MTG Formats
The Modern Format, Explained
Twenty-plus years of cards, no rotation, and a set line printed straight into it. Modern is the format where the deck you buy stays legal, and where you had better know what your opponent is doing by turn two.
What Modern is
Modern is a non-rotating 60-card constructed format built from every expansion and core set released since 2003, plus the Modern Horizons sets printed directly into it. Four copies of a card, a fifteen-card sideboard, 20 life, one opponent.
The 2003 line is not a judgement about power. It is where Magic changed card frames, with 8th Edition and Mirrodin, which made it the one place you could cut the history of the game without arguing about individual cards. Everything printed since is legal unless it has been banned.
Most Modern decks are trying to have won, or to have made winning inevitable, by turn four. A deck without a plan for those first four turns is not a slow deck, it is a deck that does not get to play.
what people mean when they call Modern a turn-four format
The card pool, and why nothing leaves it
Modern grows and never shrinks. Every Standard set joins it on release, every Standard rotation sends more cards down into it, and the pool has now been accumulating for over two decades. Nothing rotates out.
The only exit is the banned list, which Wizards of the Coast maintains and updates a few times a year. Because Modern has no restricted list, a problem card is either fully legal or fully gone: there is no middle setting the way Vintage and Timeless have one. Check the official banned and restricted list before an event rather than trusting an article, this one included: it is the only source that is never out of date.
A card that rotates out of Standard becomes worthless.
It becomes a Pioneer and Modern card. Rotation removes cards from one format only, and the two formats below Standard are where cards go afterwards, which is why the good ones often get more expensive after they rotate rather than less.
The Modern Horizons sets
Modern is the only non-eternal format with sets designed for it directly. The Modern Horizons line skips Standard entirely and prints cards straight into this format.
That changed the format's character more than any single ban ever has. Free spells, one-mana threats that generate value on contact and lands that behave like spells all arrived this way, and each Horizons set has reset which decks are viable. Our Modern Horizons 3 set guide covers the most recent one, including energy, the Eldrazi and how quickly it reshaped the format on arrival.
Two other product lines land here without going through Standard: some Universes Beyond crossovers were Modern-legal by design, including Tales of Middle-earth and Assassin's Creed. Both predate the policy that made later crossover sets Standard-legal, so they are Modern's rather than Standard's.
Cards that define the format
Four cards that explain why Modern plays the way it does. None of these could exist in a rotating format without warping it.
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer ↗
A one-mana creature that generates treasure and steals cards when it connects. The clearest example of what Modern Horizons did to the format's rate of play.
Urza's Saga ↗
A land that builds its own artifact creatures and then tutors up a cheap artifact. Modern decks routinely play lands that would be spells in any other format.
Solitude ↗
Free removal, cast by exiling a white card from hand instead of paying for it. The evoke elementals are why Modern decks can interact on turn one without holding up mana.
Wrenn and Six ↗
A two-mana planeswalker that returns a land from the graveyard every turn. Bought fetchlands their permanent home at the top of the format.
Where to start
If you are building your first Modern deck, these three teach the format faster than any article. The first is the rate everything is measured against, the second is how you find out what you are playing against, and the third is why the mana base is the expensive half.
Lightning Bolt ↗
Three damage for one mana, printed in 1993 and still a defining rate. If you are learning Modern's speed, learn it from the card everything else is measured against.
Thoughtseize ↗
One mana, look at their hand, take the card that beats you. The format's most reliable way to find out what a deck is doing while there is still time to do something about it.
Scalding Tarn ↗
A fetchland: pay a life, crack it, find the exact dual you need. Expensive, and the reason Modern mana bases cost more than Modern spells.
Building a Modern deck
Pick a plan, not a colour. Modern decks are defined by what they are trying to do on turn three, not by what is in them. A deck that is half aggressive creatures and half controlling answers will lose to both halves of the format. Decide whether you are the deck that goes under, the deck that goes over, or the deck that interacts, and build all sixty cards to serve it.
Interaction is not optional. Somewhere between eight and twelve cards in a Modern deck should be able to answer what the other player is doing, whether that is removal, discard or counterspells. Goldfishing a fast kill is easy; the format is full of decks that are faster.
The sideboard does half the work. Fifteen cards, swapped in between games, and in Modern they are often the difference between a matchup being unwinnable and being even. Graveyard hate and cheap artifact removal are close to mandatory.
Curve low and keep the count honest. Most Modern decks run 18 to 21 lands because their curve tops out at three, which is a very different arithmetic from the 24 lands a Standard deck wants. Cheap card selection and fetchlands are doing work a land slot would otherwise have to.
What Modern actually costs
The spells are frequently affordable. The lands are the bill. A fetchland-and-dual mana base can account for a third of a deck's price, and it is the part you cannot skip, because the whole point of a three-colour Modern deck is casting Thoughtseize on turn one and something else entirely on turn two.
Three honest ways in: build one or two colours and spend the savings on the spells, start on Magic Online where the same deck costs a fraction of paper, or ask whether your local group plays with proxies before you buy anything. Our guide to buying singles covers where the prices actually differ.
Modern vs. Pioneer vs. Standard
The three formats nest. A Standard deck is a legal Pioneer deck and a legal Modern deck, just an outgunned one, which means cards bought for the smaller pool keep working after they rotate. The full format comparison puts these next to Commander, Pauper and the digital-only formats as well.
Frequently asked questions
What sets are legal in Modern?
Every expansion and core set from 8th Edition and Mirrodin (2003) onward, plus the Modern Horizons sets, which are printed straight into Modern without ever passing through Standard. The 2003 cutoff is a printing decision rather than a power one: that is when Magic switched to the modern card frame, which made it a clean line to draw.
Does Modern rotate?
No. Cards enter Modern and stay there. The only way a card leaves is the banned list, which is updated by Wizards of the Coast a few times a year. That is what makes Modern expensive up front and cheap to maintain: the deck you buy today is still legal in five years, minus the occasional ban.
How much does a Modern deck cost?
More than Standard and less than Legacy. The spells are often reasonable and the mana base is not: fetchlands and dual lands regularly account for a third of a deck's price. Two ways around it, both real: play a deck whose mana base is one or two colors, or start on Magic Online or a proxy-friendly local group before committing to paper.
What is the difference between Modern and Pioneer?
The starting line. Modern begins in 2003, Pioneer in 2012, and Pioneer additionally banned the fetchlands before its first event. The result is that Pioneer plays a turn slower and its mana bases cost dramatically less, while Modern has twenty more years of cards and the Modern Horizons sets designed to shake it up.
Is Modern good for beginners?
It is a fine second format and a hard first one. Modern decks are built to do one thing extremely well by turn three or four, so a game is often decided by whether you understood the matchup before it started. If you are new, learn the game somewhere cheaper first, then bring the cards forward: everything Standard-legal is Modern-legal too.
Keep a record of what actually beat you.
TurnZero HQ tracks results by deck and by version, so a sideboard change is something you can measure instead of argue about.
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