PRIMORDIAL FORMAT

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION

About deck and sideboard rules

  • Do my opponent and I have to play the same set? No.
  • Can I play any set? With your friends, yes. During a Primordial event, no (please refer to the legal sets list).
    • Are Bonus Sheets legals? No.
      • Why not? They don’t have the same set code as their parent edition and aren’t standard legal.
  • Are reprints allowed? Yes.
  • Can I play more than 40 cards in my deck? Yes.
  • Do I have to have 2 mythic rares or rares and 6 uncommons in my deck? Yes.
  • Can I have other mythic rares or rares or uncommons in my sideboard? Yes. However, if you put one of them in your deck between games, you’ll have to put another one out. Also, if you put one out, you’ll have to put another one in (otherwise, your deck will no longer respect the “deck rules” section, as it will not have exactly two 2 mythic rares or rares and exactly 6 uncommons at the beginning of the next game).
  • Can I play 100 cards saying “A deck can have any number of cards named <card name>”? Yes, nothing prevent this type of card to also overrides the Primordial deck-building rules. Just have in mind that playing the same uncommon card 100 times will prevent you from playing any other, since you’ve exceeded the 6 limit (it’s the same for mythic rare and rare cards).
  • Can I play non basic lands? Yes, if there are any in the set you’ve chosen. These lands will occupy a rare, an uncommon or a common slots, depending on their rarity.

About the format

  • Where does the format’s name come from? “Primordial” was chosen for its “things as they were in the beginning, in their initial state” meaning, because Primordial is initially highly inspired by beginner decks. To be honest, that was years ago and it’s not certain that this name would be the one chosen today, but this is how things went
  • Why 40 cards? Building viable decks of 60 (the usual limit for constructed formats) cards within a single set, while imposing additional restrictions on rarities, is complicated (and not very fun). The 40-cards limit (taken from the world of Limited) was more appropriate, while being already familiar to players.
  • Why 2 mythic rares or rares and 6 uncommons? OK, let’s get down to the math. The restrictions applied to rarities come from the ratios that can be found in the original boosters. The idea was to get as close as possible to “how rare a rare card is supposed to be, and how uncommon an uncommon card is supposed to be”. Ignoring exceptions, a booster contains: 10 commons (factor 1.4), 3 uncommons (factor 4.66) and 1 rare (factor 14). Considering that a Primordial deck contains 1 land for every 3 cards (the basic ratio of constructed formats), this leaves us with 26.67 non-land cards (here too, we’re ignoring exceptions, namely non-basic lands, relatively rarely played in the format). Applying the above factors, we obtain:
    • 26.67 / 14 = 1.9 rares (rounded up to 2, so you don’t have to cut out 10% of your second rare… hilarious, right?)
    • 26.67 / 4.66 = 5.72 uncommons (rounded up to 6)
    • 26.67 / 1.4 = 19.05 (rounded up to… as many as you like)
  • What if the rarity ratios in the boosters change? Will the format have to change too? Not necessarily. The aim of the format is not to be “boosters compliant”, these ratios simply served as an initial reference. The format now has a life of its own.
  • Why are the rare x1, the uncommons x2 and the commons x4? To be honest, this part is arbitrary. It was decided that uncommons should be twice as easy to draw as rares, and commons twice as easy to draw as uncommons.
  • Wouldn’t it be better if <insert any other ratio or limit>? Maybe yes, maybe no. For a while, we tested playing Primordial with x3 commons, and the community didn’t particularly like or dislike the change (also, aggro decks and small sets were in a poor position). In the end, wouldn’t Standard be better if decks were composed of 55 cards, or if cards were limited to 2 copies? The choices presented above have the merit of being based on existing references or, at the very least, of being coherent. The most important thing then is to ensure stability (players generally don’t like their existing decks to become unplayable).
  • This format can’t be perfect. What are its flaws? In all transparency, here are the main flaws:
    • Primordial isn’t balanced. Far from it, and for two reasons. The first is that Power Creep is real. New editions tend to be always stronger, one after the other. The second reason is that we don’t have enough data to build the perfect banlist. We’ve only recently started to monitor the state of the meta more closely. You’ll find this information in ⁠known-meta channel on our Discord server.
    • There are relatively few Primordial players in the world.
    • Primordial is run by an average guy on his Sunday afternoons.