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There are four major principles on which you can judge a card: threat, versatility, multiplicity, and economy.

1. Threat

The most basic threats in a game of Magic: The Gathering are the Creatures you play to Attack your Opponent. This is because the primary win condition is to get your Opponent to zero Life (0).

If you pay one Mana (:mana1:) for a Creature, you hope to have one Power (1) with which to Attack your Opponent next Turn, so that you can get what you paid for: one Damage (1) closer to winning the game.

By playing one Land (1) per Turn, you also hope to increase the Power of these threats with their respective Mana Costs; two Mana (:mana2:) for two Power (2), three Mana (:mana3:) for three Power (3), and so on.

However, there is always an exception to every rule, and sometimes there will be a Creature with one Power (1) less than its Mana Cost that you will want to put into your deck. Don't worry about it, the extra one Mana (:mana1:) is okay if there is a good Ability behind it to make up for the loss in Power.

For an example, let's take a look at two cards (2) in Magic 2012 to which we can apply our new principle:

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=222635&type=card http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=220176&type=card

Siege Mastodon needs five Mana (:mana5:) to Cast, but you only get three Power (3) out of it. Even with the five Toughness (5) on it, it doesn't feel as threatening as it should, for all that Mana you paid into it.

Serra Angel also needs five Mana (:mana5:) to Cast, but it Costs one White Mana (:manaw:) more than Siege Mastodon. This is what you are paying for Vigilance; the other four Mana (:mana4:) go towards paying for the four Power (4) on it, and you get Flying thrown in there for free. No wonder it's Uncommon.

2. Versatility

How threatening your cards are, on the Turn they can first be played, is only the beginning. The next step is to look at how effective the cards are if you play them on a later Turn.

Typically, you want to play something relevant and threatening each Turn. This means that you don't want to have a bunch of ineffective, one Mana (:mana1:) Creatures in your Hand after five Turns (5).

However, you also don't want to have a lot of five Mana (:mana5:) threats in your Hand on the first Turn, because you'd play basically nothing for five Turns (5). A balance between threat and versatility is the best way to make sure you can play something relevant and threatening as early or as late in the game as you want.

For an example, let's take a look at two cards (2) in Magic 2012 to which we can apply our new principle:

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=240315&type=card http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=228122&type=card

Elite Vanguard only needs one Mana (:mana1:) to Cast, and you get a whopping two Power (2) out of it. It's very threatening, but only for the first Turn. When you have five Mana (:mana5:), enough for Serra Angel, dropping an Elite Vanguard instead is about as unthreatening as dropping a Siege Mastodon.

Gideon's Lawkeeper also only needs one Mana (:mana1:) to Cast, but you only get one Power (1); however, this is still a good threat. What makes it even better than Elite Vanguard is that, as long as you have one White Mana (:manaw:), its Ability is threatening even after the first Turn.

The most common type of versatility is Turn play, but there is another type of versatility for Spells that are not Creatures.

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