Flying

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Flying
Keyword Ability
Type	Evasion
Introduced	Alpha
Last used	Evergreen
Reminder Text	Flying (This creature can't be blocked except by creatures with flying and/or reach.)
Storm Scale	1
Other Symbols
Scryfall Statistics
cards

Flying is an evergreen evasion ability that makes creatures without flying unable to block creatures with flying. It has been in Magic since the original Alpha set. It was the first and most resonant mechanic that Richard Garfield designed for the game.

Description

Flying appears on nearly 3,000 different cards and is scattered wildly on the color wheel, mostly being found on blue and white cards, and to a lesser extent in black and red. At higher rarities the presence of flying also varies, but at common blue and white get two or three and black typically only gets one. Green rarely has flying creatures, but is the best color at destroying them (e.g. Hurricane, Plummet). There are a number of creature types that almost always have flying, such as Angels, Birds, Sphinxes, Dragons, and Griffins (each of these generally being creatures with wings).

As the most common evasion keyword, it serves the important role of giving a clear indication who has profitable attacks and is the beatdown; a flier that often can't be blocked attacks profitably. However, as the ability has as associated cost on creatures, the player with all flying creatures is liable to be worse in a race than those without; this is rectified by playing sturdy defensive creatures, but then the deck becomes unstable. This dynamic is fundamental to good basic combat gameplay. An interesting nuance in higher-level Constructed is that decks of many fliers are usually bad without another gimmick, as players attempting to defend from creatures do so via removal rather than blockers and fliers die to removal all the same.

The Mystery Booster test cards and Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths introduced flying counters.

Anti-flying

The dynamics of the mechanic make it so that flying has to be sparse in the aggregate in order to be useful. Hence, the color weakest at flying can't simply have fewer or worse fliers than the others, as it doesn't make for engaging gameplay. Therefore, Green, the fifth in flying, has the most tools to defeat fliers rather than having bad fliers. The most obvious option is the keyword Reach, which over time has been rated as almost free on creature costing, comparing 2025's Hazard of the Dunes to 1993's Giant Spider. For lower-power formats, some average-rate creatures with Reach get stat boosts when blocking fliers, making them perform above the curve specifically against them. It also gets aggressive removal options that target specifically creatures with flying like Plummet, which can have even further upsides to expand the general playability.

Historically there were other methods to hypothetically combat fliers, but they were discarded due to gameplay patterns; the expected counterplay nowadays is a faster damage race "on the ground", rather than the options below.

Can't be blocked by creatures with flying

Some creatures without flying can't be blocked by creatures with flying. This is a red ability, and is sometimes nicknamed "Tunneling" However, "Tunneling" is more often used for “target creature with power 2 or less is unblockable this turn”. Given the lack of defensive fliers in a typical game, this use of the keyword has seen little print.

• Stone Spirit
• Gnat Alley Creeper
• Greater Stone Spirit
• Dust Corona
• Skyblinder Staff , Equip:

Losing flying

As the most common keyword ability, it is also the keyword most commonly explicitly removed or lost by certain effects, twice as common as the next keyword removed, defender. Despite the low utility, it has continued to appear on cards as trinket text. Its greatest weakness is the cost of a card to cause such an effect and still relies on having creatures to block them afterwards. Blue has a greater modern use of it than green as it is often restricted to using Auras to disable creatures, and adding the effect would hence clear the way for its own fliers.

On own creatures

• Chimeric Sphere ()
• Colossus Hammer ()
• Downdraft ()
• Leering Gargoyle ()
• Magebane Armor ()
• Mist Dragon ()
• Starforged Sword ()
• Swooping Talon ()

On opposing creatures

• Adarkar Windform ()
• Archetype of Imagination ()
• Burning Palm Efreet ()
• Canopy Claws ()
• Crash Landing ()
• Downdraft ()
• Earthbind ()
• Emerald Charm ()
• Fear of Falling ()
• Goblin Skycutter ()
• Gravity Sphere ()
• Gravity Well ()
• Grounded ()
• Kinscaer Harpoonist ()
• Invert the Skies ()
• Mammoth Harness ()
• Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer ()
• Mystic Decree ()
• Radjan Spirit ()
• Ribbon Snake ()
• Sky Tether ()
• Short Circuit ()
• Tightening Coils ()
• Thundercloud Elemental ()
• Vertigo ()
• Whiteout ()
• Wind Shear ()

