Decks

Commander

100-card singleton multiplayer with a legendary commander. This was originally called Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH) and was created by the players. Today, Commander is the most popular format in the game by a wide margin, with a huge variety of playstyles and deck power levels.

Brawl (Historic)

100-card singleton on MTG Arena, with a legendary commander (creature or planeswalker). The Brawl format was originally created with only the Standard card pool and rotation, but never really took off. When Historic Brawl was opened on Arena, players flocked to it, so when someone says "brawl", they usually mean Historic Brawl.

cEDH

Commander but with an ultra-competitive metagame, optimized for fastest-win strategies, virtually always closing the game via combo wins in the first few turns. Very complex and skill-intensive, with extreme interactivity and tight resource management.

Brawl (Standard)

60-card singleton on MTG Arena, with a legendary commander (creature or planeswalker). Not very popular, as the Standard card pool is too shallow to support a healthy meta.

Duel Commander

1v1 Commander variant with adjusted life totals, played mostly on MTGO and sometimes on paper. Casual decks often overlap with normal Commander and even Brawl decks, but competitive decks follow a unique metagame.

Standard

Rotating constructed using only the newest sets, 60-card decks with max 4 copies of each individual card. Standard is one of the most popular formats in the game. Matches on paper tend to only be best-of-three, while Arena has both best-of-three and best-of-one matches. Sometimes the best-of-one meta on Arena diverges slightly from the best-of-three meta.

Brawl (Historic)

100-card singleton on MTG Arena, with a legendary commander (creature or planeswalker). The Brawl format was originally created with only the Standard card pool and rotation, but never really took off. When Historic Brawl was opened on Arena, players flocked to it, so when someone says "brawl", they usually mean Historic Brawl.

Historic

Arena-only non-rotating constructed, 60-card decks with max 4 copies of each individual card.

Brawl (Standard)

60-card singleton on MTG Arena, with a legendary commander (creature or planeswalker). Not very popular, as the Standard card pool is too shallow to support a healthy meta.

Timeless

Arena's most permissive non-rotating format, 60-card decks with max 4 copies of each individual card. Similar to how Vintage is just barely bigger than Legacy yet a wildly different format, the Timeless card-pool is not much bigger than Historic, and yet it's still a very different meta.

Explorer

The objective here is to gradually bring Pioneer to Arena, so there are plenty of cards on Arena that are not legal in Explorer. Once all sets in pioneer have been coded into Arena, this is likely to become one of the most popular constructed formats. 60-card decks with max 4 copies of each individual card, non-rotating.

Alchemy

Arena-exclusive rotating format with digital-only cards, 60-card decks with max 4 copies of each individual card. This includes rebalanced versions of existing cards, as well as new cards that will never be printed on paper as they involve mechanics that are unwieldy or impossible to translate to a physical game.

Draft

Eight players draft three booster packs into 40-card decks. Often considered the "hardest" format to master, because of the need to evaluate cards in a vacuum and make optimal picks under pressure. This is one of the most popular formats, available in-person, on Arena, and on MTGO. Most commonly played with the most recent set, but the prior few sets are regularly available on Arena, and older sets are sometimes drafted at special events.

Sealed

Build a 40-card deck from six unopened booster packs. This is most commonly used in pre-release events for new sets, but is also a popular format for special events on Arena and MTGO. Some players dislike this format

Cube

Draft from a curated card list of 360 to 1000+ cards dealt out like normal packs. Often singleton (one copy of each card) but not always. Usually 40-card decks. The most famous cube is the Vintage Cube, officially maintained by Wizards of the Coast. There are other official cubes regularly available on MTGO and Arena too, and many players make their own cubes. Some players even create Set Cubes, which mimic the drafts of a particular set.

Vintage Cube

Draft from a curated card list of MTG's all-star powerhouse cards, melded with some of the newer releases. Vintage Cube is available multiple times a year on MTGO, most commonly around Christmas. With proxies becoming so prevalent, some people even have the whole cube in paper.

Standard

Rotating constructed using only the newest sets, 60-card decks with max 4 copies of each individual card. Standard is one of the most popular formats in the game. Matches on paper tend to only be best-of-three, while Arena has both best-of-three and best-of-one matches. Sometimes the best-of-one meta on Arena diverges slightly from the best-of-three meta.

Modern

Non-rotating constructed with a deep card pool, 60-card decks with max 4 copies of each individual card.

Pioneer

Non-rotating constructed bridging Standard and Modern, 60-card decks with max 4 copies of each individual card.

Legacy

Eternal constructed with nearly every paper card legal, 60-card decks with max 4 copies of each individual card.

Vintage

The most permissive format in the game, making it by far the most powerful and fastest. 60-card decks with max 4 copies of each individual card. Although the card pool is just barely larger than Legacy, the cataclysmic power of the cards makes Vintage a very different format with frequent first turn wins.

Pauper

Constructed using only common-rarity cards, 60-card decks with max 4 copies of each individual card. Although occasionally played on paper, Pauper is most popular on MTGO, where the large card pool and low barrier to entry makes it much more accessible.

Block

Constructed restricted to a single Magic block. This is played almost exclusively on MTGO.