Magic: The Gathering can be a lot to take in, especially when you’re first learning about creatures, damage, and how they recover. Sometimes, you’ll see your favorite creature barely survive a brutal battle, and you might wonder, “How long until it’s good as new?” The short answer is that creatures “heal” at the end of the turn, but the details are worth exploring.
Understanding Turn Structure
Every turn in Magic: The Gathering has a clear structure. You start with the beginning phase, which covers the untap, upkeep, and draw steps. Then there’s the first main phase. After that, you move to combat, which is split into several steps (beginning of combat, declare attackers, declare blockers, combat damage, and end of combat). Then you get a second main phase, where you can cast more spells if you want. Finally, there’s the ending phase. This ending phase is where the creature’s damage gets removed, but it happens specifically in the cleanup step.
What Is the Cleanup Step
The ending phase itself has two steps: the end step and then the cleanup step. Most players pay close attention to the end step because that’s when certain triggers and abilities might go off. Then comes the cleanup step, which sometimes goes by almost unnoticed. That’s when the game automatically handles a few housekeeping tasks. One of the most important tasks is removing all damage marked on creatures. If a creature took three damage earlier in the turn but didn’t die, it still has that three damage marked on it throughout the turn. However, once you reach the cleanup step, that damage vanishes, and the creature effectively “heals.”
Why Does Damage Remain Marked on Creatures
It might seem odd that damage sticks around for nearly an entire turn. It’s a key part of how the game balances combat and card interactions. If damage disappeared right after the combat damage step, it would weaken many strategies. Effects that check how much damage a creature has taken wouldn’t work properly. It also makes each point of damage over the course of a turn meaningful. If you ping a creature for one damage in the main phase and then hit it for two more in combat, it’s now taken three damage total. Only if it survives everything thrown at it will it get a chance to remove that damage in the cleanup step.
Example: A Creature Survives Combat
Imagine you have a 3/3 creature that attacks your opponent. The opponent blocks with a 2/2 creature. During combat damage, both creatures deal damage to each other. Your 3/3 deals three damage to the 2/2, which is enough to kill it right away because it matches or exceeds its toughness. Meanwhile, the 2/2 deals two damage to your 3/3. Your creature has now taken two damage and is effectively a 3/3 with two damage marked on it. It’s not dead, but it’s not fully healthy either. That damage remains marked until the cleanup step. If the turn ends without any additional effects, your creature will drop that two damage in the cleanup step and go into the next turn fresh.
What If the Creature’s Damage Exceeds Toughness
The rules say that if a creature takes damage equal to or greater than its toughness, it’s destroyed as a state-based action. This means the game sees that damage on the creature and says, “This is lethal damage, so that creature dies.” That happens as soon as state-based actions are checked, which is usually right after spells and abilities resolve or right after combat damage is dealt. There’s no waiting until the cleanup step in that case. If you’re hoping your creature will survive with lethal damage until the cleanup step, it won’t. It’ll be gone much sooner.
Strategic Considerations
Knowing how creatures heal at the end of the turn helps you plan your offense and defense. If you suspect your opponent might have an instant or ability that deals a little extra damage, you might be cautious about blocking with a creature that’s already taken some hits. On the flip side, if you have a damage spell in hand, you might time it so that it finishes off a wounded creature before it can heal. For example, you could ping a creature for one damage after it’s already taken two in combat. That would be enough to push it over the edge and destroy it before the turn ends.
It also influences how you assign attackers and blockers. If you know you only need one more damage to kill a creature that’s already taken some hits, you can plan your combat steps accordingly. And if you’re the defending player, you might try to avoid taking partial damage across multiple creatures, because a simple spell afterward could finish the job. In that sense, the end-of-turn healing window is almost like a reset button that only helps creatures that manage to survive everything else.
When Do Creatures Actually Heal
So, when do creatures heal in MTG? The simple answer is at the cleanup step at the end of each turn. Until that point, any damage marked on a creature stays there, potentially making it vulnerable to even a small poke from another source. Once you hit the cleanup step, the game removes all marked damage and reverts the creature back to its normal state. If that’s not enough reassurance, remember that any lethal damage means your creature never makes it that far. It’s important to keep track of how much damage a creature has taken so you can avoid unpleasant surprises like unexpected death from a small amount of direct damage.
Final Thoughts
Players often overlook the cleanup step because not much usually happens there. But the removal of damage at that moment is essential to the flow of Magic: The Gathering. It gives each turn a sense of closure. By the time you pass the turn to your opponent, your surviving creatures are back at full strength and ready to take on whatever comes next. That’s probably the best way to picture it: the creatures have weathered the storm of the turn, and now they get a quick breather before the next one. If they made it through alive, they’ve earned that rest.
