The complete Treachery rules

Treachery is a casual multiplayer variant of Magic: The Gathering. Before the game, every player is secretly dealt an identity card. That card decides which team you are on, how you win, and usually gives you a powerful ability you can trigger once by unveiling it.

Treachery was designed by fans and its reference rules are maintained by the original designers at mtgtreachery.net. This page is an independent guide that restates those rules in plain language, adds examples, and fills in how the standard Magic rules apply. When this guide and the official Treachery rules disagree, the official rules win.

Treachery sits on top of a normal game of Magic. Everything not covered here works exactly as the Magic Comprehensive Rules and your chosen format (usually Commander) say.

A game needs at least four players and plays best with five to seven. The players are split into three or more teams, and nobody knows the teams at the start except for one public fact: who the Leader is.

The golden rule of Treachery: trust no one. You may say anything about your identity, true or false. What you may not do is show your face-down identity to another player to prove a claim. The only proof is unveiling it.

How to read this document: rules are numbered TR1 to TR12, with subrules like TR6.9a. Every rule has its own link, so you can send the exact rule to a friend mid-game. Words with a dotted underline link to the glossary. Card-specific rulings live on each identity’s page in the card oracle.

Every player chooses their deck before identities are dealt. Once you have seen your identity you can’t switch decks, so nobody can build around their role.

Build an identity deck with exactly one identity card per player, following these limits:

The role distribution is public. Before the game, everyone knows how many Leaders, Guardians, Assassins and Traitors are in the identity deck. Who holds which card is the secret.

Shuffle the identity deck and deal one card face down to each player. Each player looks at their own card without showing it, then puts it into the command zone.

Starting life is 20, or 40 when playing Commander. Starting hand size is seven. Identity abilities can change either. Use your format’s normal mulligan rules; under the standard multiplayer rules, your first mulligan is free.

Instead of choosing a random starting player, the Leader takes the first turn. If more than one player would be the starting player, pick one of them at random. Turns then pass around the table as usual.

Recommended, not required: settle the seating before identities are dealt, so where someone sits never hints at their role.

Identity is a card type that only exists in Treachery. An identity card has a name, a role, a rarity and rules text. Every role except Leader also has an unveil cost.

Identities stay in the command zone from the start of the game to the end. They are not permanents, they can’t be cast, and they can’t be shuffled into a library or put into a deck. If anything would move an identity out of the command zone, it stays where it is.

There are four roles: Leader, Guardian, Assassin and Traitor. The role is printed on the type line after a dash, for example “Identity — Guardian”. An identity could in principle have more than one role; every card in the current set has exactly one.

While an identity is face up in the command zone, all of its abilities work from there: static abilities apply, triggered abilities trigger, and activated abilities can be activated.

A face-down identity has no characteristics. As far as the game is concerned it has no name, no role, no abilities and no unveil cost until it is turned face up. (The rules still let its controller unveil it, see TR4.2.)

You may look at your own face-down identity at any time. You can’t look at anyone else’s unless an ability says you can, as The Puppet Master does.

The owner of an identity is the player who started the game with it. Its controller is its owner, unless an effect changes control (see TR8).

“This identity” in an ability means the identity card that ability is printed on.

Text such as “Leader player” or “Assassin player” means a player who controls a face-up identity of that role. A hidden Guardian is not a “Guardian player” until it is unveiled.

Example The Oracle gives protection to Leader players. A face-down Guardian is not affected, and neither is anyone else.

Roles form teams:

For everything else, and card effects in particular, a player whose identity is face down has no teammates and is an opponent of every other player. They join their team in the eyes of the game the moment their identity is face up.

Example A hidden Guardian is hit by the Leader’s “each opponent loses 2 life”. Once that Guardian is unveiled, the same effect skips them.

Unveil is a keyword ability written as “Unveil [cost]”. It does two things: the identity is put into the command zone face down at the start of the game, and if you lose the game it is turned face up.

Any time you have priority, you may unveil a face-down identity you control. Show everyone what its unveil cost is, pay that cost, and turn the card face up. This is a special action: it doesn’t use the stack, so nobody can respond to the unveil itself and it can’t be countered.

Most identities have an ability that starts “When [this identity] is unveiled”. It triggers only when the identity is turned face up by the unveil action. That trigger goes on the stack like any other triggered ability: players can respond to it, and it can be countered.

