Official Constructed

Constructed formats, as opposed to Limited formats, allow players to build decks from the entirety of the legal cards available in the specified format. The formats differ based on the card pool allowed, which affects each format's accessibility, power level, and complexity.[1] In Constructed format tournaments, players build their deck in advance of the tournament. Of the constructed formats, the most popular are Standard, Modern, Legacy, and Vintage.

MTG Powerpoint de Jessica Claassen

The following rules apply to most sanctioned Constructed formats:

Standard

The Standard format is continually one of the most popular formats in the constructed deck tournament scene. It is the format most commonly found at Friday Night Magic tournaments, played weekly at many hobby shops. Standard's former name was "Type 2". This format generally consists of the most recent three or four "Block" releases. 

Last standard Grand Prix

Modern

Modern is a constructed format created by Wizards of the Coast in the Spring of 2011 as a response to the increasing popularity of the Legacy format, which although popular proved difficult to access due to the high price of staple cards, as well as dissatisfaction with the Extended format of the time.[7][8] Wizards of the Coast is unwilling to reprint some of these cards due to the Reserved List,[9] a list of cards Wizards promised never to reprint in order to protect card prices.[7] Therefore, Modern was designed as a new format that would exclude all cards on the Reserved List, allowing the format to be more accessible than Legacy.

Vintage

The Vintage format, formerly known as Type 1, is another Eternal constructed format. Vintage maintains a small banned list and a larger restricted list. Unlike in the other formats, the DCI does not ban cards in Vintage for power level reasons. Rather, cards banned in Vintage are those that either involve ante, manual dexterity (Falling Star, Chaos Orb), or cards could hinder event rundown (Shahrazad and Conspiracy cards). Cards that raise power level concerns are instead restricted to a maximum of one copy per deck.[18] Vintage is currently the only format in which cards are restricted. Because of the expense in acquiring the old cards to play competitive Vintage, many Vintage tournaments are unsanctioned and permit players to use a certain number of proxy cards. These are treated as stand-ins of existing cards and are not normally permitted in tournaments sanctioned by the DCI.[18]

 Legacy

Legacy allows cards from all sets that are legal for constructed play (known as an "Eternal" format). It maintains a ban list based on power level reasons. The format evolved from Type 1.5, which allowed cards from all sets and maintained a banned list corresponding to Vintage: all cards banned or restricted in the old Type 1 were banned in Type 1.5.[14] The modern Legacy format began in 2004, as the DCI separated Legacy's banned list from Vintage and banned many new cards to reduce the power level of the format.[14]

Wizards has supported the format with Grand Prix events[15] and the release of preconstructed Legacy decks on Magic Online in November 2010.[16] The first Legacy Grand Prix was Grand Prix Philadelphia in 2005.[17]

Official formats

The term "sanctioned" refers to formats that the DCI allows to be run at official events.[3] Many of the deck construction rules are shared across both sanctioned and casual formats. The following is a non-exhaustive summary of some of the major formats.

 

B/R Reanimator
Andrew Sullano, 2nd place at GP Louisville

Sorcery (20)

4x Exhume
4x Faithless Looting
4x Reanimate
4x Thoughtseize
4x Unmask

Land (12)
2x Badlands
4x Bloodstained Mire
3x Polluted Delta
1x Scrubland
2x Swamp

Creature (10)

4x Chancellor of the Annex
1x Children of Korlis
4x Griselbrand
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria

Instant (8)

4x Dark Ritual
4x Entomb

Enchantment (4)

4x Animate Dead

Artifact (6)

2x Chrome Mox
4x Lotus Petal


Sideboard (15)

1x Blazing Archon
3x Collective Brutality
4x Faerie Macabre
1x Pithing Needle
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Tidespout Tyrant
3x Wear / Tear

U/B Reanimator has been a popular deck for a while now, but B/R Reanimator managed to fly under the radar until it won Eternal Champs Europe a few months back. It’s been gaining a traction on Magic Online, and the affordability and power of the deck have made it popular. The deck has some key differences from its blue cousin, and these differences mean the two decks play out quite differently.