Magic the Gathering

Counter

Counter is a con­fus­ing term in Magic as it has sev­eral def­i­n­i­tions. In terms of being a ‘key­word’ it refers to a marker placed on an object, usu­ally mod­i­fy­ing its char­ac­ter­is­tics. Coun­ters with the same name or descrip­tion are inter­change­able. Coun­ters may also be given to play­ers, like poi­son counters.

If a per­ma­nent has both a +1/+1 counter and a –1/-1 counter on it, N +1/+1 and N –1/-1 coun­ters are removed from it, where N is the smaller of the num­ber of +1/+1 and –1/-1 coun­ters on it.

Exam­ple: A crea­ture has three +1/+1 coun­ters and it receives two –1/-1 coun­ters, it then ends up with just one +1/+1 counter, remov­ing the four other counters.