Mechanics

A strategy that tries to win quickly by attacking with efficient creatures and pressuring the opponent's life total before they stabilize.

Aggro decks want a low mana curve and reach to finish games.

A spell that destroys, exiles, or otherwise removes most or all creatures (and sometimes other permanents) in play, resetting the board state. Common in slower control decks and a key tool against wide, aggressive boards.

Ending up with more usable cards than your opponent through drawing extra cards, trading one card for two, or generating value from a single permanent.

A spell that kills a creature and draws a card is generating card advantage.

When you cast a spell with cascade, you exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card with lesser mana value, then may cast it for free. The exiled cards not cast go to the bottom in a random order.

A cascade spell is two spells for the price of one, which is why it is popular in Commander.

In Commander, a card's color identity includes the colors in its mana cost and rules text, and every card in your deck must fit within your Commander's color identity.

A card with a red mana symbol in its rules text cannot go in a mono-green Commander deck.

The design philosophy that assigns each of the five colors its own strengths and weaknesses: for example green ramps and grows creatures while blue draws cards and counters spells.

The color pie explains why red is good at burn but cannot draw cards as well as blue.

Two or more cards that work together to produce a powerful result, often winning the game outright. An infinite combo repeats a loop with no limit.

Pieces of a combo are often ordinary cards on their own and only win when assembled.

A strategy that answers the opponent's threats with removal, counterspells, and board wipes, then wins later with a few powerful finishers.

Control decks trade resources 1-for-1 until they can take over with card advantage.

A spell that counters another spell so it does not resolve. Counterspells live in blue and are the core of reactive control strategies.

Holding up mana on your opponent's turn signals a counterspell.

Any amount of damage a source with deathtouch deals to a creature is enough to destroy it. Paired with trample, only 1 damage per blocker needs to be assigned before the rest goes through.

A 1/1 deathtouch creature is a real deterrent because it trades with almost anything that blocks or attacks into it.

Shorthand for 'enters the battlefield,' the trigger condition on abilities that fire the moment a permanent comes into play, such as a creature that draws a card or deals damage when it enters. When an event puts one or more permanents onto the battlefield, all permanents there, including the newcomers, are checked for matching ETB abilities.

You may use Solemn Simulacrum's ETB trigger to search your library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, and shuffle when it enters.

A keyword ability that lets a card be cast at instant speed, i.e. any time a player could cast an instant, including during an opponent's turn. Flash creatures and spells are prized for ambushing opponents and holding up interaction without losing tempo. Flash is a static ability that functions in any zone from which you could play the card.

Sphinx of False Conclusions has flash, so a player may play it any time they could cast an instant.

A creature with flying can be blocked only by creatures with flying or reach. It is one of the most common evasion keywords.

If your opponent has no fliers or reach creatures, a flier is effectively unblockable.

A keyword that lets a creature attack and use tap abilities the turn it enters the battlefield, ignoring summoning sickness.

Haste is why a red deck can deploy a big creature and hit for damage the same turn.

A permanent or player with hexproof cannot be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control. It does not stop effects that do not target, such as board wipes.

Hexproof protects a Commander from targeted removal but not from a wrath effect.

An optional additional cost you can pay as you cast a spell to get a stronger version of its effect. A spell can only be kicked as it is cast.

Kicker cards are flexible: cast them cheap early or pay more late for extra value.

An ability word for abilities that trigger whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control. Landfall decks reward playing extra lands from ramp and fetch effects.

A landfall creature grows every time you play a land, so ramp spells double as triggers.

If you control two or more legendary permanents with the same name, you choose one and put the rest into the graveyard.

Playing a second copy of a legendary creature usually just replaces the first.

Damage dealt by a source with lifelink also causes its controller to gain that much life. It applies to all damage, not only combat damage.

Lifelink swings a race: hitting for 4 is also a 4-life swing in your favor.

The lands in your deck, including how many you play and how well they produce the colors you need. Good mana bases balance land count, color sources, and utility lands.

A three-color deck needs more dual and fixing lands than a mono-colored one.

The distribution of a deck's cards by mana cost, usually visualized as a bar chart from 1 mana up to 6+. A smooth curve weighted toward cheap spells lets a deck reliably do something on every turn instead of flooding out on expensive cards.

Drawing too many lands and too few spells. Card draw and mana sinks help a deck recover from flood.

Running utility lands and mana sinks reduces the sting of flooding out.

Not drawing enough lands to cast your spells. The opposite problem is mana flood.

Keeping a two-land hand on the draw is a risk of mana screw.

The total amount of mana in a card's mana cost, ignoring colors. Formerly called converted mana cost. X counts as its chosen value while the object is on the stack and as 0 everywhere else, including on the battlefield.

A card costing {2}{U}{U} has mana value 4.

A flexible strategy that plays efficient threats and answers, adapting between aggro and control depending on the matchup.

Midrange decks have good cards at every point on the curve.

The process of shuffling an opening hand back into the library and drawing a new one. Under the London Mulligan rule, a player draws a fresh 7 each time but puts one additional card on the bottom of the library per mulligan taken. In multiplayer games and Brawl, the first mulligan does not count toward the bottom-card count.

You have an opening hand that does not fit your plan, so you choose to mulligan. Shuffle it back into your library, draw a new hand equal to your starting hand size, then put cards on the bottom equal to the number of times you have mulliganed. Once you keep, you cannot mulligan again.

Effects that generate extra mana or put additional lands into play, letting a player cast bigger spells ahead of schedule. Central to green strategies and most Commander decks, which need enough mana to cast expensive singleton bombs.

Any spell or ability that destroys, exiles, bounces, or otherwise neutralizes an opposing permanent, most often a creature. Efficient removal (low mana cost relative to what it answers) is one of the most valuable resources in constructed formats.

A strategy that uses resource-denial and tax effects to slow everyone down while the stax player is less affected. It is contentious at casual tables.

Stax pieces make opponents pay more or do less, so talk about them in a Rule 0 conversation.

A creature cannot attack or use abilities that require tapping it unless you have controlled it continuously since the start of your most recent turn. Haste removes the restriction.

A creature you cast this turn can block on your opponent's turn, but it cannot attack until your next turn.

The advantage gained by proactively developing board presence and pressure while forcing an opponent to react, as opposed to trading resources evenly. A tempo play might not be the most 'efficient' card individually, but it costs the opponent a turn to answer.

The last-in-first-out zone where spells and abilities wait to resolve. Because the stack resolves top-down, the most recently cast spell or activated ability always resolves first, which is why responses can 'fizzle' or change the outcome of something already on the stack.

An attacking creature with trample that is blocked assigns lethal damage to its blockers and can assign the excess to the player or planeswalker it is attacking.

A 6/6 trampler blocked by a 2/2 still pushes 4 damage through.

Any effect that searches your library for a specific card. Tutors increase consistency and are heavily restricted or discouraged at casual Commander tables.

Tutors let a combo deck find its missing piece instead of hoping to draw it.

Whenever a permanent with ward becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, that spell or ability is countered unless the opponent pays the ward cost. Ward taxes targeting rather than preventing it.

Ward 2 means your removal spell costs 2 more, or it is countered.

The specific way a deck plans to win the game, such as combat damage, a combo, or decking an opponent.

A Commander deck with no clear win condition tends to stall out on the battlefield.