Magic: The Gathering/Gameplay Tropes: Difference between revisions

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* [[Action Bomb]]: Blowing oneself up is a favorite tactic of red cards, particularly among goblins. Examples include but are not limited to [http://magiccards.info/evg/en/46.html Mudbutton Torchrunner], [http://magiccards.info/sh/en/91.html Mogg Bombers], [http://magiccards.info/rav/en/151.html War-Torch Goblin], [http://magiccards.info/evg/en/43.html Ib Halfheart]'s suicide troops, and whichever schmuck ends up carrying the [http://magiccards.info/fe/en/114.html Goblin Grenade].

* [[All There in the Manual]]: The Gatherer Web site includes all rulings on cards. As the game goes on and rules get refined, the company almost constantly changes the way game abilities are printed on cards:

* [[Animated Armor]]: The effect of [http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=220529 March of the Machines].

* [[Animate Dead]]: [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=159249 Is a card]. And there are many others like it.

* [[Army of the Ages]]: The basic premise of the game, with you as the summoner.

* [[Art Evolution]]:

** In addition, the cards' frames themselves have been updated. All frames have become less blocky and are no longer of an equal width all the way around, and the texturing used in each has been changed.

** Many cards have related illustrations: basic lands in the same set are usually cut from a wide panorama, and for example the most recent [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=205226 Holy Strength] and [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=205237 Unholy Strength] face each other vertically.

** On the back of every ''Magic'' card that will ever be printed <ref>not counting the double-faced cards which were released starting in 2011</ref>, players will find the word "Deckmaster." The Deckmaster brand ceased to exist in the mid '90s, but because every card has to be indistinguishable from the back, Wizards has to keep printing it.

** The word ''Magic'' itself; on the back of the card, the word 'Magic' is (and always will be) blue, despite the fact that the official logo has been yellow for years.

* [[Artifact of Death]]: [http://magiccards.info/m11/en/208.html Jinxed Idol] is a good example. There are others.

* [[Asteroids Monster]]: [http://magiccards.info/m11/en/185.html Mitotic Slime]

** [http://magiccards.info/ala/en/210.html Lich's Mirror] allows you to start the game over with 20 life if you die with it in play. Of course, ''you'' start over with nothing in play, but your opponent gets to keep all the cards they already have out.

** ''Shadowmoor'' block had Persist, and ''Innistrad'' has Undying, both of which are abilities that return dying creatures to play with a counter on it (-1/-1 and +1/+1 respectively), if it didn't already have one.

* [[Awesome Yet Practical]]: The game designers like powerful, tournament-dominating cards to be exciting and fun to play, so it's common to see exciting and fun cards intentionally pushed up in power level. Planeswalkers are a great example: their characters are designed to be the face of the game, so the developers make sure to give them powerful abilities. [http://magiccards.info/wwk/en/31.html Jace, the Mind Sculptor] in particular quickly gained a dominating presence in multiple tournament formats.

* [[Back Stab]]: The "Prowl" ability of Rogues in ''Morningtide'' functions as one of these.

** Personified in the ''Rise of the Eldrazi'' expansion, where gigantic monsters are the theme of the set.

** See also [[Serial Escalation]].

* [[Blood Knight]]: [http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=130715 Blood Knight]. There's also his predecessor, [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=221568 Black Knight].

* [[Boogie Knights]]: [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=9742 Knight of the Hokey Pokey] gets a bonus if you do the Hokey Pokey!

** The trope also applies to ''Duels of the Planeswalkers'' and its sequel. While you can unlock any and all of the cards in the game through gameplay, you can also buy DLC that unlocks the thematic decks of the planeswalkers featured in the game. Doing this unlocks all the cards in that deck, meaning you can now use them to customize yours.

* [[Card Battle Game]]: Most video game adaptations, including the Microprose ''Shandalar'' game and ''Duels of the Planeswalkers''.

** Aside from the infamous Channel-Fireball combo, planeswalkers fall under this as well: Some of their ability require the removal of loyalty counters. These same counters effectively act as their life totals; once they're out of counters, they're gone. Most also invert this trope by having abilities that ''give'' them loyalty counters as well, as well as a few with abilities that do nothing to their counter totals.

