MTG Arena: Banned Cards for Every Format in 2026

Sean Migalla November 12, 2025 MTG Arena, MTG Cards

Last updated on March 23, 2026

Tibalt's Trickery | Illustration by Anna Podedworna

If you’re preparing to jump into MTG Arena for the first time ever or just the first time in a while, it’s probably a good idea to refresh yourself on the current ban lists for the formats you can play on the platform. This stops you from wasting wildcards on cards you can’t play, and it gives you an idea of how the meta has shifted.

Below are the banned cards from every MTGA format, as well as a quick rundown of the types of cards that are banned in them to give you an idea of which type of cards might be banned in the future.

Table of Contents show

Standard/Standard Brawl

Leyline of Resonance is banned in Best-of-One Constructed formats. Thanks to hand smoothing in BO1, and the variety of turn three wins or near-wins, this spell-copying leyline created less interaction and play, turning it into three-turn solitaire or scoop.

Magic’s main reason for banning cards is to prevent one or two decks from dominating competitive play. Vivi Ornitier and Proft's Eidetic Memory were found in a huge percentage of competitive Standard decks, and Wizards chose to ban them to promote diverse deckbuilding.

Similarly, Screaming Nemesis is such a powerful red creature and banned because every red aggro deck stood to use it and make it impossible for some slow decks to handle. It's combination of haste, direct damage and lifegain hate is unmatched and squarely beats lifegain and punishes blocking.

Pioneer

It's easy to see a pattern in the spells banned in Pioneer. Lower mana cards that hit harder than you would expect for their value are ripe for banning in this format. That includes 3-mana planeswalkers like Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord, Teferi, Time Raveler and Oko, Thief of Crowns that are consistently good or cards like Tibalt's Trickery that allow you to cheat out massive cards early in the game.

Speaking of Tibalt's Trickery, this gets a special ban only for best-of-one on MTG Arena.

Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord got rebalanced with a -3 ability that can no longer cheat out Defiant Bloodlord.

While not as splashy, cards like Once Upon a Time and Expressive Iteration gave specific color identities too much of an advantage when it came to finding specific cards, making combo decks in those colors much easier to play. Others like Jegantha, the Wellspring stand out because they are too widely played and benefit lots of decks, and undercut the diversity of decklists.

Historic

Many cards banned in Pioneer are also banned in Arena's Historic format, though some, like Winota, Joiner of Forces, are notably absent from Historic's ban list due to the format having a wider range of responses for it.

Several cards came to this ban list before they had a chance to be built into Constructed decks. Many such cards like Entomb and Chrome Mox got their ticket to Arena through a Limited event, or Arena Anthology, or show up very infrequently like a Special Guest that earn a pre-ban so as to not shake up any pre-existing legality.

Modern Horizons III is responsible for the ban of the evoke elementals like Solitude, Grief, and Fury, as well as oppressive cards like Harbinger of the Seas and Winter Moon.

Another trend you’ll notice in Historic is that easily castable extra turn spells are banned, whether that’s Time Warp which is especially cheap, Temporal Manipulation or Nexus of Fate which players can cast multiple times a game.

Often, cards are also banned when they’re only added to Arena for a specific Limited experience but aren’t intended to be factored into competitive play. This includes special inclusions like Mana Drain, which popped up as a Breaking News showcase card in Outlaws of Thunder Junction.

Timeless

These cards are restricted – you can only have one of them in your main deck and sideboard combined, rather than four copies. Timeless is a format with no banned cards by design. That's the main difference between Historic and Timeless: you can play any card on Arena.

With so many X spells that deal direct damage like Fireball and Banefire, restricting Channel makes sense. This classic Magic combo essentially lets you win the game far too easily, and too many decks would be built around it. However, X-damage cards aren’t a big deal on their own, so restricting Channel is a good way to cut out this combo.

Channel is also a very powerful sorcery in its own right, as 1 life for a generic mana is a very good trade and allows you to accelerate your game far too quickly. Trading 10 life for a turn 2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger is still likely to win you the game.

Demonic Tutor is also restricted since this black sorcery can easily tutor combo pieces, which there are many of in this format. One such combo card? The fearsome Tibalt's Trickery that caught a restriction because it easily cheats massive spells into play.

Necropotence with Dark Ritual was a defining feature of the format and very difficult to stop without the full suite of turn-1 free countermagic available to Magic as a whole. The opener still exists, but is much less consistence with only one copy of Necro.

Brawl

Brawl uses Historic cards, but the ban list is a bit different. Most of these bans prevent players from easily shutting down an opponent’s commander. This means cards like Pithing Needle, Meddling Mage, or Disruptor Flute that allow you to name and target specific cards. While these are fine in formats where you’ll be forced to guess which cards your opponent has in the first game, Brawl shows you immediately which card you should name, and allows you to easily shut down your opponent’s entire strategy.

