Magic: The Gathering formats

Magic: The Gathering formats are various ways in which the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game can be played. Each format provides rules for deck construction and gameplay, with many confining the pool of permitted cards to those released in a specified group of Magic card sets. The Wizards Play Network, the governing body that oversees official Magic competitive play, categorizes its tournament formats into [|Constructed] and [|Limited]. Additionally, there are many casual formats with the Commander format being one of the most popular formats of the game.

Overview

Formats are divided into two main categories by the Wizards Play Network: Tournament and Casual. The term "sanctioned" refers to formats that the Wizards Play Network allows to be run at official events. Officially sanctioned events can also add additional rules such as disallowing proxy cards.
A number of other formats have been designed by Wizards of the Coast or by players themselves for custom gameplay or reduced investment cost; these are known as casual formats. Some casual formats utilize rules or sets of cards that differ from those used in sanctioned tournament play. One of the most popular formats of Magic is the Commander format which is technically a casual sanctioned format. In 2015, Wizards of the Coast officially sanctioned many casual formats, including "Invent Your Own Format", for use at Friday Night Magic events.
Formats can further be divided by if they are Constructed or Limited formats. Constructed formats require decks to be made prior to participation, with players allowed to use any tournament-legal cards they possess. Sanctioned Constructed formats include [|Standard], [|Pioneer], [|Modern], [|Legacy], and [|Vintage]. Limited formats, in contrast, utilize a restricted and unknown pool of cards, usually formed by opening Magic products such as play and draft booster, or prerelease boxes. Limited competition require players to select cards and build decks on the fly within the tournament itself. The primary two sanctioned Limited formats are Sealed Deck and Booster Draft.

Tournament formats

The following is a non-exhaustive summary of some of the major tournament formats:

Constructed

Constructed formats, as opposed to Limited formats, allow players to build decks from the entirety of the legal cards available in the specified format. The formats differ based on the card pool allowed, which affects each format's accessibility, power level, and complexity. In Constructed format tournaments, players build their deck in advance of the tournament.
The following rules apply to most sanctioned Constructed formats:

Constructed decks must contain a minimum of 60 cards. There is no maximum deck size.
Players may have a sideboard of up to a maximum of 15 cards, and exchanges of cards between games are not required to be on a one-for-one basis, so long as the player adheres to the 60 card minimum deck size.
With the exception of basic land cards and cards that specify otherwise, a player's combined deck and sideboard may not contain more than four of any individual card, unless stated otherwise, counted by its English card title equivalent. All cards named Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest, and Wastes are basic.
A card may only be used in a particular format if the card is from a set that is legal in that format or has the same name as a card from a set that is legal in that format.
Cards banned in a specific format may not be used in decks for that format. Cards restricted in a specific format may only have one copy in a deck, including sideboard.
Standard

The Standard format was introduced in 1995 and became the flagship format in the constructed deck tournament scene. It is also the format most commonly found at Friday Night Magic tournaments, played weekly at many hobby shops. A variation of the format called Arena Standard is used for online play through Magic: The Gathering Arena. This format generally consists of the most recent standard sets releases. Sets are included in the standard format for up to three years, with the four oldest sets being removed from the format in the fall "rotation"; thus the number of sets included in the standard format is at its lowest immediately after the rotation and increases as new sets are released until the oldest sets are rotated out again the following fall. The previous rule was using three to four recent "Block" releases plus any core sets released between the older set of the block and the first set that would make oldest two blocks rotated out.
, the current Standard set includes: Dominaria United, The Brothers' War, Phyrexia: All Will Be One, March of the Machine, March of the Machine: the Aftermath, Wilds of Eldraine, The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, Murders at Karlov Manor, Outlaws of Thunder Junction, Bloomburrow, Duskmourn: House of Horror, Foundations, ''Aetherdrift,Tarkir: Dragonstorm, and Final Fantasy.''

