List of Magic slang

Magic: The Gathering players have invented many new terms over the years the game has existed, covering a wide variety of aspects of the game, from deckbuilding to card mechanics. These Magic: The Gathering Terms are listed here.

Terms

This is not a list of Magic: The Gathering "keywords". Most terms listed below are informal, player-created terms not truly a part of the game rules.

Accel

Short for 'acceleration', accel are the elements in a deck which help it gain access to mana faster than the standard one-additional-mana-per-turn rate. It generally refers to placing additional mana-producing permanents into play, but also refers to one-use spells that provide a temporary mana boost. The most famous category of acceleration cards are the Moxes and Black Lotus, which significantly increase the amount of mana available in the early turns of a game.

Aggro

Short for 'aggressive', aggro is used to define a deck or archetype which is highly dependent on creature combat and aggressive attacks. The aim is to develop an advantage in the game before the opponent. See Aggro deck.

Allied Colours

Refers to the five pairs of colours between a colour and one of their two allies. White/Blue, Blue/Black, Black/Red, Red/Green and Green/White.

Archetype

Has two meanings. Firstly, refers to a specific branch of very influential or competetive decks in a metagame. Deck archetypes tend to revolve around a particular card, combo, or strategy. Alternatively, refers to the core strategy groups a deck can fall into: control, combo, or aggro (beatdown) (or some hybrid of these "pure" strategies).

Bah-roken

The superlative form of 'broken' (see below).

Barn

Short for 'barnacle,' this refers to a player who follows around much better, more famous players, hoping to benefit from their experience and success. Usually negative. Its history comes from its association with the term 'Hull,' noted below. This, however, is the more popular of the two words.

Beatstick

A Beatstick, or "stick," is a creature that is effective to attack with. They are usually but not necessarily, large creatures.

Big Ass

A creature with a 'Big Ass' is a creature with a low power, but a high toughness, making it ideal for defense. Horned Turtle is, for example, a 1/4 and Kami of Old Stone is a 1/7. It is less common, but not unheard of, for a creature with a high power and low toughness to be referred to as having a 'small ass'.

Big Pants

Creature enchantments that increase the enchanting creatures toughness higher than the amount it increases the creatures power are 'Big Pants'. This comes from the card Hero's Resolve (aka Heroic Pants), which gives the creature it enchants +1 power but +5 toughness.

Board

The collection of permanents currently on the table. Each player has their own 'board' and the word also describes the collective 'board.' e.g. "There's a lot of creatures on the board" See Also: Board Sweeper

Board Sweeper

A spell which destroys/removes/neutralizes all creatures currently in play. Famous examples include Wrath of God and Jokulhaups.

Boltbait

Boltbait are small, powerful creatures that are rendered impractical to play because they 'attract' removal spells (like Lightning Bolt). That is, they are so potentially dangerous that they are killed as soon as they are played. Hypnotic Specter is a classic example of boltbait.

Bombo

A combo which seems to work, but upon further rules clarification is actually discovered to be invalid.

Burn

Direct damage not dealt through combat, but rather by spells or effects of cards already in play, such as that dealt by a Lightning Bolt spell or the ability of Prodigal Sorcerer. Burn can also be shorthand for mana burn.

Capping

Named after the card Jester's Cap, the first card to use the effect, this term refers to searching an opponent's library for specific cards and removing them from the game in order to deny the opponent of their use at some future time. This strategy is effective against combo decks, which usually rely on one or two specific cards in order to work at all, and control decks which have a lot of control elements but very few win conditions, but is close to useless against most aggro decks, which usually don't rely on any specific card to win.

CIP

Short for "comes into play", used to refer to a variety of abilities which trigger when a creature comes into play. Can also be spelled "CITP" (Comes into the play zone).

CIPT

Shorthand for "comes into play tapped", a common drawback on nonbasic lands.

