Premodern Chronicles

Bwg Control

1st Place · LA Open 2026 · Santiago, Portugal · 2026-08-01 · 43 players

Bwg Control is a four-color with a red splash Magic: The Gathering Premodern deck that finished 1st of 43 players at LA Open 2026 in Santiago, Portugal, on 1 August 2026. Its 60-card mainboard runs 19 creatures, 18 instants and sorceries, 2 artifacts and enchantments and 21 lands, with a 15-card sideboard.

Key cards: Birds of Paradise, Shadowmage Infiltrator, Lightning Bolt and Lightning Angel.

Mainboard

Sideboard

Anno MMXXVI · Estd. 1995–2003

The Premodern Chronicles

Tournament decklists, card prices and spicy brews from Premodern, the Magic format for cards from 1995 to 2003.

Fresh from the tables

All decks
Anno MMXXVI · Estd. 1995–2003

Premodern Decks

Every deck in the archive: winning and Top 8 decklists from Premodern tournaments and Magic Online leagues around the world, with full mainboards and sideboards.

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The Format

What is Premodern?

Premodern is a Magic: The Gathering format played with cards from Fourth Edition through Scourge (1995–2003), the game's golden era. It captures the feel of early competitive Magic: iconic old-border cards, meaningful decisions and a rich, interactive metagame, free of the power creep of later sets.

1995 — 2003

How it plays

Premodern doesn't rotate and never gets new cards, so decks change when the banlist does or when someone finds a use for an old card. Survival of the Fittest, for example, is banned in Legacy but legal here, and Full English Breakfast is built around it. Our tier list has aggro like Goblins and Sligh, control like Landstill and Stasis, combo like Replenish and Enchantress, and midrange like The Rock.

Looking for a first deck? Our guide to your first Premodern deck suggests five that are easy to learn, with real tournament lists and prices.

AggroControlComboMidrange
Deck construction 60 card main deck (min.) 15 card sideboard (max.) 4 copies per card (basics excepted)

Legal Sets

29 expansions · 1995–2003

A card is legal as long as its name appears in one of these sets. (Reprints in newer sets are legal too. We show the old-frame printing everywhere except on the budget page, which shows both.)

1995–96
Fourth Edition
Ice Age
Chronicles
Homelands
Alliances
Mirage
Visions
1997–98
Fifth Edition
Weatherlight
Tempest
Stronghold
Exodus
Urza's Saga
1999–00
Urza's Legacy
Sixth Edition
Urza's Destiny
Mercadian Masques
Nemesis
Prophecy
Invasion
2001–02
Planeshift
Seventh Edition
Apocalypse
Odyssey
Torment
Judgment
Onslaught
2003
Legions
Scourge

Current Banlist

33 cards

Most of these made games too fast or too one-sided. Brainstorm and Force of Will are banned so blue decks play differently than in Legacy, and the ante cards are obviously banned.

Why each card is banned, and every change since 2018 →

Martin Berlin keeps the banlist, with input from the community, and announces changes on premodernmagic.com.

← What is Premodern?
The Format

Premodern Banlist

33 cards are banned in Premodern. The list is kept by Martin Berlin, who created the format in 2012, with input from the community, and every change is announced on premodernmagic.com. Below: what each card does that got it banned, and every change since 2018.

Last change

Reports

Premodern Articles

Monthly metagame reports, tournament roundups and price reports, built on our archive of tournament decks and our daily price tracking.

From the Brewer's Cauldron

Spicy Brews

Premodern decks the tier list leaves out, built around cards like Battle of Wits, Didgeridoo or Horn of Greed.

Handle with oven mitts
Competitive on a Budget

Budget Premodern Decks

Every competitive deck you can build for under $500, priced card by card from a real tournament list, with reprints and in the original printings.

The Card Index

Premodern Card List

Every card from the tournament decks, spicy brews and archetype guides we track, each with its printing, price and the decks that play it.

Premodern Staples

The most played cards across the tournament decks and archetypes we track. Maindeck and sideboard cards are counted in separate lists, so a hate card that sits in half the sideboards doesn't get mixed up with the cards decks are built around.

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The Metagame

Premodern Tier List

Card art © Wizards of the Coast, shown in the old-frame printing.

Get in touch

Contact

A decklist with a wrong card, a tournament result we have missed, a broken link, or anything else. Leave your email address so we can get back to you.

Want to work together? Content creators, artists, stores and tournament organizers are welcome to send us an idea. We are also open to sponsors: the site has 5,300+ visitors a month, and @premodern_chronicles has 5,000+ followers on Instagram.

Sent to our own server, no third party involved. Details in About & Legal. Prefer Instagram? @premodern_chronicles.

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Everything on this site is free to use: decklists, deck guides, card prices and the tournament calendar. Tips from readers help pay for the server.

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– Marvin, @premodern_chronicles
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The Most Iconic
Cards in Premodern

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About

About & Legal

Premodern Chronicles is an independent, non-commercial archive of Magic: The Gathering Premodern tournament results: winning decklists, a metagame tier list with deck guides, card prices and the banlist. Card images and card data come from Scryfall.

Fan Content Policy

Premodern Chronicles is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Wizards of the Coast Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.

Trademarks

Magic: The Gathering, its card names, card images, and mana symbols are trademarks and copyrights of Wizards of the Coast LLC. Premodern Chronicles is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC.

Get in touch

Corrections to a decklist, a tournament result we have missed, or anything else: use the contact form or reach us on Instagram. What you send through the form is stored on our own server (message, reply address, the page it was sent from, and a shortened hash of your IP address to limit abuse) for as long as it takes to deal with it, and is forwarded to us as a private notification. Nothing is shared with third parties.