Discussion Forum

1) No. Spells hit what they are directed at and only what they are directed at. When a creature attacks, players can choose to block the damage or not.

2) Planeswalkers are technically players in their own sense. They are targeted as players and when a creature attacks, the attacker chooses to direct damage at the actual player, or the walker. Creatures the defender controls may block attackers.

3)Mill: Built around cards like Traumatize that are aimed at making the other player "Deck out". If you hav no cards to draw when it is your upkeep, you lose.

Aggro: Usually small creatures with haste, and spells that damage the other player, aimed at winning fast within the first 3-4 rounds.

Weenie: Small creatures is all I know about these ones.

Control: Ranging from Mono red to the new Blue/White. sometimes a combonation of the two. Control is built to remove/destroy your creatures, counter your spells, and do nothing but annoy you until they pull one of the 2 cards that win them the game. Sounds Dumb. It is dumb (I think so). But it is effective.

Then there are the Alara types, Jund, Esper, Bant, Naya, and Grixis. They are just Variations of colors from the 5 so called "Shards" of Alara.

4) If you have a card that says "Put 1 5/5 token monster thing into play" then i usually just flip the card over and say it's my token. Booster packs come with tokens at random, but they aren'y normally needed. Most people just grab cards in their graveyard, or unused ones from their boxes.

5) 7 is maximum hand size unless you control a permanent that states otherwise. When you have 8+ and declare your turn over, you must discard to 7.

6) You're welcome.

Quick reply, awesome. Remembered another one that happened recently:

A friend tapped (all) his lands to play some sorcery and it had a kicker that said to sacrifice a land. He sacrificed one he just tapped. Seems legal, if annoying, is it?

Same sort of thing with a creature, can you sacrifice it if it's tapped already?

Yes, this is fine! You can even block with a creature you know will die if it blocks and then sacrifice it just before it does die in order to activate an ability!

Hi,

The entire rules for Magic: the Gathering are available online: you can click here for the rules in various formats, or here's the direct link to the basic (short) rulebook:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/rules/EN_Magic_Basic_Rulebook_20090710.pdf

If the rules were 2-3 pages long, I would recommend reading them in full. As it is, even the basic rulebook is... 34 pages long. You might print one copy for your play group, and reference it when stuff comes up.

Hope you're enjoying the game so far! :)

SaltyCrakr here did a pretty good job of answering your questions, but there are a few things I'd like to clarify, read further the bold text under each part of his quote

[QUOTE=SaltyCrakr]1) No. Spells hit what they are directed at and only what they are directed at. When a creature attacks, players can choose to block the damage or not.

I'd like to clarify that the term "blocking" refers to using an untapped creature to stop an attacking creature from entering combat with the defending player. Creatures do not block damage per-se but they block creatures which WOULD have(most likely) dealt damage to the player

2) Planeswalkers are technically players in their own sense. They are targeted as players and when a creature attacks, the attacker chooses to direct damage at the actual player, or the walker. Creatures the defender controls may block attackers.

I'd like to clarify here as well, the attacking player chooses whether to attack the defending player, OR a planeswalker with each of his creatures(individually), not the damage itself, damage occurs at combat damage step after attackers and blockers have ALL been assigned

3)Mill: Built around cards like Traumatize that are aimed at making the other player "Deck out". If you hav no cards to draw when it is your upkeep, you lose.

Aggro: Usually small creatures with haste, and spells that damage the other player, aimed at winning fast within the first 3-4 rounds.

Weenie: Small creatures is all I know about these ones.

Control: Ranging from Mono red to the new Blue/White. sometimes a combonation of the two. Control is built to remove/destroy your creatures, counter your spells, and do nothing but annoy you until they pull one of the 2 cards that win them the game. Sounds Dumb. It is dumb (I think so). But it is effective.

Control is moreso essentially playing defence in hopes to turn the tides later in the match, whereas aggro hopes to kill the opponent before their opponent's strategy takes shape

Then there are the Alara types, Jund, Esper, Bant, Naya, and Grixis. They are just Variations of colors from the 5 so called "Shards" of Alara.

