Discard

[["Keyword Action",[{"data":"''[[Alpha]]''","label":"Introduced"},{"data":"''[[Evergreen]]''","label":"Last used"},{"data":"''No official reminder text''","label":"Reminder Text"}]],["Scryfall Statistics",[{"data":"[https://scryfall.com/search?q=fo%3ADiscard cards]"}]]]

Discard
Keyword Action
Introduced	Alpha
Last used	Evergreen
Reminder Text	No official reminder text
Scryfall Statistics
cards

Discard is an evergreen keyword action which takes cards from a player's hand and puts them in their graveyard.

Description

Discard is primarily in the black part of the color pie. Discard spells are more often at sorcery speed, though a few have been printed at instant speed. This is to avoid the strategic use of casting it in their opponent's draw step to rid them of the only card they have that turn. The target of a discard spell more often than not gets to choose which cards to discard. More powerful versions are cards which force a random discard or reveal the target's hand to the discard spell's caster (Thoughtseize effects). Typically "blind" discards are designed as card advantage spells where they cause attrition through numbers, whereas the revealing discards are used more precisely to slow the opposing strategy. Random discard spells are unpopular game experiences so fewer of them have been made. Due to the diminishing returns of discard spells, they trend to the lower part of the curve and by volume have a maximum value of three cards, as any higher is rarely effectual for the cost it would need to add: Ghost-Lit Stalker at seven and Haunting Hymn at six are the only ones that explicitly discard four, and both are secondary modes. Red and blue have not gotten new cards that cause card-negative discard for decades.

Black discard spells generally invoke a flavor of insanity or trauma, whereas red discard spells invoke one of fate or fire and blue discard spells invoke one of stealing. The creature type Specter generally are mechanically tied to causing players to discard cards when they are unblocked.

Mechanics which include discard as a cost are bloodrush, channel, cycling, and reinforce. Anti-discard effects are rare single designs.

For Odyssey, Mark Rosewater designed discard spells to challenge to mess around with the concept of card advantage and create threshold. In hindsight, it was an "interesting" idea but not "fun" to play.

Discard as a cost is primary in black, and secondary in red, shown most commonly during rummaging. All other colors are tertiary.

Rules

From the glossary of the Comprehensive Rules (September 19, 2025—Marvel's Spider-Man)

Discard

To move a card from its owner’s hand to that player’s graveyard. See rule 701.9, “Discard.”

From the Comprehensive Rules (September 19, 2025—Marvel's Spider-Man)

• 701.9. Discard
  • 701.9a To discard a card, move it from its owner’s hand to that player’s graveyard.
  • 701.9b By default, effects that cause a player to discard a card allow the affected player to choose which card to discard. Some effects, however, require a random discard or allow another player to choose which card is discarded.
  • 701.9c If a card is discarded, but an effect causes it to be put into a hidden zone instead of into its owner’s graveyard without being revealed, all values of that card’s characteristics are considered to be undefined. If a card is discarded this way to pay a cost that specifies a characteristic about the discarded card, that cost payment is illegal; the game returns to the moment before the cost was paid (see rule 732, “Handling Illegal Actions”).