MTG Banlist 2025: Every Card Banned in Each Format

Everybody’s done it: you found the perfect card sat in a bulk bin. It solves all your problems, or it’s really funny, you and you’re wondering why you’ve never seen it before. You lovingly slot it into your deck, and wait to cast it. The time finally comes, and,

“Erm, that’s banned”.

Don’t get caught out with banned cards. At best they can sour your Commander table, at worst they can get you disqualified from your regional qualifier. Fortunately, the list of banned cards for each format is fairly small and easy to keep track of.

What Is The MTG Banlist?

Officially known as the Banned And Restricted List, these are the cards that are banned in each of Magic’s major formats of Standard, Modern, Pioneer, Commander, and Legacy.

It’s pretty simple: if a card is on these lists, they can’t be played in your deck. The one exception to this is the Vintage format, which has a very small banlist and instead restricts cards to just one copy in your deck instead.

The banlists update a few times a year, usually a few weeks after a set has come out, but often we can go multiple banlist change windows without any major changes to a format.

Full MTG Banlist 2025 - Format By Format

Banned in Every Format

These cards are unique in that they have been banned in every single format where they otherwise would have been legal. They effectively don’t exist in Magic anymore, and can’t be played anywhere other than your kitchen table. This is for a few reasons:

• They are racist, sexist, or otherwise problematic.
• They mention ante, an old mechanic that had you gambling the top card of your deck for keeps.
• Conspiracy cards, which are only legal in the Conspiracy draft format.
• Cards that introduce Unfinity’s stickers or Attractions into the game.

With that in mind, these cards are:

Banned Due to Ante

• Amulet of Quoz
• Bronze Tablet
• Contract From Below
• Darkpact
• Demonic Attorney
• Jeweled Bird
• Rebirth
• Tempest Efreet
• Timmerian Fiends

Banned due to Cultural Insensitivity

• Cleanse
• Crusade
• Imprison
• Invoke Prejudice
• Jihad
• Pradesh Gypsies
• Stone-Throwing Devils

Banned in Standard

These are all the cards banned in paper Standard play:

• Abuelo's Awakening
• Cori-Steel Cutter
• Heartfire Hero
• Hopeless Nightmare
• Monstrous Rage
• This Town Ain't Big Enough
• Up the Beanstalk

At the time of writing, we’re also highly expecting either Agatha’s Soul Cauldron or Vivi Ornetier to be banned in Standard as well. It has been all but confirmed by Wizards - we are simply waiting for the axe to drop.

Cards that rotate out of Standard are not considered banned, they are just not legal. This means older banned cards, like Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath, or Lucky Clover, aren’t listed here. Should they be reprinted into Standard for some reason, they won’t automatically be banned.

Keep in mind that there is one card banned on MTG Arena’s best-of-one Standard format, too: Leyline of Resonance.

Banned In Modern

Modern is one of the most beloved and competitive formats out there, and part of its success has been in curating a sizeable banlist. Thanks to the larger cardpool than Standard, lots of cards are barred from the format to ensure proper balance.

These are the cards banned in Modern:

• Amped Raptor
• Ancient Den
• Arcum's Astrolabe
• Birthing Pod
• Blazing Shoal
• Bridge From Below
• Chrome Mox
• Cloudpost
• Dark Depths
• Deathrite Shaman
• Dig Through Time
• Dread Return
• Eye of Ugin
• Field of the Dead
• Fury
• Gitaxian Probe
• Glimpse of Nature
• Golgari Grave-Troll
• Great Furnace
• Grief
• Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
• Hypergenesis
• Jegantha, the Wellspring
• Krark-Clan Ironworks
• Lurrus of the Dream-Den
• Mental Misstep
• Mycosynth Lattice
• Mystic Sanctuary
• Nadu, Winged Wisdom
• Oko, Thief of Crowns
• Once Upon a Time
• Ponder
• Punishing Fire
• Rite of Flame
• Seat of the Synod
• Second Sunrise
• Seething Song
• Sensei's Divining Top
• Simian Spirit Guide
• Skullclamp
• Summer Bloom
• The One Ring
• Tibalt's Trickery
• Treasure Cruise
• Tree of Tales
• Umezawa's Jitte
• Underworld Breach
• Up the Beanstalk
• Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
• Vault of Whispers
• Violent Outburst
• Yorion, Sky Nomad

Often, the most oppressive cards in Standard will also be hit with a ban in Modern. For example, Yorion, Uro, Up The Beanstalk, and Lurrus of the Dream Den all got kicked out of Modern after tearing up Standard; if you’re wanting to keep on top of what could be banned in Modern, keep an eye on Standard as well.

Banned In Legacy

Along with Vintage, Legacy lets you use just about any released cards in a competitive, one-on-one, 60-card format. However, like Modern, Legacy heavily curates itself with a larger banlist.

