Your First Ten Games of Magic: The Common Slips

Welcome to Level 1. You can play a full game, read a card, and teach a friend. Now the goal shifts from finishing games to playing them well, and the fastest way there is to stop the small slips that cost new players their first dozen games.

None of these are signs that Magic is not for you. Every player who has stuck with the game made all of them. They are listed here so you can make them fewer times. Rules points are checked against the Comprehensive Rules effective September 25, 2026.

Rules slips

Tapping a new creature’s ability. Summoning sickness covers more than attacking. A creature you have not controlled since the start of your turn cannot attack, and it also cannot use an ability with the tap symbol in its cost. A mana creature that arrives this turn makes no mana until next turn, unless it has haste.

Thinking a blocked attacker hits you anyway. Once an attacker is blocked, it stays blocked, even if the blocker is destroyed before damage. A blocked creature with no blocker left deals no damage at all, unless it has trample.

Forgetting who divides the damage. When two creatures block one attacker, the attacking player chooses how to split its damage between them. The defender does not.

Floating mana across steps. Mana empties at the end of every step and phase. Tapping all your lands in your first main phase “to be ready” for combat wastes it.

Keeping two of the same legend. If you control two legendary permanents with the same name, you choose one and put the rest in the graveyard. Check the type line before you cast a second copy.

Losing track of “dies.” On a card, “dies” means put into a graveyard from the battlefield. A creature that is exiled did not die, so “when this dies” abilities do not trigger.

Bringing tokens back. A token that leaves the battlefield ceases to exist. It cannot be returned from the graveyard or from exile.

Mixing counters. If a permanent has both +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters, they cancel in pairs. Remove them instead of tracking both.

Timing slips

Casting your creature before combat for no reason. If the creature cannot attack this turn and does not help your attack, cast it in your second main phase. Your opponent then has to block without knowing what you are holding.

Attacking into open mana without a thought. When your opponent leaves lands untapped on your turn, they may have an instant. You do not have to fear every untapped land, but you should ask what they could do before you send your best creature in.

Missing a land drop. Play a land every turn you have one, unless you have a clear reason to hold it. The most common reason to hold one is a card that rewards a land entering later in the turn. Most hands have no such card.

Discarding the wrong card at seven. You discard down to seven in the cleanup step of your own turn, after your second main phase. If your hand is big, cast what you can first, then choose the discard.

Reading slips

Not reading the opponent’s cards. You are allowed to read any card on the battlefield, and you can ask your opponent what a card in play does. Do it the first time each card appears. Most surprise losses come from a card that was on the table the whole time.

Skipping the reminder text. Keywords like menace, trample, and lifelink have short explanations in parentheses on many cards. Menace, for example, means the creature cannot be blocked except by two or more creatures. Reading that line before you block saves a lot of grief.

Forgetting your own triggers. “Whenever” and “at the beginning of” abilities are yours to remember, and in a busy game they slip by. Your opponent does not have to point them out. A coin, a die, or a token on the card is a cheap reminder.

Mulligan slips

Keeping a hand with zero or one land because the spells look exciting. In a 40-card deck with 17 lands, about one opening hand in ten has one land or none. Those hands rarely do anything. Mulligan them.

Mulliganing a fine hand with two lands and cheap spells, hoping for perfect. Two lands and several one- and two-mana spells is usually a keep, especially if you go second and draw on turn one. The odds behind that advice come in the probability lesson at Level 3.

The habit that fixes most of these

Slow down at three moments: before you attack, before you block, and before you end your turn. At each one, read the battlefield once, left to right, yours and theirs. That ten-second scan catches more mistakes than any strategy article.

If you want help spotting your own patterns, play a few games with your hand face up against a friend who knows the game, as in the ten-minute teach. Ask them to stop you only when you are about to make one of the slips above.