Zones, locations and game objects

A card is always in one of the game's zones, and the zone it is in does most of the work of telling you what you can do with it (rule 128.1 and rule 128.2). The Play Area is a set of zones, and it divides into the Board and the Non-Board Zones (rule 106). Learn which is which and a great many rules stop looking arbitrary.

The Board has four kinds of space. Each player has a Base, which is where the permanents and runes they control live (rule 107.1.a and rule 107.1.c). The Battlefield Zone holds the battlefields, and permanents at battlefields are public (rule 107.2.a and rule 107.2.c). Each battlefield has a Facedown Zone with a maximum occupancy of one card, though effects can change that maximum, and a card may be there only while the card's controller also controls the battlefield, and if they lose control the card is removed in the next cleanup (rule 107.3.a, rule 107.3.b, rule 107.3.b.1, rule 107.3.c and rule 107.3.d). And each player has a Legend Zone, where the Champion Legend sits and can never be removed (rule 107.4.a and rule 107.4.d). Of these only Bases and Battlefields are Locations, the places where permanents and runes may be and where movement starts and ends. The Facedown Zones and the Legend Zone are not locations (rule 198.1, rule 107.3.e and rule 107.4.b).

The Non-Board Zones are the chain, each player's trash, Champion Zone, Main Deck Zone, Rune Deck Zone, Banishment and hand (rule 108.1, rule 108.2, rule 108.3, rule 108.4, rule 108.5, rule 108.6 and rule 108.7). Public and ordered are different things. The trash and the Banishment are public and unordered, so a player may arrange their cards however they like (rule 108.2.c and rule 108.6.d). The hand is private and unordered, and everyone may know how many cards it holds (rule 108.7.c, rule 108.7.d and rule 108.7.e). The Main Deck is different: the number of cards in it is public, but their order is secret and matters (rule 108.4.d and rule 108.4.e).

The most useful consequence is the rule about zone changes. A game object that moves to or from a Non-Board Zone becomes a new object, and everything temporary stops being tracked on it: damage is cleared, counters are removed, granted keywords are no longer granted, and statuses are cleared (rule 124 and rule 124.1). Take a unit that has 3 damage marked, a buff and Ganking until end of turn. If a spell returns it to its owner's hand and it is played again, it is a fresh unit with none of that. Contrast a recall, which moves a permanent to its base without it being a Move: it stays on the Board, so its damage and statuses are unaffected (rule 457, rule 458 and rule 460.1).

A Game Object is anything that can produce game effects or be the prerequisite for game actions. That includes Main Deck cards in any zone, runes, legends, battlefields, tokens, abilities on the chain, and counters and other status markers (rule 119, rule 120 and rule 123). XP is the notable thing that is not one (rule 731).

At a high OPL (Organized Play Level, defined in the Tournament basics lesson) event the table layout follows set rules so everyone reads the Board the same way: runes must sit closer to their controller than other cards, the Main Deck and trash must share one side, and the Rune Deck should be on the other side. Ready objects must face their controller, and exhausted ones are turned 90 degrees, all in the same direction (TR 508.2, TR 508.4, TR 508.5 and TR 508.10).