Premodern

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Premodern is a casual Magic The Gathering ("MTG") format created and managed by the Old School community, which was launched by Martín Berlin in 2012 and includes the sets between Fourth Edition (4ED) and Scourge (SCG).

As you can see, the format includes those cards that do not fit into the Old School and Modern formats, so it gives play to many cards that would otherwise be abandoned in collections or shoe boxes.

The format is eternal and limited, legal expansions do not rotate, which means that no new cards created by Wizards of the Coast ("WotC") enter to the format, and only modifications to the Ban List can generate changes in the card pool, and this generates certain characteristics:

Both the staples of the format and the archetypes are maintained over time.
There are archetypes from the past from formats like Legacy or Extended, adapted with the Premodern card pool, but there are also new archetypes that were created by these card pool.
There is a strong incidence of cards from the Reserved List, such as Survival of the Fittest, Mox Diamond, Replenish, among others.

Below you will find information about legal sets, ban list, rules and allowed cards, as well as resources and link of interest.

Legal Sets

Only sets that were Standard-legal during that time frame are legal in Premodern, meaning Portal, Portal: Second Age, Portal Three Kingdoms and promo cards aren’t included. Therefore, the card pool arise, without the ban list, to 5.374 cards.

Ban List

[Updated as of 01/20/2024]

As of today there are 32 cards on the ban list that you can find below. All cards with the "ante" mechanic are on the ban list, and then we find powerful cards in their own like Balance, Land Tax, Necropotence and Strip Mine; and others that could generate abusive combos such as Entomb, Mind's Desire and Tendrils of Agony, as some examples.

It is worth noting the inclusion in the ban list of two cards: Brainstorm and Force of Will, which are banned so that the format is distinguished from Legacy. On the other hand, there are cards that are banned in other formats but are legal in Premodern, such as Survival of the Fittest and Gush, so the playing experience is different from that of other formats.

Rules & Legal cards

The rules applied in Premodern are equivalent to the modern rules of WotC, allowing the format to be developed both physically and in Magic: The Gathering Online ("MTGO"). It should be noted that some cards suffer from some programming glitchs such as Volrath's Shapeshifter, which makes this card have no play in the online meta.

As for legal cards, it depends on each tournament organizer but in general both cards printed in legal sets, as well as reprints and Gold Border (International Collector's Edition [ICE/CE] & World Championship) are accepted. /Gold Bordered [WC/GB]).

Resources and link of interest

Nowadays, anyone who has internet can find a lot of information and content about Premodern through search engines or social networks, however, below you will find the links to access the most important social networks, as well as the presentation video of the Format;

Official webpage of the format: https://premodernmagic.com/

Official Facebook webpage of the format: facebook.com/PremodernMagic

International Premodern Facebook group: facebook.com/groups/Premodern

Premodern Facebook group for online play: facebook.com/groups/PremodernOnlinePlay

Local Facebook groups (for national/local events etc.):

Invitation to the official Discord of the format: https://discord.gg/nQCBJYtj

Official webpage of organized play on MTGO: https://www.premodernseries.org/

Pages where the list of Premodern tournaments are uploaded: TCDecks y MTGDecks