Magic has more vocabulary than any other game on the shelf. Twenty evergreen keywords, dozens of returning ones, set-specific mechanics, rules terms that never appear on a card, and a layer of table slang on top. The Comprehensive Rules document is exhaustive and unreadable; the Wiki is sprawling. This is a practical glossary — the terms a player will actually run into across Standard, Modern, and especially Commander, with the gist of each one and a pointer to the full text where it matters.

The evergreen keywords

Evergreen keywords appear in nearly every set. If you know these, you can read the majority of cards printed today.

Deathtouch — any damage from this creature is enough to destroy.
Defender — can't attack.
Double strike — deals first-strike and regular damage.
Enchant — what an Aura attaches to.
Equip — attach an Equipment to a creature you control.
First strike — deals damage before creatures without first strike.
Flash — cast at instant speed.
Flying — can only be blocked by flying or reach.
Haste — ignores summoning sickness.
Hexproof — can't be the target of opponents' spells or abilities.
Indestructible — damage and “destroy” effects don't kill it.
Lifelink — damage dealt also gains the controller life.
Menace — can't be blocked by fewer than two creatures.
Protection — can't be blocked by, targeted by, dealt damage by, or attached by the named quality.
Reach — can block flying creatures.
Trample — excess damage carries over to the defending player or planeswalker.
Vigilance — doesn't tap to attack.
Ward — opponents pay an extra cost to target this permanent.

Returning mechanics worth knowing

These show up across multiple sets and you'll see them in older cards from a long history of printings.

Affinity — costs less based on permanents you control of a given type.
Cascade — when cast, exile cards until you hit a cheaper non-land, cast it for free.
Convoke — tap creatures to pay for the spell.
Cycling — pay a cost, discard, draw a card.
Delve — exile cards from your graveyard to pay generic mana.
Echo — pay an upkeep cost the turn after you cast it or sacrifice it.
Flashback — cast a sorcery or instant from your graveyard for an alternate cost.
Kicker — pay an additional cost for a bonus effect.
Madness — when you discard, cast it for the madness cost instead.
Morph — cast face-down as a 2/2 for , turn face-up later for the morph cost.
Ninjutsu — return an unblocked attacker to hand and put this in from hand, attacking.
Persist — when it dies, comes back with a -1/-1 counter.
Proliferate — choose any number of permanents and players with counters; add another of each kind.
Storm — copy this spell once for each spell cast before it this turn.
Suspend — pay the suspend cost, exile with time counters, cast for free when the last comes off.
Undying — when it dies with no +1/+1 counters, returns with one.

Format and zone vocabulary

Battlefield — the in-play zone where permanents live.
Stack — where spells and abilities wait to resolve. See the stack guide.
Library — your face-down deck.
Graveyard — public discard pile.
Exile — separate-from-the-game zone, public.
Command zone — where commanders live in Commander, where emblems and dungeons live in any format.
Hand — yours is hidden, opponents see only sizes.

Counters and tokens

+1/+1 counter — increases power and toughness.
-1/-1 counter — decreases. They cancel +1/+1 counters as a state-based action.
Loyalty counter — planeswalker resource.
Poison counter — ten of these and you lose.
Charge counter — generic, used by many cards.
Treasure / Clue / Food / Blood / Map token — see the token guide.

Mechanic terms that don't appear on cards

These show up in articles, on streams, and at the table — but you won't find them in the rules text.

Blowout — a play that wrecks an opponent's plan in one move.
Bounce — return a permanent to its owner's hand.
Cantrip — a spell that draws a card on top of its main effect.
Card advantage — drawing or making more cards than your opponent.
Combo — two or more cards that together create a winning interaction.
Dies trigger — an ability that triggers when a creature goes to the graveyard from the battlefield.
ETB — “enters the battlefield” trigger.
LTB — “leaves the battlefield” trigger.
Fizzle — a spell whose targets all become illegal before resolution.
Hate — a card aimed at disrupting a specific strategy (graveyard hate, artifact hate).
Mulligan — redrawing your opening hand for a one-card penalty.
Ramp — accelerating mana production.
Tempo — denying an opponent's effective turns.
Tutor — a card that searches for a specific card.
Wheel — discard hand, draw seven (Wheel of Fortune-style).
Wrath — a board wipe (Wrath of God-style).

Commander-only terms

Color identity — every mana symbol on a card; commanders restrict the deck to their color identity.
Command tax — each time you cast your commander from the command zone, the cost increases by .
Commander damage — 21 from a single commander kills the player. See the 21-rule guide.
Partner — a keyword letting two specific commanders share the role.
Background — Choose a Background pairs a commander with a Background enchantment for color identity.
Friends forever / Doctor's companion — partner-style mechanics tied to flavor.
cEDH — competitive Commander, optimized to win as fast as possible.

Why we built our own glossary

Existing glossaries are exhaustive but built for reading. Ours is built for the table — searchable, fast on mobile, with the rules-relevant text first and color-pie flavor second. The full glossary page covers every term in this article and another hundred-plus, with examples and a search box that handles partial matches and common typos.

If a term in this list does not have a full entry in the on-site glossary, that is a gap we want to close — let us know. Coverage of the working vocabulary of the game is the only metric that matters for a tool like this.

✦

Magic the Gathering Glossary: 150+ Terms Players Use