For a card to be banned in Legacy, it needs to be among the most powerful the game has ever printed. The cards that are so busted that they’ve become infamous across the community:

• Ancestral Recall
• Arcum's Astrolabe
• Balance
• Bazaar of Baghdad
• Black Lotus
• Channel
• Chaos Orb
• Deathrite Shaman
• Demonic Consultation
• Demonic Tutor
• Dig Through Time
• Dreadhorde Arcanist
• Earthcraft
• Expressive Iteration
• Falling Star
• Fastbond
• Flash
• Frantic Search
• Gitaxian Probe
• Goblin Recruiter
• Grief
• Gush
• Hermit Druid
• Imperial Seal
• Library of Alexandria
• Lurrus of the Dream-Den
• Mana Crypt
• Mana Drain
• Mana Vault
• Memory Jar
• Mental Misstep
• Mind Twist
• Mishra’s Workshop
• Mox Emerald
• Mox Jet
• Mox Pearl
• Mox Ruby
• Mox Sapphire
• Mystical Tutor
• Necropotence
• Oath of Druids
• Oko, Thief of Crowns
• Psychic Frog
• Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
• Sensei's Divining Top
• Shahrazad
• Skullclamp
• Sol Ring
• Sowing Mycospawn
• Strip Mine
• Survival of the Fittest
• Time Vault
• Time Walk
• Timetwister
• Tinker
• Tolarian Academy
• Treasure Cruise
• Troll of Khazad-dûm
• Underworld Breach
• Vampiric Tutor
• Vexing Bauble
• Wheel of Fortune
• White Plume Adventurer
• Windfall
• Wrenn and Six
• Yawgmoth's Bargain
• Yawgmoth's Will
• Zirda, the Dawnwaker

Banned in Vintage

Like Legacy, Vintage can use cards from almost any released MTG product. Unlike Legacy, though, Vintage very rarely bans cards. Instead, it uses a restricted list, letting you use just one copy of the most powerful cards in your deck.

The result is a format that is incredibly fast and uses the biggest names in MTG like Black Lotus, the Moxes, and Time Walk. That being said, it’s also one of the trickiest to follow, as keeping straight what is banned and what is restricted can be tough.

These are the cards fully banned in Vintage, excluding the ones above already mentioned for being culturally insensitive, mention Ante, or are Conspiracy cards:

• Chaos Orb
• Falling Star
• Shahrazad

That’s it; just three cards are banned in Vintage. The restricted list of them is much larger, though. These are the cards you’re only allowed one copy of between your deck and your sideboard:

• Ancestral Recall
• Balance
• Black Lotus
• Brainstorm
• Chalice of the Void
• Channel
• Demonic Consultation
• Demonic Tutor
• Dig Through Time
• Flash
• Gitaxian Probe
• Golgari Grave-Troll
• Gush
• Imperial Seal
• Karn, the Great Creator
• Library of Alexandria
• Lion's Eye Diamond
• Lodestone Golem
• Lotus Petal
• Mana Crypt
• Mana Vault
• Memory Jar
• Mental Misstep
• Merchant Scroll
• Mind's Desire
• Monastery Mentor
• Mox Emerald
• Mox Jet
• Mox Pearl
• Mox Ruby
• Mox Sapphire
• Mystic Forge
• Mystical Tutor
• Narset, Parter of Veils
• Necropotence
• Sol Ring
• Strip Mine
• Thorn of Amethyst
• Time Vault
• Time Walk
• Timetwister
• Tinker
• Tolarian Academy
• Treasure Cruise
• Trinisphere
• Urza's Saga
• Vampiric Tutor
• Vexing Bauble
• Wheel of Fortune
• Windfall
• Yawgmoth's Will

You might notice that there is a lot of overlap between cards that are restricted in Vintage and banned in Legacy. In fact, there are only 15 cards that are legal in Legacy but restricted in Vintage, such as Lotus Petal, Brainstorm, and Karn, the Great Creator.

Attractions and Stickers Are Also Banned in Vintage and Legacy

Along with the cards banned in all formats listed above, Vintage and Legacy also ban every card that mentions Unfinity’s Stickers or Attractions mechanics:

• "Lifetime" Pass Holder
• _____ _____ _____ Trespasser
• _____ _____ Rocketship
• _____ Balls of Fire
• _____ Bird Gets the Worm
• _____ Goblin
• _____-o-saurus
• Aerialephant
• Ambassador Blorpityblorpboop
• Baaallerina
• Bioluminary
• Carnival Carnivore
• Chicken Troupe
• Clandestine Chameleon
• Coming Attraction
• Command Performance
• Complaints Clerk
• Deadbeat Attendant
• Dee Kay, Finder of the Lost
• Discourtesy Clerk
• Done for the Day
• Draconian Gate-Bot
• Fight the _____ Fight
• Finishing Move
• Glitterflitter
• Last Voyage of the _____
• Line Cutter
• Lineprancers
• Make a _____ Splash
• Minotaur de Force
• Monitor Monitor
• Myra the Magnificent
• Park Bleater
• Petting Zookeeper
• Pin Collection
• Prize Wall
• Proficient Pyrodancer
• Quick Fixer
• Rad Rascal
• Ride Guide
• Robo-Piñata
• Roxi, Publicist to the Stars
• Scampire
• Seasoned Buttoneer
• Soul Swindler
• Spinnerette, Arachnobat
• Squirrel Squatters
• Step Right Up
• Stiltstrider
• Sword-Swallowing Seraph
• The Most Dangerous Gamer
• Ticketomaton
• Tusk and Whiskers
• Wicker Picker
• Wizards of the _____
• Wolf in _____ Clothing
• Banned in Commander

Commander is Magic’s most-played paper format, and part of the beauty of it is being able to slam together almost any card from the game to make a thematic deck. However, with so many players and such a wide card pool, you often run into the awkward conversation of explaining a card is banned.

