As others have mentioned, Specific Beats General is indeed part of 5e (in addition to the PHB citation, it's repeated multiple times throughout Sage Advice Compendium.)

Regarding the MTG comparison however, 5e is very much not designed to work like MTG does. MTG rules go beyond being rules to facilitate tabletop play; they're practically pseudocode, intended to remove all resolution ambiguity for a competitive tournament game. And it's understandable that D&D's roots go at least somewhat close to this model given that it too was, in the past, a tournament-style game - but 5e very much is not that, anymore.