Vintage
The most powerful format in Magic, where almost every card ever printed is legal — including the Power Nine. Vintage tempers its broken cards with a restricted list rather than bans.
What is the Vintage format?
Vintage is the most powerful constructed format in Magic: The Gathering and, along with Legacy, one of the two eternal formats. Nearly every card ever printed is legal, including the game’s most broken cards. Rather than banning its most degenerate cards outright, Vintage uses a restricted list: restricted cards are limited to a single copy per deck. This philosophy lets iconic power like Black Lotus and Ancestral Recall remain playable while curbing the consistency that unlimited copies would create. Vintage is a smaller, specialist format — often played on Magic Online where players can access prox/digital copies of cards that are prohibitively rare in paper.
The Power Nine and the card pool
Vintage is the only format where the Power Nine are legal: Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Timetwister, and the five original Moxen. These cards, printed in Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited in 1993, are among the most valuable and iconic in the game, and Vintage restricts each to one copy. The broader card pool includes essentially every set ever released, so Vintage decks blend the oldest broken staples with the newest efficient threats. Because the format’s defining cards are on the Reserved List and were printed in tiny quantities, authentic paper Vintage is famously expensive — many of these cards command four- and five-figure prices.
Restricted and banned cards
Vintage’s restricted list is long and includes the Power Nine plus other explosive cards like Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mishra’s Workshop, Demonic Tutor, and Mana Vault — each limited to one copy. Vintage’s actual banned list is very short and mostly covers cards that cannot function in sanctioned play: ante cards, Conspiracy cards, physical-dexterity cards, and offensively-named cards. This means almost everything is playable in Vintage in some quantity, which is what makes it the ultimate sandbox for the game’s most powerful interactions. Because both lists change over time, checking a card’s current status is the only reliable way to know how many copies you may run.
How to check if a card is Vintage legal
Scan a card with Tappr and its legality table shows the live Vintage status from Scryfall — legal, restricted, or banned — so you know instantly whether a card is unrestricted, capped at one copy, or prohibited. For a format built around some of the most valuable cards ever printed, seeing the current TCGplayer and Cardmarket price alongside legality is especially useful. Tappr resolves the exact printing you scanned, which matters for old power that exists across Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited at very different values.
Common questions
01 What are the Power Nine in MTG?
The Power Nine are Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Timetwister, and the five original Moxen (Pearl, Sapphire, Jet, Ruby, and Emerald). They are legal only in Vintage, where each is restricted to a single copy.
02 What is the difference between banned and restricted?
A banned card cannot be played at all; a restricted card is limited to one copy per deck. Vintage relies mostly on restriction to keep its most powerful cards in check, while other formats ban them.
03 Why is Vintage so expensive to play in paper?
Vintage’s defining cards — the Power Nine and other Reserved List staples — were printed in tiny quantities in 1993 and will never be reprinted, so authentic copies command very high prices. Scan any card with Tappr to see its current value.
04 How do I check a card’s Vintage legality?
Scan it with Tappr. The Scryfall-sourced legality table shows whether the card is legal, restricted, or banned in Vintage, reflecting the current lists.
Related Formats
The eternal format where nearly every card ever printed is legal. Legacy is powered by dual lands, Force of Will, and decades of the game’s most efficient spells.
Commander (EDH)The most popular way to play Magic. Commander is a multiplayer, singleton format built around a legendary commander, 100-card decks, and 40 life — social, expressive, and endlessly customizable.
ModernThe deep, non-rotating format built on the modern card frame. Modern spans two decades of powerful cards, from 8th Edition forward, and rewards specialized, highly-tuned decks.
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