Magic the Gathering Basics Part 5: Final Thoughts and Combat Step Procedures

For the Finality of this article we are going to go over the most complex step the attack/blocking step otherwise known as the combat step, during this step there are tons of decisions to be made and i will go over them all of course so let's go.

Attacking - Now for this step you can choose however many creatures you want that do not have the ability of defender to attack, let's say you have a Lumengrid Drake a trio of Myr Galvanizer and 3 islands and 1 swamp in play untapped of course, with two cards in hand for you, your opponent has a Kargan Dragonlord that has 4 levels on it, making it a 4/4 flyer, a Goblin Guide and 1 mountain left untapped with 1 card in hand on his side of the field, do you attack with everything or attack with the drake only, well that is up to you to decide, comments below i wanna see the response to this problem. Now this step you must declare all your attackers at once so you cannot choose one and then a second later choose another you have to make the decision before the attack step begins, once you attack however he is free to block.

Blocking - This is really simple to understand, let's use the same situation, but your in control of the goblin guide and kargan dragonlord, your opponent attacks how do you respond since you have 1 mana left open and a capable blocker in both the guide and dragonlord, i'd also like a response below for the situation answer if you would please. The attacker however can declare battle damage to creatures when it is blocked, the attacker also gets to choose the amount of damage assigned to creatures and if a creature has trample well you know the rest as i explained trample in a previous article, during this step though entire combat step spells can be played as long as they are instants and not sorceries, that is something also to consider.

Resolution - After the blocking step there comes the resolution step where as all creatures that have been dealt critical damage are sent to the graveyard and removed from play, if a creature ever reaches 0 points of toughness that creature is then sent to the graveyard, or if a creature is removed from play via a spell such as Doom Blade then the creature is sent to the graveyard automatically regardless of combat damage assigned in this case there are multiple instances of how people think the combat step works but this is the most direct and easiest way to explain the combat step in general terms for the new magic player on the block.

Final Thoughts - This concludes the how to guide for the beginning magic player, i've referred you to enough sources to get started and such at playing wizards of the coast's game of magic the gathering, i hope you have found this a useful tool for getting started and i will see you again in the next article.