Retro Magic formats are not new, but the community that builds and runs them keeps growing, and two formats sit at the center of that scene: Old School 93/94 and Premodern. Both are entirely player-created and maintained, and both explicitly reject rotating, ever-expanding card pools in favor of something fixed and stable.
Despite that shared philosophy, the two formats feel quite different to actually play and collect for. Old School is narrower and more period-strict, while Premodern covers a much wider card pool with looser printing requirements.
Premodern's own creator, Martin Berlin, has been direct about the connection: he built Premodern specifically to bridge the gap between Old School and Modern, using Old School as a direct inspiration for the community-run model.
This guide compares the two formats across card pool, cost, and overall playstyle to help decide which one, or both, is worth building for.
Old School 93/94 covers cards printed in Magic's earliest sets, roughly Alpha through Fallen Empires, spanning 1993 and 1994 specifically. Premodern's window is both later and much wider, covering Fourth Edition through Scourge, or 1995 through 2003.
That difference in scope matters enormously for deckbuilding: Old School's card pool is small enough that its entire card list is genuinely learnable, while Premodern's pool spans nearly a decade of sets and mechanical design shifts.
Old School 93/94 generally requires period-accurate printings of each card, meaning a deck needs to be built from the specific original sets it references, not just any legal reprint. Premodern has no such requirement; any printing or frame of a Premodern-legal card is acceptable, including modern reprints.
This single difference makes Premodern dramatically more accessible to build, since a player is not restricted to sourcing cards from decades-old specific print runs.
Old School's period-accurate printing requirement tends to push prices higher for equivalent cards, since supply of the earliest printings specifically is far more limited than supply of a card across all its printings combined. Premodern's acceptance of any printing, plus its gold-border hack for Reserved List staples, keeps entry costs comparatively lower.
That said, both formats include genuinely expensive Reserved List staples at their competitive ceiling, so neither format is universally cheap; the difference shows up more clearly at the budget end of deckbuilding.
Old School's earliest-era card pool includes some notoriously powerful and swingy cards from Magic's first few sets, including several now-banned effects, giving the format a different rhythm than Premodern's more actively curated 33-card ban list. Premodern's community has spent over a decade tuning its bans specifically to keep aggro, midrange, and combo in balance.
Both formats reward deep format knowledge over raw deck power, but Premodern's larger card pool generally supports a wider range of viable archetypes than Old School's smaller one.
Premodern has grown rapidly in recent years, with national championships running since 2021 and official Magic Online support added in late 2025. Old School has its own dedicated regional events and a passionate following, particularly in parts of Europe where the format originated.
Neither format has fully eclipsed the other, and many players in this space participate in both, treating them as complementary rather than competing hobbies.
A player drawn to the absolute earliest era of Magic's aesthetic and history, and willing to source period-accurate printings, will likely enjoy Old School more directly. A player who wants a wider, more actively balanced competitive format without period-printing requirements will generally find Premodern the more approachable starting point.
Many collectors ultimately end up building for both, since the two formats share enough overlapping staples that a Premodern collection often provides a useful head start toward an eventual Old School build. Individual high-value staples shared between both formats are worth a semi-rigid card holder regardless of which one they end up in.
Old School's community places heavy emphasis on the visual authenticity of a deck, often favoring beat-up, era-correct cards with real character over pristine modern reprints. Premodern's culture cares more about game integrity and accessible printings than matching a specific historical look.
Neither approach is objectively correct, but knowing which culture a given local playgroup leans toward can save a new player from an awkward mismatch between their deck's aesthetics and the group's unwritten expectations.
Roughly 1993 and 1994, from Alpha through Fallen Empires.
No, any printing or frame of a legal card is acceptable.
Old School 93/94 directly inspired Premodern's creator, Martin Berlin.
Premodern tends to be more accessible thanks to looser printing requirements and the gold-border hack.
Whichever retro format you settle on, keep valuable original-era pulls organized in a EVORETRO Slab Binder rather than mixed loosely with newer reprints.
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