Loyalty Counters in MTG: Rules, History, and Best Cards

Jace, Mirror Mage | Illustration by Tyler Jacobson

When planeswalkers first hit the scene almost 20 years ago now with the Lorwyn Five, they brought with them a new counter, and with that, a new way of thinking about life and death in MTG.

Creatures died when they took damage equal to or greater than their toughness. Players lost when their life totals hit 0. Numbers, aside from a few odd counters here and there, mapped onto life and death in early Magic. But a planeswalker was too powerful to die in one of these duels represented by a game of Magic. Their counters represented their willingness to stick by you, player, who was called “planeswalker” yourself in the early game. When those counters hit 0, your “buddy” would bug out.

As much as the idea of planeswalkers as characters in Magic’s story, this mechanic gave a sense of the larger sense of multiple planes in the multiverse. Each game of Magic felt like a plane, almost, even with the riot of cards on the battlefield from across time and planar space. Jace Beleren and his mates would drop in, cast some spells, and eventually leave. The graveyard in the game for them was a strange rules-based convenience, not a moldering pit from which Liliana Vess might raise your creatures as the undead.

It made planeswalkers enduring heroes and the face of the game in a way that Weatherlight’s protagonist, Gerrard Capashen, could no longer do as the game got larger.

Lest this winding introduction test your own loyalty counters, dearest gentle readers, let’s get down to the fussy rules bits that probably brought you here. Everything you need to know about loyalty counters coming right up!

How Do Loyalty Counters Work?

Basri, Devoted Paladin | Illustration by Jason Rainville

When you successfully cast a planeswalker, it enters with the number of loyalty counters printed in the lower right hand box, which is occasionally variable, as with Nissa, Steward of Elements or when you flip Ral, Monsoon Mage.

Loyalty counters can increase or decrease depending on your activation of loyalty abilities. Damage from spells and creatures also reduces loyalty counters.

A quick note on an important facet of the way Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes works given its popularity in powerful Cubes: When the planeswalker enters, the Boo token is created. This passes priority. Normally a planeswalker enters and priority is preserved for activation of a loyalty ability. Not so with Minsc & Boo. An opponent can respond to the token by, say, destroying the planeswalker with that ability on the stack. But none of that changes the number of loyalty counters Minsc & Boo enters with.

What Happens If a Planeswalker Has No Loyalty Counters?

When the loyalty count would hit 0, the planeswalker card goes to the graveyard as a state-based action, similar to controlling a creature with 0 toughness.

Does Damage Remove Loyalty Counters?

Yes, and it’s the way to remove opposing planeswalkers if you don’t have direct removal like Dreadbore. Both combat damage and noncombat damage result in removing loyalty counters.

Can Loyalty Counters Be Proliferated?

Yes, loyalty counters can be proliferated! And that’s part of why Atraxa, Praetors' Voice is a popular planeswalkers commander.

Is Adding and Removing Loyalty Counters a Cost?

Yes it is, at least when you’re activating a planeswalker’s loyalty abilities. You need to have sufficient counters to use that juicy minus ability. Some effects add or remove loyalty as part of the resolution of that effect, like the the +1 abilities on Huatli, Radiant Champion and Gideon, Champion of Justice. The counters gained from those effects are not a cost, but the +1 to activate the ability is.

Can You Activate a Planeswalker If it Puts it to 0 Loyalty?

Yes, you can activate a planeswalker ability to tick it down to 0, then it goes to the graveyard. Sometimes you have the space to tick up enough loyalty counters for a planeswalker to survive its ultimate with a counter or so to spare. Sometimes you can’t.

What About Less Than 0?

No, and thankfully not. Otherwise, you’d be able to ultimate planeswalkers immediately. You can only do as much damage with Chandra Nalaar’s second ability as it has loyalty counters.

Does Doubling Season Double Loyalty Counters?

Doubling Season only doubles the counters of planeswalkers when they enter, which is still busted. But it doesn’t double the counters from positive loyalty abilities because expending or adding loyalty counters is a cost, not an effect, and the text of Doubling Season doubles counters placed only by an “effect”. Now, if you have Doubling Season out and then you proliferate, Doubling Season doubles those instances of placing counters onto your planeswalkers.

What Is a Loyalty Ability?

A loyalty ability is an ability inherent to planeswalkers that adds or removes loyalty counters to produce a designated effect.

Is a Loyalty Ability an Activated Ability?

Yes! Loyalty abilities are activated abilities, unlike static abilities, which are always in effect, like the classically oppressive Narset, Parter of Veils.

When Can You Activate a Loyalty Ability?

Generally, you can only activate it when you can cast a sorcery, with some exceptions for cards like The Wandering Emperor or Teferi, Master of Time.

Can You Counter a Loyalty Ability?

Yes! Because planeswalker loyalty abilities are activated abilities, Stifle effects work. A typical Counterspell will not work since the abilities are not spells on the stack.

What Does -X on a Loyalty Ability Mean?

As with Chandra Nalaar’s removal ability, -X means you can decide how many counters to remove, up to the limit of the total number of loyalty counters on the planeswalker. With Kasmina, Enigma Sage, that determines the size of the fractal creature you create.

Are There Cards that Interact with Loyalty Counters?

Yes! There are quite a few, in fact.

Any card that interacts with all counters, like proliferate effects, or any counter, like Nesting Grounds, can interact with planeswalker loyalty counters.

There are cards that check loyalty counters without affecting them, like Bioessence Hydra.

Some non-planeswalker cards come into play with loyalty counters and/or store them for transfer, like Gatewatch Beacon.

There are cards that add or subtract loyalty counters to aid planeswalkers or destroy them, from creatures like Gideon's Company and removal spells like Confront the Past or Settle the Score, to lands like Forge of Heroes.

Then there’s cards like Heart of Kiran and Light Up the Night that use loyalty counters as a kind of fuel for non-planeswalker abilities.

There are cards like Teferi's Talent that add loyalty abilities to planeswalkers while providing a triggered ability to add more loyalty counters.

Finally, there are cards like Deification and Spark Rupture that fundamentally change the rules of loyalty counters while they’re on the battlefield.

Wrap Up

Ob Nixilis, the Adversary | Illustration by Yongjae Choi

Loyalty counters are important in Magic’s history. They open up design and player decision-making in a way that a morph of early versions of the planeswalker idea, sagas, don’t, since they take the basic planeswalker idea and give it turn-based gating.

And they take counters away from time and life/death. As with flood counters, I like counters that work more obliquely to the basic purpose of the game, almost like low stakes side quests.

But no one playing in the “glory” days of Jace, the Mind Sculptor or Teferi, Time Raveler would particularly love the idea that planeswalker loyalty is good for the immersion of the game, sometimes at the cost of balance, but that’s my sense of what this has meant for the game we all love 20 years on.

Which are your favorite ways to accelerate your planeswalkers’ loyalty? Which are your favorite ways to shut off your opponents’ planeswalkers? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord. For more from us, subscribe to The Daily Upkeep on YouTube.

Happy deckbuilding, my friends!