An ability worded “As [this identity] is unveiled” is applied while the card is being turned face up, not afterwards. No player can act between the unveil and that ability applying.

If an unveil cost contains X, you choose X as you unveil and pay it. Any other X in that identity’s text uses the same number. If the identity is turned face up some other way, X is 0.

Example Unveiling The Seer with X = 4 means paying 4 mana, then scrying 4.

When a player loses the game, their face-down identity is turned face up. This is not an unveil: no cost is paid and “when unveiled” abilities don’t trigger.

Once your identity is face up, your role is public, card effects recognise your team (TR3.11), and the identity’s other abilities switch on.

A few effects turn a face-up identity face down again, such as The Gatekeeper and The Ferryman. A face-down identity can be unveiled again by paying its cost, and its “when unveiled” ability triggers again. Players who saw the card are free to remember it.

Undercover is an ability word that restricts unveiling. It appears on Guardians; in the Treachery.app set every Guardian has it.

An Undercover identity can only be unveiled if at least one of these has happened earlier in the same game:

To attack a player, a creature has to be declared as an attacker in the declare attackers step. A creature that enters the battlefield already attacking was never declared, so it doesn’t count.

The Leader’s own identity doesn’t count, even though it is face up from the start, and neither does your own attack. Once either condition has been met, it stays met for the rest of the game.

Undercover only limits the unveil action. It doesn’t stop the identity from being revealed when you lose, and it doesn’t affect any of the identity’s other abilities once it is face up.

The point of Undercover is timing. Guardians hold strong defensive tricks, and without the restriction a Guardian could flip on turn one and announce exactly who is safe. Undercover makes the Leader team wait for the first real threat.

Every normal way to lose still applies: 0 or less life, drawing from an empty library, ten poison counters, 21 combat damage from a single commander in Commander games, an effect saying you lose, or conceding.

A team loses when every player on that team has lost.

The Leader team loses the moment every player controlling a Leader identity has lost, even if one or more Guardians are still in the game. Those Guardians lose at the same time. No effect that says a player can’t lose stops this.

Example A Guardian controls a card that says they can’t lose the game. The Leader dies. The Guardian loses anyway, because their team lost.

The Assassin team wins when every Leader has lost while at least one Assassin is still in the game. It doesn’t matter whether that Assassin’s identity is face up or face down.

A Traitor wins when all of their opponents have left the game, other Traitors included. In practice the Traitor doesn’t have to defeat the Guardians, since they fall with the Leader, but the Assassins have to be gone before the Leader is: if the Leader falls while an Assassin is alive, the Assassins win.

The Leader team wins when every Assassin and every Traitor has left the game.

When any player on a team wins, the whole team wins, including teammates who were eliminated earlier. This also applies to cards that say “you win the game”.

Example A hidden Assassin resolves a card that says “you win the game”. Every Assassin wins, alive or not, and everyone else loses.

When the game ends, every identity that is still face down is revealed.

Several players can lose at the same time, for example to one board-wide damage spell or a single check of state-based actions. They all leave the game together, and then the conditions above are checked against whoever is left.

A player may concede at any time. They leave the game and count as having lost. Effects that replace losing, like saving a player or turning a loss into a win, don’t apply to a concession.

Effects that stop a single player from losing or opponents from winning only protect that player. They can still stop an opponent’s own “you win the game” card, but they can’t keep the Leader team alive once its Leader is gone, and they can’t stop a team win under TR6.3 to TR6.6.

A player who loses or concedes leaves the game. As in any multiplayer Magic game, everything they own leaves with them, spells and abilities they control on the stack stop existing, and effects that gave them control of other players’ things end.

Treachery makes two exceptions, applied immediately as the player leaves rather than as state-based actions:

Any face-down identity controlled by the leaving player is revealed to everyone.

The game remembers the team a player was on when they left, based on the last identity they controlled. That last known team is what lets an eliminated player share in their team’s win.

Example An Assassin is knocked out on turn five. On turn nine another Assassin finishes the Leader. Both Assassins win.

When the last Leader leaves the game, every Guardian loses at once (TR6.3) and leaves too, taking their permanents with them. Plan for the board to change all at once.

If the active player leaves during their own turn, the turn carries on to its end without an active player, as in any multiplayer game. Nobody gets priority on behalf of the departed player.

A revealed identity counts as a revealed non-Leader identity for Undercover (TR5.2a), as long as it isn’t a Leader.

