MTG Standard explained: Legal, banned cards & rotation

Standard is MTG’s easiest way to learn the ropes of the game, but also one of its most competitive. Here’s everything you need to know about it.

Out of all of Magic, Standard is the most regulated. It’s the core mode of Magic Arena, and it’s often the center of tournaments. It’s also somewhat unique among MTG formats, in that it features a rotation of cards.

MTG Standard explained

Standard is Magic’s main format, even if it isn’t the most popular. It’s a fairly ‘standard’ method of play, with no extra rules to take note of. You and another player will sling spells until one loses.

It is a constructed format, so you build a 60-card deck and in Best of Three matches, you also use a sideboard. In Magic Arena, there are plenty of players in Best of One, which is a much faster format.

What’s a sideboard in MTG?

A sideboard is an extra 15 cards that act like reserves. You might swap some cards out in-between games to try to solve an issue the opponent presented.

Standard deck building

You build your deck from the pool of cards currently ‘legal’ in Standard, which changes based on bans and current rotation. You want at least 24 lands for consistency, but you can cut these depending on your deck’s needs.

Just don’t go below 20, because otherwise, you might never draw the cards needed to run your deck. Other than that, you can choose how many creatures or other spells go in. We recommend trying to hit a “curve” so that your deck isn’t lopsided with too many low-cost or high-cost cards.

Standard, unlike Modern or Commander, features both rotation and a ban list. In non-rotating formats, Wizards will ban cards to get around stagnant or broken metas that players have come up with. In Standard, if something breaks the game, it’ll get banned or Wizards might even wait it out until it ‘rotates’ out of the game.

Standard actually comes from the early days of the game, when Wizards began to introduce rotation in hopes of a healthier game (and selling more cards). Magic was split into two, Type 1 and Type 2. Type 1 became Vintage, while Type 2 became Standard. Eventually, other formats were introduced.

What is rotation?

Rotation sees older sets leave the available pool of cards, and used to happen on a yearly basis. Now the window has been extended to allow for a three-year cycle, allowing the pool to be much bigger and also means that you and I don’t need to buy all new cards so soon.

What’s in Standard?

What cards are banned in Standard?

As of right now, only a few cards are banned in Standard:

• Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
• Invoke Despair
• Reckoner Bankbuster
• The Meathook Massacre