** More recently, there are the cards that use Phyrexian mana symbols from ''New Phyrexia'': For each Phyrexian mana symbol in a cost, you can pay 1 mana of the specified color, or 2 life.

** Gerrard is the hero of the ''Weatherlight'' saga, which spanned across years of the storyline. When he was eventually printed as a card, it was laughably underpowered.

** Karona, who emerges in Onslaught block as a [[Physical God|physical manifestation of Dominaria's mana]] formed from the [[Fusion Dance|fusion]] of the powerful and iconic legends Phage the Untouchable and Akroma, Angel of Wrath, is far less useful than she has any right to be as well--so much so that head designer Mark Rosewater [http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr232 publicly apologized] for how lame she was:

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]:

** You know those useless snow-covered lands from ''Ice Age''? Not so useless as of ''Coldsnap'' -- 11 years later!

* [[Creator Cameo]]: Richard Garfield himself [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=74250 has a card] in ''Unhinged''.

* [[Critical Existence Failure]]: A common adage among players is that the only life point that matters is your last one. It was this revelation that made [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=194977 Necropotence] decks powerful.

* [[Cute Is Evil]]: [[Played for Laughs]] with the ''Unglued'' card [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=9779 Infernal Spawn of Evil], along with its sequel from ''Unhinged'', [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=73981 Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil]. As a bonus, it's also a joke about [[Actor Allusion|card artist Ron Spencer only drawing hideous monsters]].

* [[Damage Over Time]]: Several cards deal damage during a player's "Upkeep" step, in contrast to most cards which can only deal damage once at a time.

* [[Death Is Cheap]]: Or rather, "being removed from the game is cheap". Most permanents and spells that are destroyed, discarded or otherwise gotten rid of go to the graveyard zone by default, but ever since the game was new a few abilities here and there send their targets or themselves to the "removed from game" zone. But such effects have slowly become more common over the years, and two cards were printed that retrieved any card that had been removed from the game, and variations on the effect like suspend have proved very powerful and popular. So in a 2009 rules change, the description of the "remove from game" effect was changed to "exile", to reflect the fact that there's a good chance it hasn't been "removed from the game" at all.

** Mocked by the unhinged card "AWOL", which first removes an attacking creature from the game, and then takes that creature from the "removed from the game" zone and puts it in a state called "absolutely-removed-from-the-freaking-game-forever".

** Early in the game, many big blue creatures (like [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3939 Sea Serpents]) could attack players that didn't control any islands only with difficulty, if at all, to symbolize that they were natural aquatic monsters and therefore couldn't leave the water. That effect still appears occasionally, but is much rarer now, partly because designers have decided it's less fun to have creatures with such severe restrictions on attacking and partly because the idea that lands actually represent physical terrain on which creatures are fighting [[Voodoo Shark|raises more questions than it answers]].

** Creature types have come and gone and been standardized several times. At the moment, humans are the [[Jack of All Stats]]: represented more or less equally in all colors but with no Human-specific racial bonuses. Most colors have one "weenie" race (Elves for green, goblins for red, for example) full of small, cheap, quick and/or utility creatures, one "large flier" race (Dragons for red, demons for black, angels for white), and a few other creature types that are much more common in one or two colors than the rest. The thing is, this leaves many creature types from fantasy stories or previous Magic sets unused just because that design space is already taken. Orcs, for example, appeared in early sets, but they eventually fell into the niche of "like goblins, just a little taller" and stopped being used soon after that. Merfolk didn't appear for a long time for the same reason that sea monsters' inherent weakness was dropped, but as soon as designers figured out that they could be bipedal - sort of like [[Fish People]] but not as ugly - they were brought back.

* [[Ditto Fighter]]: A standard ability for the Shapeshifter creature type.

* [[Early Installment Weirdness]]: ''Alpha'' and the first few expansions contained...

** ...cards with effects which are now considered uncharacteristic of their color, such as [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=108812 blue direct damage] and [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Discussion.aspx?multiverseid=957 red damage prevention].

** ...issues with balance; cards tended to be either [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=692 insanely powerful] or [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=1345 extremely weak].

** ...[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=202586 rather informal wording] which seems strange when contrasted with modern cards.

* [[Everythings Nuttier With Squirrels]]: According to Mark Rosewater, the game has squirrels because [http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr30 the designers thought they were cool].