Enchantments that grant just flying

One creature

• Flight
• Shimmering Wings
• Arcanum Wings
• Buoyancy
• Crown of Ascension
• Dragon Wings
• Illuminated Wings
• Launch
• Phantom Wings
• Flight of Fancy

All your creatures

• Levitation

Pseudo-flying

Some creatures can't be blocked except by creatures with flying or reach, but unlike creatures that actually have flying, these cannot block creatures with flying themselves. Mark Rosewater is not a fan of this design, as it does not differentiate itself from flying meaningfully, as the gameplay is functionally the same as "during your turn, this creature has flying". It also runs into keyword-referencing issues, as whether or not reach can block it depends on whether reach existed at time of printing.

• Elven Riders
• Treetop Rangers
• Treetop Bracers
• Treetop Scout
• Silhana Ledgewalker

Includes reach

• Canopy Cover
• Orchard Spirit
• Signal Pest
• Spire Tracer
• Tatsunari, Toad Rider ( activated ability)

High flying

High flying is a slang term used to describe the combination of flying with the drawback of only being able to block other creatures with flying. While the term is in use both among players and R&D, the combination is not keyworded and is not expected to become so. It is primary in blue.

The blocking restriction was first printed on Mirage's Chaosphere, a world enchantment that restricted all flying creatures to high flying instead. The first creatures printed with the downside were released in Portal and Weatherlight. Because it combines an evasion ability with a matching blocking restriction, it resembles shadow, and creatures with high flying generally cost less than a creature with only flying.

Creatures

• 1/1: Cloud Pirates, Cloud Sprite, Etherium Pteramander
  • Cloudseeder, Into the Fae Court, Faerie Slumber Party Station Monitor, Pinnacle Emissary, Desculpting Blast , Ominous Roost create 1/1 High Flying tokens
• 2/1: Tattered Haunter, Vaporkin, Welkin Tern, Novellamental
• 2/2: Belbe's Percher, Stormbound Geist, Battlefield Percher, Shacklegeist
• 2/3: Cloud Elemental, Wanderlight Spirit, Scrapskin Drake
• 3/1: Cloud Spirit, Skywinder Drake, Rishadan Airship, Departed Soulkeeper, Brazen Borrower
• 3/2: Ascending Aven, Cipherbound Spirit, Rishadan Brigand
• 3/3: Hoverguard Observer, Stronghold Zeppelin, Dreamcaller Siren Stormcloud Djinn
• 4/3: Long-Finned Skywhale
• 4/4: Stratozeppelid
• 5/4: Cloud Djinn, Cloud Dragon

Enchantments

• Air Bladder — Aura
• Chaosphere — World; nonflying creatures gain Reach
• Dense Canopy
• Ominous Roost — Creates 1/1 Bird tokens with high flying
• Stratus Walk — Aura; When Stratus Walk enters the battlefield, draw a card.

High reach

One card (Gloomwidow) does not have flying but has reach instead. It still cannot block nonfliers.

Player flying

The Mystery Booster test card Sarah's Wings (a reference to On Serra's Wings) grants flying to a player (Players with flying can’t be dealt damage by creatures without flying). This was also the idea behind Form of the Dragon, which has a different mechanical implementation.

Rules

From the glossary of the Comprehensive Rules (July 25, 2025—Edge of Eternities)

Flying

A keyword ability that restricts how a creature may be blocked. See rule 702.9, “Flying.”

From the Comprehensive Rules (July 25, 2025—Edge of Eternities)

• 702.9. Flying
  • 702.9a Flying is an evasion ability.
  • 702.9b A creature with flying can’t be blocked except by creatures with flying and/or reach. A creature with flying can block a creature with or without flying. (See rule 509, “Declare Blockers Step,” and rule 702.17, “Reach.”)
  • 702.9c Multiple instances of flying on the same creature are redundant.

Examples

Example

Bog Imp
Creature — Imp
1/1
Flying (This creature can't be blocked except by creatures with flying or reach.)

See also

• Reach
• Evasion ability

External links

• A Planeswalker's Primer for Magic 2010: Flying (Video). Magic: The Gathering. YouTube.
• Gavin Verhey (February 3, 2017). "The Invention of Flying". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2021-04-29.