What Was Legal When
The Vintage Banned & Restricted list, on any date since 1994
The interactive timeline needs JavaScript. Every announcement and what it changed is still listed in full further down this page.
Cards restricted in Vintage over time; the ticks under the axis mark what each announcement did. Click or drag anywhere on the chart.
Zoom into a period — detailed timeline
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Drag to pan, ctrl+scroll to zoom. Follows the chart as you scrub.
Published sources list the changes to the Banned & Restricted list — this card restricted, that one unrestricted. None of them list the state on a given day. This does. Drag the chart, scrub the timeline, or press play and watch 49 announcements go by.
The data behind this page is open. It lives in rykerwilliams/type1, which in turn is built on Steve Menendian’s Timeline of Vintage at Eternal Central — the era chart that records what changed, when, and where it was announced. Dates, era names and citations here all come from his work. Go and read it: it has the reasoning behind every decision, which this page does not attempt to reproduce.
Where this comes from
The data is built and verified in the type1 repository, where every announcement is one backdated commit, so its git history is this timeline. A script replays all 49 announcements from January 1994 and checks the result against Scryfall’s live list; it reproduces it exactly.
- Timeline of Vintage (Steve Menendian) — The era chart. Carries the dates, the era names and a link to each announcement.
- MTG Wiki B&R timeline — Used only where the chart does not enumerate a change, such as the first list and the 18 cards of September 1999.
- Wizards of the Coast announcement — Primary source. Linked per announcement where the chart cites one, and for 2025 onward.
- Scryfall — Card identity, original printing, and the live list the replay is checked against.
Two things to know before you trust a date
Announcement and effective dates are not the same thing, and a tournament held between them used the old list. Only some announcements record which of the two their date is; the panel says so for each one rather than implying precision that is not there.
The sources disagree on about a dozen dates. Where they do, the cited source wins and the other claim is shown alongside it. The ordering of announcements is reliable; the exact days are still being pinned down.
The underlying data — 49 announcements
The same record the timeline is built from, and what you get with JavaScript off. It lives in the type1 repo as events.json plus a snapshot per announcement.
| Date | Basis | Changes |
|---|---|---|
| 1994-01-26 | ban Amulet of Quoz; ban Contract from Below; ban Darkpact; ban Demonic Attorney; ban Jeweled Bird; ban Rebirth; ban Shahrazad; ban Timmerian Fiends; restrict Ali from Cairo; restrict Ancestral Recall; restrict Berserk; restrict Black Lotus; restrict Braingeyser; restrict Dingus Egg; restrict Gauntlet of Might; restrict Icy Manipulator; restrict Mox Emerald; restrict Mox Jet; restrict Mox Pearl; restrict Mox Ruby; restrict Mox Sapphire; restrict Orcish Oriflamme; restrict Rukh Egg; restrict Sol Ring; restrict Time Vault; restrict Time Walk; restrict Timetwister | |
| 1994-03-04 | unrestrict Orcish Oriflamme; unrestrict Rukh Egg | |
| 1994-03-23 | ban Time Vault; restrict Channel; restrict Copy Artifact; restrict Demonic Tutor; restrict Regrowth; restrict Wheel of Fortune; unrestrict Icy Manipulator | |
| 1994-05-02 | ban Bronze Tablet; restrict Candelabra of Tawnos; restrict Feldon's Cane; restrict Ivory Tower; restrict Library of Alexandria; unrestrict Dingus Egg; unrestrict Gauntlet of Might | |
| 1994-06-13 | restrict Mishra's Workshop | |
| 1994-08-08 | ban Divine Intervention; ban Tempest Efreet; restrict Chaos Orb; restrict Falling Star; restrict Mind Twist; restrict Mirror Universe; restrict Recall; restrict Sword of the Ages; restrict Underworld Dreams | |
