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Artifact
This artifact doesn't untap during your untap step.
{tap}: Add {colorless}{colorless}{colorless}.
{4 generic}: Untap this artifact.
Part prison, part home.
Ban history
One of only two fast-mana cards Premodern bans (with Mana Vault).
- Banned in Premodern
- On or before May 2018
- On earliest archived list; likely since 2012 founding
- Category
- Power
- Research
- Research confidence: High confidence
- First printed
- First printed in Urza's Legacy (15 February 1999).
Why it’s banned
Fast-mana exception (official framing, 2018).
Official reason
Berlin (June 2018) describes the list's approach as "the choice to allow all fast mana in the card pool, except for Mana Vault and Grim Monolith." No card-specific explanation.
Context (not an official statement)
Analytical/community: three mana for two on turn 2 (or turn 1 with Ancient Tomb) accelerates Tinker/Phyrexian Devourer and other artifact combos (Draftsim). Historically restricted in Vintage / banned in Type 1.5 (1999), banned in Extended (Dec 2003); unrestricted 2009 and unbanned in Legacy 2010.[1, 2, 3, 4]
The story
Grim Monolith (Urza's Legacy, 1999) was restricted in Vintage and banned in Type 1.5 later in 1999 and banned in Extended in 2003, before Wizards freed it in 2009-10. Premodern takes the opposite approach to most fast mana: Berlin wrote in 2018 that the list allows all fast mana except Mana Vault and Grim Monolith. It has been banned on every archived list.
Premodern changes
- On listOn the earliest archived Premodern ban list.[5]
Other formats (Wizards)
Historical context, not Premodern decisions.
- VintageRestricted
- LegacyBanned
- ExtendedBanned
- VintageUnrestricted
- LegacyUnbanned
Related cards
Sources
- Ban list update June 2018 (Martin Berlin, 2018-06-25)
- Draftsim: The Premodern Ban List: All 33 Cards Banned (A.L. Walser, 2026-04-24) — community
- MTG Wiki: Banned and restricted cards/Timeline
- 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)
- 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 Grim Monolith (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 (1)
Every tournament-legal paper printing (no gold-border, World Championship or oversized cards). Hover or tap a row to preview that printing.
