MTG Banned and Restricted List and Announcements

sushiske 14 days ago Deckbuilding, Historic, Modern, Pauper, Pioneer, Standard, Vintage

Last updated on April 9, 2024

Dark Heart of the Wood | Illustration by Mark Tedin

The “Banned and Restricted” announcements for MTG tend to polarize the community. Bans are an important part of the formation and maintenance of constructed formats, and a huge part of the Magic ecosystem. They rightfully get a lot of chatter around them.

But what are they? Why do they happen? When do they happen? Let's dig in.

Table of Contents show

The Latest B&R Announcement

If you're just here for the latest announcement, here it is!

Effective Date: April, 8, 2024

Historic

Commandeer: banned
Force of Vigor: banned
Mana Drain: banned
Reanimate: banned

Why Are Cards Banned?

Work a Double | Illustration by Carl Frank

Some cards are bad for the ecosystem of a format, some cards are egregious in their power levels, and some cards are just disliked by WotC.

Wizards tweaked their philosophy on bans in 2023. The company aims to capture data from major tournaments and give you a good sense of which cards are available for the most impactful time possible. With Pro Tours for each Standard set and several other events to give Wizards input, the health of the format is the basic reason a card is banned.

On a blanket level, Wizards bans cards for one of the reasons below:

Because they’re just egregiously powerful. Oko, Thief of Crowns, for example.
The card is too powerful for a specific format. Things like Wrenn and Six are banned in Legacy but not in Modern or the War of the Spark planeswalkers that are restricted in Vintage.
The card leads to “unfun” gameplay.
The card is too efficient.

It could also be the every-present fifth reason:

In the interest of competitive diversity.

The thing is, play design is hard. As seen with Oko, Thief of Crowns, one wrong stat can make a card absurdly powerful and there’s no way to patch or errata said mistake unlike in video games.

Wizards sometimes innovates and makes new ideas that may be too strong for the game. Banned and restricted lists are filled with these card designs.

The cards need to go so they don’t end up overrunning the format. And sometimes newer strategies break older cards, so the older cards get banned while the newer cards still get sold.

But, seriously, we all make mistakes. And the banned and restricted articles are a great insight into why these cards are broken, and what they’ve done to their formats. Honestly, the day a new B&R article drops is like Black Friday for some of us. Especially when the metagame turns into what it’s become recently. I don’t even need to name the format. You know.

I don’t particularly agree with all of the decisions, like the banning of my sweet, sweet Splinter Twin. Wizards is experienced and sometimes they can be very right, other times they miss the mark. Faithless Looting was an issue for years and was only banned in 2019. But if we didn’t believe in the game, we wouldn’t be here.

Who Does the Banning?

Omnath, Locus of Creation | Illustration by Chris Rahn

For all of the official formats other than Commander, Wizards of the Coast bans the cards on their blog. Commander bans are made by the rules committee and are posted on the official Commander rules committee website.

Any other format usually has its own committee or council to ban the cards.

Ban Announcement Dates

Strangely enough, “Mondays” is the answer to “When is the next ban announcement?” As in the Monday, two to five weeks after a new Standard set. Wizards reserves the right to announce bans whenever they feel the need for it, so you could think of it as about every three months, or just follow the Draftsim blog for the latest.

Next Ban Announcement

Wizards of the Coast says the next ban and restriction announcement will be May 13, 2024, shortly after Pro Tour Outlaws of Thunder Junction.

Official Banlists

Rules Lawyer | Illustration by Dmitry Burmak

So, I think that’s it from me. Now, it’s time for me to spew a bunch of cards that are banned in formats for your pleasure.

Standard

The Standard format uses the most recently released Magic sets.

Modern

The Modern format lets you dive deeper into Magic's history of banned cards, allowing cards from Eighth Edition to today.

Vintage

While Modern lets you play cards from as far back as 2003, Vintage lets you play cards from any set in the 30+ year history of Magic!

Banned

Restricted

The following cards are restricted, which means you can only put one of them in your main deck and sideboard combined:

Legacy

Allows cards from all legal sets but bans certain cards for power level reasons.

Commander / EDH Banned List

The following cards are banned in EDH, including several banned commanders:

Block

These cards are banned in block-constructed tournaments, separated by block:

Innistrad-Avacyn Restored Block

Mirrodin Block

Masques Block

Urza Block

Tempest Block

Cursed Scroll

Mirage Block

Squandered Resources

Ice Age Block

Brawl

The following cards are banned in Brawl and can’t be included in your deck or used as your commander:

Pauper

All cards in the Pauper format must have been printed at common rarity in a Magic set or product. Common promo cards are only legal if the card meets that qualification. If a common version of a particular card was ever released in Magic, any version of that card is legal in this format.

The following cards are banned in this format: