Format Legalities Explained (and Why This Site Is Commander-First)
27 July 2026
Every Magic card has a legality for every format Wizards recognizes — legal, not legal, restricted, or banned. It's not one universal answer; the same card can be a legal staple in one format and completely banned in another. Click any card on this site and the Format Legality section in its preview shows exactly where it stands, format by format.
What "legal" actually means
A format is a defined set of rules: which cards are allowed, how big your deck is, whether cards can repeat, and sometimes extra structural rules (a commander in the command zone, a signature spell, a companion). "Legal" just means a card fits that format's card-pool rules and isn't on its ban list. Formats maintain their own ban lists (cards too warping for fair, fun games in that specific format) and, more rarely, restricted lists (a card allowed only as a single copy, mostly seen in Vintage).
A quick tour of the major formats
Commander — 100-card singleton (at most one copy of any card, basics excepted), built around a legendary creature (or eligible planeswalker/background) that starts each game in the command zone. The format this whole site is built around — see below.
Standard — Constructed from only the last few years of sets, rotating out older sets on a schedule. The lowest, most controlled power level of the constructed formats, since the card pool is deliberately kept small and current.
Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage — Each opens up a progressively larger slice of Magic's entire card pool (Pioneer starts from 2012 forward; Modern from 2003 forward; Legacy and Vintage allow almost everything ever printed). Power and card-pool size roughly scale with the format name in that order — Vintage is the only format with a restricted list instead of outright bans for some of its most powerful cards.
Pauper — Constructed using only cards that have appeared at common rarity. A deliberately budget-friendly, lower-power format as a result.
Oathbreaker, Brawl, Standard Brawl — Commander's smaller siblings: a planeswalker ("Oathbreaker") or a single legendary ("Brawl") anchors a smaller singleton deck (usually 60 cards), often restricted to a narrower card pool than full Commander.
Historic, Alchemy, Timeless, Gladiator — Digital-only formats that exist on Magic: The Gathering Arena, each with its own card pool and rules quirks specific to that platform.
Old School, Premodern, PreDH — Community-run "throwback" formats built around specific historic eras of card pool (pre-1994, pre-2003, and pre-Commander's-2011-introduction respectively), popular for retro or nostalgia-driven play rather than official sanctioned events.
Why this site is Commander-first
Commander Daily's decklists, the deck builder, Draft Legendary, and the Commander Challenges section all assume Commander's specific rules — singleton, 100 cards, a commander in the command zone, color identity rather than just color. That's a deliberate choice, not an oversight: Commander is the format the whole site is built to chronicle.
That said, the card data behind every deck comes straight from Scryfall's full database, so every card's legality across every format — Standard, Modern, Legacy, Pauper, all of it — is available in the card preview modal. If you're curious whether a card in one of our decklists is also legal in, say, Modern or Pauper, click it and check the Format Legality section. We just don't build decklists, tools, or challenges around anything but Commander.