Four ways to die

Our first look at the game will be from a complete newcomers eye, and I will try to explain how to win or lose the game.
When people ask me "How do you win?", I usualy reply "There's one way to win, but 4 ways to lose".
What do I mean by this? It's simple, really, you win by staying alive the longest. That's the one and only way to win!
But what do you mean with four ways to lose?
I'll try to explain each way as good as I can here.

The first, and most common, way to die is by your life reaching zero.
There are ways around this, such as Platinum Angel that say that you can't lose the game. This would apply to three of the four ways of losing.

The second most common way to die is by getting 10 poison counters.
Since the introduction of Infect, an ability that makes creatures do damage in the form of poison counters on players and -1/-1 counters on creatures, this has been a thing worth waching out for. Again, there are ways around it, but once you get a poison counter, you can't get rid of it, so be careful around these players.

The third way is by being forced to draw a card when your library is empty.
Your library is a ticking timebomb waiting to explode. You can only go so long before you have to draw your last card, after that it is all over and you're instantly killed. The easiest way to stay out of this one is by having cards that lets you shuffle things into your library, such as Feldon's Cane, that lets you shuffle your whole graveyard into your library.

The fourth way is something not many think of, it is extremely rare, but it is possible to end up in a draw.
To have a draw, both players must lose at the exact same time. Priority and the Stack (will be explained in a later post) prevents this from being done most of the time, but you can end up in an Eternity Loop wich prevents anyone from doing anything at all, thus halting the game with no other choice than to end the game right there and then, with no winner declared.
This is something you almost have to do diliberatly and it's hard to do.
An example of an eternity loop is a Stuffy Doll with a Guilty Conscience where Stuffy Doll targets a player that plays Platinum Angel. If Stuffy Doll uses it's tap ability it does 1 damage on itself, witch makes it make 1 damage on the player and Guilty Conscience does 1 damage on Stuffy Doll, that does 1 damage on the player and so on in a loop, until the players life reaches zero, but Platinum Angel prevents the player from dying, thus creating a loop that can only be broken if one of these three cards can be destroyed. If they can't, it's a draw!

Stay tuned, next time we'll talk about another powerful combo with Stuffy Doll!

Welcome to School Of Magic

Welcome to School Of Magic, where we will explain Magic the gathering techniques, tricks and tips to make sure YOU go from newb to pro.

The main aim of SOM is to give you the tools you need to get ready for those tournaments, or to beat your friends, if you're a casual player.

We will explain everything from general rules to specific card tactics, so stay tuned as we dive into the world of Magic the Gathering.