The other bans take some of the stronger cards from the format. Lutri, the Spellchaser would be the most busted companion in Brawl since you don't need to do any work to play it. Demonic Tutor and Natural Order provide the singleton format with a touch too much consistency. Fast mana like Ancient Tomb and Chrome Mox, and cards like Nexus of Fate and Field of the Dead simply dominate games with minimal effort, and who could forget how busted Channel is?

Alchemy

The cards banned in MTG Arena’s Alchemy format are Cori-Steel Cutter and Leyline of Resonance. WotC cut out the +1/+ and trample from the Tarkir: Dragonstorm equipment and the resonant red enchantment got showered off and rebalanced with a cost to copy spells before they were re-admitted to the Alchemy card pool.

When Are Cards Banned on MTG Arena?

Wizards of the Coast typically evaluate cards for banning two to five weeks after a new Standard Magic set is released. That said, Wizards has done away with having specific days for bans, and now bans cards any time they see fit. These announcements are always made on a Monday according to their site.

Since cards release on Arena before the full release of a set, pre-bans for some Arena cards are necessary to reduce unfun play. Often these are cards that get a reprint, but appear for the first time on the client and have a game-breaking combo.

Do You Get Wildcards Back for Banned Cards? When?

When a card is banned, you’ll receive wildcards as replacements for those cards, with a few exceptions. If the card has been banned before, but in a different format, you won’t receive wildcards again. You’ll only receive wildcards the first time the card is banned. Wizards of the Coast also doesn’t give wildcards for cards banned specifically in Brawl.

Once Wizards announces a ban, it takes a few days for it to hit MTG Arena. For example, when Oko, Thief of Crowns was banned in Historic on March 9, 2020, MTGA was updated on March 12, 2020 to include the ban. At the bottom of a ban announcement, Wizards lists the date that the ban becomes effective on MTG Arena. That’s the day you receive your wildcard refunds.

When Do Cards Get Unbanned?

Faithless Looting | Illustration by Miklós Ligeti

Announcements about cards being unbanned also happen on Mondays along with other ban and restriction announcements. That said, don’t count on unbans. Cards are unbanned in Magic somewhat rarely even when there are cards that players clearly think deserve to be unbanned. One reason for this is that bans themselves are very infrequent. If Wizards of the Coast bans a card, it’s usually for a good reason, so there need to be massive changes to the format it’s banned in for it not to be a problem anymore.

Another reason it takes time for cards to get unbanned is that it’s a much lower priority than banning a card. Would I like to be able to play Field of the Dead in my lands-matter The Gitrog Monster deck? Sure, but the exclusion doesn’t ruin Brawl for me. At a Commander table, 3 out of 4 players in a pod playing Golos, Tireless Pilgrim has an immediate, negative impact on the format.

Why Aren’t Cards Banned In Alchemy?

As a digital-only format, Alchemy uses rebalancing to fix format issues instead of bans. Monstrous Rage is an exception and deserves a rebalance.

This means editing the text of certain cards that to make them slightly less powerful. This can allow you to keep using a nerfed version of the card if you want, and stop that card from taking over the entire format if it’s too good.

Why Does MTG Arena Say My Deck Has Banned Cards?

MTG Arena typically says you have banned cards in your deck when one or more cards is not allowed in the selected format. Your options are to remove the card or switch your deck format. To do that

#1. Find Your Deck Details

Open your Deck details from the deck editing screen.

Look for the bar graph near the deck name and go deeper.

#2. Select a New Format

Go into the drop-down, then check your decks. Edit out the red from your decklist, or else it is a sign that you should try a new Arena play mode.

Wrap Up

Expressive Iteration | Illustration by Anastasia Ovchinnikova

You should always keep an eye on Arena's ban lists so you don't build a deck you can’t play in your favorite format. Luckily, Wizards tries not to make a habit of banning too many cards, and we try to make it easy for you to keep track of new announcements. Keep an eye out on Mondays for any updates about upcoming bans, especially aligned with Standard releases, and before the huge tournaments in Regional Championships, Regional Championship Qualifiers, and the Pro Tour.

If you’re curious about cards in paper formats and want the full ban list, you can check out our articles on Modern bans or other formats on Draftsim’s blog. If you have specific questions you can also reach out in the comments, @Draftsim on X, or on Draftsim’s Discord.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!

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Sean Migalla

Sean Migalla has been playing Magic consistently for the past 6 years. His favorite aspect of the game is building new decks, which makes Draft and Sealed two of his favorite formats. He also enjoys playing competitive constructed formats on MTG Arena like Standard and Historic, as well as a casual game of Commander.