Standard, Modern, Legacy, Commander: which format should you actually play?

The most common question we get is not about a card. It is some version of "my mate said my deck is not legal, what does that mean?"

Magic has been printed continuously since 1993, and no sensible game lets you use every card ever made at once. So the game is split into formats. A format is just a rule about which cards are allowed, and every other difference between the formats follows from that one decision: the speed, the cost, the shops that run events for it, and how long the deck you build today keeps working.

This is the plain English version.

The short version

• Standard is the newest cards only, roughly the last three years. Easiest to start, and the only format where your deck expires.
• Pioneer and Modern are the same idea with a bigger, permanent card pool. Nothing ever rotates out.
• Legacy and Vintage allow nearly everything ever printed. The card pool is generous, the land base is not.
• Pauper allows common cards only, which is why it exists: it is the cheapest way to play a serious constructed format.
• Commander is the social one, and it is what most Australian tables are actually playing on a Friday night.
• Limited is a draft or sealed event, where you do not bring a deck at all.

The building blocks

Every constructed format below shares the same skeleton. Sixty cards minimum, as many lands as you like, and at most four copies of any card that is not a basic land. Most events add a fifteen card sideboard you can swap in between games. Commander is the exception and breaks all three rules.

The only thing that changes between formats is which cards you may put in that skeleton.

Standard: the newest three years

Standard uses only recently released sets. Cards join when their set comes out, and leave in a single annual rotation in the southern spring, roughly three years later. As we write, the pool runs from Wilds of Eldraine through to Marvel Super Heroes, plus Foundations, which Wizards has deliberately parked in Standard for around five years instead of three so that new players have a stable base of cards to learn on.

Why people play it: it is the most approachable constructed format to enter, the card pool is small enough to actually learn, and it is the format most likely to be running at a local shop on a weeknight.

The catch, and it is a real one: your deck expires. Cards you buy today for Standard have a known shelf life, and the oldest sets drop out at each rotation. If you build a Standard deck now, expect to replace part of it every year. Nothing else in this article has that problem.

Pioneer: Standard that never rotates

Pioneer takes everything from Return to Ravnica in 2012 onwards and simply never removes it. It is the format for people who liked their Standard deck and were annoyed when it stopped being legal. The original dual lands and the fetch lands are not in it, which is the main thing keeping it accessible.

Modern: 2003 onwards, and the format Wizards prints cards straight into

Modern starts at Eighth Edition in 2003, the point where the card frame changed. Two decades of cards, and nothing rotates.

Modern has one feature no other format has: Wizards prints sets directly into it. The Modern Horizons sets skip Standard entirely and go straight to Modern, which is why people are sometimes surprised to find that a brand new card is not Standard legal. The only cards in a Modern Horizons set that are Standard legal are the basic lands, and those are legal because they also appear in Standard sets.

Why people play it: it is the best supported non rotating competitive format in Australia, it is fast, and a deck you build stays legal for years. It is the usual next step after Standard.

Legacy and Vintage: everything, with a short list of exceptions

Legacy allows every card ever printed except a banned list. Vintage allows every card ever printed and, instead of banning the most broken ones, restricts them to a single copy per deck.

That is the theory. In practice these are the expensive formats, and the reason is land, not spells. The original dual lands from 1993 and 1994 have never been reprinted in a tournament legal form, a serious Legacy deck wants a stack of them, and they have not been cheap for a very long time. Vintage adds the Power Nine on top of that.

The ban lists are worth understanding, because they are not about rarity. Sol Ring, a card that goes in almost every Commander deck in the country and costs very little, is banned outright in Legacy and restricted to one copy in Vintage. Expressive Iteration is an ordinary uncommon and is banned in both Pioneer and Legacy. Cards are banned for being too good in a format, not for being valuable.

Pauper: commons only, and it is not a joke format

Pauper allows only cards that have been printed at common rarity. That is the whole rule, and it produces the cheapest genuine constructed format in the game. The decks are not weak. Some of the strongest cards Magic ever printed at common are still legal, and Pauper has its own competitive scene and its own ban list.

It is also the clearest illustration of what a format restriction does. Restricting to commons cuts the available card pool to a fraction of what Legacy offers, and the deck building gets tighter and more interesting for it. Games come down to play skill rather than to who opened the mythic.

Commander: the one most people are actually playing

Commander is a different shape of game. One hundred cards, no more than one copy of any card except basic lands, a legendary creature nominated as your commander, forty life instead of twenty, and usually four players around a table rather than two. Your commander's colours restrict what else you may include.

Almost every card ever printed is Commander legal, so the format's own ban list is short. It is casual by design, it is where the Universes Beyond sets have landed hardest, and it is the format most likely to be running at a kitchen table rather than at a shop.

Everything else in this article assumes a sixty card deck. Commander answers to its own rules.

Limited: no deck at all

Worth a mention because it catches people out. In a draft or a sealed event you do not bring a deck. You are handed booster packs on the night and build a forty card deck out of what you open. No card pool question, no bans worth worrying about, and the cheapest way to try the game properly.

The comparison

What we would tell you at the counter

Never played before: go to a draft. Forty cards, no shopping, no legality questions, and you find out whether you like the game before you commit to it.

Playing at a shop, want to play in events: Standard if your shop runs it, because the pool is small enough to learn quickly. Just go in knowing the deck has a use by date.

Want to build one deck and keep it for years: Modern. It is the best supported non rotating format in Australia and nothing you buy for it ever stops being legal.

On a budget and serious about playing well: Pauper. Commons only, and the format is far better than the rarity suggests.

Playing with friends at home: Commander, and it is not close. It is what the tables are playing.

Do not start with Legacy or Vintage. Not because they are bad, they are excellent, but because the mana base costs more than the rest of the deck put together and you should be certain you want it first.

A note on legality

Format legality changes without the card changing. Sets rotate out of Standard every spring, and cards get banned or unbanned in every format from time to time. A card that was legal in your deck last season may not be this season, and nothing on the card itself tells you.

If you are unsure whether something is legal where you want to play it, ask us. We track format legality against every card we list, so it is a quick answer rather than a guess.

Formats change and this article will drift. The rules of thumb at the bottom will not.