Editorial
Welcome to Canonic
Modern, with the promise it started with. Here is what that means, and where to start.
Modern was built around a simple promise: an eternal format shaped by Magic's normal sets, where power grows gradually and new cards enter only after passing through Standard.
Canonic keeps that promise.
A card is legal if, and only if, at least one paper printing of that card was legal in Standard from 8th Edition onward and the card belongs to the Magic multiverse.
That sentence is strict, and it costs things worth having. It excludes the Horizons sets, built to enter eternal formats without passing through Standard. It excludes Universes Beyond, even the cards that were Standard-legal. And it excludes Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, the hardest of the three: Wizards owns D&D, but D&D is not part of the Magic multiverse.
There is one door, and only one: a single Horizons card can be brought in to correct the format, or after earning a place in a monthly test event. One card at a time, always with the reason published, never a whole set. Everything else follows the sentence above, because once a format starts bending its defining rule for the card of the month, the rule becomes a list of exceptions.
What is already here
The Canonic list is Modern's, with two things taken out: cards that never passed through Standard — the Horizons sets above all — and cards from outside the Magic multiverse. The banned list is Modern's too, inherited unchanged.
Neither list is maintained by hand. The index is rebuilt straight from Scryfall bulk data, so a card either has a qualifying printing or it does not.
Paste a decklist into the validator and it checks every card, telling you what is legal and, for the rest, why not.
The deck lists are audited against that same index. Each deck shows:
- what it loses compared with its Modern counterpart;
- what remains intact;
- and what cards can replace the pieces that Canonic does not allow.
The metagame follows the same principle: the data comes from published events. None have been published yet, so the page is empty. It fills in on its own as events arrive, and every share is printed with the number of decks behind it.
What this page is for
This is where changes to the format are announced — a set joining the pool, a card entering through a monthly event, a ban inherited from Modern — each with the reasoning and the data behind it, and a public correction if that reasoning later proves wrong.
The next change is already scheduled, and it is the boring kind: Reality Fracture joins on October 2. It qualifies, so it is in — nobody had to decide anything. The announcements worth reading are the other ones.
Where to start
If you already play Modern, start with the validator.
Most Modern decks lose a few pieces and keep working. Some fall apart, and that is worth knowing too: what a deck loses measures how much of it came from cards that never passed through Standard.
If you are starting from scratch, browse the deck lists. They are grouped by what the deck does at the table: aggro, midrange, control, or combo.
No account required
Everything here is public.
You do not need an account to check a card, validate a deck, browse the format, or run a tournament.
The rules are public and the data is auditable. Where a person decides something — which Horizons card comes in — the reason is published next to it.