Every counter in MTG: what each kind does
Every kind of counter in Magic: poison, energy, experience and rad on players, +1/+1, loyalty, shield, stun and more on permanents, and what isn't a counter.
In this article
Magic uses the word “counter” for a lot of different things. Some counters win games on their own, some are a resource you spend, and some only exist so a card can count them. Here’s every kind you’ll actually see at a table, sorted by where they go.
What a counter is
The rules define it in one line:
122.1. A counter is a marker placed on an object or player that modifies its characteristics and/or interacts with a rule, ability, or effect. Counters are not objects and have no characteristics. Notably, a counter is not a token, and a token is not a counter.
Three rules apply to every counter:
- Counters with the same name are interchangeable. A +1/+1 counter from one card is the same as one from another.
- Counters don’t follow a card between zones. A creature with five +1/+1 counters that dies or gets bounced loses all of them (rule 122.2).
- +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters cancel out. If a permanent has both, pairs are removed until only one kind is left (rule 704.5q).
Counters on players
Players can have counters too. These are the four you’ll run into, and they’re the ones people forget, because they sit next to the life total instead of on a card.
| Counter | What it does | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Poison | 10 and you lose, whatever your life total | Infect, toxic, Phyrexian cards |
| Energy | A resource you pay with  | Kaladesh, Modern Horizons 3 |
| Experience | Cards check how many you have | Commander 2015 commanders |
| Rad | Mill and lose life every precombat main phase | Fallout |
Poison is the only one that ends the game by itself. A player with ten or more poison counters loses (rule 122.1f). Ten is the number in Commander too. Full rules in how poison counters work.
Energy is spent, not counted. Each symbol is one energy counter, and paying means removing one from yourself (rule 107.14). Guide of Souls gives you energy whenever another creature you control enters and spends three of it to grow an attacker.
Experience counters aren’t spent. They just pile up. Cards like Meren of Clan Nel Toth and Mizzix of the Izmagnus hand them out and get better the more you have.
Rad counters make you mill at the start of your precombat main phase. You lose 1 life and remove one rad counter for each nonland card milled. See rad counters for the whole trigger.
Counters on permanents
+1/+1 and -1/-1 counters
The most common counters in the game. Each +1/+1 counter adds 1 to power and toughness, and each -1/-1 counter subtracts 1 (rule 122.1a). Infect damage to a creature arrives as -1/-1 counters. Walking Ballista uses its +1/+1 counters as ammunition, and Hardened Scales adds one extra whenever +1/+1 counters would be put on a creature you control.
Loyalty, defense and lore
These three counters keep score on a card type:
- Loyalty is a planeswalker’s health. At 0 loyalty it goes to the graveyard (rule 122.1e).
- Defense does the same for battles (rule 122.1g).
- Lore counters move a Saga through its chapters. Each new lore counter triggers the next chapter, as on The Eldest Reborn (rule 714.2b).
Keyword counters
A keyword counter gives the permanent that keyword: flying, first strike, double strike, deathtouch, decayed, exalted, haste, hexproof, indestructible, lifelink, menace, reach, shadow, trample or vigilance (rule 122.1b). Crystalline Giant gets a random keyword counter (or a +1/+1 counter) at the start of combat on each of your turns.
Shield, stun and finality
- Shield: if the permanent would be destroyed or dealt damage, remove a shield counter instead (rule 122.1c).
- Stun: if the permanent would untap, remove a stun counter instead (rule 122.1d).
- Finality: if the permanent would go to the graveyard, it’s exiled instead (rule 122.1h).
Charge, time, oil and the rest
Most other counters, like charge, time, oil, age and verse counters, have no rules of their own. The card using them says what they do. Everflowing Chalice taps for one colorless mana per charge counter. Suspend and vanishing count down with time counters.
Things that aren’t counters
Plenty of things you track in a game look like counters but aren’t. That matters for cards that move, double or remove counters, and for proliferate, which only works on real counters.
- Commander damage is a running total per commander, not counters. See commander damage rules.
- Commander tax is an extra cost. See commander tax.
- The monarch and the initiative are designations. See the monarch and the initiative.
- Speed from “Start your engines!” is a value a player has. See how speed works.
- Treasure, Food, Clue and friends are tokens. See MTG tokens.
- Countering a spell means canceling it on the stack (rule 701.6a). Same word, nothing to do with markers.
Doubling counters
Counter decks love doublers. Doubling Season doubles the counters put on permanents you control. Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider goes further: it doubles the counters you put on permanents and players, not only on your own permanents, and halves the counters your opponents put on anything. Proliferate is the other half of the plan. It adds one more of every kind of counter to as many permanents and players as you choose.
Keeping track at the table
Counters on permanents are easy: put a die on the card. Player counters are where games go wrong. Poison, energy and rad sit next to the life total, change every turn, and in a 4-player game you’re tracking them for everyone.
Lotus has poison, energy, experience and rad for every player, next to life, commander damage and commander tax. Counters on your permanents still need dice on the cards.