Commander bans cards for a multitude of reasons. There’s the usual balance considerations of other formats, but also things like whether or not a card promotes unhealthy play patterns for a four-player casual format. This means cards that feel fine elsewhere get hit with the banhammer, while the infamous Sol Ring remains its most popular card, despite being utterly broken in other formats.

• Ancestral Recall
• Balance
• Biorhythm
• Black Lotus
• Chaos Orb
• Channel
• Dockside Extortionist
• Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
• Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
• Falling Star
• Fastbond
• Flash
• Golos, Tireless Pilgrim
• Griselbrand
• Hullbreacher
• Iona, Shield of Emeria
• Karakas
• Jeweled Lotus
• Leovold, Emissary of Trest
• Library of Alexandria
• Limited Resources
• Lutri, the Spellchaser
• Mana Crypt
• Mox Emerald
• Mox Jet
• Mox Pearl
• Mox Ruby
• Mox Sapphire
• Nadu, Winged Wisdom
• Paradox Engine
• Primeval Titan
• Prophet of Kruphix
• Recurring Nightmare
• Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
• Shahrazad
• Sundering Titan
• Sylvan Primordial
• Time Vault
• Time Walk
• Tinker
• Tolarian Academy
• Trade Secrets
• Upheaval
• Yawgmoth's Bargain

Keep in mind that, in the early years of Commander, a second Banned as Commander list was maintained. This meant that some legendary creatures could be run in your deck, but not as its commander. That list has since been merged with the main banlist, so none of these cards can be played anywhere.

Highlights from the 2025 Banlist Updates

2025 has been a chaotic year for the banlists of just about every format, but standing out are a few key events that have since changed the game in a big way.

April’s Commander Unbans

In April, we saw five cards removed from the Commander banlist: Gifts Ungiven, Sway of the Stars; Braids, Cabal Minion; Coalition Victory, and Panoptic Mirror. These were all immediately placed on the format’s new Game Changers list, but since then have been behaving quite nicely in the format.

Panoptic Mirror and Coalition Victory are perhaps the biggest unbans here, with both helping drive win conditions. That being said, the threat of having a Braids, Cabal Minion in the pod hasn’t been as big as we thought it might be. After all, Tergrid uses it far better.

June’s Standard Bans

When one door opens, another closes. The next month saw sweeping bans for the Standard format, with Abuelo’s Awakening, Cori-Steel Cutter, Heartfire Hero, Hopeless Nightmare, Monstrous Rage, This Town Ain’t Big Enough, and Up The Beanstalk all banned.

Though all of them had been causing problems, Cori-Steel Cutter, Monstrous Rage, Heatfire Hero, and Abuelo’s Awakening had completely dominated the Standard meta. Abuelo’s Awakening’s ban almost completely shut down the then-popular Omniscience decks, which used Abuelo’s Awakening to reanimate an Omniscience and allow you to play the rest of your cards for free.

How Bans Affect the MTG Meta in 2025

As mentioned, bans can tank a dominant deck in any format. Just look at Abuelo’s Awakening, whose ban single-handedly pushed Omniscience from a top-tier deck back to one that just isn’t seen in competitive play anymore.

Fortunately, bans are well-signposted and don’t tend to just come out of the blue. If you’re keeping abreast of the meta, it’s easy to predict which decks are going to be targeted in an upcoming ban, even if it can be a guess exactly which cards take the hit.

At the very least, we all know Vivi Cauldron is going to be hit hard in Standard very soon, so keep an eye on the Standard meta and what is rising up in second, third, or even fourth place to work out where the meta will fall when Vivi is finally booted from his pedestal.

Where to Buy Legal MTG Cards After a Ban Update

If you play Magic in any sort of organised way, whether it be casual Commander at your game store or grinding the competitive ladder, keeping on top of the banlist is of the utmost importance. It helps keep the game fun for everyone, as there’s nothing worse than a game grinding to a halt because someone played a banned card.

Fortunately, Magic Madhouse can help you rebuild your deck if a card gets banned. Vivi Ornetier might get banned, but Electro, Assaulting Battery from the recent Spider-Man set is right there, waiting to be the next big red deck problem.

Or, if you’d rather just pick up staples for Commander, Standard, Modern, Legacy, or Vintage, we have them ready and raring to go. For Commander in particular, keep an eye out for the upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender Commander bundle, which will include all the staples you need to build your own Commander deck.