** When the folks in charge got tired of Merfolk, they decided to try replacing them with the Cephalid squid-folk for a while in the ''Odyssey'' block. Squids are cool, right?

** [http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/60 Mark Rosewater's description] of the origin of [http://magiccards.info/zen/en/53.html Lorthos, the Tidemaker] (the legendary Octopus from ''Zendikar'') fits the trope quite well.

* [[Evil Plan]]: The casual format "Archenemy" has one player as the, well, [[Evil Overlord|Archenemy]] who sets [[Evil Plan|Schemes]] in motion, against a coalition of players.

* [[Expansion Pack]]: In a sense; each set is an expansion to the ever-widening game, though each block can be played independently as well.

* [[Fastball Special]]: [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=191094&type=card Stone Giant], among others, can be tapped to hurl a creature into the air to attack your opponent directly or block an enemy flyer. This is generally not a survivable experience for the creature.

* [[Field Power Effect]]: Various spells that boost and debuff creatures.

* [[Flavor Text]]: Famous for it.

** From the ''Fifth Dawn'' set comes the four Stations (Blasting Station, Grinding Station, Salvaging Station, and Welding Station), which can deal infinite damage when you have them all in play. According to Magic's R&D, it was the first "I win" combo they ever made intentionally.

* [[Gambit Pileup]]: Due to the nature of the stack, players can find themselves fighting a mini battle in which they're undoing each other's move, for example:

'''Player 1:''' Counterspell on Player 2's Counterspell. }}

:: And so on. If they do this by piling the cards onto each other (or playing online), then the trope is being played literally.

* [[Game Breaker]]: <!-- NOTE TO EDITORS: Yes, there is a separate page for GameBreaker/MagicTheGathering, but please DON'T link to it here, as the examples on it are subjective. You can find it linked on the YMMV subpage. The section on this page is for IN-UNIVERSE and PLAYED WITH examples only. -->

** [[Lampshaded]] on [http://magiccards.info/tr/en/36.html Deep Analysis], whose art depicts the famously powerful (in its heyday) [http://magiccards.info/ud/en/134.html Masticore] with the flavor text "The specimen seems to be broken."

* [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]]:

** Early sets tried to avert this to a degree with mechanics such as islandhome, which stopped sea-based creatures from attacking opponents who don't control an island, and causing them to cease to exist if their controller controls no islands. This was a rather clumsy and unpopular solution, and R's current policy is to ignore moments of [[Fridge Logic]] in favour of gameplay. (After all, [[A Wizard Did It|you are a wizard!]])

* [[Glass Cannon]]:

** Many combo decks, as well as many linearly-focused decks like the Affinity deck of the ''Mirrodin'' era, are incredibly powerful if the opponent has no way to interact with them, but vulnerable to being completely shut down by a single "hoser" card that can disrupt them in the proper way.

** A less "meta" example is the Orzhov guild from ''Ravnica'' block, whose primary strategy is to gradually "bleed" the opponent by combining lifegain effects with repeatable incremental damage.

* [[Griefer]]: The ''New Phyrexia'' expansion was [[Intentional Trope|intentionally designed with Griefing in mind]], and contains many cards that are intended to make your opponent feel bad. For example, [http://magiccards.info/nph/en/23.html Shattered Angel] takes something they normally feel happy about (getting more mana) and makes them feel bad about it (by making you gain life every time they play a land); there's a similar dynamic with cards like [http://magiccards.info/mbs/en/21.html Consecrated Sphinx], [http://magiccards.info/nph/en/25.html Suture Priest], [http://magiccards.info/nph/en/87.html Invader Parasite], and so on.<br /><br />And while most sets have spells that kill or disable your opponent's stuff, in ''New Phyrexia'' they have added effects that rub your victory in their face, as with [http://magiccards.info/nph/en/40.html Numbing Dose], [http://magiccards.info/nph/en/99.html Victorious Destruction], [http://magiccards.info/nph/en/43.html Psychic Barrier], [http://magiccards.info/nph/en/110.html Glissa's Scorn], [http://magiccards.info/nph/en/58.html Enslave], [http://magiccards.info/nph/en/41.html Phyrexian Ingester], etc.<br /><br />Or, as development team member Tom LaPille [http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/140 puts it]:

* [[History Repeats]]: Literal example in the ''Time Spiral'' block, which brought back lots of old cards and themes as part of its "time" gimmick.

