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Instant
Force of Will
Banned3 generic, blue, blueAlliances #28Banned in Premodern (format identity) · why?
Instant
You may pay 1 life and exile a blue card from your hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Counter target spell.
Ban history
Never banned by Wizards anywhere — banned in Premodern purely for format identity.
- Banned in Premodern
- On or before May 2018
- On earliest archived list; likely since 2012 founding
- Category
- Format identity
- Research
- Research confidence: High confidence
- First printed
- First printed in Alliances (10 June 1996).
Why it’s banned
Format identity (official): banned as a card dominant in other formats, to leave room for other cards and make Premodern distinct.
Official reason
“some cards that are dominant in other formats are banned in Premodern (e.g. Brainstorm and Force of Will) in order to leave room for other cards to prosper, and to make the format distinct from others.”
Context (not an official statement)
Force of Will has never been banned or restricted in Standard, Extended, Legacy or Vintage (no entries in the MTG Wiki B&R timeline; MTGBans shows only its release). It is a defining Legacy card; Rosewater notes it was designed to stop threats before a player could cast normal counterspells. Berlin has said Premodern's pool excludes 'the strongest Legacy cards' (interview).[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
The story
Force of Will (Alliances, June 1996) is the original free counterspell and a pillar of Legacy, yet Wizards has never banned or restricted it in any major constructed format. Premodern bans it on purpose: the official site lists it with Brainstorm as a card dominant in other formats, banned so other cards can prosper and the format stays distinct. It appears on every archived Premodern ban list since 2018.
Premodern changes
- On listOn the earliest archived Premodern ban list.[7]
Other formats (Wizards)
Related cards
Sources
- premodernmagic.com About / History / Rules (main template)
- Mark Rosewater, 'Free Play' (Wizards, 2002-08-19)
- MTGBans.info per-card timelines (effective dates; site's AI-generated rationales NOT used)
- MTG Wiki: Banned and restricted cards/Timeline
- CMUS.cz interview with Martin Berlin (Lukáš Král, 2025-10-21, Czech)
- Draftsim: The Premodern Ban List: All 33 Cards Banned (A.L. Walser, 2026-04-24) — community
- Wayback: premodernmagic.com/banned-watched/ 2018-05-06 (34 banned, 5 watched)
- Scryfall card data (printings, release dates)
- premodernmagic.com legal sets endpoint
Research as of 18 October 2026.
In our decks
Not in any of our curated decklists yet. Find similar cards.
Played in tournaments
Share of published Premodern decklists that play Force of Will (main or sideboard): 2,950 lists from paper events and MTGO in the last 90 days, through .
Not seen in any of the 2,950 tournament lists from the last 90 days. Browse the meta.
Printings (12)
Every tournament-legal paper printing (no gold-border, World Championship or oversized cards). Hover or tap a row to preview that printing.
