Index	Table of Contents	Terms
	Terms - M

Madness
A mechanic from the Torment set. When you discard a card with madness, you can pay its madness cost to play it right away as though it were an instant in your hand. Madness works no matter how or why the card was discarded. To play a card with madness, just choose to play the spell as soon as you discard it. It goes on the stack like any other spell. When it comes time to pay the spell's mana cost, you pay its madness cost instead.
 

Main phase You get two main phases during each of your turns: one before your combat phase and another one after it. Your main phase is the only time you can play artifacts, creatures, enchantments, and sorceries, and you can play a land if you haven't already played one that turn. You can also play instants and activated abilities.

Mana
The magical energy you use to play spells and some abilities. Most mana comes from tapping lands. There are five colors of mana:  (white),  (red),  (blue),  (green),  (black). There's also colorless mana.
   See also Mana ability, Mana burn, Mana cost, Mana pool.

Mana ability
Any ability that adds mana to your mana pool. Mana abilities can be activated abilities or triggered abilities. Mana abilities don't go on the stack. When you play a mana ability, you get the mana immediately.
   See also Mana, Mana pool.

Mana burn
When a phase ends, any unused mana remaining in your mana pool is lost. You lose 1 life for each mana lost this way. This is called "mana burn." Mana burn isn't damage, so it can't be prevented.
   See also Mana, Mana pool.

Mana cost
The mana you must pay to play a spell. A card's mana cost is in its upper right corner.
   Each symbol in the mana cost tells you what kind of mana you have to pay. For example,  means "one red mana," and  means "two mana of any type." Mana costs for nonartifact spells include at least one mana of a specific color.
   The mana symbols in a card's mana cost also determine its color. If a card has  in its mana cost, for example, the card is red. A multicolored card is a card of each color in its mana cost. For instance, if a card has a mana cost of , it's both blue and black.
   Don't confuse mana cost and converted mana cost. Converted mana cost is the total amount of mana in a mana cost, regardless of color.
   See also Mana, Multicolored. Compare Converted mana cost.

Mana curve
A graph that shows how many spells you have in your deck at each mana cost. Click on the statistics button in either the Deck Editor or Deck Building screens to see your deck's mana curve.
   See Statistics for more information.
 

Mana pool Where your mana is stored until you spend it. When you tap a land for mana, that mana remains in your mana pool until you spend it or until the phase ends.    Each player's mana pool is shown as a bar of mana symbols along the left side of his or her part of the play area. As you add mana to your mana pool, numbers appear showing how much of each type of mana you've added to your pool. For example, if you tap a plains, the  symbol in your mana pool will have a 1 on it. If you then tap an island, both the  and the  symbols will have the number 1 on them.    See also Mana, Mana burn.

Match
A series of Magic games. A match usually consists of the best two of three games, or sometimes the best three of five.

Mountainwalk
A creature ability that makes the creature unblockable as long as the defending player controls a mountain.
   See also Landwalk.

Mulligan
At the beginning of a Magic game, you draw the top seven cards of your library. That's your starting hand. If you don't like your starting hand of cards (for example, if you don't have any lands to play), you can mulligan.
   If you decide to mulligan, your hand is shuffled into your library and you draw a new hand of one fewer cards. You can mulligan as many times as you want, but you draw one fewer card each time. When both players like their opening hands, the game begins.
 

Multicolored A card or permanent with more than one color of mana in its mana cost. Basic sets (like Seventh Edition) don't have any multicolored cards in them, but you'll run across them in other Magic sets. They have a gold background.    For example, Iridescent Angel's mana cost is , so it's both white and blue.

Multiplayer formats
Formats where more than two players play in the same game. These include both free-for-all (you versus everyone else) and team (group versus group) formats.
   See Multiplayer Formats for more information.