Quick Verdict
Indestructible means a permanent cannot be destroyed — it ignores lethal damage and destroy effects, and nothing else. It does not stop exile, sacrifice, or toughness reduced to zero, because none of those destroy anything. Regenerate is the retired predecessor: a one-shot shield that also taps the creature and removes it from combat. Exile is the universal answer to both, which is why removal that exiles costs more than removal that destroys.
Magic has three fundamentally different ways to remove a creature from the battlefield, and almost every rules argument about survival comes from treating them as one thing.
You can destroy it — the most common, and the one every protective ability is built to stop. You can exile it, which is not destruction and which nothing on this page defends against. Or you can reduce its toughness to zero, which kills it through an entirely separate mechanism that neither indestructible nor regeneration touches.
Indestructible answers the first. Regenerate answers the first, once, at a cost. Exile ignores both. Learn those boundaries and you will stop being surprised by creatures that die when they should not — and stop wasting removal on ones that will not.
Indestructible stops destruction. It does not stop exile, sacrifice, or zero toughness — because none of those destroy anything.
Indestructible
Indestructible is a static ability (CR 702.12). A permanent that has it:
- Cannot be destroyed by any effect using the word destroy
- Is not destroyed by lethal damage — it ignores the state-based action that checks for it
- Keeps damage marked on it, harmlessly
Damage still happens. It simply stops mattering. This is the source of most confusion: an indestructible 2/2 dealt six damage has six damage marked on it and is completely fine.
What indestructible does not stop
Every one of these kills an indestructible creature, because none of them destroy it:
Exile. Not destruction. The single most reliable answer.
Sacrifice. The controller puts it in the graveyard themselves. Nothing is destroyed.
Toughness reduced to zero. A −X/−X effect, or an effect setting toughness to 0, puts the creature in the graveyard through a different state-based action — the one that checks for zero toughness, not the one that checks for lethal damage.
The legend rule. Puts extra copies into the graveyard. Not destruction.
Bounce. Returning it to hand or library removes it without killing it at all.
Deathtouch loses to indestructible, and the reason is worth understanding rather than memorising: deathtouch works by making any nonzero damage count as lethal damage, and indestructible is precisely the ability that ignores lethal damage. They interact at exactly the point where indestructible wins.
The mechanism underneath all of this is state-based actions — the automatic checks that put creatures in the graveyard. Indestructible exempts a permanent from one of those checks and no others.
Regenerate
Regenerate is the older, clunkier ancestor of indestructible, and you will still meet it on cards printed before 2016.
Regenerating a permanent creates a replacement shield:
The next time this permanent would be destroyed this turn, instead remove all damage marked on it and its controller taps it. If it's an attacking or blocking creature, remove it from combat.
Three parts of that matter, and two of them are costs.
It is one use. The shield is consumed the first time it triggers. Regenerating twice needs two shields.
It taps the creature. A regenerated creature is tapped, so it cannot block afterwards and its tap abilities are unavailable.
It removes the creature from combat. This is the big one. A blocker that regenerates stops blocking — so the creature it was blocking deals no combat damage, but neither does the regenerated creature. In an attack, a regenerated attacker deals no damage either.
Regenerate was retired from premier sets around Kaladesh, with Oath of the Gatewatch the last Standard set to print it. The phrase "can't be regenerated" — which appeared on removal spells specifically to beat it — was retired at the same time. Its design role passed to indestructible, and Shadows over Innistrad introduced "gains indestructible until end of turn" as the modern replacement wording.
Old cards with regenerate still work exactly as printed. You just will not see it on anything new.
Indestructible is regenerate with the drawbacks removed: unlimited instead of once, permanent instead of one turn, and it never taps your creature or pulls it out of combat. That is why one replaced the other.
Exile
Exile is the answer to everything above.
Exile moves a card to a separate zone that is not the battlefield and not the graveyard. Nothing is destroyed, so:
- Indestructible does nothing
- Regeneration shields do nothing
- Death triggers do not trigger — the creature never died
- Graveyard recursion cannot reach it — it never went to the graveyard
That last pair is why exile is so much stronger than it looks. Against a deck built on dying creatures, recursion, or a commander that keeps returning, destroy-based removal often helps the opponent. Exile ends the conversation.
This is also why exile removal costs more. A spell that destroys a creature can be blanked by indestructible, dodged by regeneration, or turned into value by a death trigger. A spell that exiles answers all of that at once, and Wizards prices the reliability in — an exile effect is consistently a mana or a restriction more expensive than its destroy equivalent.
How to Actually Kill an Indestructible Creature
Read board wipes carefully. "Destroy all creatures" leaves indestructible creatures standing. A wipe that exiles, gives −X/−X, or forces sacrifice does not. Wipes with those wordings exist precisely because indestructible is common enough to plan around.
Common Misconceptions
"Indestructible means it can't die." It means it cannot be destroyed. It dies to exile, sacrifice and zero toughness like anything else.
"Deathtouch beats indestructible." It does not. Deathtouch creates lethal damage; indestructible ignores lethal damage.
"An indestructible creature can't be damaged." It can. The damage is marked and simply does nothing.
"Regenerate is just weaker indestructible." It is weaker and it has active costs — tapping and removal from combat — that indestructible does not.
"My regenerated blocker still deals damage." It does not. Regeneration removes it from combat entirely.
"Indestructible protects my commander from the legend rule." It does not. The legend rule does not destroy.
Conclusion: Know Which Verb You Are Reading
Almost every surprise in this area comes from one habit — reading removal for its effect rather than its verb. Destroy, exile, sacrifice and "gets −X/−X" all end with a creature in the graveyard, and they are four different operations that four different defences interact with differently.
Indestructible answers exactly one of them. Regenerate answers the same one, once, and charges you a tap and your place in combat for the privilege — which is why it was retired and replaced by "indestructible until end of turn".
Exile answers all of them, and does it without letting a death trigger fire or a graveyard deck get its card back. When you are holding both kinds of removal and choosing which to spend, that is the difference you are actually paying for.
Citations & Resources
- Wizards of the Coast: Comprehensive Rules — indestructible (CR 702.12) and regenerate
- MTG Wiki: Indestructible
- MTG Wiki: Regenerate — rules and retirement
- MTG Wiki: The exile zone
- MTG Wiki: State-based actions
Related Guides
- MTG State-Based Actions — the checks that actually put creatures in the graveyard
- What Deathtouch Means in MTG — and why indestructible beats it
- The Ultimate MTG Keywords Glossary — every keyword, with a printable cheat sheet
- MTG Legend Rule Explained — a graveyard trip that indestructible cannot stop
- What Trample Means in MTG — assigning lethal damage to an indestructible blocker
- MTG Planeswalkers — zero loyalty is not destruction either
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