Magic Formats, Part I

Damn, there are a lot of Magic formats, some official, and a great number less official. Changing up formats is a great way to add variety to Magic and to get those cards that aren't so great in a duel (one on one game) into play.

Most formats differ in terms of how many players there are, how decks are constructed, how life totals are tallied, which other players you can attack, and what your victory conditions are. The baseline game of Magic starts with two players (a duel), each with a deck constructed of to 60+ cards drawn from most of the cards in Magic's history (with a general limit of four of each card). The players begin with twenty life and play lands and spells in an effort to reduce their opponent's life total to 0 (or to achieve a few other game states that removes their opposition from the game.)

Standard Variations

Of course, changing these assumptions changes the way the game is played. Part of the fun of games is exploring the cause and effect; exploring the fullness of the rules. One of the advantages of Magic is that the cards are the rules and exploring the rules is a never-ending quest, as there are always more cards. None the less, when “more cards” simply doesn’t suffice in terms of broadening one’s play horizons, new conditions and variations often do.

The simplest variation is simply not playing with every card. Granted, most players do this simply because they don’t own every card. That, however, is a natural limitation, and one that follows a player no matter what format they play. Artificially limiting the card pool is a horse of a different color. By definition, more available cards mean more available options means more optimal choices. By eliminating some cards from the pool, optimal choices are cut down and players must find new optimal choices within the new set.

The publishers of Magic, Wizards of the Coast, know this and officially support many formats where this is the case. Most common is the Standard format. It usually consists of the last two blocks to have been released, plus a core set. These cards only stretch back about two years, meaning that Wizards can control the Standard format better than any other format. This might seem ominous at first glance, but in fact it allows them to manipulate the format in such a way that most players can enjoy participating in it.

Next to that is the Extended format. As it might sound, the Extended format is simply the Standard format with a slightly longer reach, usually incorporating a few more older blocks and another core set.

Unlike Extended and Standard, the Modern format begins at one block, Mirrodin, and incorporates all subsequent blocks and core sets instead of measuring backwards from the most recent block.

On the other hand, Vintage and Legacy formats incorporate all Magic cards by default, with subtle differences in the list of cards they ban and restrict distinguishing them from one another.

Block formats only allow cards from particular blocks, sometimes with the option of adding cards from a related core set.