Clock

A 'Clock' or 'X Turn Clock' is a threat that will lead to victory over an opponent in a finite number of turns, thus giving the opponent a known time limit in which to either win or answer the threat. For example, if a player is at 20 life and an unblockable creature with a power of 4 is played by their opponent, that player is said to be on a 5-turn clock.

Colour Screw

'Colour Screw' refers to a specific type of mana screw, where a player , while perhaps having plenty of mana/acceleration, lacks the correct colour to play certain spells. e.g. A player may have six Mountains, but lacks the Swamp they need to cast a Wrecking Ball

Combo

Short for 'combination', combo can refer to a variety of concepts.

• Card combination Any combination of 2 or more cards which produces a beneficial effect, designed to gain an advantage over the opponent.
• Combo deck A deck or archetype which uses a combo as its victory condition. The deck is designed entirely for the purpose of setting up and protecting the combo.

Control

Control refers to ways in which players use cards to control the flow of the game.

• Card A control card is any card designed to help a player control cards in the game. Control cards might destroy an opponent's useful cards, keep an opponent from playing useful cards, or force the opponent to discard his cards before he uses them.
• Control deck or Archetype A deck or archetype which attempts to gain a decisive advantage using control cards to hinder the opponent and protect its victory condition. A control deck makes sacrifices in speed in order to improve chances of playing past an opponent's defenses.
• Part of a deck The controlling elements in a deck.

Control was also the codename for the large set Ravnica: City of Guilds, along with its small sets Alt (Guildpact) and Delete (Dissension).

Control Slaver

A control deck designed to control all of the opponent's turns by recurring Mind Slaver with a Goblin Welder.

Curve

The power level of a card can be judged by players as being 'above', 'on' or 'below the curve'. For example, the power and toughness of most 3 casting cost creatures is 2/2. A 2/2 creature with a casting cost of 3 is considered on the curve, while a 3/3 of the same cost would be above the curve and a 1/1 creature would be below the curve. Often, but not always, creatures that are above or below the curve have a corresponding drawback or ability to balance the card.

Deck Description

There are no hard and fast rules to deck naming, popular decks get their own unique nickname, but decks are usually described by color, archetype and format. The colors being, Black, Blue, White, Green and Red (artifacts can be included). The archetypes being Aggro, Combo and Control (however, Combo decks are usually described by shorthanding the cards that form the actual combo). The formats are varied, but the most popular sanctioned formats are Vintage (Type 1), Legacy, Extended, Standard (Type 2), Block and Limited. If the deck uses only one color, it is referred to as mono. For example "My standard deck is mono blue Eye of the Storm combo", "It's an extended green blue aggro control deck".

Decking

To 'deck' someone is to run their library out of cards, thus causing them to lose the game for being unable to draw cards when required to do so (see Winning and losing). The original method of doing this involved the card Millstone, and is therefore also commonly known as milling (see Mill).

Disruption

The elements of a deck that stop, delay, or hinder the development of an opponent's deck. Common disruption elements include counterspells (which stop an opponent's spells from resolving), discard (which forces the opponent to discard needed cards from his or her hand), land destruction (which stops an opponent from being able to produce enough mana to cast the spells in his or her hand), or removal (which destroy or otherwise eliminate an opponent's cards in play). Other forms of removal include graveyard removal (which removes cards from an opponent's graveyard to prevent the recursion or reanimation of those cards), library removal (aka "capping", which eliminates specific cards from an opponent's library to eliminate the chance of the opponent being able to use them at some time in the future), control-changing spells (which allow one to gain control of an opponent's cards in play), target-changing (spells or abilities which allow you to change the targets of other spells or abilities, turning them against their original caster), damage prevention and redirection (which do just what their names imply), and cards which disallow specific cards or spells from being played or used at all.

Draw-Go

Draw-go refers to a stagnating period of gameplay in which both players, often because they are waiting for the other player to make the first move, simply draw a card and pass their turns. A draw-go situation can also occur when neither player has a beneficial spell to play and controls no important cards on the table. The term Draw-Go also refers to a deck that, because of its reactive nature, often played spells primarily during the opponent's turn. Draw-Go became the name of that deck because its turns usually consisted only of card drawing.

