Hand

A player's hand consists of cards that have been drawn, but not played. It is one of six zones of the game.

Description

Flavor-wise, the hand represents the conscious mind of the player as a planeswalker and the starting hand is the first seven items that occur to you when you begin a duel with another planeswalker. The starting hand may be reduced when a mulligan is performed. After the optional mulligan, it is called your opening hand.

Rules

From the Comprehensive Rules (June 7, 2024—Modern Horizons 3)

• 402. Hand
  • 402.1. The hand is where a player holds cards that have been drawn. Cards can be put into a player’s hand by other effects as well. At the beginning of the game, each player draws a number of cards equal to that player’s starting hand size, normally seven. (See rule 103, “Starting the Game.”)
  • 402.2. Each player has a maximum hand size, which is normally seven cards. A player may have any number of cards in their hand, but as part of their cleanup step, the player must discard excess cards down to the maximum hand size.
  • 402.3. A player may arrange their hand in any convenient fashion and look at it at any time. A player can’t look at the cards in another player’s hand but may count those cards at any time.

Mechanics interacting with hands

No maximum hand size

There are some cards that grant you no maximum hand size. Some of them are:

• Spellbook ().
• Graceful Adept ().
• Library of Leng (). Also has "If an effect causes you to discard a card, discard it, but you may put it on top of your library instead of into your graveyard."
• Reliquary Tower. Also has ": Add to your mana pool."
• Thought Vessel (). Also has ": Add to your mana pool."
• Venser's Journal (). Also has "At the beginning of your upkeep, you gain 1 life for each card in your hand."
• Kruphix, God of Horizons (). Also has "Indestructible; If unused mana would empty from your mana pool, that mana becomes colorless instead."
• Tamiyo, the Moon Sage (). Granted as an emblem.

Putting cards from hand onto the battlefield

Putting unspecified cards from hand onto the battlefield isn't an effect that is used all that often, but it is primary green.

Artifacts

Putting artifacts from hand onto the battlefield is primary blue, as it is the "friendly to artifacts" color. White will do it when it involves Equipment.

Creatures

Putting creatures from hand onto the battlefield is primary green, secondary in blue and red and tertiary in white and black. Green does this effect the most often. Blue will do it usually flavored as transformation, and will return one its creatures to its owner's hand. When red does this the creature is most often sacrificed or returned to hand at end of turn.

Enchantments

Putting enchantments from hand onto the battlefield is primary white, secondary green and tertiary in blue. White and blue tend to do this tied to Auras, while green will put out any enchantment.

Lands

Putting lands from hand onto the battlefield is essentailly only a green mechanic. Green used to do this all the time. It still does it, but not as often as it used to. Returning cards from graveyard to hand

Returning cards from graveyard to hand

The ability to get back any card from the graveyard is primary done in green and usually appears at uncommon or higher in rarity.

Artifacts

Blue is the color that get artifacts back the easiest, although white can do it as well. Sometimes white will get back Equipment in particular.

Creatures

Black can return any creature from the graveyard. It will often do this as an enters the battlefield effect nicknamed after Gravedigger, as that was the card that did it first. White usually returns creatures with smaller converted mana costs.

Enchantments

Getting back enchantments is primary a white thing.

Instant and sorceries

As blue and red are the spell colors (they have the highest percentage of spells versus creatures), they are the two colors that can get instants and sorceries back. When there is a choice to separate them, blue leans toward getting back instants and red leans toward getting back sorceries.

Lands

While green can get back any card, it often gets back lands.

Looking at opponent's hand

The ability to look at an opponent's hand is primary in blue and secondary in black. The latter does it only in conjunction with discarding where it has to choose what gets discarded. R&D has been scaling back on this effect, as it tends to slow down gameplay. This has had the effect of making the ability appear more in black than blue, as they still make the discard spells.