MTG Card Types Explained: All Nine, and What Each One Does

The split that actually matters

Learning the nine types alphabetically is the slow way. The rules care about one division far more than any other, so learn that first.

Permanents stay. Spells leave.

Kindred is the odd one out and is covered on its own below.

Almost every rules question you will ever have about types reduces to this table. Can it be destroyed? Only if it is a permanent, because destroy targets things on the battlefield. Does it trigger “whenever a permanent enters”? Only if it is a permanent. Does a counterspell stop it? Only if it is being cast as a spell.

The six permanent types

Artifact

Represents an object. Usually colorless, usually cheap to cast in any deck, which is why artifacts are the most format-agnostic type in the game. The important subtypes are Equipment, which attaches to creatures, and Vehicle, which becomes a creature when crewed.

Creature

The only type that can attack and block. Has power and toughness. Subject to summoning sickness, meaning it cannot attack or use tap abilities the turn it arrives unless it has haste.

Enchantment

A persistent magical effect. Enchantments do not do anything by themselves the way creatures do, they change the rules of the game while they sit there. The Aura subtype attaches to something else, which is what makes auras uniquely vulnerable: remove the thing they are attached to and the aura dies too.

Land

The resource type, and the one with the strangest rules treatment. See the section below.

Planeswalker

A character with loyalty counters. You may activate one loyalty ability per planeswalker per turn, at sorcery speed. Damage dealt to a planeswalker removes loyalty counters, and at zero loyalty it goes to the graveyard.

Battle

The newest permanent type, introduced in 2023. Battles have defense counters, are attacked rather than attacking, and are protected by a player of your choosing. When the last defense counter is removed the battle is defeated and its controller gets a reward. Rare enough that many players have never encountered one.

The two spell types

Instant

Castable any time you have priority, including during an opponent’s turn, in response to something else. This flexibility is the entire type.

Sorcery

Castable only during your own main phase, when the stack is empty and it is your turn. Sorceries tend to be more powerful for the mana precisely because the timing restriction is a real cost.

There is no difference between them beyond timing. Everything else about how they work is identical: they resolve, they do the thing, they go to the graveyard.

Kindred, the type that used to be tribal

Kindred exists to solve one narrow problem: how do you make a noncreature card count as an Elf?

A card that reads “Kindred Instant, Elf” is an instant, and it is also an Elf, without being a creature. This means a card that says “whenever you cast an Elf spell” sees it. It matters for tribal payoffs and for graveyard counts.

The type was called tribal until 2024, when it was renamed to kindred across all Oracle text. The function did not change, only the word. If you see tribal printed on an older physical card, it is kindred now.

Why land is different from everything else

Lands break several assumptions, and being precise about this prevents a lot of misplays.

Lands are played, not cast. This is not pedantry, it is a rules distinction with real consequences:

• Playing a land does not use the stack, so nobody can respond to it
• A counterspell that says “counter target spell” cannot touch it, because it was never a spell
• Anything that triggers on “whenever a player casts a spell” does not trigger
• Anything that says “whenever a land enters the battlefield” does trigger, because it still enters

You get one land drop per turn, unless something explicitly grants more. This is not a cost you can pay around; it is a hard limit on the turn.

Supertypes and subtypes: the other two layers

A full type line has up to three layers, and people conflate them.

Supertype comes first: basic, legendary, snow, world, or ongoing. A supertype modifies how the card behaves without being a type. Legendary means you cannot control two with the same name. Basic means you can run any number in a deck.

Type comes next, and is one or more of the nine.

Subtype comes after the dash: Elf, Equipment, Aura, Island, Vehicle. Subtypes have no inherent rules meaning on their own. They matter only because other cards reference them.

So a full line reads: Legendary Artifact Creature - Elf Warrior. That is one supertype, two types, and two subtypes, and the card is fully both an artifact and a creature at the same time.

Cards with more than one type

Dual types are common and the rule is simple: the card is fully both, with no partial status.

An artifact creature can be destroyed by artifact removal and by creature removal. It counts for “whenever an artifact enters” and for “whenever a creature enters”. It is affected by anything targeting either type.

The practical consequence is that dual-type cards are more fragile than single-type cards, because they are vulnerable to two entire categories of removal rather than one. An artifact creature dies to Naturalize and to Doom Blade. That flexibility cuts both ways.

Quick reference

• Nine types in normal play, six of which are permanents
• Permanent means it stays on the battlefield after resolving
• Land is played, never cast, and cannot be countered by a normal counterspell
• Kindred is the new name for tribal, and lets a noncreature carry creature subtypes
• Supertype, type, subtype are three distinct layers on the type line
• A card with two types is fully both, with all the vulnerabilities of each