Standard

Standard

 

Timeline

 

Trivia

 

Standard
DCI Sanctioned
Paper
Magic Online
Magic Arena
Rules
Type	Constructed
Multiplayer
Add. rules	Best-of-three
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format:"Standard"

Standard, formerly known as Type 2 or Type II, is a rotating constructed play format for Magic: The Gathering, that was created on January 10, 1995. It is the most widely sanctioned constructed format at all levels of organized play. Standard matches are best-of-3, so this format is called Traditional Standard on MTG Arena.

Deck construction

Standard decks must contain a minimum of sixty cards. There is no maximum deck size; however, one must be able to shuffle one's deck without assistance.

Sideboards are optional and may contain up to fifteen cards. Except for basic land cards, a player's combined deck and sideboard may not contain more than four copies of any individual card, counted by the card's English title equivalent.

Set legality

Cards from the following sets are currently legal in Standard, except for banned cards:

Sets	Legal until
Innistrad: Midnight Hunt	Summer 2024
Innistrad: Crimson Vow
Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty
Streets of New Capenna
Dominaria United	Summer 2025
The Brothers' War
Phyrexia: All Will Be One
March of the Machine
March of the Machine: The Aftermath
Wilds of Eldraine	Summer 2026
The Lost Caverns of Ixalan
Murders at Karlov Manor
Outlaws of Thunder Junction
The Big Score
Bloomburrow	Summer 2026
Duskmourn: House of Horror

^* Not released yet.

Banned list

The following cards are banned in Standard tournaments.

• Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki
• Invoke Despair
• The Meathook Massacre
• Reckoner Bankbuster

Previously banned cards

See also: Banned and restricted cards/Timeline.

The following is a list of cards that have been banned at one point during their stay in the Standard environment.

Should a banned card that rotated out of standard be later reintroduced into Standard, the ban will not carry over to that set. (The only example up to date is Darksteel Citadel, which was banned in Mirrodin Standard, but was later reprinted in Magic 2015).

• Aetherworks Marvel
• Agent of Treachery
• Alrund's Epiphany
• Amulet of Quoz
• Ancient Den
• Arcbound Ravager
• Attune with Aether
• Balance
• Black Vise
• Cauldron Familiar
• Channel
• Darksteel Citadel
• Disciple of the Vault
• Divide by Zero
• Dream Halls
• Earthcraft
• Emrakul, the Promised End
• Escape to the Wilds
• Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
• Faceless Haven
• Felidar Guardian
• Field of the Dead
• Fires of Invention
• Fluctuator
• Great Furnace
• Growth Spiral
• Invoke Despair
• Ivory Tower
• Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• Jeweled Bird
• Land Tax
• Lotus Petal
• Lucky Clover
• The Meathook Massacre
• Memory Jar
• Mind Over Matter
• Mind Twist
• Oko, Thief of Crowns
• Omnath, Locus of Creation
• Once Upon a Time
• Rampaging Ferocidon
• Ramunap Ruins
• Rebirth
• Reckoner Bankbuster
• Recurring Nightmare
• Reflector Mage
• Rogue Refiner
• Seat of the Synod
• Smuggler's Copter
• Skullclamp
• Stoneforge Mystic
• Strip Mine
• Teferi, Time Raveler
• Tempest Efreet
• Time Spiral
• Timmerian Fiends
• Tolarian Academy
• Tree of Tales
• Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
• Wilderness Reclamation
• Windfall
• Vault of Whispers
• Veil of Summer
• Zuran Orb

Rotation

Rotation is the defining characteristic of Standard and a way to keep the card pool fresh and encouraging purchasing of the new sets. The block model was used to explain the sets that rotate, but nowadays the rotation is simply defined as the removal of the oldest four sets. After Autumn of 2023, Standard is composed of nine to twelve sets.

Originally, three-set blocks would rotate all at once, sometimes with a core set. Then, a change to two-set blocks would mean the two oldest blocks still legal in Standard would rotate out of the format. For example, when Ixalan released in fall 2017, Battle for Zendikar, Oath of the Gatewatch, Shadows over Innistrad, Eldritch Moon, and Welcome Deck 2016 (which counted as a part of Shadows over Innistrad in rotation) rotated out of Standard. Then the Three-and-One Model eliminated blocks altogether for the newest definition, and shortly after the core set label was abandoned altogether.

Starting in 2021, Wizards of the Coast began a new schedule where the premier sets are early fall, late fall, winter, and spring (dates based on Northern Hemisphere seasons.) . There will still be a non-premier product released in the summer. With a late fall release instead of a summer release, this functionally means that the shortest-legal set gained two months in Standard, though each set shrinks its draft rotation time by a few weeks.