* [[Hit Points]]: 20 for each player to start, though it can get very low, very high, and some cards even let the player [[Determinator|keep going]] [[Only Mostly Dead|with 0 or less]]. Creatures also have these (in the form of toughness), but theirs reset each turn as long as they take less-than-fatal damage. Planeswalkers have Loyalty points which work a lot like the player's hit points.

* [[Hive Mind]]:

** The Selesnya Conclave apparently also has a weak Hive Mind of some sorts. Hinted at by the Convoke mechanic.

* [[Homage]]:

** [http://magiccards.info/tp/en/97.html Time Warp] has the flavor text "[[Rocky Horror Picture Show|Let's do it again!]]"

* [[I'm a Humanitarian]]:

** [http://magiccards.info/isd/en/125.html Village Cannibals], a Human creature which gets a +1/+1 counter when another Human creature dies, "eating" their corpse.

** [http://magiccards.info/ex/en/75.html Spike Cannibal], which eats all the other Spikes when it enters the battlefield.

* [[Instant Win Condition]]: While there's plenty of combos and such that can win in one good punch, there's a fair amount of individual cards that provide you with alternate win conditions:

** [http://magiccards.info/od/en/182.html Winning ten coin flips]

** [http://magiccards.info/ia/en/283.html Flipping a coin to decide the winner of the game]

** [http://magiccards.info/uh/en/41.html Learning the alphabet]

* [[Joke Character]]: Variation: each block typically contains at least one entirely awful card, deliberately put there just for the people who love to try and make it work. The game is such that they usually can.

* [[A Kind of One]]: It was common in the game's early days for creatures to have unique creature types based on their names, leading to types like "Aladdin" or "Uncle Istvan". Most of them are now defunct, but a couple of these odd one-of types had the honor of later being upgraded into their own races: notably, Atog and Lhurgoyf. Some just stayed as one-ofs, like the solitary Brushwagg.

* [[Kingmaker Scenario]]: Frequently crops up in multiplayer games when [[Alice and Bob|Bob]]'s position is too weak to win the game, but strong enough to pick a side and swing the game in favor of either [[Alice and Bob|Alice]] or [[Alice and Bob|Carl]] at his whim.

** Giant Spider was crowned the winner of the long-running "Core Set Survivor". As of ''Magic 2012'', it's [http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/718 the one card that's been in every single core set] since ''Alpha''. Its flavor text for the printing that sealed the deal:

{{quote|''"The wild is always changing, but it does have a few constants."''|''Garruk Wildspeaker''}}

** [http://magiccards.info/wwk/en/31.html Jace, the Mind Sculptor]'s ultimate ability wipes the target's mind clean by deleting their entire library and temporarily blocking access to their hand.

** Cards like [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=233041 Surgical Extraction] and [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=215103 Memoricide]. The latter allows you to name a card and exile all of your opponent's copies of that card--out of their hand, graveyard, and library. The former allows you to do the same with a card already in that player's graveyard.

** Cards from the silly, silver-bordered sets ''Unglued'' and ''Unhinged'' aren't tournament-legal, but can be surprisingly effective at the kitchen table.

* [[Living Weapon]]:

** [http://magiccards.info/5dn/en/119.html Ensouled Scimitar] and [http://magiccards.info/an/en/75.html Dancing Scimitar]

* [[Loads and Loads of Loading]]:

** Some cards really, really stretch the limit of readability with complicated one-off abilities. Like [http://magiccards.info/4e/en/243.html Tempest Efreet] and [http://magiccards.info/ia/en/296.html Ice Cauldron].

** The game rules themselves. The Comprehensive Rulebook is available for download from Wizards of the Coast in PDF form. The document is 185 pages long and grows a little with each new set released.

* [[Lost in Translation]]:

** The Japanese version of Yawgmoth's Agenda was mistakenly translated as Yawgmoth's Day Planner.

** The Spanish version of the M11 card Disentomb mistranslated "Return target creature card from a graveyard to your hand" as "Return target creature card from your graveyard to ''play''". ''That'' would make the card significantly ''better''.

