Newly released card sets become tournament legal for sanctioned, rated tournaments on the following dates:
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November 14, 2025 |
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January 16, 2026 |
For official Prerelease tournaments only, new sets are legal for use before the official format legal date. In these cases, any announced rules updates shall be in effect at these tournaments, including informal explanations of new rules and mechanics. Judges may apply additional rules that they believe will be updated.
Cards are essentially legal for their respective formats when you have them legally. Typically this means Prerelease Weekend. However it is possible that prerelease tournaments are available before the release. This is uncommon now, but was common in the past. Any changes to the rule, whether big or small, are in effect at the Prerelease tournament even though they aren’t officially brought into effect until the release of the set. Judges applying rules they believe will be updated should be incredibly obvious rules additions, such as allowing masterpieces to be played without a legal magic border.
These dates may be subject to change. Any changes will be announced at http://www.magicthegathering.com.
This clause is unlikely to ever be relevant, but it’s here in case it’s ever needed.