If you’re new to Magic the Gathering: Arena, you may be wondering what all the MTG keyword abilities do. You’ll find keyword abilities on certain cards – they are a little different from MTG keyword actions such as Scry or Exile, as they are a static ability, meaning they are not an action, but apply to the card.
There are 16 keyword abilities in MTG that will appear in most expansions and are evergreen to the game, meaning they won’t belong to just a certain expansion. There are some keywords that do, however, belong to a specific expansion and will be unique to that expansion. For example Ikoria Lair of Behemoths, has the keyword ability Mutate – which belongs to this expansion alone.
The 16 evergreen keywords appear through most MTG updates and before you start building a deck, it’s worth knowing what each one does. Decks can be built around some keywords and you will find that certain keywords belong to more colours than others. So, you’ll find a lot of ‘flying’ creatures are white and many ‘trample’ creatures are green.
Deathtouch
Any amount of damage this deals to a creature is enough to destroy it
This creature can’t attack
This creature deals both first strike and regular combat damage
Enchant creature
Equip
This creature deals combat before creatures without first strike
You can cast this spell at anytime you could cast an instant
Flying
This creature can attack and tap as soon as it comes under your control
This creature can’t be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control
Effects that say ‘destroy’ don’t destroy this
Damage dealt by this creature also causes you to gain that much life
This creature can’t be blocked except by two or more creatures
This creature can block creatures with flying
Trample
Attacking doesn’t cause this creature to tap
