Magic: The Gathering Formats Guide: Standard, Modern, Commander & How Rotation Works

Magic: the Gathering isn’t just one game, it’s several. MTG is split into multiple ‘formats’. each of which draws from different pools of cards. Here you’ll find an overview of the primary Magic: the Gathering formats, the sets they contain, and the different rules that govern them. Let’s jump in...

Standard — The Rotating Format for recent cards

Standard is the second most popular format in the game, after Commander. It’s a good entry point to Magic: the Gathering, and the cheapest of the game’s main competitive formats. You can put budget decks together and see more success than you would in older formats like Pioneer or Modern.

Unlike other formats, Standard rotates, this means that old sets cycle out of it and are replaced by new ones. This rotation occurs annually, and currently, sets released over the past three years can be played in Standard.

For an overview of the sets that are currently Standard legal, please refer to the table further down in this article.

Commander — The Most social MTG Format

Commander, sometimes known as ‘Elder Dragon Highlander’ or ‘EDH’ is the most popular Magic: the Gathering format of all time. Originally designed by fans back in the late 1990s, Commander shakes up the game in several significant ways…

1. Every deck is built around a ‘commander’, a legendary creature. A deck can only feature colourless cards and cards that share part of their commander’s ‘colour identity’. For example: a deck commanded by a Blue and Red Legendary creature could feature any number of blue cards, red cards, and colourless artifacts, but could not contain any white, black, or green cards.

2. Commanders begin the game in a separate area called ‘the Command Zone’. A commander can be played from the Command Zone, and it can return there if it would ever leave the battlefield. Every time that a player casts their commander from the Command Zone, it costs 2 additional mana for each prior time that it has been played.

3. Decks contain 100 cards (including the commander), but they’re singleton. This means that, apart from basic lands, players are only allowed to run a single copy of every card.

4. The format is multiplayer, with typical games featuring 4 participants.

5. Players start the game with 40 life, rather than the usual 20. If any player takes 21 combat damage from another player’s commander, then they immediately lose the game.

All of these changes make Commander an incredibly unique format that’s gone on to attract a massive and diverse audience. If you travel to just about any local game store on a Friday night, there will usually be a handful of games in progress, so if you’re looking to make some new friends playing Magic, getting into commander is a great way to get started.

Pioneer — A Stable, Non-Rotating Middle Ground

Pioneer is one of the game’s newest formats. It started life back in 2019 as a way of establishing a non-rotating format with a lower barrier to entry than Modern. Pioneer contains 14 years’ worth of cards, with almost every set since the release of Return To Ravnica in 2012 being Pioneer playable.

If you’re looking for a competitive way of playing the game, that isn’t subject to rotation, Pioneer gives you plenty to discover.

Modern — Power, Permanence, and Competitive Depth

Modern is one of the game’s richest and most complex competitive formats. It features cards from as far back as 2003, which was the year when Magic cards swapped from their classic card back to their newer design. Modern is a high power format, characterised by a diverse meta full of powerful decks, and rich land bases that help players get their strategies into motion quickly.

Sometimes sets are printed directly into Modern, bypassing both Pioneer and Standard. These include the three Modern Horizons sets, as well as 2023’s The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth. These sets contain high power cards that are deemed too strong for Standard and Pioneer by the game’s designers at Wizards of the Coast.

Legacy — The High-Power, High-Entry Point Format

Legacy is one of the game’s two widest formats. Magic: the Gathering started in 1993, and you can draw from any of the set’s in the game’s history in order to put a Legacy deck together. The format does feature an extensive banlist, though, which keeps things moderately controlled when compared to the game’s highest power format…

Vintage — The game’s Most High-Powered format

Vintage features essentially no guardrails at all, allowing players to draw from almost the entire MTG card pool in order to put their decks together.

A small selection of cards are restricted in Vintage, meaning that only one copy of them can be run rather than the typical four.

No cards are banned from Vintage for power level reasons although a few are prohibited due to other factors. This includes ards that require manual dexterity which present accessibility issues, cards that have been deemed culturally insensitive, and cards that reference the “ante” mechanic that has been removed from the game whole cloth.

Both Vintage and Legacy have exceedingly high barriers to entry, but if you’re ever able to try out a game, then they both offer a richly layered strategic experience.

Draft – Put a Deck Together by Drafting from Packs

To play a Magic: the Gathering draft, you need a group of at least 6 players, with 3 packs each. Players will open all of their packs, take a card each and then pass their packs along. Once everyone has assembled a deck from the cards that they’ve “drafted” from all of the packs at the table, then the game can begin.

This is what’s known as “limited play”, as you’re not required to head to a draft event with a preprepared deck. Most local game stores run drafts, and you can also use a Draft Night box to recreate the experience for yourself and your friends at home.

Sealed – Assemble a Deck from Packs with no drafting

Sealed is an easy entry point to the game, if you’d like to get into a new set and crack some boosters while putting a deck together.

To play Sealed, you just open up six packs, and grab some lands, and then assemble a deck using what you’ve opened. Unlike in a draft, you don’t pass your cards around the table, you just stick with what you’ve initially opened.

All prerelease events for new sets are a form of sealed play. If you grab a Prerelease Pack and some lands then you can try out the experience for yourself.

When Does MTG Standard Rotate?

Standard rotates annually. The exact month when Standard rotates has changed throughout the game’s history but, for ease of understanding, it has been locked to January for the next several years. The next Standard rotation will occur in January 2027.

Current Standard-Legal Sets

*Foundations is a core set, and will remain standard legal for longer than other sets released alongside it. The current expected rotation date of January 2029 rotation is provisional and may be extended.

Conclusion

This has been a quick breakdown of all of Magic: the Gathering’s most popular formats. For more Magic: the Gathering updates, make sure that you subscribe to the Magic Madhouse newsletter down below. You can also follow us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram for some shortform card game content.