MAGIC THE GATHERING FORMATS: PART THREE

INTRODUCTION

Magic the Gathering is a fun collectible card game. It’s been around since 1993 and it’s pretty much here to stay. I love Magic the gather, it is exciting, versatile, and has room for players with all levels of knowledge and commitment.

One of my favorite things about Magic is its expansive formats you can play. Magic the Gathering differs from other collectible card games, in the fact you can play the game in so many different ways.

Today I want to explain and discuss the formats of Standard and Pauper.

STANDARD

Standard is a Magic the Gathering format that uses the most recently released card sets to play with. Standard is also popular because you can find standard tournaments at most of your local game stores. There are also pro-tournaments that professional Magic players participate in.

Standard is a constructed format. Players will make a deck or at least 60 or more cards. They must only need to shuffle the deck by themselves. These cards must come from the current standard approved sets, but do your research as these rotate every year. You are also allowed a 15-card sideboard for your deck as well.

Your deck or sideboard may only have up to 4 copies of the same card (unless specified otherwise on the card), and your deck will need to follow the banned and restricted lists for the format.

PAUPER

Pauper is a Magic the Gathering format where all cards used to build your deck must be of common rarity. The technical ruling is any card that has ever been printed at a common rarity is legal, so even if the version of the card you hold is uncommon it is still legal as long as in a previous or future set it was common.

Pauper is also a constructed format. Players will make a deck or at least 60 or more cards. They must only need to shuffle the deck by themselves. These cards may come from any set in Magic’s long history of cards. You are also allowed a 15-card sideboard for your deck as well.

Your deck or sideboard may only have up to 4 copies of the same card (unless specified otherwise on the card), and your deck will need to follow the banned and restricted lists for the format.

Pauper has also expanded to have a commander sub-format. For this format of commander, you may only have common cards in your deck and your commander may only be uncommon. All other commander rules are followed such as 100 card decks, and no two cards may be the same.

CONCLUSION

There are many different formats for Magic the Gathering, but Standard and Pauper are great formats for players looking to try out magic for the first time. Both are fun ways to try out new strategies and can often be found played casually at their local game store.