Banned and restricted cards in Standard

The Standard banlist gathers the cards banned in the most played constructed format of Magic: The Gathering. It is the shortest of the sanctioned lists, because Standard corrects itself mostly through the yearly rotation of expansions — and it is worth reading before entering an event or finishing a deck.

Why a card gets banned in Standard

Standard renews itself: the oldest expansions leave the rotation every year, and a card that is too strong stops being a problem once its set retires. That is why this is the shortest list of them all, and why an intervention only comes when waiting for the rotation would mean months of a format owned by a single deck. So a card you do not find here that you can no longer play in Standard was not forbidden: it simply rotated out with its expansion.

How to check a Standard deck

Before settling a list it is worth checking the cards in the other formats you might play them in: the complete banlist gathers every list on one page, and from there you reach the Pioneer banlist and the Modern banlist. To see what the latest change did to the tables there are the Standard decks and the Standard tournaments, while the spoilers of the sets on the way are where you see, ahead of time, the cards that may push towards the next intervention.

Frequently asked questions about the Standard banlist

How often does the Standard banlist change?

Changes come with announcements of their own, usually around the release of an expansion or shortly after, when a deck proves too dominant to wait for the rotation.

Is a card that rotated out of Standard a banned card?

No. The rotation removes an expansion from the format without forbidding anything: those cards stay perfectly legal in Modern, Legacy, Commander and the other formats that take them in.