Unveiling MTG’s Keyword Actions: A Player’s Guide

Magic the Gathering (MTG) is not just about the cards you play but also about the actions you take. Keyword actions are specific instructions that tell players what to do with their cards during gameplay. Understanding these actions is essential for strategic play and leveraging your deck’s full potential. Here’s an overview of various MTG keyword actions and what they entail:

• Abandon: This action usually involves leaving something behind, like a permanent or a strategy, often for a cost or effect.
• Activate: To activate is to pay a cost to use an ability of a card, typically an artifact, creature, or land.
• Adapt: Adapt allows you to put a number of +1/+1 counters on a creature if it doesn’t have any.
• Amass: Amass N means you put N +1/+1 counters on an Army you control. If you don’t control one, you create a 0/0 black Zombie Army creature token first.
• Assemble: Often used with contraptions or tokens, to assemble means to create and put into play a specific type of non-creature artifact or token.
• Attach: Attach is used to connect Auras, Equipment, or Fortifications to creatures, lands, or other permanents.
• Bolster: Bolster N means you put N +1/+1 counters on the creature you control with the least toughness.
• Cast: To cast a spell is to play it from your hand by paying its mana cost and putting it onto the stack.
• Clash: Players each reveal the top card of their library, then put that card on the top or bottom. The player with the highest mana cost card wins.
• Cloak: To cloak a creature often means to give it shroud or hexproof, making it harder for opponents to target.
• Collect evidence: A thematic action in certain sets that involves gathering clues or information, often represented by creating or sacrificing clue tokens.
• Conjure: To conjure a card is to create a token copy of a card that’s not on the battlefield.
• Connive: Drawing and discarding cards, usually benefiting from the type or number of cards drawn or discarded.
• Convert: Convert can mean transforming mana, creatures, or other in-game elements into different forms or types.
• Counter: To counter a spell or ability is to cancel it, preventing its effect and sending it to the graveyard.
• Create: To create is to bring a token or copy into the game.
• Destroy: To destroy a permanent is to send it to the graveyard from the battlefield.
• Detain: To detain a permanent means it can’t attack, block, or activate its abilities until your next turn.
• Discard: To discard is to put a card from your hand into your graveyard.
• Discover: To discover typically means to explore certain aspects of the game, like revealing cards or searching for specific card types.
• Double: Doubling something, like counters or tokens, means to increase its quantity by 100%.
• Exchange: To exchange means to swap two in-game elements, such as life totals, permanents, or hands.
• Exert: To exert a creature means to decide it won’t untap during your next untap step for an additional or enhanced effect.
• Exile: To exile a card means to remove it from the game, placing it in the exile zone, distinct from the battlefield, hand, or graveyard.
• Explore: A creature explores by revealing the top card of your library: you put a +1/+1 counter on it if it’s a land card; otherwise, you draw it or put it back with an additional counter.
• Fateseal: To fateseal is to look at the top cards of an opponent’s library and possibly put them on the bottom.
• Fight: Two creatures deal damage equal to their power to each other.
• Food: To create Food tokens, which can be sacrificed for life or other effects.
• Goad: To goad a creature means to force it to attack and not be able to attack you if possible.
• Incubate: Incubate often involves setting aside a card to reveal or use later under specific conditions.
• Investigate: To investigate means to create a Clue artifact token, which can be sacrificed for a card.
• Learn: To learn allows you to discard a card to draw a card or to retrieve a Lesson card from outside the game.
• Manifest: To manifest the top card of your library means to put it onto the battlefield face down as a 2/2 creature.
• Meld: Meld involves two specific cards combining into one oversized card with new abilities, usually when certain conditions are met.
• Mill: To mill is to put the top card of a player’s library into their graveyard. This term often specifies a number, indicating how many cards should be milled.
• Monstrosity: If a creature isn’t monstrous, monstrosity N allows you to pay a cost to make it monstrous and put N +1/+1 counters on it.
• Open an Attraction: This action, thematic in certain sets, involves revealing and utilizing a special card or token that represents an attraction, providing various benefits.
• Planeswalk: To planeswalk is to move between planes in the Planeswalker format, triggering different effects or changing the rules of play.
• Play: To play a card means to either cast a spell or place a land onto the battlefield.
• Populate: Populate allows you to create a token that’s a copy of a creature token you already control.
• Proliferate: To proliferate means to choose any number of permanents and/or players with counters on them and give each another counter of a kind already there.
• Regenerate: Regenerate is a way to prevent a creature from being destroyed by replacing the destruction with the removal of all damage from it and tapping it.
• Reveal: To reveal a card means to show it to all players before returning it to its original location or moving it to another as instructed.
• Role token: Creating a role token usually assigns a specific role or ability to a creature or player, often used in themed or narrative-driven sets.
• Roll to Visit Your Attractions: In a themed set, this action might involve rolling a die to determine which attractions you visit, gaining different benefits based on the outcome.
• Sacrifice: To sacrifice a permanent is to move it from the battlefield to its owner’s graveyard.
• Scry: To scry N means to look at the top N cards of your library, then put any number of them on the bottom of your library and the rest on top in any order.
• Seek: To seek is to retrieve a card with a specific attribute from your library without revealing it.
• Set in motion: Usually involves initiating a particular process or effect that will have consequences or develop over time.
• Shuffle: To shuffle your library means to randomize the order of the cards in it, often after searching or being instructed to shuffle.
• Support: To support N means to put a +1/+1 counter on each of up to N other target creatures.
• Surveil: To surveil N means to look at the top N cards of your library, then put any number of them into your graveyard and the rest back on top of your library in any order.
• Suspect: Involves identifying or marking a card or player as suspicious, often part of a set’s mechanic where the identity or the nature of cards plays a crucial role.
• Tap: To tap a card is to turn it sideways, indicating it has been used for an ability or to attack and cannot be used again until it’s untapped.
• Time Travel: A thematic action that involves moving cards through time, either forward or backward, affecting the sequence of play.
• Transform: To transform a card is to turn it over, revealing a different face and changing its characteristics.
• Treasure: To create Treasure tokens, which can be sacrificed for mana or other effects.
• Untap: To untap a card is to return it to its upright position, indicating it’s ready to be used again.
• Venture into the dungeon: To venture into the dungeon means to progress through a dungeon card, activating various effects as you explore.
• Vote: To vote, players choose among options presented by a card, and the outcome with the most votes determines the effect.

Understanding these keyword actions can greatly enhance your gameplay and strategic decision-making in Magic the Gathering. Each action adds a layer of depth and interaction to the game, allowing for a dynamic and engaging experience.