Gallery of Rules and Definitions
  • AI
    • Stands for “Artificial Intelligence”. When engaging in combat with another player’s deck, it’s the Artificial Intelligence that calculates the appropriate play as your opponent.
       
  • Buff
    • A creature is buffed when its Power/Toughness exceeds its base value positively, shown with a green color. Players can tap on the P/T area to check which value is positive (buffed), negative (orange), neutral/base (white), and the amount of damage suffered by that creature
       
      Buff based on position
      • Cards that give buff will always do so based on their own rules. Those that buff a creature based on its position without determining when or for how long (like "While on the board: Your first creature gets +1/+1.") will check the position constantly, while those that uses texts like "At the beginning of your turn: [...]" and "[...] until end of turn" will buff based on the associated text's rules.
  • Cast
    • A card is cast if it has full mana while in the player's hand or graveyard, and only after the player makes a swap.
    • A card can only be cast if it's not disabled and only if it has a valid target available (if any).
    • Also, a card must have the Buried ability to be cast from a graveyard.
       
  • Colorless PWs vs Gem Colors and Conversion
    • Whenever a card or effect affects gems of the color of a colorless Planeswalker, they will affect gems of any color.
    • Whenever a card or effect tries to convert gems to the color of a colorless Planeswalker, those gems will be converted to a random color. It won't convert gems to Loyalty gems.
      • Also, when converting gems to the color of a multicolored Planeswalker, those gems will be converted to a random color amongst that Planeswalker's colors.
  • Destroy
    • A card is destroyed either when it loses all of its toughness/shield counts or when another effect or spell demands it to be destroyed. When a card is destroyed, it is moved to the Graveyard. Cards that were exiled don't count as “destroyed”. Also, effects that trigger when a card is destroyed only happen if it's destroyed while onto play, and not if it was destroyed while on the library or hand.
       
  • Dupe
    • “Dupes” are duplicate cards - earned from rewards/boosters - that you already own in your collection. When a Dupe card is acquired, it is then transformed into Mana Orbs (used to craft non-dupe boosters) and Mana Runes. A non-dupe booster is one that will never give you any Dupes.
       
  • Effects - Conditional/Independent
    • The difference between dependent and independent conditions is determined by text. The pattern adopted by design is that when an effect starts with a “Then” adverb, it means that this effect is conditioned by the success of the previous effect. So, when a card says “Destroy target creature. Then, create a Zombie token.”, the token is only gonna be created if a creature was destroyed by the previous effect. If that card said “Destroy target creature. Create a Zombie token.”, the token would be created whether a creature was destroyed by the previous effect or not.
       
  • Event Supports
    • Normally seen during Events, an “Event Support” is a support that stays present throughout the whole Event match, meaning that it’s indestructible (unless it specifically does it to itself). However, note that although the community may refer to them as “permanents” or “permanent supports”, they’re not considered permanents in the game since they’re not an actual card.
       
  • Evergreen
    • “Evergreen” is a term to mean an Icon Ability: an ability represented as an Icon on a card. If the icon is white, it represents an active ability which originally appeared on the card. If the icon is yellow, it represents an active ability which has been granted to the card by another effect during the game. If the icon is red, it shows an ability which has been Disabled by an effect, or it is an ability on a disabled creature.
       
  • Extra Swap
    • Players can earn an extra swap when matching at least 5 gems of the same color on a single gem break from either swapping/cascading. The extra swap granted by cascades will only consider each gem break individually, not the whole amount of broken gems after all cascades are finished.
      • Note that If the players match, for example, 3 white gems and 3 blue gems at the same time, this will not grant an extra swap since only 3 gems of each color were matched.
  • Fight
    • When two creatures fight, each creature deals damage equal to its power to the other creature. Effects related to when creatures deal damage during combat (like lifelink and deathtouch) do not apply when creatures fight.
       
  • Gems
    • Only gems without any effect (which includes supports and special gems) can be converted or used to create supports. If the board is full of special gems and/or supports, the only way to create new gem effects is destroying what’s already on the board before.
       
  • Greg
    • A nickname for the AI which controls the opponent’s Planeswalker during a game.
  • Half-Mana
    • When an effect adds half of a card's mana, this amount is rounded down, unless otherwise specified.

