Zones

Jaded Analyst card art

Today I wrap up the month looking at zones. 

From the official rules, 

400.1. A zone is a place where objects can be during a game. There are normally seven zones: library, hand, battlefield, graveyard, stack, exile, and command. Some older cards also use the ante zone. Each player has their own library, hand, and graveyard. The other zones are shared by all players.

I'll ignore the ante zone, as that has long been obsolete.

Zones can be public or private (see 400.2). Some cards can move between zones, but some cannot (see 400.4). "An object that moves from one zone to another becomes a new object with no memory of, or relation to, its previous existence." [with some exceptions; see 400.7] *note: this is an important concept in blink decks.

Most zones are intuitive:

- library: your face-down deck from which you draw cards. "When a game begins, each player’s deck becomes their library."

- hand: "where a player holds cards that have been drawn."

- battlefield: where all permanents exist once they are successfully cast

- graveyard: where cards go after being cast (instant, sorcery), destroyed (land, creature, artifact, enchantment, etc.), or discarded/milled (any card type).

- stack: where spells go before they resolve. I covered that in a separate post

- exile: "essentially a holding area for objects. Some spells and abilities exile an object without any way to return that object to another zone. Other spells and abilities exile an object only temporarily."

- command: "a game area reserved for certain specialized objects that have an overarching effect on the game, yet are not permanents and cannot be destroyed."

Let's take a closer look at the command zone, focusing on the Commander format.

903.6. At the start of the game, each player puts their commander from their deck face up into the command zone. 

903.8. A player may cast a commander they own from the command zone. A commander cast from the command zone costs an additional {2} for each previous time the player casting it has cast it from the command zone that game. This additional cost is informally known as the “commander tax.” 

903.9. A commander may return to the command zone during a Commander game. 

That last line is important. Uniquely, a commander can come out of the graveyard, exile, hand, or library to go back into the command zone:

903.9a If a commander is in a graveyard or in exile and that object was put into that zone since the last time state-based actions were checked, its owner may put it into the command zone. This is a state-based action. See rule 704. 

903.9b If a commander would be put into its owner’s hand or library from anywhere, its owner may put it into the command zone instead. This replacement effect may apply more than once to the same event. This is an exception to rule 614.5. 

Zones are intuitive outside of some moving between zone and commander nuances.