Now. We get down to what magic is all about.
The damn cards.
The most important card? LAND.
LAND
There are two kinds of land.
BASIC AND NON-BASIC.
MANA comes from LANDS.
Basic Land:
ISLANDS. PLAINS. MOUNTAINS. SWAMPS. FORESTS.
Nonbasic Land:
CRACK LANDS, DUAL LANDS, QUICK DUAL LANDS, LANDS LIKE THIS THAT BONE YOU.
You tap your lands for MANA. You untap your lands during your draw step.
But what IS mana, you ask?
CREATURES:
Now before I get into creatures, you need to know one thing about them.
Unless creatures have HASTE, they CANNOT TAP OR ATTACK UNTIL YOUR TURN, AND YOUR OPPONENT'S NEXT TURN HAS PASSED. They CAN block, however.
Here is the Baneslayer Angel.
I will use this card as much as possible to explain everything.
THE TOP RIGHT: THE TWO SUNS and circle with the three in it..
THAT IS MANA REQUIREMENT.
The two suns represent WHITE MANA. MANA GENERATED BY PLAINS.
Blue mana will be a water drop, red a firebolt, black a skull, and green a tree.
The number there is colorless mana. AKA ANY KIND OF MANA.
Remember though! Counters can come at any time, especially the fucking mana leak. ALWAYS look to see how much LAND your opponent has untapped.
The name in the top left. The CREATURE TYPE under the picture. Some cards offer many bonuses to creature types. Some let knights, goblins, vampires, kor, soldiers, all that stuff, some let them get extra power for defense or for attack. Everything is different.
The picture directly to the right of that? That's the symbol for the MAGIC 2010 block. AKA the set it came from. This should not be important for her, hopefully.
Now. The text will come at the end. Let me point you to those numbers in the bottom corner first.
5/5.
Five attack, five defense. Defense obviously represents how much damage that beast can take. Five represents how much it deals out. Five kills four and lower, but not six. Some cards gain bonuses and can always be pumped up and shit with stuff like the aforementioned Giant Growth. Creatures can take three damage in combat, and then suffer that damage. After combat, they can STILL BE KILLED by damage dealing cards.
Another thing, when that NUMBER on the right of the slash reaches ZERO for any reason whatsoever, that creature dies.
If you have a creature that does five damage, and a creature that has one defense blocks it, it does not mean only one damage is done. All five damage is done. All damage is done.
You see many words here.
FLYING: ONLY OPPONENTS WITH FLYING CAN BLOCK CREATURES WITH FLYING. SOME CREATURES WILL HAVE REACH, THIS ALLOWS THEM TO BLOCK FLYING CREATURES IN COMBAT AS WELL, BUT DO NOT ATTACK AS THOUGH THEY HAD FLYING.
DEFENDER: DEFENDER CARDS CAN ONLY BLOCK!
HOLY I FORGOT ABOUT TRAMPLE.
TRAMPLE
Creatures with Trample deal damage that passes through defense.
If your 5/5 has trample and a 1/1 blocks it, then the player will still take four damage. HOWEVER, you can block one creature with multiple ones. Five 1/1's will negate a 5/5 trample and kill it.
UNLESS SPECIFIED, CREATURES CAN ONLY BLOCK ONE CREATURE.
VIGILANCE: YOU DO NOT NEED TO TAP YOUR CARD TO ATTACK.
FIRST STRIKE: In combat. First strike means that the creature with first strike does damage first during combat. So if you have a 2/2 in combat and it is blocked by a 2/2, then whichever has first strike will do damage first, killing the other creature and keeping your alive. In an event where two creatures have first strike attack/block each other, then they negate each other and both die.
DOUBLE STRIKE: You have the same power as first strike, but you attack twice. AKA a 2/2 will have first strike and deal four damage after double strike.
LIFELINK: ANY DAMAGE YOU DO TO ANYTHING WITH YOUR CREATURES gains life for YOU.
DEATHTOUCH: Any damage done to any creature by a creature with deathtouch immediately kills the receiver of damage. Damage must be direct though, not something like (this creature gave this other one +2/+2).
INFECT: Instead of dealing direct damage, creatures deal damage in the form of -1/-1 counters to other creatures, and poison counters to human players. When you reach ten poison counters, you're dead.
FLASH: THIS CREATURE MAY BE PLAYED AS THOUGH IT WAS AN INSTANT meaning you can PLAY IT WHENEVER YOU WANT.
HASTE: CREATURES do not have summoning sickness and can attack and tap on the turn they come out and can tap during the opponents next turn.
INDESTRUCTIBLE: The only way your creature can die is if it's power (the number on the right of the slash) is at 0. Land usually is unable to be destroyed. Just remember: ALL INDESTRUCTIBLE PERMANENTS ARE STILL SUBJECT TO EXILE. They can also be sacrificed.
LANDWALK: Creatures with landwalk (I.E. Islandwalk and shit) cannot be blocked by the opposing player if THEY CONTROL A LAND OF THE SAME TIME AS SPECIFIED IN THE LANDWALK.
PROTECTION: PROTECTION is incredibly important and fucking annoying. If you have a card that is pro red (short for protection from red) then no red cards may TARGET it or BLOCK IT. However, if you are pro white (sound so bad saying that), you can still be affected by a card like DAY OF JUDGEMENT, which does not target creatures to destroy, but rather just fucking destroys all creatures. You can also be targeted by cards like JOURNEY TO NOWHERE or OBLIVION RING, which all come into play first, AND THEN their effect jumps into the proverbial "air" and attaches to a creature.
HOWEVER: As long as the ability of a creature does not require it to tap, you can use it the first turn, no matter what.
Those are activated, non-tap abilities. ACTIVATED ABILITIES FROM CREATURES ARE ALL CONSIDERED INSTANTS.
Battle Cry: All other creatures attacking at the same time as a creature with Battle Cry receive +1/+0
Fear: Creatures with fear CAN ONLY BE BLOCKED BY BLACK CREATURES and ARTIFACTS.
INTIMIDATE: Creatures with fear CAN ONLY BE BLOCKED BY CREATURES OF THE SAME COLOR OR ARTIFACTS. DON'T GET FEAR AND INTIMIDATE MIXED UP OR YOU'LL LOOK LIKE A JACKHOLE.
Edit on 8/24/2011:
Forgot about bloodthirst because it was really old and made a comeback: Creatures with Bloodthirst X get +1/+1 counters for the amount of damage that was dealt that turn, where X is equal to the damage dealt.
There's also stuff that's useless like Banding and shit.
There are many others such as Imprint, which requires you to exile cards, but those are all card specific rules that cannot be explained here.
Continued in PART THREE.