These aren't exactly deck "types" they are simply general nicknames for a variety of decks which use these colour combinations in standard

4) If you have a card that says "Put 1 5/5 token monster thing into play" then i usually just flip the card over and say it's my token. Booster packs come with tokens at random, but they aren'y normally needed. Most people just grab cards in their graveyard, or unused ones from their boxes.

i would recommend using either upside down land cards(from outside the actual game), actual token cards or even simply things like dice(can indicate power/toughness), or even coins, just make sure to be clear on which ones are untapped and which aren't

5) 7 is maximum hand size unless you control a permanent that states otherwise. When you have 8+ and declare your turn over, you must discard to 7.

6) You're welcome.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Zanmor]My friends and I are relative noobs to Magic, playing less than 4 months now but really enjoying it. So please forgive me for a bunch of questions I'm sure you guys have answered before. I'll be happy for responses or links to information, thanks. :D

3. Could someone explain the various deck categories, like Mill, Aggro, etc.? See 'em a lot but still am not totally sure what each means a deck is designed to do.[/QUOTE]

I'll be writing several articles answering this question in depth. Check back for Tinker Target articles :)

Again, thanks for the responses. Probably gonna go play tonight so this is a great help!

Anytime, feel free to toss more questions into this thread as they arise, it can be a "help the new players" thread -- one of the best things about Magic is the willingness of old players to step in and help new players learn the game :)

Haven't seen a specific instance where I'd need to know this but:

If there is some effect that says something like, "Whenever creature is dealt damage, deal that much damage to that creature's controller as well."

And the creature in question is 1/1.

And 4 damage is done to it, from a spell or creature or whatever.

Does it deal 4 damage to the creature and player, or was only 1 damage dealt to the creature (and therefore to its controller), since that's all that is needed and the rest was just sort of wasted/excessive?

[QUOTE=Zanmor]Haven't seen a specific instance where I'd need to know this but:

If there is some effect that says something like, "Whenever creature is dealt damage, deal that much damage to that creature's controller as well."

And the creature in question is 1/1.

And 4 damage is done to it, from a spell or creature or whatever.

Does it deal 4 damage to the creature and player, or was only 1 damage dealt to the creature (and therefore to its controller), since that's all that is needed and the rest was just sort of wasted/excessive?[/QUOTE]
Good question. In the situation you describe, the creature was dealt four damage. Its toughness is irrelevant to the amount of damage dealt. This is important, because if the creature was hit with Giant Growth, the creature would still die, and also important because of cards like Repercussion.

Some old cards, like old versions of Drain Life, specified that they could not deal more damage than the toughness of a targeted creature -- but these are rare exceptions.

Dealing much more damage than necessary used to be playfully called "Overkill" by Magic players, which inspired the flavor text on Lava Burst. Building overkill decks was popular among casual players for awhile, trying to deal hundreds of damage with a Fireball or a Drain Life. I don't hear many people use the word anymore.

[QUOTE=Zanmor]Haven't seen a specific instance where I'd need to know this but:

If there is some effect that says something like, "Whenever creature is dealt damage, deal that much damage to that creature's controller as well."

And the creature in question is 1/1.

And 4 damage is done to it, from a spell or creature or whatever.

Does it deal 4 damage to the creature and player, or was only 1 damage dealt to the creature (and therefore to its controller), since that's all that is needed and the rest was just sort of wasted/excessive?[/QUOTE]

good question, nice to see you've got your thinking cap on, looking pro-actively for answers

any creature may generally be possibly dealt ANY amount of damage, so yes a 1/1 creature could be dealt, for example 4 damage. This damage is "dealt" to the creature and then the creature is checked for whether is was dealt "lethal damage"(damage equal to the toughness of the creature).

So yes the controller would also take 4 damage, as the creature was dealt 4 damage, even though it only needs 1 to be destroyed

That distinction's also important when you start dealing with lifelink. Just because you block that 10/10 non-trampling lifelinker with your 1/1 doesn't mean he won't still gain 10 life.

New question concerning Stormbind and Land's Edge.

Let's say both are in play. You pay :mana2: to discard a card at random, having Stormbind deal 2 damage to your opponent. The discarded card happens to be a land. Does that also trigger Land's Edge, which reads, "Any player may choose and discard a card from his or her hand at any time. If a player discards a land, Land's Edge deals 2 damage to target player of that player's choice."

Also, do any cards jump to mind that could take advantage of the first part of Land's Edge, being able to discard a card at anytime?

No, it does not. You must discard using Land's Edge (see the card rulings). It's similar but not exactly the same to trying to sacrifice a sakura tribe elder for a land when you're forced to sacrifice things by the eldrazi Annihilator mechanic.