| 1994-10-11 | restrict Maze of Ith | |
| 1994-11-02 | ban Falling Star; restrict Zuran Orb | |
| 1995-04-20 | restrict Balance; restrict Fork | |
| 1995-10-31 | ban Channel; ban Chaos Orb | |
| 1996-01-31 | ban Mind Twist; restrict Black Vise | |
| 1996-03-31 | unban Time Vault; unrestrict Ali from Cairo; unrestrict Black Vise; unrestrict Sword of the Ages | |
| 1996-09-30 | restrict Fastbond | |
| 1997-06-30 | restrict Black Vise | |
| 1997-09-30 | unrestrict Candelabra of Tawnos; unrestrict Copy Artifact; unrestrict Feldon's Cane; unrestrict Mishra's Workshop; unrestrict Zuran Orb | |
| 1998-01-01 | restrict Strip Mine | |
| 1999-01-01 | restrict Stroke of Genius; restrict Tolarian Academy; restrict Windfall | |
| 1999-04-01 | restrict Memory Jar; restrict Time Spiral; unrestrict Maze of Ith | |
| 1999-09-30 | restrict Crop Rotation; restrict Doomsday; restrict Dream Halls; restrict Enlightened Tutor; restrict Frantic Search; restrict Grim Monolith; restrict Hurkyl's Recall; restrict Lotus Petal; restrict Mana Crypt; restrict Mana Vault; restrict Mind Over Matter; restrict Mox Diamond; restrict Mystical Tutor; restrict Tinker; restrict Vampiric Tutor; restrict Voltaic Key; restrict Yawgmoth's Bargain; restrict Yawgmoth's Will; unban Divine Intervention; unban Shahrazad; unrestrict Ivory Tower; unrestrict Mirror Universe; unrestrict Underworld Dreams | |
| 2000-09-30 | restrict Channel; restrict Demonic Consultation; restrict Mind Twist; restrict Necropotence; unban Channel; unban Mind Twist | |
| 2002-01-01 | restrict Fact or Fiction | |
| 2003-03-31 | restrict Earthcraft; restrict Entomb; unrestrict Berserk; unrestrict Hurkyl's Recall; unrestrict Recall | |
| 2003-06-30 | restrict Gush; restrict Mind's Desire | |
| 2003-12-31 | restrict Burning Wish; restrict Chrome Mox; restrict Lion's Eye Diamond | |
| 2004-10-19 | unrestrict Braingeyser; unrestrict Doomsday; unrestrict Earthcraft; unrestrict Fork | |
| 2005-02-19 | restrict Trinisphere; unrestrict Stroke of Genius | |
| 2005-10-19 | restrict Imperial Seal; restrict Personal Tutor; unrestrict Mind Over Matter | |
| 2007-06-19 | restrict Gifts Ungiven; unrestrict Black Vise; unrestrict Gush; unrestrict Mind Twist; unrestrict Voltaic Key | |
| 2007-10-19 | ban Shahrazad | |
| 2008-06-19 | restrict Brainstorm; restrict Flash; restrict Gush; restrict Merchant Scroll; restrict Ponder | |
| 2008-10-01 | restrict Time Vault; unrestrict Chrome Mox; unrestrict Dream Halls; unrestrict Mox Diamond; unrestrict Personal Tutor; unrestrict Time Spiral | |
| 2009-06-18 | restrict Thirst for Knowledge; unrestrict Crop Rotation; unrestrict Enlightened Tutor; unrestrict Entomb; unrestrict Grim Monolith | |
| 2010-09-30 | unrestrict Frantic Search; unrestrict Gush | |
| 2011-09-30 | unrestrict Fact or Fiction | |
| 2012-09-20 | unrestrict Burning Wish | |
| 2013-05-02 | unrestrict Regrowth | |
| 2015-01-22 | restrict Treasure Cruise; unrestrict Gifts Ungiven | |
| 2015-10-01 | restrict Chalice of the Void; restrict Dig Through Time; unrestrict Thirst for Knowledge | |
| 2016-04-07 | restrict Lodestone Golem | |
| 2017-04-27 | restrict Gitaxian Probe; restrict Gush | |
| 2017-08-28 | restrict Monastery Mentor; restrict Thorn of Amethyst; unrestrict Yawgmoth's Bargain | |
| 2019-08-26 | restrict Golgari Grave-Troll; restrict Karn, the Great Creator; restrict Mental Misstep; restrict Mystic Forge; unrestrict Fastbond | |
| 2019-11-14 | restrict Narset, Parter of Veils | |
| 2020-05-17 | ban Lurrus of the Dream-Den | |
| 2020-06-10 | ban Cleanse; ban Crusade; ban Imprison; ban Invoke Prejudice; ban Jihad; ban Pradesh Gypsies; ban Stone-Throwing Devils | |
| 2021-02-15 | unban Lurrus of the Dream-Den | |
| 2024-03-11 | unrestrict Ponder | |
| 2024-08-25 | restrict Urza's Saga; restrict Vexing Bauble | |
| 2026-08-10 | restrict The Fantasticar |