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Sorcery
Until end of turn, any time you could activate a mana ability, you may pay 1 life. If you do, add {colorless}.
Ban history
Life-for-mana; Channel-Fireball was Magic's first infamous combo.
- Banned in Premodern
- On or before May 2018
- On earliest archived list; likely since 2012 founding
- Category
- Power
- Research
- Research confidence: Medium confidence
- First printed
- First printed in Limited Edition Alpha (5 August 1993); Premodern-legal via Fourth Edition.
Why it’s banned
Power level (no published rationale).
Official reason
No official reason published.
Community & historical context (not an official statement)
Analytical/community: Channel + Fireball is a classic one-card-plus-payoff kill, reachable in Premodern with fast mana such as Lotus Petal, Mox Diamond and Birds of Paradise (Draftsim; Chronicles). Channel-Fireball is historically one of Magic's first broken combos and featured in the first World Championship finals (Eternal Central).[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The story
Channel (Alpha, 1993; Premodern-legal via Fourth Edition) was restricted in March 1994 and banned in Type 1 and Type 2 in November 1995, largely because of the Channel-Fireball kill. It was later banned in Type 1.5 and Extended and only returned to Vintage as a restricted card in 2000. Premodern has banned it on every archived list since 2018 without a published reason; community writers note Fireball and fast mana are both legal in the pool.
Premodern changes
- On listOn the earliest archived Premodern ban list.[6]
Other formats (Wizards)
Historical context, not Premodern decisions.
- Vintagedominant era
- VintageRestricted
- StandardRestricted
- VintageBanned
- StandardBanned
- LegacyBanned
- ExtendedBanned
- VintageRestricted
Related cards
Sources
- Draftsim: The Premodern Ban List: All 33 Cards Banned (A.L. Walser, 2026-04-24) — community
- Premodern Chronicles: Premodern Banlist (2026) — community
- Eternal Central: Schools of Magic: History of Vintage – 1998
- Hipsters of the Coast: Foolish Consistency (2020)
- MTGBans.info per-card timelines (effective dates; site's AI-generated rationales NOT used)
- Wayback: premodernmagic.com/banned-watched/ 2018-05-06 (34 banned, 5 watched)
- MTG Wiki: Banned and restricted cards/Timeline
- 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 Channel (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.
