Magic the Gathering...?

Question

i hjave no idea how most of the cards in the ltest block work...answer this question with a list of the new abilities/effects and what they do.

Answer 1

Are you referring to the Shadowmoor cycle? If so these are the abilities

"Wither (This deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters.)"

basically this means when this creature deals combat damage to another creature prevent that damage and instead place a number if -1/-1 counters on the creature that would normally have been dealt damage.

"Conspire (As you play this spell, you may tap two untapped creatures you control that share a color with it. When you do, copy it and you may choose a new target for the copy)"

Persist (When this creature is put into a graveyard from play, if it had no -1/-1 counters on it, return it to play under its owner's control with a -1/-1 counter on it.)

Basically persist gives a creature a one time use resurrection. It comes into play with NO -1/-1 counters on it. So when it enters the graveyard it comes back. But this time it does have a -1/-1 counter on it. Which means if it dies again it will NOT come back. However if you are able to remove any and all -1/-1 counters before the creature dies a second time it will revive again.

I think those are the abilities for Shadowmoor

From preview cards, one of the new abilities that will be coming out with Eventide is Chroma.

This ability function slightly differently on every card however it shares on theme in common it deals with mana costs. It says do something X number of times when X is the number of a certain type of mana 'symbol' in the mana costs of cards. For example if a card had Chroma for red mana symbols on creatures then you would look at the mana cost of each creature. Let’s say for now the mana costs are 1, 1R, and 1RRR. The R represents the mountain symbol (meaning you need red mana) the chroma number would be 4. Because there are 4 red 'mana symbols' on creatures you control.

Answer 2

Some of the cards being printed now have one-word abilities in place of old abilities (i.e., "deathtouch" is "When this creature deals damage to a creature, destroy that creature." "Lifelink" is "Whenever this creature deals damage, you gain that much life.").  It is a means for Wizards of the Coast to save on ink used to print the cards by just using one-word abilities instead of having to use 10-word sentences to describe the ability.

The following link explains a bit better the abilities used in the game by creatures and such.