  • Historic Cards
    • Historic are those that have 1 or more of these subtypes: Legendary, Artifacts, and Sagas. Cards that have more than 1 of those subtypes are counted as 1 historic card, regardless of the amount of matching subtypes they have.
       
  • Legacy
    • “Legacy” is a term both used to describe cards from all sets and also Events that allow cards from all sets.
       
  • Mana gain
    • Regarding the conversion and destruction of gems, they perform differently:
      • Whenever a player converts gems, if that conversion results in a match, that player gains the mana from that match and its cascades (if any), regardless of who is the turn's owner.
      • Whenever there is a gem destruction during the turn, any match that occurs at that time belongs to the owner of the turn, including cascades. Therefore, if the player destroys gems on the enemy's turn and, consequently, matches occur, the mana generated by these matches will go to the enemy (owner of the turn). Also, matches from swaps always give mana to the turn's owner.
       
  • Match
    • A Match happens when 3 or more gems are combined - either by swap, conversion, or cascades. When multiple gems are destroyed without being previously swapped, converted, or cascaded, it doesn’t count as a Match.
       
  • Mill
    • “Mill” is a keyword conditional trigger from the Throne of Eldraine (ELD) set that makes card’s effects active while the opponent's graveyard contains at least the specified number of cards. For example: “Mill 16: At the end of your turn: gain 9 Loyalty.” - As long as the opponent has 16 or more cards in their graveyard, you’ll gain 9 Loyalty points every time your turn would end.
       
  • Move to the battlefield/board/into play
    • A card that is moved into play is not cast. Instead, it is affected by an effect that allowed it to be moved to the battlefield from the deck, graveyard, hand, exile, etc. The action of moving a card into play counts as a summon action for some event objectives.
       
  • Nerf
    • A creature is nerfed when its Power/Toughness is lower than their base value, shown with an orange color. Players can tap on the P/T area to check which value is positive (buffed), negative (orange), neutral/base (white), and the amount of damage suffered by that creature.
       
  • Permanents
    • “Permanent”, just like in MtG, is any non-token card that stays on the board after it was cast - like creatures, supports, etc.
       
  • PvP
    • Player vs Player, an event type where you face decks provided by other players, but played by Greg - the game’s AI.
       
  • PvE
    • Player vs Enemy, an event type where you face predetermined decks provided by the game.
       
  • Shield
    • “Shield” is a numeric count on a support in play. Matching the support gem reduces its shield count by one. When the shield count reaches zero, the support is destroyed.
       
  • Standard
    • The Standard format is one that represents the most recent cards and collections that came to the game in the last 2 years. Additionally, the collections “Origins” (ORI) and “Puzzle Masters” (PMA) are always part of the Standard format as well. Standard events are those that only allow cards that fulfill the restrictions listed above.
      • Also, starting from 2021, some special sets - like the ones from the Duel Decks series and the From the Vault series - will always be released as Standard decks.
  • Subtype
    • “Subtype” is a characteristic of a card. Every card has a card type (creature, spell, support) and may have one or more subtypes (human, cleric, vampire, spider, etc). Also, although some vehicles enter the board as Creatures, they do not have a Creature subtype.
       
  • Swap
    • “Swap” is the movement made to change a gem’s position with another gem’s position before they’re matched.
       
  • Tier
    • “Tier” is a Mastery level that classifies your profile based on the amount of cards you’ve mastered. The tiers are (from lowest to highest): Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. The higher your tier, the better your event rewards will be. Also, when facing an opponent during an event, you’ll only face those of the same Tier as yourself.
       
  • Triggers Priority
    • When multiple cards from different places trigger their effects at the same time, the priority order - unless said otherwise - is:
      • Creatures (from first position to last) → Supports (from oldest to newest) → Hand (from oldest to newest) → Graveyard (from oldest to newest) → Exile (from oldest to newest).
  • Turn Phases
    • The Turn Phases are as follows: Draw Phase (On turn start) → Match Phase (when you’re free to make a swap, arrange your hand, activate loyalty abilities, activate Vanguard abilities, etc) → Battle Phase (when creatures battle) → End Phase (when your turn ends).
       
  • Type
    • Every card has a card type. Currently, the game has 3 types of cards: Creature, Spell, and Support.