After a growing amount of chatter as people waited for the official announcement of the Modern format, today Wizards announced the Modern format officially while also announcing that the format would replace Extended at Pro Tour Philly in September. The move upset some pros, such as Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa who tweeted saying, "BUT I ALREADY HAD A DECK :((((((((((("

Obviously it is a major curve ball to pros who were already in the midst of developing and testing for the upcoming event, but to the non-pros it was met with major excitement as it means the Pro Tour will no longer feature a format that is almost universally despised as the red-headed step child of constructed.

The Modern banned list is rather savage, cutting out just about every format defining deck in the history of the sets contained in Standard.

• Ancestral Vision
• Ancient Den
• Bitterblossom
• Chrome Mox
• Dark Depths
• Dread Return
• Glimpse of Nature
• Golgari Grave-Troll
• Great Furnace
• Hypergenesis
• Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• Mental Misstep
• Seat of the Synod
• Sensei's Divining Top
• Skullclamp
• Stoneforge Mystic
• Sword of the Meek
• Tree of Tales
• Umezawa's Jitte
• Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
• Vault of Whispers

From Affinity to Faeries to Cawblade and Hypergenesis, Modern is wide open and ripe for the exploration. Prepare for a flood of articles with brews and explorations of the format in the weeks leading up to and following Pro Tour Philly.

Will this mean Pro Tour Qualifiers in the format? Possibly, no official word yet.

Official source.

Note: The Modern logo we use in this article is a mockup done by Trick Jarrett in Photoshop. It is not official in any way and uses Wizards' copyrighted Mirrodin logo.