untapped: already straightened

: 1 White mana

: 1 Blue mana

: 1 Black mana

: 1 Red mana

: 1 Green mana

Again, keep these terms in mind for future articles. From next week onwards I’ll be using these terms as well as introduce a few more essential ones. And because of this mental task, I think we should take a break and leave this artifact-laden battlefield for another day. Next week, expect an article full of Magic terminology and artifact cards.

Everyone, have a very happy New Year.