Index	Table of Contents	Terms
	Terms - L

Lair
A Lair is a special type of land from the Planeshift set. Each of the five Lairs has a comes-into-play triggered ability that requires you to sacrifice the Lair unless you return a non-Lair land to its owner's hand. After you play a Lair, you'll be prompted to return a non-Lair land to your hand. If you choose to do so, just click on the land you want to return. If you don't choose to return a land to you hand or if you can't, you'll have to sacrifice the Lair, but you can respond to the sacrifice ability by tapping the Lair itself for mana and then sacrificing it.

Land
A colorless permanent that represents your realm. Lands usually have an ability that makes mana, the magical energy you use to play spells. There are five basic lands: plains, island, swamp, mountain, and forest. Any land other than these five is a nonbasic land.
   You can play only one land card each turn, and only during one of your main phases when the stack is empty. Lands aren't spells, so they can't be countered.
   See also Basic land, Mana ability, Nonbasic land.

Land type
A land's type is its card name. For example, a Forest is type "forest" and an Adarkar Wastes is type "Adarkar Wastes." "Basic" and "nonbasic" aren't land types.

Landwalk
A generic term for a group of evasion abilities. A creature with landwalk is unblockable as long as the defending player controls a land of the specified type. "Landwalk" includes plainswalk, islandwalk, swampwalk, mountainwalk, and forestwalk.
   Landwalk abilities don't cancel each other out. For example, a creature with forestwalk attacking a player who controls a forest can't be blocked by another creature with forestwalk.

League
A form of structured casual play. The formats vary, and league matches don't count towards your overall Magic Online rating.
   See Leagues for more information.

Leaves play
When a card goes from the in-play zone to any other zone. The card might return to a player's hand from play, or go to a graveyard from play, or go to some other zone. Either way, it has left play.
   If a card leaves play and later returns to play, it's like a brand new card. It doesn't "remember" anything from the last time it was in play.
   If a token leaves play, it ceases to exist.

Legal target
A valid choice for a spell or ability. Sometimes spells and abilities can target only cards that meet some special conditions. For example, Dark Banishing reads, "Destroy target nonblack creature." Only creatures that aren't black are legal targets.
   If you play a targeted spell in a Magic Online game, all illegal targets appear dimmed. So, when you play Dark Banishing, all noncreature permanents, all black creatures, and all avatars appear dimmed.
   Spells and abilities check to make sure their targets are legal when they're played, and they check again when they resolve. If a target isn't legal at either time, the spell or ability can't affect it. And if none of the spell or ability's targets are legal when it tries to resolve, it's countered.
   Let's say you play Dark Banishing on a green creature, but the creature becomes black before the spell resolves. Dark Banishing will be countered, because none of its targets (it only has one) are legal.
   See also Target, Counter.

Legend, legendary
Creatures with the Legend creature type and legendary permanents follow special rules.
   If a creature's type is Legend or a permanent is legendary, there can be only one of that creature or permanent in play at a time. If another creature or permanent with the same name comes into play, it goes to its owner's graveyard (it can't be regenerated).
   See also Creature type.

Lethal damage
An amount of damage greater than or equal to a creature's toughness. If a creature is dealt lethal damage in one turn, it's destroyed.
   See also Toughness.
 

Library Your draw pile. At the beginning of a game, your deck is shuffled and becomes your library.    Each player has his or her own library. Players can't change the order of cards in a library, and they can't look at cards in it.    The number on top of the icon shows how many cards are left in a player's library. If you have to draw a card when there are no cards in your library, you lose the game.    See also Draw.

Life, life total Each player begins the game with 20 life. When you're dealt damage by effects or  creatures, the damage is subtracted from your life total. If your life total drops to 0 or less, you lose the game. If something causes both players' life totals to drop to 0 or less at the same time, the game is a draw.    The number on top of the icon is a player's current life total.    See also Paying life, Winning the game.

LIFO
This is a term Magic players use to describe how the stack works. It stands for "last in, first out." It means the last spell played will be the first to resolve.
   See also Stack.

Limited format
Any play format where players construct decks at the beginning of a game, match, or tournament using a limited number of packaged cards. Typical formats include Sealed Deck, Rochester Draft, and Booster Draft.

Local enchantment
Any type of enchantment that gets attached to another permanent. There are several subtypes of local enchantments, including enchant artifact, enchant creature, enchant enchantment, enchant land, and enchant permanent.
   A local enchantment spell requires a target of a type indicated by its enchantment subtype. If a local enchantment ends up enchanting an illegal permanent or the permanent it was attached to no longer exists, the enchantment card is put into its owner's graveyard.
   See also Enchantment. Compare Global enchantment.

Losing
You lose the game when your life total drops to 0 or less. Also, you lose if you have to draw a card when there aren't any left in your library.
   See also Library, Life total, Winning the game.

Losing life
Losing life is different from being dealt damage. For example, Soul Feast reads, "Target player loses 4 life. You gain 4 life." That loss of life isn't damage, so effects that prevent damage can't stop it.
   Compare Damage, Paying life.