@tookie1 I get confused by this as well. What I tend to do is look up cards with the most similar wording to whatever I am working on and go with that.
To my knowledge, and someone tell me if this is wrong, "all" is really only used on board wipes and cards with other similar effects that affects everything of one quality at the same time. "Each" is mostly used as reference, like "for each artifact you control...", or if there is an order to it still, like "each player...", if that makes any sense.
In written language, "all" is often a redundancy. Example: "All apples are fruits" is the same as "Apples are fruits." The word all was invented though. So when do we use it?
In french, tout la terre means all the world.. Which is a way to specify "The world and all its contents" as opposed to saying just "la terre", "the world".
So,
In magic, I find that we use "all" to describe an effect that effects something and all or some of the contents of that something.
Whereas we would say "each player loses 1 life," for an effect that only impacts the player, we would say "All players sacrifice all lands they control and discard all cards in their hand," because it impacts the player and "some or all" of those players' contents.
I'm pretty sure it's All when it affects just straight up every single creature, like "destroy all creatures" or "all creatures have haste." But when it's specific like "destroy each creature with power 4 or greater" or "tap each creature you don't control", it's each.
Comments
I get confused by this as well. What I tend to do is look up cards with the most similar wording to whatever I am working on and go with that.
Each is the way to go.
The word all was invented though. So when do we use it?
In french, tout la terre means all the world.. Which is a way to specify "The world and all its contents" as opposed to saying just "la terre", "the world".
So,
In magic, I find that we use "all" to describe an effect that effects something and all or some of the contents of that something.
Whereas we would say "each player loses 1 life," for an effect that only impacts the player, we would say "All players sacrifice all lands they control and discard all cards in their hand," because it impacts the player and "some or all" of those players' contents.