Final FantasyStarter Kit · Rules & Decklists

The Starter Kit is self-contained. You do not need to buy anything else to play.

• 2 preconstructed 60-card decks — one blue-black, one red-white. They are built to play against each other.
• 1 traditional foil legendary creature per deck — Sephiroth leads blue-black, Cloud leads red-white.
• 5 cards per deck printed only in this kit — ten cards total that don't appear in the main set.
• 54 cards per deck from the main FINAL FANTASY set.
• 4 double-sided token cards — stand-ins for creatures and Treasure that cards create.
• 2 MTG Arena code cards (select regions) and 2 deck boxes.

The whole game in four sentences.

You and your opponent each start at 20 life. You play lands, which produce mana. You spend mana to cast spells — mostly creatures, which stay on the table and attack. You win when your opponent hits 0 life.

There is one other way to lose: if you have to draw a card and your deck is empty, you lose. In a 60-card game between two starter decks, this almost never comes up.

Roughly two minutes, every game.

1. Each player takes one deck and shuffles it. Offer it to your opponent to cut.
2. Decide who goes first — roll a die or flip a coin. In later games, the loser of the previous game chooses.
3. Both players set life to 20. Use dice, paper, or a phone.
4. Each player draws 7 cards. Keep the token cards to the side; they are not part of your deck.
5. If you dislike your hand, you may mulligan: shuffle it back, draw 7 again, then put 1 card from your hand on the bottom of your deck. You can repeat this, putting one more card on the bottom each time.
6. Play. The player going first does not draw a card on their first turn — that's the trade-off for the tempo advantage.

Read a card top to bottom and it tells you everything.

• Name — top left.
• Mana cost — top right. 2B means "two mana of any kind, plus one black mana." Total cost here is 3.
• Type line — under the art. Tells you what the card is (Creature, Instant, Land…) and its subtypes (Human Soldier, Equipment, Saga).
• Text box — the rules the card adds to the game. Italic text is flavor or reminder text and changes nothing.
• Power / toughness — bottom right, creatures only. 3/2 means it deals 3 damage when it fights and dies when it has taken 2.

The five colors

W White   U Blue   B Black   R Red   G Green. A grey numbered pip like 2 is generic mana — pay it with anything. Your two decks use four of the five: blue-black and red-white.

Lands are your economy. Play one every single turn if you can.

To get mana from a land, you tap it — turn it sideways. A tapped land is spent for the turn. At the start of your next turn everything you control untaps, so lands recur every turn.

• Island taps for U, Swamp for B, Plains for W, Mountain for R. These are your basic lands.
• Town lands — this set's dual lands. Blue-black plays 4 Treno, Dark City; red-white plays 4 Rabanastre, Royal City. They produce either of your deck's two colors, which smooths out awkward draws. "Town" is a subtype other cards can care about.
• Unused mana empties at the end of each step. You cannot save it for next turn.

Every turn runs the same sequence. Pick a step to see what happens in it.

The part new players get wrong most often. Walk it slowly the first few games.

1. You declare attackers. Tap each creature you're attacking with. A creature can't attack if it's already tapped, or if it came under your control this turn (see summoning sickness below) unless it has haste. Attacking is a choice per creature, not all-or-nothing.
2. Your opponent declares blockers. Each untapped creature they control may block one attacker. Blocking does not tap the blocker. Multiple creatures can gang-block a single attacker.
3. Damage happens all at once. Each creature deals damage equal to its power. Blocked attacker and blocker hit each other. Unblocked attackers hit the defending player's life total.
4. Creatures with lethal damage die. A creature dies when damage marked on it is equal to or greater than its toughness. Damage wears off at the end of every turn, so a 4/4 that took 3 damage is back to full next turn.

Summoning sickness

A creature can't attack or use abilities with the tap symbol until it has been under your control since the start of your turn. Cast a creature on turn four, it attacks on turn five. It can block immediately.

Choosing the damage order

If two creatures block one attacker, the attacking player decides how to split that attacker's damage among the blockers, assigning lethal damage to the first before moving to the second.

Six types show up in these two decks.

Legendary

Sephiroth, Cloud, Beatrix, Freya and the rest are legendary. If you ever control two with the same name, you choose one to keep and put the other in your graveyard. Across two different decks this basically never comes up.

Standard Magic keywords, plus the mechanics this set introduced.

Set mechanics

Evergreen keywords

You mostly don't need this. Read it once, then use it when someone asks "can I respond to that?"

Spells don't resolve instantly. A cast spell goes on the stack, both players get a chance to respond, and then it resolves. If both players respond, the last thing added resolves first.

• Sorcery speed — your turn, your main phase, stack empty. Creatures, sorceries, artifacts, enchantments, lands, equipping.
• Instant speed — any time you have priority, including in the middle of your opponent's combat. Instants and abilities with flash.
• The classic play: your opponent attacks, you declare a block, and then you cast a pump or removal instant before damage. Holding mana open for that is the main reason to not just tap out every turn.

Things almost every new player does in their first three games.

• Forgetting the land drop. If you have a land in hand, play it. Missing one turn of land puts you a full turn behind.
• Forgetting to untap. Untap step is first, and it untaps everything, not just lands.
• Thinking blocking taps the blocker. It doesn't. Only attacking taps.
• Attacking with a creature that arrived this turn. Summoning sickness. Check for haste first.
• Playing an instant at sorcery timing out of habit. Instants are most valuable held until your opponent commits.
• Assuming damage carries over. A damaged creature is fully healed at end of turn. It does not stay wounded.
• Equipping during combat. Equip is sorcery speed — do it in your first main phase, before you attack.

Once both decks feel comfortable.

• Swap decks and replay. The two decks want different things, and playing both teaches you what each is trying to do.
• Get the free rules app. The MTG Companion app tracks life, and the official Keyword Glossary answers "what does this word mean" faster than anything else.
• Try a Prerelease or a Welcome Deck night at a local store. Sealed events are the friendliest on-ramp — everyone opens the same product and nobody has a tuned deck.
• Comprehensive rules live at magic.wizards.com/en/rules. You will not need them for a long while.