This page is current as of Comprehensive Rules June 2011. Please direct your feedback to: The Staff

Summary

1. Library --- Updated by Kalle
2. Hand --- Updated by Kalle
3. Graveyard --- Updated by Cg8
4. Battlefield --- Updated by Federico
5. Stack --- Updated by Nicola
6. Exile --- Updated by Nicola
7. Ante --- Nothing to do (Cg8)
8. Command --- Created/Updated by OMNIPOTENT

Game Zones

The area of play is divided into many "virtual" zones, where spells, cards and objects with specific functions are placed. Even if a Magic game is usually played on a normal table and no specific board is required, it is important for players (and much more for judges) to identify in a clear way where cards are placed and which zone is represented by each group of cards.

A Zone is a place in which objects can reside during a game. There are normally seven zones: library, hand, graveyard, battlefield, stack, exile and command. Some older cards also use the ante zone. [CR 400.1]

Each player has his or her own library, hand, and graveyard. Other zones are shared by all players. Library and hand are considered private zones and don't have to be showed to an opponent. All other zones are considered public zones. [CR 400.2]

If an object would go to any library, graveyard, or hand other than its owner's, it goes to its owner's corresponding zone. [CR 400.3] If an instant or sorcery card would enter the battlefield, it remains in its previous zone. [CR 400.4a]

Example. I control my opponent's Aven Fisher thanks to the effect of Sower of Temptation. Aven Fisher is somehow destroyed or sacrificed (for instance because it received lethal damage in combat or it was destroyed by Doom Blade). Aven Fisher would 'usually' go to my graveyard, but it doesn't: I controlled it, but my opponent is its owner and it will go to my opponent's graveyard. Note that abilities that trigger "when X is put into a graveyard" like Aven Fisher's ability, will still trigger and the ability will be controlled by me since I controlled the creature just before it left the battlefield; so I'll draw the card (the fact that Aven Fisher goes to my opponent's graveyard instead of mine is irrelevant for this effect).

Aven Fisher

The order of objects in a library and on the stack can't be changed except when effects or rules allow it. Objects in other zones can be arranged however their owners wish, although who controls those objects, whether they're tapped or flipped, and what other objects are attached to them must remain clear to all players. [CR 400.5] The order of the objects in the graveyard can only be changed in formats involving only cards from Urza's Saga and later. A player cannot change the order of his opponent's graveyard.

Example. Changing the order of objects on the stack is not allowed (except if an effect instructs you to do so) since those objects will resolve top to bottom (the last one added will resolve first). Being able to change the order as needed would completely modify the 'dynamic' of the game. Changing the order of cards in the library is not allowed either (except if an effect or rule instructs you to do so) since the library must stay in a randomized state. Again, changing the order without an explicit instruction by an effect would break the game. Finally, and less obviously, changing the order of cards in the graveyard is not allowed in formats using cards older than Urza's Saga either. The reason is that some cards, such as Phyrexian Furnace, have abilities that care about the graveyard being ordered. Templating of newer cards has changed, so that there are no such abilities. In formats using only newer cards the graveyard can be reordered as the owner likes.

Phyrexian Furnace

An object that moves from one zone to another becomes a new object with no memory of, or relation to, its previous existence. [CR 400.7] There are some exceptions. Effects from spells, activated abilities, and triggered abilities that change the characteristics of an artifact, creature, enchantment, or planeswalker spell on the stack continue to apply to the permanent that spell becomes. [CR 400.7a]

Example. If an Aven Fisher spell on the stack becomes colorless due to the effect of Moonlace it will enter the battlefield as a colorless creature since such effects "survive" the zone change (from the stack to the battlefield).

Moonlace

Abilities that trigger when an object moves from one zone to another can find the new object that it became in the zone it moved to when the ability triggered, but only in that zone, only if that zone is public and only if the object didn't change zone since when it entered that zone up to when the effect of the ability is applied. [CR 400.7d] [CR 400.7e]

Example. Rancor's triggered ability will find Rancor in the graveyard even if it triggered when Rancor was on the battlefield. It will be able to find Rancor only in the graveyard (that is where Rancor is about to go). If it moves to another zone due to a replacement effect, its ability does not trigger. If it moves out of the graveyard before the triggered ability resolves (even if it returns to the graveyard after moving and before the ability resolves), it will not be "found" by the ability. When an object changes zone, it becomes a "new object" and the exception provided by this rule is limited only to the one "expected" zone change.

Rancor

Prevention effects that apply to damage from an artifact, creature, enchantment, or planeswalker spell on the stack will continue to apply to damage from the permanent that spell becomes. [CR 400.7b]

Example. If you activate the ability of Circle of Protection: Red choosing a Keldon Champion spell on the stack, the ability will prevent the next damage the creature will deal to you this turn after the spell resolves, presumably the 3 damage from its "enters the battlefield" ability. If you activate the Circle's ability two times while the spell is on the stack, you are going to prevent the next two instances of damage, presumably the damage from its enters the battlefield ability and its combat damage.

Circle of Protection: Red Keldon Champion

If an object would move from one zone to another, determine what event is moving the object. Then any appropriate replacement effects, whether they come from that object or from elsewhere, are applied to that event. If any effects or rules try to do two or more contradictory or mutually exclusive things to a particular object, that object's controller - or its owner if it has no controller - chooses which effect to apply, and what that effect does. Then the event moves the object. [CR 400.6]

Example. Darksteel Colossus is going to be put in the graveyard when there is a Wheel of Sun and Moon on the battlefield. Two replacement effects are trying to apply to the same zone change. The one from Wheel of Sun and Moon would put Darksteel Colossus on the bottom of the library, and the one from Darksteel Colossus would shuffle it into the library. In this case the controller of the Darksteel Colossus decides whether to shuffle it into the library or to put it on the bottom. The other replacement effect will do nothing since applying one makes the other not applicable.

Wheel of Sun and Moon Darksteel Colossus

The Exile zone is a holding area for objects. Some spells and abilities exile objects without any way to return them. Other exile them only temporarily. An object is outside the game if it isn't in any of the game zones. Outside the game is not a zone. [CR 400.10]

Example. Cunning Wish lets you find a card you own from "outside the game" and put that card into your hand, then forces you to exile Cunning Wish. In a sanctioned tournament, the only place you can take cards from is your sideboard. In more casual games, you can also find any card from your collection.

Cunning Wish

If an object in the exile zone is exiled, it doesn't change zones, but it becomes a new object that has just been exiled. [CR 400.8]

Example. If a card exiled by the imprint ability of Isochron Scepter, is again exiled by an effect or is returned to another zone (by Pull from Eternity for example), the activated ability of Isochron Scepter will not be able to copy it. In the former case, while the card is still in the exile zone, the second "exile" effect makes it a new object, different from the one exiled by the imprint ability; in the latter case, the card is not in the exile zone anymore.

Isochron Scepter