Permanent

Permanent is any card that stays on the battlefield once it resolves, rather than doing its thing and heading to the graveyard like an instant or sorcery. Creatures, artifacts, enchantments, lands, planeswalkers, and battles are all permanents, and each sticks around until something removes it.

The word shows up constantly in card text, “destroy target permanent” or “permanents you control”, so understanding which cards actually qualify matters for reading Magic cards correctly, not just for deckbuilding.

The Permanent Types

Lands are permanents that tap for mana and don’t use the stack, creatures can attack and block, artifacts and enchantments usually provide static or activated effects, and planeswalkers bring their own loyalty counters. Battle cards, added more recently, are also permanents, and can be attacked like a planeswalker until someone “flips” them.

Instants and sorceries are the main non-permanent card types, they resolve, apply their effect once, and go straight to the graveyard, which is exactly the line “destroy target permanent” is drawing.

Why Permanent Status Matters

Removal spells are written around permanent types deliberately, a card that says “destroy target creature” can’t touch an enchantment, and “exile target permanent” hits anything on the battlefield. Reading that distinction correctly is the difference between a removal spell being live or dead against a given board.

Board states are built entirely out of permanents, so counting them, yours and your opponent’s, is how you judge who’s ahead and what a board wipe would actually cost each player.