Drop

Refers to a permanent which can be played without major strategic consideration. It is usually used in the context of "2 drop", "3 drop" etc, referring to the turn when a permanent can first be played, which is equal to its converted mana cost. Also, to play a land, i.e. "I drop a plains."

Emerald Alice

Short for a deck capable of switching between Oath and Gro by using the sideboard.

Enemy Colours

Refers to the five pairings between a colour and one of its enemy colours. White/Black, Black/Green, Green/Blue, Blue/Red and Red/White.

Engine

An engine card is a card that converts one resource into another. For example, Channel converts life points to mana, Mind Over Matter converts cards in hand to untaps of target permanents, Skullclamp converts small creatures into cards in hand, and so on. Engines often form the heart of combos and are often restricted in tournaments due to being too effective.

EOTFOFYL

An acronym for "End of turn, Fact or Fiction, you lose." This acronym comes from the fact that the card Fact or Fiction has such versatility and ability that it can win the game solely by forcing your opponent to give you at least one card that you need from the top five cards in your library. Michelle Bush coined this phrase after playing the card at its debut tournament.

Fatty

Refers to a large (usually 4/4 or greater) creature, generally offensive in nature. A fatty is the opposite of a weenie.

Firebreathing

Firebreathing is the name commonly given to a creature ability that allows the creature to get a power boost for a certain amout of mana (usually red). The ability was first seen on the Alpha set's Shivan Dragon&lt;c&gt;, which had the basic form of the ability "<span class="ie9" style="display:inline-block;vertical-align:baseline;position:relative;top:-0.15em;margin:0 0.035em"><span class="explain" title="Red"><img alt="{R}" src="https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mtgsalvation_gamepedia/images/8/87/R.svg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/15?cb=20160125094913" decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="15" height="15" data-image-name="R.svg" data-image-key="R.svg" data-relevant="0" /></span></span>: &lt;c&gt;Shivan Dragon gets +1/+0 until end of turn". The name probably comes from the card Firebreathing, which grants any creature the ability. The concept is that the red mana (fire) turns into a power boost (the fire hurts the creature's enemy more).

Fish

A blue aggro-control deck. Older versions featured a merfolk theme.

Fix

'Fixing' cards is the process used by Wizards of the Coast to create less powerful versions of older, popular, but broken (overpowered) cards. For example Shock is considered a fixed version of Lightning Bolt. Another example is noted above in the dual land section.

Floating

Refers to mana in a player's mana pool that has not been used, especially after that player has just played a spell or ability. Usually, a player will only tap as much mana as required by the particular spell or ability they wish to play, and only when they wish to play it. However, in various situations a player may leave some amount of mana in their mana pool.

The most common situation in which this occurs is when a player is using a recurring loop of spells or abilities to produce an arbitrarily large amount of mana--each iteration of the loop produces extra mana, which is left floating until the player has acquired enough excess mana to achieve his or her desired end.

FTW

For The Win. Often declared as "X for the win" where X is the card that wins the game (directly or indirectly). The worse the card, the more likely the phrase will be used. "Chimney Imp for the win!!"

GAT

Short for Gro-A-Tog, a deck featuring Quirion Dryad (Gro) and Psychatog.

GG

Stands for "Good Game." Also said as "geeg" in a more sarcastic form.

God

A 'God hand' or 'God draw' is the most optimal hand or draw a player could have. E.g 'with a god hand, this deck can pull off a turn three win.' The best possible hand is also called "the nuts".

Gro

Refers to a class of decks featuring Quirion Dryad. The original gro deck was Miracle Gro, though others followed (such as Super Gro).

