Talking like a player

Players talk in shorthand: "I'll blink it", "that's a two-for-one", "they're splashing blue".

Moving cards between zones. A zone is a place a card can be: library, hand, battlefield, graveyard, the stack and exile. Most table slang names a move from one zone to another.

• ETB (enters the battlefield): a permanent arrives on the battlefield. An "ETB trigger" is an ability that starts "When this enters". Long-Bodied Grey Dog's ETB makes a Treasure .
• LTB (leaves the battlefield): a permanent goes from the battlefield to any other zone, such as a hand, a graveyard, exile or a library.
• Dies: put into a graveyard from the battlefield. Destroyed, sacrificed and killed by damage all count. A token dies too, because it reaches the graveyard for a moment before it ceases to exist. Exile is not dying.
• Sacrifice: you put your own permanent into the graveyard. Only its controller can sacrifice it, so when Crude Bent Blade enters and makes the opponent sacrifice a creature, they pick which one.
• Exile: the card goes to the exile zone, face up beside the game. Most cards that exile keep it there. Pinecone Strike exiles a creature it would kill, so that creature never dies.
• Bounce: return a permanent (or a spell, with Bilbo's Gambit) to its owner's hand. The card isn't lost, because its owner can cast it again. A bounced token ceases to exist.
• Flicker or blink: exile a permanent and return it to the battlefield, at once or at the end of the turn. It comes back as a new permanent, so its ETB happens again.
• Mill: put cards from the top of a library straight into the graveyard.

Adventure

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