** The Portuguese version of Stoic Rebuttal does... well, ''nothing''. Stoic Rebuttal a simple counter spell that costs 1 less mana to cast if you have 3 or more Artifacts. Too bad when they translated it, they forgot the whole "counter a spell" part. Ooops.

** [http://magiccards.info/ds/en/139.html Shield of Kaldra] is the big daddy, an indestructible shield that makes the bearer indestructible as well. Lesser shields and shield-wielders include [http://magiccards.info/arb/en/11.html Shield of the Righteous], [http://magiccards.info/som/en/136.html Accorder's Shield], [http://magiccards.info/mt/en/4.html Burrenton Shield-Bearers], [http://magiccards.info/di/en/12.html Haazda Shield Mate], and [http://magiccards.info/roe/en/46.html Stalwart Shield-Bearers].

** Inverted with [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=83730 Pariah's Shield], which magically draws all attacks to its bearer.

* [[Luke Nounverber]]: A common naming convention.

* [[Let's Mock the Monsters|Let's Mock Our Own Monsters]] every un-set.

* [[Loophole Abuse]]:

** It's possible to attack your opponent's lands, denying them their mana.

** The "Mana burn" mechanic that left the game with the Magic 2010 rules changes is, ironically, not an example.

* [[Mega Manning]]:

** Several shapeshifters can copy the abilities of defeated foes; [http://magiccards.info/rav/en/202.html Dimir Doppelganger] and [http://magiccards.info/lw/en/105.html Cairn Wanderer], for example.

** [http://magiccards.info/di/en/110.html Experiment Kraj] copies all the abilities of creatures that have +1/+1 counters on them.

* [[Metagame]]: Probably the best-known instance; decks that dominate one tournament can get curbstomped in the next due to metagame changes.

* [[Mook Maker]]: A staple effect. Examples included but are ''definitely'' not limited to: [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Breeding%20Pit Breeding Pit], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kjeldoran%20Outpost Kjeldoran Outpost], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Thallid Thallid], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Hive The Hive], [http://magiccards.info/on/en/309.html Riptide Replicator], ''[http://magiccards.info/ts/en/263.html Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII]'', [http://magiccards.info/mbs/en/117.html Myr Turbine], and many, many more.

* [[My Defense Need Not Protect Me Forever]]: It's common for slower strategies to establish defenses in the early game just to buy time to reach the later stages.

* [[No Ontological Inertia]]: If you are playing in a multiplayer game and you die, all the cards you own disappear from the game. This is primarily so that you don't have to stick around until the end of the game just to get back the enchantment you put on somebody else's creature.

** Artifacts, with a few exceptions, are colorless.

** Eldrazi. Again. Is there any trope they don't fall under?

* [[Not the Intended Use]]: Rampant. Unsummoning your own creatures, countering your own cards to reduce hand size, using a [http://magiccards.info/query?q=War+Barge&v=card&s=cname War Barge] on your opponents' creatures and then destroying the barge to kill the creatures, ripping up your [http://magiccards.info/query?q=Chaos+Orb&v=card&s=cname Chaos Orb] before you activate it...

* [[Not Using the Z Word|Not Using The D Word]]: References to demons were removed after a few [[Moral Guardian|Moral Guardians]] complained; this carried on for a while with cards being called "horror" or "beast," before demons started appearing again. This is why the ''Unglued'' card "Infernal Spawn of Evil" has the text "summon <s>demon</s> beast" and vice versa for the ''Unhinged'' card "Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil."

** The ''Portal'' expansion was followed by ''Portal Second Age'' and ''Portal: Three Kingdoms''.

** Head Designer Mark Rosewater has a little fun with it [http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/106 here], with a fake announcement for ''Homelands 2: Grandmother's Return''. He also laments that his suggestion for ''Portal 2: Electric Boogaloo'' was rejected.

* [[Portmanteau]]: Seen occasionally in card names like "Blightning" and "Deadapult".

* [[Power At a Price]]: A major theme for Black. [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=207891 Phyrexian Negator], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201129 Cosmic Horror], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=189885 Xathrid Demon]...one commentator [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Discussion.aspx?multiverseid=207891 here] describes the entire Suicide Black ethos as "tearing off your own arm so you can beat your opponent over the head with it."

