All cards in the deck have a mana cost. A deck consists of creatures and spells. 

Creatures can be cast only during a player’s turn and stay on the battlefield once cast. They can be used to attack or defend.

// Spells

Spells are cast once and are then discarded. There are two types of spells, only differentiation being when the player can cast them:

Plug and play spells can be cast anytime, also during the opponent’s turn.

Installation required spells can be cast only during a player’s turn.

// Creatures

Creatures can also be of a certain type (e.g. firewall, worm, trojan, etc.). Creatures of the same type might play stronger together and create combos.

Creatures always have a power and toughness value that define how strong their attacks are (power) and how much damage they can take (toughness).

A creature that has attacked a turn, can’t defend during the opponent’s turn. The damage a creature received is persistent across turns. A creature can’t attack or activate any abilities when first cast.

Creatures can have abilities, that are broken down in the following categories:

// Static abilities

These are abilities that a creature has, that are always on and can’t be deactivated.

// Activated abilities

These are abilities that require some kind of activation to be enabled. Activation cost is usually mana, but can be almost everything (e.g. pay with life, sacrifice a creature, etc.)

triggered abilities

These are abilities that automatically do something when a certain event occurs or a set of conditions is met.