Hate (card hate/strategy hate)

Hate (generally in the context of "hate cards" or "hate for X") refers to altering the composition of one's deck not to make it generally better, but to try to lower the effective power of an opponent's powerful card or deck. For example, in Vintage magic, blue cards and artifacts are considered to be considerably more powerful than other cards, and decks often include hate for blue or artifacts. See also: Metagame,Splash damage. Also: In the context of draft, to select a card you probably will not play to keep it from others, e.g. a "Hate Draft" or "Hate Pick."

Hardcasting

To 'hardcast' a permanent is to put it into play without using any spell or ability, paying its mana cost and playing it normally. This term is used to describe situations that deviate from the norm or to describe a card's rules text. "I won by hardcasting Darksteel Colossus." "You must hardcast Hypnox for its ability to work."

Highlander

One of the most popular casual formats. Highlander rules are that, excluding basic land, there can be no two cards with the same name in the one deck. The term has it's origins in the catchphrase of the movie Highlander: "There can be only one". Interestingly enough, this format goes by the name "Singleton" in official Wizards of the Coast communications and advertising even though the format is almost exclusively referred to as Highlander by players. This is most likely to avoid any copyright issues that might arise.

Hoser

A Hoser is a card, deck, or style of play that is extremely powerful against another certain deck or archetype. ie The card Wrath of God "hoses" or is a hoser of creature-based decks. See also: Hate

Hull

Associated with the word "Barn." A Hull is a player who attracts many players, often less skilled, to him or her and seems to be treated as such. As a Hull, his or her Barns are constantly following the Hull around in order to leech off of them or simply to attain another level of play or social status.

Ineffable, The

The phrase 'The Ineffable' is used to refer to Yawgmoth on some Magic: The Gathering forums. For example, 'Will of the Ineffable' refers to Yawgmoth's Will.

Inevitability

In a given matchup, the deck with inevitability is the one that becomes more and more likely to win as the game continues. While still a theoretical science, inevitability can go to to the deck with more threats, a better late game, an unstoppable trump card, or the deck that simply has more cards in its library to prevent decking.

Keeper

A deck built to abuse the most powerful cards in Vintage, or a favorable initial hand of cards.

Landstill

A deck featuring Standstill and Manlands.

LD

LD is an abbreviation for Land destruction - a viable but unpopular strategy for victory in which a player uses spells and abilities to destroy an opponents land, making it impossible for them to play any spells.

Legs

A 'card on legs' is a creature which possesses the same characteristics as a non-creature spell which preceded it. For example, 'Fog on legs' is used to refer to Kami of False Hope, which can be sacrificed for the same effect as the instant, Fog. Sometimes, rather than saying 'Fog on legs', a player will use 'Mr. Fog' for the same meaning. Also used is '(Spell name) on wings' or '(Spell name) with wings', meaning a creature with flying that has the same effect as the spell.

Lockdown

During a match, lockdown refers to a period where a player, through card interactions, has made it difficult or impossible for the opponent to mount an effective defense. "Breaking out" of a lockdown takes skill and luck, but often an effective lockdown will allow the lockdown player to secure victory before the other player can break out. In many tournament communities, decks are built with the tools to break out of locks, reducing the effectiveness of most lockdown cards. As a result, some decks specialize in lockdown strategies and use an arsenal of locks in order to form an exceptionally strong lockdown, followed by a swift victory.

Long.dec

Short for an explosive combo deck that abused Burning Wish to fetch Yawgmoth's Will. Long.dec boasted the impressive ability to win more than half the time on the first turn, prompting the restriction of Burning Wish in Vintage. Current versions include Grim Long and Death Long, which feature Grim Tutor and Death Wish as ways to replace the restricted Burning Wish.

Lucksack

Name for a consistently lucky person, usually used with a slightly resentful tone, I.E. "He is SUCH a lucksack, that Wrath of god won him the game!"

Lunchroom

Refers to a fast pace game of Magic where you can draw three cards at a time and play any number of land during a single turn. This comes from the idea that when playing in a school lunchroom, time is too short to play a full game of Magic.