* [[Practical Taunt]]: [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=39890 Taunting Elf] causes all of the defending opponent's creatures to block it when it attacks.

* [[Quad Damage]]:

* [[The Power of Friendship]]: The aptly-named Ally creature mechanic, which benefits from the presence of other Allies.

* [[Random Effect Spell]]:

** The [http://magiccards.info/query?q=o%3Acascade+e%3Aarb&v=card&s=cname Cascade] ability from the ''Alara Reborn'' expansion allows you to cast a random spell from your deck for free. There are [http://tinyurl.com/4xzj6eh a variety of spells with similar randomizing effects.]

** [http://magiccards.info/ug/en/45.html Strategy, Schmategy] has you roll a six-sided die to determine which of five totally unrelated abilities you'll get when you cast it. To up the ante, one of the options is "Roll the die two more times."

* [[Recursive Acronym]]: K.O.T.H. for "Koth of the Hammer."

* [[Redshirt Army]]:

* [[Rule of Cool]]:

** Both Johnnies and Timmies will play cards just because they do something cool, though for different reasons.

** [http://www.wizards.com/magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/jm38 This quote] regarding [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=143024 Dragon Roost] sums things up:

"Who cares? You're making DRAGONS!" }}

* [[Sadistic Choice]]:

** [http://magiccards.info/rav/en/217.html Perplex]: if you want to keep your spell, you'll have to discard your hand...

** Effects that cause your opponents to sacrifice a creature (Or any permanent, really). One of them must die...make your choice.

** A number of schemes in Archenemy allow the villain to offer an opponent a choice between "you take a ''big'' effect" and "each of your allies takes a ''smaller'' effect.

** There are a few blue cards, such as [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=247186 Fact or Fiction] and [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=194971 Gifts Ungiven], that invert this to an extent--instead of forcing your opponent to choose what they want to lose, it forces them to choose which of a selection of cards they want you to gain.

** Even before New Phyrexia, the Mirrans had Painful Quandary, which, every time an opponent casts a spell, requires he either discard a card or lose five life. Remember, that's a quarter of your starting life.

* [[Samurai]]: Seen in the ''Kamigawa'' block.

* [[Scunthorpe Problem]]: The problem with Assault Strobe and Cumulative upkeep on the Gatherer site. Yes, they're going that far.

* [[Serious Business]]: [[Tournament Play]]. This makes sense, because Wizards of the Coast provides some ''serious'' prize support. A single tournament can net the winner upwards of $40,000, and they've given away over $25 million in total cash prizes since they started running major tournaments. Several players have lifetime winnings in excess of $100,000, and that doesn't count minor tournaments or free plane trips to exotic foreign locales (though admittedly, you're there to play Magic, so perhaps "dreary foreign convention centre floors" would be more accurate). Of course, this trope often appears in full force even when there isn't a pile of cash at stake.

* [[Serial Escalation]]:

** ''Unglued'' had cards with both [http://magiccards.info/ug/en/53.html the longest] and [http://magiccards.info/ug/en/36.html the shortest] names in the game at that time. Not to be outdone, ''Unhinged'' introduced [http://magiccards.info/uh/en/107.html a card whose name is so long it wraps completely around all four sides of the card] and [http://magiccards.info/uh/en/23.html a card with no name at all].

** ''Unglued'' also contained the card(s) with the largest mana cost, the aforementioned [http://magiccards.info/ug/en/28.html B.F.M.], whose 15 black mana symbols stretched across the entire top line of the card. Once again, ''Unhinged'' decided to top it with [http://magiccards.info/uh/en/121.html Gleemax], a card which costs 1,000,000 mana. Yes, that's one million mana. I hope you brought your [http://magiccards.info/uh/en/124.html Mox Lotus].

* [[Set Bonus]]: The "Urzatron", the Kaldra equipment cycle, and quite a few others.

* [[She Cleans Up Nicely]]: [http://steveargyle.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2xtmfi Chandra] manages to be quite lovely when she's not covered in a 3-inch layer of ash.

** The flavor text of the ''Tempest'' card [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=4737 Time Warp] is "[[The Rocky Horror Picture Show|Let's do it again!]]"

** The card [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Discussion.aspx?multiverseid=220378 Creepy Doll] is, by admission of [[Word of God|MaRo]], a reference to the [[Jonathan Coulton]] song of the same name.

