In Magic the Gathering, there are five mana colors of Magic which are in respect to five types of basic lands.  When a player tap a land, it gives you the kind of Mana it refer to and allows you to play spells.  Mountain gives Red Manna, Forest gives Green Mana,  Swamp gives Black Mana, Island gives Blue Mana and Planes gives White Mana.

There are many different card types: Artifact, Basic, Creature, Enchantment, Instant, Land, Legendary, Plane, Planeswalker, Snow, Sorcery, Tribal, World, etc.  I’m now going to talk about the few basic types:

Sorcery

A sorcery means a magical spell.  Only when you’re at a main phase of your turn can you cast a sorcery.  You should follow the instructions on the card (effect) and then put it in your discard pile (graveyard).

Instant

An instant is also a magical spell like sorcery, but you can cast is at any moment.  You can cast it during other’s turn or after someone has cast a spell.  You uses its effect and it goes to graveyard.

Enchantment

An enchantment is a permanent spell.  It is stable.  You can cast an enchantment during a main phase of your turn.  It is a permanent spell means that after you cast it, you turn it over and put it besides your land (on battlefield).  And then it has the effect that the card states.  An enchantment stays there until it is destroyed.

A special kind of enchantment is Aura.  It attaches to a permanent and has its effect on the permanent.  When the attached permanent is removed, the Aura goes to the graveyard also.

Artifact

An artifact is a magical object.  It is permanent which means it stays and affect the game.

A special kind of artifact is Equipment.  An Equipment can be attached to one of your creatures to give it advantages.  But unlike Aura, when the attached creature is removed, the equipment stays in the field.

Creature

You can summon a creature to fight for you.  Creatures are permanent.  They are able to attack or block during the combat phase.  Note that there are 2 numbers on the right lower corner of a creature card.  The first number is Power which represents the amount of damage it does during an attack.  The second number is Toughness which represents the amount of damage it can take in one turn before it is removed to the graveyard.  A creature can do whatever it does as long as it stays on the battlefield.

A kind of special creature is an Artifact Creature.  It is basically a combination of an artifact and a creature, hence whatever affects the two affect an artifact creature.

Land

Land is permanent.  You can play a land during your main phases while the stack is empty.  Also, you can only play one land per turn.  You’re required to pay mana in order to cast a spell therefore you need land to produce mana for you.

When a player tap a land, it gives you the kind of Mana it refer to and allows you to play spells.  Mountain gives Red Manna, Forest gives Green Mana,  Swamp gives Black Mana, Island gives Blue Mana and Planes gives White Mana.

Besides the above 5 basic lands, there’re many different kinds of nonbasic lands and legendary lands.

Planeswalker

You call on to other Planeswalkers as allies to fight with you.  Planeswalkers are permanents.  Planeswalkers can be very complicated to use but they can also be very powerful.  The first thing you need to know about planeswalkers are their loyalty counters which is represented by the number on the lower right-hand corner of the card.  For example, the +1 in the text means you can activate the ability attached to it and increase this planeswalker’s loyalty counter by one.  You could only do this during a main phase of your turn and only once in each turn.  A planeswalker cannot attack since he has no power.  When they take a certain amount of damage, their loyalty counters decrease with the same amount.  When their loyalty counters are consumed, they go to the graveyard.