Banned and restricted cards Timeline

The DCI announces bans and restrictions of cards for their sanctioned formats if they deemed necessary to do so. In normal cases, these announcements are made on Mondays and take effect within a few days.

Previously, such announcements used to be made in a scheduled basis (usually two to three months) with coherence of Standard legal sets and major tournaments like the Pro Tour[1][2].

The following is a list of these announcements and their changes in chronological order. Formats which are not mentioned have seen no changes made to them in the respective announcements.

The concept of formats doesn't yet exist as of this time. Vintage (Type 1) and Standard (Type 2) will be introduced in 1995.

January 25th [ edit | edit source ]

Formation of the original DCI banned/restricted list.[3][4] Ali from Cairo, Ancestral Recall, Berserk, Black Lotus, Braingeyser, Dingus Egg, Gauntlet of Might, Icy Manipulator, Mox Emerald, Mox Jet, Mox Pearl, Mox Ruby, Mox Sapphire, Orcish Oriflamme, Rukh Egg, Sol Ring, Timetwister, Time Vault, and Time Walk are restricted ("Limited"). Ante cards and Shahrazad are banned.[5][6][7] Use of cards from any of the expansion sets (at that time Arabian Nights) are banned unless the referee consents to their use (this would later be changed to allowed "unless expressly disallowed by the head judge prior to the event").[8]

February 23rd [ edit | edit source ]

Orcish Oriflamme and Rukh Egg are unrestricted.[9]

March 23rd [ edit | edit source ]

Channel, Copy Artifact, Demonic Tutor, Regrowth, and Wheel of Fortune are restricted. Icy Manipulator is unrestricted. Time Vault is banned.[9]

Candelabra of Tawnos, Feldon's Cane, Ivory Tower, and Library of Alexandria are restricted. Dingus Egg and Gauntlet of Might are unrestricted.[9]

June 13th [ edit | edit source ]

Mishra's Workshop is restricted.[9]

Chaos Orb, Falling Star, Mind Twist, Mirror Universe, Recall, Sword of the Ages, Underworld Dreams are restricted. For flavor reasons, all legendary cards (of type "Summon Legends"—then called Legends—or "Legendary Land") were restricted. Divine Intervention is banned.[10]

October 10th [ edit | edit source ]

Maze of Ith is restricted.[9]

Creation of Standard (then called "Type 2") on January 10, inheriting banned and restricted lists from Vintage. Legal standard expansions are then the most current basic set (Revised Edition at the time) and the latest two Magic expansions only (The Dark and Fallen Empires). Unlike in Vintage, the head judge cannot ban cards from any such legal expansion.[11]

April 19th [ edit | edit source ]

Standard: new deck construction rules. Standard (Type 2) can be composed of cards from the most recent edition of Magic The Gathering (Fourth Edition at the time), white border extensions (Chronicles), and all available limited edition expansions (Ice Age, Fallen Empires, and soon Homelands).[14]

Card Errata [ edit | edit source ]

Time Vault now adds a time counter to itself when a turn is skipped for its cost. Taking an extra turn requires the removal of a time counter.

Legacy is created (then called Type 1.5). "Type 1.5 tournament decks may be constructed from Magic: The Gathering cards from the Limited (first edition, with black border) series, the Unlimited (second edition), Revised (third edition), Fourth Edition, any Magic: The Gathering expansion (unless expressly disallowed by the head judge prior to the event), and promotional cards released by Wizards of the Coast in magazines or through books." There are no restricted cards. The list of banned cards is the sum of all cards that are either restricted or banned in Vintage or Standard.[16]

Standard : New deck construction rules. New editions of the basic set replace old versions and are permitted in Standard play thirty days after the release date of the new edition. New standalone expansions (e.g., Ice Age , Mirage , etc.) replace previous stand-alone expansions and are permitted in Standard play thirty days after the release date of the new edition. Limited-edition expansions are replaced thirty days after the release date of the next limited-edition expansion which has a release date of more than 10 months later than the release date of the outgoing limited-edition expansion. [19]

: New deck construction rules. New editions of the basic set replace old versions and are permitted in Standard play thirty days after the release date of the new edition. New standalone expansions (e.g., , , etc.) replace previous stand-alone expansions and are permitted in Standard play thirty days after the release date of the new edition. Limited-edition expansions are replaced thirty days after the release date of the next limited-edition expansion which has a release date of more than 10 months later than the release date of the outgoing limited-edition expansion. Standard: All cards on the restricted list are moved to the banned list.[20]

Card Errata [ edit | edit source ]

The errata issued for the “free” creatures (“When <this permanent> comes into play, if you played it from your hand, …”) applies to two additional cards: Karmic Guide and Treachery.

August 1st [ edit | edit source ]

Card Errata [ edit | edit source ]

Iridescent Drake receives the same erratum as the "free" creatures. It should read, "When Iridescent Drake comes into play, if you played it from your hand, return target enchant creature card from a graveyard to play enchanting Iridescent Drake. (You control that enchantment.)"

Lion's Eye Diamond should read, "Sacrifice Lion's Eye Diamond, Discard your hand: Add three mana of any one color to your mana pool. Play this ability as an instant." This erratum causes Lion's Eye Diamond to function as it did under Fifth Edition rules.

Lotus Vale should read, "When Lotus Vale comes into play, you may sacrifice two untapped lands. If you don't, sacrifice Lotus Vale. If you do, Lotus Vale gains '

Scorched Ruins should read, "When Scorched Ruins comes into play, you may sacrifice two untapped lands. If you don't, sacrifice Scorched Ruins. If you do, Scorched Ruins gains '

No changes were made during the year.

No changes in any non-online format.[44]

No changes in any non-online format.[46]

No changes in any non-online format.[48]

No changes in any format.[49]

No changes in any non-online format.[50]

No changes in any non-online format.[51]

Vintage : Shahrazad is banned.

: Shahrazad is banned. Legacy: Shahrazad is banned.[53]

No changes in any non-online format.[54]

Extended: Rotation of the format has been modified.[55]

Announcement schedule moved from the 1st of every third month to the 20th of every third month.

No changes in any non-online format.[58]

No changes except for online formats.[59]

No changes in any non-online format.[62]

No changes in any format.[63]

Modification of Magic Tournament Rules: The 34 cards that play with ante or have the Conspiracy card type (both banned in all Constructed/Eternal formats) are simplified into two entries in respective ban lists.

Announcement schedule changed to Monday following each expansion's prerelease event as well as fifth Monday after the Pro Tour of respective expansion.[85] The schedule was scaled back and revised in June 2017: Banned and restricted announcements are decoupled from set releases and the competitive schedule. Instead updates are announced on a scheduled basis, which mostly in 2-3 months span.[86]

Starting from this year, banned and restricted announcements are no longer made on a fixed schedule. Changes may occur on any given Monday. In addition, Pioneer will no longer make a weekly banned list update and sync up with current updates in other formats.[108]

On June 10, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests. WotC made an announcement that "cards whose art, text, name, or combination thereof that are racially or culturally offensive are banned in sanctioned events.[119] Seven cards were banned immediately when the announcement was made. In addition, the card images and flavor texts of those cards were also removed from Gatherer database. This ban also applied to Commander and some non-sanctioned formats.