Play

Play is a keyword action which usually describes putting a land onto the battlefield from the hand. The equivalent for spells is "casting" them, although casting is much more complex than playing a land. "Playing a card" is also used when the card type is unknown, to generally describe playing a land or casting a spell as appropriate for the card type. The latter usage is most commonly seen on red's "impulsive draw" ability. This relationship between playing and casting is one-sided: "playing a card" includes casting a spell, but "casting" never includes playing a land.
==History==
"Play" was on some cards starting with Alpha edition as essentially a synonym for casting, but was only haphazardly used in those early times. It temporarily replaced Cast in the Sixth Edition rules changes in the sense of "playing a spell". The high usage of "play" sometimes caused confusion with the concept of objects being "in play", the term used for the battlefield at the time. "Cast" was brought back starting from Magic 2010, but "play" continued to be used for lands and as a catch-all term, and the confusion around it was reduced by renaming the "in-play zone" to the battlefield.
==Rules==
==References==