Card type

Card type is a characteristic found on every Magic: the Gathering card. It appears in the type line, between any supertypes and subtypes that card might have.

Other objects, such as tokens and some non-traditional Magic cards, also have card types.

Card type dictates many of the general rules regarding when and how a card may be played.

Current types
Standard Magic cards typically have one or more of either the permanent types land, creature, artifact, enchantment, and planeswalker, or of the non-permanent spell types instant and sorcery.

Cards may have more than one card type, such as artifact land or enchantment creature, and types may be changed during gameplay. A card may possess any supertype, regardless of its type, and can gain any subtype that corresponds to a type on that card.

Starting with Magic 2015, tokens printed on the reverse side of marketing cards are printed with a type line. This type line appears to depict the card type "Token" for creature tokens, or the card type "Emblem" and the corresponding Planeswalker subtype for emblem tokens. However, neither tokens nor emblems are card types, and these labels are included solely to help identify the tokens. Additionally, while the creature subtype on such token cards is correct, emblems are neither cards nor permanents and have no types or subtypes.

Casual formats
Most of the other currently supported card types are exclusive to casual variants and the supplemental products that support those formats. Phenomenon and plane cards are exclusive to the Planechase format. Scheme cards are used by the player designated as the archenemy in the Archenemy format. Vanguard cards are used in the format of the same name. The conspiracy type has appeared only in the Conspiracy product.

While most casual play-oriented card types have appeared only on oversized cards, cards with the conspiracy type are printed at the normal size, to allow them to fit into booster packs. Because this would allow those cards to be mixed into a normal deck, cards with the conspiracy type are explicitly banned outside of the Conspiracy format.

Deprecated types
The tribal type, which appeared in Future Sight and the Lorwyn block, is still supported under the current Comprehensive Rules.

After the Future Sight block the tribal type has been used most recently in Rise of the Eldrazi on four cards having the "Tribal Eldrazi" typing. However, it is now unlikely to be reprinted on new cards (in premier sets). Modern Horizons 2 had tribal as a one-of (Altar of the Goyf).

Obsolete types
Some older cards were printed with card types which have since been rendered obsolete by rules updates. Those cards have received errata and are still playable according to their Oracle text.

Interrupt and mana source were created for older versions of the game's timing system, under which spells were played in a batch and interrupts functioned similarly to the split second keyword. When the batch was replaced by the stack in Sixth Edition, those types became obsolete, and cards that had those types became instants.

The summon type was replaced by creature in order to remove any confusion resulting from the lack of the word "creature" on cards representing that type.

Old enchant cards, then known as local enchantments, now use the aura subtype and enchant keyword to differentiate themselves from global enchantments.

Type icons
The Future Sight futureshifted card frame supported type icons for each card type then in the game. These icons were a set of claw marks for creatures, a flame for sorcery, a lightning bolt for instant, a sunrise for enchantment, a chalice for artifact, and a pair of mountain peaks for land. Cards with multiple card types were indicated by a black and white cross. There was no type icon for the planeswalker type, as it did not yet exist.

Rules
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Nonstandard cards
Some cards printed for special purposes are not supported in the Comprehensive Rules and may have card types defined elsewhere.
 * For example, the Hero's Path event run during Theros block used hero cards, which are unplayable outside of that event (e.g. The Hunter).
 * Similarly, the Heroes of the Realm card Optimus Prime, Inspiring Leader has the card type Character.