Updated March 20, 2012
Constructed decks must contain a minimum of sixty cards. There is no maximum deck size; however, you must be able to shuffle your deck with no assistance. If a player wishes to use a sideboard, it must contain exactly fifteen cards.
With the exception of basic land cards, a player’s combined deck and sideboard may not contain more than four of any individual card, counted by its English card title equivalent. All cards named Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest are basic. (The five Ice Age block snow-covered lands -- Snow-Covered Plains, Snow-Covered Island, Snow-Covered Swamp, Snow-Covered Mountain, and Snow-Covered Forest -- are also basic lands. Note that snow-covered lands are permitted only in formats that allow expansions from the Ice Age block to be used.)
The following card sets are permitted in Modern tournaments:
- Eighth Edition
- Mirrodin
- Darksteel
- Fifth Dawn
- Champions of Kamigawa
- Betrayers of Kamigawa
- Saviors of Kamigawa
- Ninth Edition
- Ravnica: City of Guilds
- Guildpact
- Dissension
- Coldsnap
- Time Spiral
- Planar Chaos
- Future Sight
- Tenth Edition
- Lorwyn
- Morningtide
- Shadowmoor
- Eventide
- Shards of Alara
- Conflux
- Alara Reborn
- Magic 2010
- Zendikar
- Worldwake
- Rise of the Eldrazi
- Magic 2011
- Scars of Mirrodin
- Mirrodin Besieged
- New Phyrexia
- Magic 2012
- Innistrad
- Dark Ascension
- Avacyn Restored (effective May 4, 2012)
- Magic 2013 (effective July 13, 2012)
The following cards are banned in Modern tournaments:
-
Ancestral Vision
Ancient Den
Bitterblossom
Blazing Shoal
Chrome Mox
Cloudpost
Dark Depths
Dread Return
Glimpse of Nature
Golgari Grave-Troll
Great Furnace
Green Sun's Zenith
Hypergenesis
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Mental Misstep
Ponder
Preordain
Punishing Fire
Rite of Flame
Seat of the Synod
Sensei's Divining Top
Stoneforge Mystic
Skullclamp
Sword of the Meek
Tree of Tales
Umezawa's Jitte
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Vault of Whispers
Wild Nacatl
Official information about Constructed formats and the Modern format can be found in the Magic: The Gathering Tournament Rules.
