Talk:Magic: The Gathering

Peer review

Magic: The Gathering

Previous peer review

I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like to get this article to GA status. I'm a new editor, so please link your wikilingo.

Thanks, Whimpers1 (talk) 19:53, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

@Whimpers1: I'm going to help go over this article for you, since you are aiming for GA I will review it with those guidelines in mind. Give me some time and I'll make a list of things that should be changed and I'll do any of the small changes myself. From the last time I looked at the article, I know it needs drastically cut down but it's an old game and so we need to be careful about what and how we cut. If you have any questions at any time let me know. I went ahead and added the GA criteria here since those are the criteria that we are going to want to be aiming for.

  – Issues that would not pass GA.
B – Issues I see outside of the criteria that are optional but would be great to address.
Y – No longer an issue.

No.	Section	Criteria status	Excerpt	Suggestion
1	Gameplay 2nd paragraph	quickfail	Cards fall into two classes: lands and spells.	Citation needed tag, preferably we would like to have a non-primary source so the rules would not be the best option but if a secondary source is not found (which I doubt that there isn't one tbh) then the rules could be used for this. (601.1 would probably be the best option but there is also 112 that talks about it. A secondary source would be best though considering it doesn't outright state that there are only 2 classes of cards in the rules)
2	Gameplay 3rd paragraph	1a	Meanwhile, spells consume mana, typically requiring at least one mana of a specific color. More powerful spells cost more, and more specifically colored, mana, so as the game progresses, more land will be in play, more mana will be available, and the quantity and relative power of the spells played tends to increase.	This is overly convoluted and wouldn't be easy to understand for the average reader/layperson. Simplifying it to something like Spells consume mana, usually requiring at least one mana of a specific color. More powerful spells require larger amounts and more specific combinations of mana. As the game progresses and more lands enter play, the available mana increases, allowing stronger spells to be cast.
3	Gameplay 3rd paragraph	1a	Spells come in several varieties: non-permanents like "sorceries" and "instants" have a single, one-time effect before they go to the "graveyard" (discard pile); "enchantments" and "artifacts" that remain in play after being cast to provide a lasting magical effect; "creature" spells summon creatures that can attack and damage an opponent as well as used to defend from the opponent's creature attacks; and "planeswalker" spells that summon powerful allies that act similarly to other players.	Few issues here: Battles are not included in this list but are immediately mentioned without any explanation in the following sentence. They should be defined and could probably be grouped in with enchantments and artifacts so ..."enchantments", "artifacts", and "battles" that remain in play after being cast to provide a lasting magical effect... or they can be included with planeswalkers since they can be attacked similarly (although it would make more sense with enchantments and artifacts in my opinion). Sorceries and instants are listed as non-permanents but then it immediately launches into the rest of the permanent card types before stating that they are a different type. This all could probably be reworded to be more clear such as Cards can be either non-permanents, like sorceries and instants, or permanents, which includes lands, enchantments, artifacts, creatures, planeswalkers, and battles. If you go with this option then doing an embedded glossary at the bottom of the article may be the way to go. This would also help clean up a lot of the article considering there are A LOT of definitions that are written out in this article. Also if you go with this option then both the sentence starting "Spells come in several varieties..." and the following sentence ending "or combat effects" would essentially be combined.
4	Deck construction 1st paragraph	B 3b	Excerpt from Magic: The Gathering rules § Deck construction	I would consider removing the excerpt and including a link in the hatnote instead.
5	Deck construction 2nd paragraph	1a	The Standard format, by including mostly recently released cards, helps to prevent "power creep" that can be difficult to predict with the size of the Magic card library and help give newer players a fair advantage with long-term players.	Rewording to something like By limiting the card pool to recently released and core sets, the Standard format helps mitigate power creep, while making the format more accessible to newer players.
6	Deck construction	B 3b		This section could be trimmed down a lot, most of the information is present in the other articles and doesn't really need to be re-covered here. It could be simplified down to the hatnote linking to the 3 other articles (Magic: The Gathering deck types, Magic: The Gathering formats, and Magic: The Gathering rules#Deck construction) and a brief blurb about the most common formats. Include info about deck sizes and cards that can be included for standard, such as it being the flagship format, 60 cards, and no more than 4 of a single card (excluding lands), Commander, a player-made format that uses 100 cards, 1 of which is the commander, and is singleton, and limited, draft, 40 cards, etc etc. I would also specifically link to those sections/articles for each formats blurb. You could also include a short list of some of the other formats (without going into detail) such as pauper, legacy, modern, vintage as derivatives of standard and a few of the lesser played formats like archenemy and two-headed giant.
7	Limitations	B 3b	Excerpt from Magic: The Gathering rules § Banned and restricted cards	This whole section could be removed. It's not necessarily pertinent to the main article and the rules article is linked to in the hatnote for the deck construction section.
8

Good Article review progress box Quickfail Long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria Copyright violations Cleanup banners including {{cleanup}}, {{POV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{cn}}, {{clarify}}, etc. Article stability, no edit-warring Previous GA review issues still unaddressed Criteria: 1a. prose 1b. MoS 2a. ref layout 2b. cites WP:RS 2c. no WP:OR 2d. no CV 3a. broadness 3b. focus 4. neutral 5. stable 6a. free or tagged images 6b. pics relevant Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Secondary Market section?

