2. Playing cards

Actions and Reactions

Playing cards outside your own main phase

Most cards can only be played in your main phase, with nothing on the chain. While anything is on the chain, the game is in a , and those cards have to wait until it's empty again.

Two keywords let a card be played at other times. Each sits at the top of the card's text, with a reminder of what it allows.

Hextech Ray, an Action spellRetreat, a Reaction spell
An Action, and a Reaction

Action

A card with can also be played while a battlefield is being fought over, on either player's turn. You'll meet those fights in Battlefields. The rest of the time, it waits for an empty chain in your main phase like any other card.

Reaction

A card with can be played any time an Action can, and also in a closed state, on either player's turn. That makes it the way to answer something on the chain: a Reaction goes on top, so it resolves first.

is a Reaction. Your opponent plays on your unit, and you answer with : the unit goes back to your hand before can kill it.

Note

's reminder says "Play any time," but that's shorthand. On your opponent's turn, a Reaction still needs something on the chain, or a fight going on. You can't play one into their empty main phase.

These keywords only change when you can play a card. A unit with Reaction still goes to your base or a battlefield you have, and enters exhausted.

Try it

Play a spell, and answer it with a Reaction before it resolves.