As of 2023, the rotation for Standard shifted to every three years rather than every two years.

History

When Standard (then called "Type 2") was created on January 10, 1995, it inherited the banned and restricted lists from Vintage (then "Type 1"). Legal were then the most current basic set (Revised Edition) and the latest two Magic expansions only (The Dark and Fallen Empires). The original Standard format allowed the recent two blocks plus the most recent core set (two core sets between the last release and the actual rotation), after a short stint when Fallen Empires and Ice Age were not in a block. This hence made for a rotation schedule where the format rotated both when a core set and when a new block started; this was less impactful as core sets were always entirely reprints and had significant overlap with the previous set. There was even an oddity in 2000 and 2001 when 6th and 7th Editions were released mid-block. They were also only released once every two years until Magic 2010 revamped the Core Set identity, giving Standard the regular five-to-eight set sizing it would know for a decade.

After Magic Origins, core sets were discontinued, and blocks only contained two sets, one large and one small. It was intended that blocks rotated twice a year but half as many sets would leave; Standard would be always five or six sets, compared to the norm of five to eight. A Standard with three blocks and two rotations (Spring and Autumn) was adopted between 2015 and 2016 (Khans of Tarkir/Fate Reforged and Dragons of Tarkir/Magic Origins were treated as blocks for transition). This midseason rotation occurred exactly once with the release of Shadows over Innistrad, which faced heavy criticism among players, and hence rotation reverted to the format in which the oldest 4 sets rotated out in each Autumn.

Starting in Kaladesh in 2016 and ending with War of the Spark in 2019, the Standard Showdown was introduced as a root-level competitive tournament that awarded special prize packs (notably foil rare cards from standard sets) to participants.

In November 2021, Alchemy, an online-only variant of Standard, was brought forth as a new initiative from MTG Arena. With no paper tournaments planned for the future due to the COVID-19 pandemic and increasingly rapid metagame stagnation, Alchemy was developed as a way to rebalance problematic cards and inject some novelty into solved formats. It was inducted as a tournament format in the first high-level event in 2022.

By late 2022, sanctioned Standard Play had dried up in many stores. Some named reasons were the COVID-19 pandemic, the ease of Standard play on MTG Arena, the rising popularity of Commander play and the lack of grinding opportunities for Organized Play.

As a reaction to the decline, Wizards of the Coast changed the rotation in 2023 to every three years rather than every two years, which meant that that would be no rotation in that year. This change aimed to give current Standard cards more longevity, to allow mechanics and archetypes to be more effectively built on over time, and to provide R&D with stronger tools to create an environment where decks are more "color(s) and mechanic" (like Green-White Toxic or Blue-White Soldiers) and less midrange.

However, while it may give the highest competition more legs and better long term prospects, Standard at the amateur level continued to be stagnant. With a Standard Pro Tour season happening only one third of the year, innovation was not prevalent.

Former popular Standard decks

• B/W Tokens
• Chilenito / Captain America
• Abzan Aggro
• Angelfire
• Black Swarm
• Hardened Scales
• Jaba Sligh
• Mind over Monolith
• Orbosition
• Standard 5-Color Control
• Standard Boros Deck Wins
• Standard Boss Naya deck
• Standard Bu Zombies deck
• Standard Doran Rock deck
• Standard Elves deck
• Standard Faeries
• Standard Geistblade
• Standard Ghazi-Glare deck
• Standard Ghost Dad deck
• Standard Greater Good deck
• Standard GW Tokens (Innistrad)
• Standard Heartbeat deck
• Standard Kithkin Aggro
• Standard Mana Ramp deck
• Standard Planeswalker deck
• Standard Polymorph deck
• Standard RDW (Zendikar)
• Standard RWU Star-Spangled Slaughter
• Standard Red Aggro
• Standard Red Deck Wins deck
• Standard Tempered Steel
• Standard UR Delver of Secrets
• Standard UR Tron deck
• Standard UWG Mythic deck
• Standard UW Humans
• Standard UWr Planeswalker Control
• Standard Zoo Deck (RGW Aggro)
• Superweenie

External links

• Sam Stoddard (October 16, 2015). "Puzzling Environments". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Sam Stoddard (February 5, 2016). "A Standard Power Level". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Diego Fumagalli (May 12, 2016). "How to Standard—in Graphics". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Gavin Verhey (December 1, 2016). "Standard Operating Procedure". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.