Anatomy of a Planeswalker Card

Planeswalker cards differ from most other cards. Taking a look at a card, you'll see:

As with other cards, the name appears at the top of the card, next to… The mana cost, what you pay to cast the spell from your hand. The type line. All planeswalkers are also legendary. This means you can’t have control of two planeswalkers with the same full name at the same time. On older planeswalkers, the word “legendary” may not be printed on the type line, but all planeswalkers fall under this rule.



For example, if you control Jace, Ingenious Mind Mage and cast Jace, Cunning Castaway, nothing happens. You can keep both planeswalkers as they have different full names. But if you cast a second Jace, Ingenious Mind Mage, you’ll put one of them into your graveyard..

Each Planeswalker has a number of activated abilities on it. You can use one of these abilities whenever you could play a sorcery, and only if none of that Planeswalker's abilities have been played yet that turn.

On this card:

+1 means “Add one loyalty counter to this Planeswalker.” If that’s the one ability you activate during your turn, you’ll draw a card. -9 means “Remove nine loyalty counters from this Planeswalker.” If that’s the one ability you activate during your turn, you’ll gain control of up three target creatures.

You can’t activate an ability with a negative loyalty cost unless that Planeswalker has at least that many loyalty counters on it.