Modern

Modern is a constructed format created by Wizards of the Coast in the Spring of 2011 as a response to the increasing popularity of the Legacy format which, although popular, proved difficult to access due to the high price of staple cards, as well as dissatisfaction with the Extended format of the time. Wizards of the Coast is unwilling to reprint some of these cards due to the Reserved List, a list of cards Wizards promised never to reprint in order to protect card prices. Therefore, Modern was designed as a new format that would exclude all cards on the Reserved List, allowing the format to be more accessible than Legacy.
Modern allows cards from all core sets beginning with the 8th Edition core set and all expansions printed afterwards. The 8th Edition core set was when Magic cards began to be printed in modern card frames, and this is where the name for the format is derived. Wizards believed this cutoff would have the advantage of giving a visual cue as to which cards are legal in the Modern format. Additionally, Wizards has created “straight-to-Modern” sets which skip other formats entirely but are legal in the Modern format. The format maintains its own banned list. Cards are banned on the basis of their power level, as in all constructed formats outside Vintage. The first official tournament to be held using the format was Pro Tour Philadelphia in September 2011. The first Grand Prix to use the format was Grand Prix Lincoln in February 2012.
CBR highlighted that "the Modern format is more intense and competitive than Standard . Only a tiny fraction of legal Modern cards end up in modern decks, thanks to the Modern format's high standards for playable cards. An entire 250-card set could only contribute four or five to the format, if not fewer. A Standard or casual player getting into Modern will realize that they're on the verge of winning or losing even within the first four turns; in short, a game can go from 0 to 60 with astonishing speed. Modern has one of the richest metas of all, boasting many decks of different color combinations and archetypes".

Pioneer

Pioneer was created in the autumn of 2019. The rules for card legality are similar to Modern, consisting of cards that were released into the Standard format starting with a given expansion set. For Pioneer, the first legal expansion set is Return to Ravnica. The cutoff was made as Return to Ravnica was the first block released after Modern was made an official format.
Like other constructed formats, Pioneer maintains its own banned list.

Historic

In 2019, a "MTG Arena-first format" was officially announced. The new Historic format was created as a way for players to use cards that are available on Arena, but are not currently legal in the Standard format due to rotation, ban, or other reasons. The three ways that cards join the historic format are: appearing in a standard-legal set, appearing in supplemental sets released on Arena, or added via 15-20 card sets called Historic Anthologies. Like other constructed formats, Historic maintains its own banned list.
The Historic format was featured as the format of the Pro Tour event, The Mythic Invitational taking place September 10–13, 2020.

Legacy

Legacy allows cards from all sets. It maintains a curated ban list based on power level reasons. The format evolved from Type 1.5, which allowed cards from all sets and maintained a banned list corresponding to Vintage: all cards banned or restricted in the old Type 1 were banned in Type 1.5. The modern Legacy format began in 2006, as the DCI separated Legacy's banned list from Vintage and banned many new cards to reduce the power level of the format.
Wizards has supported the format with Grand Prix events and the release of preconstructed Legacy decks on Magic Online in November 2010. The first Legacy Grand Prix was Grand Prix Philadelphia in 2005.
Legacy format allows various cards that other formats would ban quickly, with a relatively small ban list for all of the cards that would be usable in it.

Vintage

The Vintage format is another Eternal constructed format. Vintage maintains a small banned list and a larger restricted list. Unlike in the other formats, the WPN does not ban cards in Vintage for power level reasons. Cards banned in Vintage are those that either involve ante, manual dexterity, or could hinder event rundown. Cards that raise power level concerns are instead restricted to a maximum of one copy per deck. The one exception to this was Lurrus of the Dream Den, which could be cast from outside the game and thus could not meaningfully be restricted; Lurrus was unbanned after a rule change in 2021. Vintage is currently the only tabletop format in which cards are restricted.
Because of the expense in acquiring the old cards to play competitive Vintage, many Vintage tournaments are unsanctioned and permit players to use a certain number of proxy cards. These are treated as stand-ins of existing cards and are not normally permitted in tournaments sanctioned by the WPN. Dot eSports highlighted that "Vintage is Legacy, except you can add one copy of cards on the 'restricted list'. These decks, quite simply, are the most powerful things in Magic and are insanely fast and lethal. They're also prohibitively expensive".