I don't think this section should be kept. No other trading card game page has this, not to mention this would fit much better on the general TCG article. I could also see this as a split, as Pokémon would trivially also have a pretty big secondary market section. Happy to discuss further! Whimpers1 (talk) 17:04, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

If you want to add a broader subsection on secondary market trends to Collectible card game, that's probably worth doing. But it doesn't really matter whether or not other TCG articles have similar sections (WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS). The overview of Magic's secondary market isn't WP:UNDUE & this section is pretty well sourced (both industry outlet articles & academic sources). Sariel Xilo (talk) 17:27, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Colorless Mana is not mentioned anywhere.

In the list of colors, we have 5 colors (red, blue, white, black, green). However, some specific spells do have colorless mana as prerequisite to be cast, for example certain Endrazi creatures. Therefore the sixth mana type (even if the game treats it as not a color) must be mentioned. Colorless mana usually interacts with the game as 'universial mana of any color' but there are some cases where specifically 'colorless' mana is required. What do you think? Shey1993 (talk) 13:55, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

I've added colorless mana into the gameplay. Its technically not a separate mana type, it just represents any mana source regardless of color. Masem (t) 14:09, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

My bad, I see what you mean now. added that too to the Colors section Masem (t) 14:19, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

This is actually a widespread confusion. Colorless mana *is* it's own type of mana. What you describe is called generic mana.

Generic mana is used in costs and means, you can pay this cost with any type of mana.

Colorless mana is a type of mana and can be used to pay for generic mana costs and costs of colorless mana as used on several Eldrazi cards.

Finally I'd like to argue that colorless mana does not need to be mentioned in the article. Yes, it exists, but the article doesn't need to and in fact shouldn't try to be all-encompassing. For an overview article like this one it only leads to cluttering and confusion while not providing useful information to anyone not familiar with the subject of the article. OdinFK (talk) 07:49, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

It looks like Masem did (correctly) add colorless mana to the article, however I do agree. Though, I think the same can be said about a lot of this article, so what's a little more? Whimpers1 (talk) 01:53, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

In my opinion we should strive to make the article better instead of knowlingly let it bloat more, but I totally agree, there's a lot of cleanup necessary and this one is not going to change much about the state of the article. OdinFK (talk) 07:41, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Adaptations

Starlight Wizards and Starlight Manaburn by Ritsu Takagi - manga about the game Setenzatsu.2 (talk) 12:44, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Gameplay lede

Players in a game of Magic represent dueling wizards called "Planeswalkers". Each card a player draws from their deck represents a magical spell which can be used to their advantage in battle. Instant and Sorcery cards represent magical spells a player may cast for a one-time effect, while Creature, Artifact, Enchantment, Planeswalker, and Battle cards remain on the Battlefield to provide long-term advantage. Players usually must include resource, or Land cards representing the amount of mana that is available to cast their spells. Typically, a player defeats their opponent(s) by reducing their life totals to zero, which is commonly done via combat damage by attacking with creatures. Many other sources of damage exist in the game, in addition to alternative win-conditions.

As a Magic player, I think this lede paragraph is technically accurate but entirely misleading.

Here's a big picture description of gameplay that doesn't get so lost in the weeds:

Players battle each other by attempting to reduce the opponent's life total to zero. Players draw seven cards from a shuffled deck. They take turns playing "land" (resource cards that provide "mana") and casting "spells." Typically, a player will cast a combination of "creature" spells (or other "permanent" spells that stay on the table until removed) and "sorcery" spells (one-time effects). Once successfully cast, creatures are controlled by the player who cast them. Creatures provide a variety of advantages: they can often "attack" the opposing player to inflict damage, defend the player, or provide mana or other benefits. There are many different types of permanent spells, lands, and one-time use spells. Each player attempts to apply their deck's strategy to win the game. There are many different types of decks, play styles, and strategies. The losing player is typically defeated by running out out of life points. Players may "concede" the victory to their opponent when they conclude that further play is futile. When one player wins, the round ends. Players can choose a "best of one" format or "best of three" format in which case they would shuffle, re-draw, and battle again.

Something like that. The problem, of course, is that magic is 99% exceptions and 1% rules, so people are going to point out all of the simplifications in my version, but isn't that the point? To offer a simplistic overview that non-players can actually understand? Thoughts?

I would remove the quotation marks. I know they're referencing specific terminology from the game but I think it breaks up the flow and could confuse unfamiliar readers. The point that players lose by losing their life points is also repeated redundantly imo. I've written a revision.

Players battle each other with the goal of reducing their opponent's life total to zero. To start, players draw seven cards from their own shuffled deck. Then, they take turns playing lands - resource cards that provide mana - and casting spells which cost mana to play. Typically, a player will cast a combination of creature spells (or other permanent spells such as artifacts or enchantments) which will stay on the board, and sorcery spells which provide one time effects. Once successfully cast, creatures are controlled by the player who cast them. Creatures provide a variety of advantages: they can attack the opposing player to inflict damage, defend against the opponent's creatures, or provide mana or other benefits.

A player's strategy is often informed by the kind of cards in their deck. As there are tens of thousands of different cards, this allows for many different styles of play. Players may concede the round at any time. Games are often played in either a best of one or best of three format. In the latter case, after a round ends, players shuffle all of their cards back into their deck before beginning a new round. User:Lukeivan