** [http://magiccards.info/isd/en/184.html Grave Bramble] was inspired by [[Plants vs. Zombies]]. Its playtest name was "Tall-Nut."

* [[Strategy Guide]]: Very common online; as the game constantly changes, it's essential for even the most basic [[Tournament Play]].

* [[Strategy Schmategy]]: [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=9784 This card] is the [[Trope Namer]].

** The Eye of Ugin acts as this for the Eldrazi.

** A variety of minor artifacts like [http://magiccards.info/5dn/en/157.html Summoner's Egg] and [http://magiccards.info/ul/en/130.html Quicksilver Amulet] fill this role.

** The "Ninjutsu" mechanic, which lets you swap one attacker for another, mid-combat.

** [http://magiccards.info/gp/en/22.html AEtherplasm] does this whenever it blocks.

* [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill]]: [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=134740 Shivan Meteor] is a prime example.

* [[Too Awesome to Use]]: The very first edition included the ante system, which allowed the winner of the match to ''take some of the loser's cards''. This made players very reluctant to add very rare, powerful cards to a deck.

* [[Tournament Play]]: Sponsored by the game's creators.

* [[Transformation Is a Free Action]]: The Morph capacity. Free in term of timing as it don't use the stack so one can't do anything to respond its use.

** This is what it actually says:

* [[Urban Legend of Zelda]]:

** Throat Wolf, a creature that supposedly had "firstest strike". This was before cardlists were available...

** The guy who tore up his Chaos Orb, inspiring the ''Unglued'' card "Chaos Confetti."

* [[Uriah Gambit]]: Abyssal Persecutor prevents its controller from winning the game as long as it's in play, so you'd better have one of these planned.

** [http://magiccards.info/lg/en/118.html Shelkin Brownie]'s special ability is to remove the "Bands with other" ability from creatures. In the history of ''Magic'', there are ''two'' cards with the "Bands from other" ability: the 1/1 tokens created by [http://magiccards.info/lg/en/108.html Master of the Hunt], and the ''Unhinged'' card [http://magiccards.info/uh/en/106.html Old Fogey], which is illegal in every format and only has the ability as a joke (the only creatures he can band with, aside from creatures that have the regular Banding ability, are other copies of himself). Oh, plus a cycle of lands that are serious contenders for "Worst card in the game" and probably shouldn't count. Good old Shelkin Brownie, keeping the world safe from four-mana 1/1s and legendary lands that don't produce mana!

** The infamously bad card [http://magiccards.info/lg/en/186.html Great Wall] is an enchantment that stops creatures with the Plainswalk ability. At the time of its printing, this included exactly two cards, both of them craptastic: [http://magiccards.info/lg/en/203.html Righteous Avengers], a 3/1 for 5 mana with no other abilities; and [http://magiccards.info/ch/en/5.html Giant Slug], which could only gain Plainswalk by paying 5 mana a turn. Good thing we built that wall, right?

* [[Wooden Stake]]: [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=226880 Wooden Stake].

* [[Xanatos Gambit]]:

** Various creatures have effects if they're blocked, punishing the blocking player. Of note is [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46080 Slith Strider], which has an ability that triggers when it's blocked, and one that triggers when it deals combat damage to a player.

** [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=194256 Ichorclaw Myr]: Take the attack and gain a [[Nonstandard Game Over|poison counter]] (possibly more if it gets buffed), sacrifice a low-toughness creature to absorb the attack, or have a big beastie suffer a sizable, permanent power/toughness loss.

* [[Zerg Rush]]:

** As mentioned above, aggro decks, especially "weenie" decks. Most (in)famous are Goblins (the Little Red Men), White Weenie (soldiers, knights, and birds of prey), and the ''Mirrodin'' block's Ravager Affinity (a rapid-fire Game-Breaker-laden deck which can inflict sudden death very rapidly on a good opening hand).

* [[Zombie Gait]]: Evoked with some of the ''Innistrad'' zombies. [http://magiccards.info/isd/en/97.html Diregraf Ghoul] is a good example--it comes into play tapped to represent its slow gait. M11's [http://magiccards.info/m11/en/115.html Rotting Legion] does the same thing.

 

{{reflist}}