Arcum's Astrolabe

Standard	Not Legal
Pioneer	Not Legal
Modern	Banned since July 13, 2020
Legacy	Banned since February 15, 2021
Vintage	Never Banned
Commander	Never Banned
Pauper	Banned since October 25, 2019
Oathbreaker	Never Banned
Extended	Not Legal

View on Scryfall

Timeline

• June 14, 2019 - Released
• October 25, 2019 - Status changed to Banned in Pauper
• July 13, 2020 - Status changed to Banned in Modern
• February 15, 2021 - Status changed to Banned in Legacy

Rationale

The banning of *Arcum's Astrolabe* is rooted in its ability to dramatically enhance mana consistency and color fixing across various competitive formats. In Pauper, the card fundamentally altered multicolor mana bases, providing an easy and powerful source of color fixing that, combined with its low cost and repeatable artifact nature, fueled high-powered synergy decks. Similarly, in Modern, the card enables powerful multicolor strategies by circumventing typical mana base restrictions, providing excellent foundational mana for the rest of the game while also contributing to card advantage. In Legacy, its impact was noted for allowing mana bases to achieve both high color flexibility and resilience to mana denial at a low cost, which restricted metagame diversity by concentrating power in a narrow class of decks.

This summary was generated by gemma4 on September 14, 2026. It has not yet been reviewed by a human editor and may contain some inaccuracies. Learn more.

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