Five-Minute Modern – The New Contraption

Posted on May 27, 2026

Greetings Magic Online Modern mavens! We have a treat for you to enjoy starting next Wednesday, June 3 – our latest Contraption format: Five-Minute Modern!

Five Minute Modern (or 5MM for short) is Magic’s equivalent of Blitz Chess – just shuffle up and go …

• Five minutes on each player’s timer
• Modern (with two* extra bans), Best-of-One
• No access to sideboards

It sounds so simple and familiar – and that’s the point: take your favorite Modern decks for a quick spin. Whether it’s Open Play or competitive matches, Five-Minute Modern promises a lot of fun in a little bit of time!

Modern, Managed

One issue we have run into with some Contraption formats is the amount of deck brewing that was required was too high (looking at you, Two-Year Standard). We are hopeful that by sticking to our most popular Constructed format, most existing Modern deck archetypes will translate over to Best-of-One easily.

With the depth of the Modern card pool, there are a ton of tools at your disposal. The flex spots of stock decklists serve as your toolbox to fight linear decks. You can’t defend against everything in this environment. While the normal Modern metagame evolves steadily over time, Five-Minute Modern decks must react to the newest innovations quickly.

Minutes Matter

Besides the player across the digital table, your other opponent is this format is the clock. Your timer starts in the red and stays there, so you’ll need a deck that can execute its plan efficiently under time pressure.

A lot of decks will aim for speed to ensure enough time to maneuver if the game stalls out – think of combo decks, powerful aggressive builds, and burn. The good news is that Modern has those in spades.

Control archetypes aren’t a big player in the regular Modern metagame, but turtling up with the aid of the clock will be the goal of some players. The thrill of succeeding against this “Breakthrough and Conquer” style of game can be a memorable experience across Magic. Setting up this kind of boss-battle scenario is part of the experimental nature of the format.

We know that click-heavy decks or super-complex decks may be at a disadvantage in 5MM depending on their pilots. The clock is part of the game on Magic Online, so arguments of “this wouldn’t happen in tabletop” carry no weight. Opponents are never obliged to concede to an infinite combo.

For example, you can choose to play Splinter Twin. But if you can’t fully execute the combo to complete a lethal attack before time expires, you still lose.  We considered banning pieces of this deck to avoid feel-bads but ultimately decided to let confident players show their skills with the relative low stakes involved.

Indeed, this is not a sharks-only pool – it represents a chance to level yourself up within Magic Online through mastering the game’s UI (auto-yields on triggers, setting stops, hotkeys). If you haven’t seen our refreshed Game Guide with tips and tricks, check it out!

From Modern to Contraption

It’s easy to port your favorite Modern deck into the Contraption section to play Five-Minute Modern.

Simply right-click the deck name from the list on the left side of the Collection scene, then choose Open a new copy of this deck. It will open a new copy within the Modern section. To convert it to Contraption, click Settings (gear icon) just above the main deck and adjust the format.

If you are importing a Modern decklist, be sure to set Contraption as the format before clicking OK

Reminder: You have to remove all cards from the sideboard prior to joining a 5MM match.

5MM Banned List

To ensure our goal of games reaching at least Turn 4, we are going to add two cards to Modern’s normal Banned List to use for Five-Minute Modern.

Neoform and Ruby Medallion will be on the bench from the start as they enable consistent Turn 3 kills.

Additionally, cards that are primarily used to access cards outside the game are on the 5MM Banned List:

• Coax from the Blind Eternities
• Glittering Wish
• Mastermind's Acquisition
• Research/Development
• This is here because we couldn’t only ban half the card
• Spawnsire of Ulamog
• Wish

Conversely, other cards have some abilities beyond those that tutor outside the game. This group remains legal in the format:

We will be paying close attention to public sentiment about the format from the get-go. We do reserve the right to emergency-ban problematic cards, though we aim to avoid that.

The League switchover on June 23 will be our one planned window to adjust the 5MM Banned List during the six-week period.

Events Plan

Leagues

Taking cues from recent Contraption formats, we are going to stick to one consistent League type from start to finish. Because it’s Best-of-One, the League experience will consist of 6 single-game rounds for 6 Event Tickets or 60 Play Points. Here’s the prize breakdown:

• 6-0 – 180 Play Points, 4 Treasure Chests, and 2 MOCS Season 2 QPs
• 5-1 – 120 Play Points, 1 Treasure Chest, and 1 MOCS Season 2 QP
• 4-2 – 100 Play Points
• 3-3 – 40 Play Points

We will have two separate Leagues – the first runs for 3 weeks from June 3-23. At that point, we’ll introduce the new set into the equation and announce any changes to the 5MM Banned List. Then, we’ll run another 3-week League from June 23-July 15 to finish things up.

2-Player Queue

There will also be a single-game, 2-player queue available with the same entry & prize as our Best-of-Three two-player queues – 2 Event Tickets or 20 Play Points for entry, with a 30 & 5 Play Point split between the winner and loser.

Challenge-Lite

We won’t have any full Challenge-level events for this format, but we will look to offer some type of traditional tournament with Top 8 after the first couple of weeks. Being Best-of-One will make these a lot speedier than normal, so there’s some room for experimentation here too – stay tuned!

The Battles Begin Soon

Gather up your best strategies and we’ll see you on the battlefield – tick tock!