Ordinary Magic cards can’t steal or swap identities. “Gain control of target permanent” and “exchange control” effects only see permanents, and identities aren’t permanents. Only identity abilities can change who controls an identity.

Your role, and therefore your team, comes from the identity you currently control. If you gain control of a different identity, you switch to that identity’s team at once.

Effects that move identities between players are built so each player still controls exactly one identity afterwards.

A non-Leader identity that changes hands is usually turned face down. Its new controller can unveil it later by paying its cost, following any Undercover restriction it has. Leader identities stay face up.

If a player takes control of a Leader identity, they become a Leader player. While anyone controls a Leader identity, the Leader team hasn’t lost.

Example The Metamorph takes the Leader’s identity as the Leader loses. The Metamorph’s player is now the Leader, the Leader team is still alive, and the game goes on.

A player whose identity was taken as they left the game keeps their last known team (TR7.4). If that team later wins, they win with it.

Redistributing identities, as The Puppet Master does, works like this:

An identity that becomes a copy of another identity, as The Wearer of Masks does, takes on that card’s name and abilities, including any “when unveiled” or “as unveiled” ability. Whatever the copy effect says about the role still applies; the Wearer, for instance, always stays a Traitor. The copy ends when the identity is turned face down again.

If a face-down identity becomes a copy of another identity, it stays face down with no characteristics. If it is turned face up later, it shows the copied values.

Treachery is made for Commander. All Commander rules apply unchanged: 100-card singleton decks, colour identity, 40 starting life, commander tax, and losing to 21 combat damage from a single commander.

Your commander and your identity share the command zone but have nothing else in common. Your identity isn’t a commander, effects that mention commanders ignore it, and casting your commander doesn’t touch it.

Identities don’t count towards your deck’s colour identity.

Pick your Commander deck before identities are dealt (TR2.1). It is fine to bring a deck that can play several roles; most good Treachery decks can attack and defend.

Starting life modifiers from identities add to the Commander total, so The Old Ruler starts at 60.

Commander damage is tracked per commander as usual. It is a common way to finish a Leader with a big life total.

If a player leaves the game, their commander leaves with the rest of their cards (TR7.1).

Treachery also works without Commander. With 60-card decks or other multiplayer formats, use 20 starting life and your format’s usual rules.

Treachery uses the Free-for-All rules with the option to attack multiple players and without limited range of influence (TR1.4).

The Leader goes first (TR2.6). Turns then pass around the table in the usual direction, normally clockwise.

On your turn you may attack any opponents and their planeswalkers and battles, splitting your creatures however you like. Attacking is also how you send a message, so expect the table to read into it.

Until identities are face up, everyone is everyone’s opponent (TR3.11). “Each opponent” effects hit your hidden allies, and “each teammate” or “each other player on your team” effects find nobody until someone unveils.

Table talk is part of the game. You may make claims, accuse, threaten and strike deals. Deals are never binding. You may not show your face-down identity or other hidden cards to back up a claim, and you may not use outside signals to share information secretly.

When several players have triggered abilities at the same time, including identity triggers, they are put on the stack in APNAP order: the active player first, then each other player in turn order. The last one put on the stack resolves first.

Each player receives priority in turn order, starting with the active player, so unveils can happen at any of those moments. If everyone passes in a row with something on the stack, it resolves.

Backstab Rumble: the identity deck holds one Leader and every other card is a Traitor. For extra surprise, the organiser may keep this choice secret from the players.

Simple roles: when you have no identity cards, deal basic lands as role cards. Plains is the Leader, Island a Guardian, Mountain an Assassin and Swamp a Traitor. There are no unveil abilities, so unveiling just means flipping the land, and Undercover doesn’t apply.

Rarity pools: since rarity reflects complexity, groups often deal uncommons only for a first game and add rares and mythics later.

Individual bans: any group may leave out identities it finds too swingy or too complicated, as long as the pool still has enough of each role for the player count.

Any variant or house rule should be agreed on before identities are dealt, since the role distribution is public (TR2.3).

Use the banned list of the format you play. For Commander, that is the official Commander banned list.

On top of that, the Treachery designers strongly recommend leaving out three Magic cards: Expropriate, Head Games and Trade Secrets. They aren’t banned outright, but they play badly in a game built on hidden teams.

No identities are banned. Groups may still exclude individual identities (TR11.4).

Cards that win the game on their own, such as alternate win conditions, are legal. Remember that they win for your whole team (TR6.7).