Summary

Effective Date: Monday, June 29th, 2026
Next B&R: August 21st, 2026

Summary: New to Proxia's Vault, we are releasing Endura, Reimagined. Ranger Strides moves up to Category 3 and becomes banned. Clarent, Reimagined is nerfed and Reciprocity, Dorumegia's Call receives a rework.

The watchlists only contain cards that were either previously legal in that format's watchlist or are currently legal for that format. There are currently two watchlists: Standard and Pantheon.

See the entire list of banned cards here.

Proxia’s Vault

We are proud to add Endura, Reimagined to the arsenal of regalia within Proxia's Vault. Similar to the treatment we have given Lorraine's Clarent, Rai can now access a more refined version of his personal scepter. This new Endura helps feed into Rai's identity and interaction with enlighten counters, being able to add utility to the typical card draw enlighten counters are used for.

Clarent, Reimagined, being an easy way to banish extra Sword Regalia from the material deck, synergises well with Crux Lorraine's game plan. Although this was intentional, this cost was too low for how impactful the card was in specific non-combat damage matchups. In addition, the crux strategies that reset the regalia's durability provided extended utility in the late game. Because of this, we're changing the activated ability's effect to only persistently prevent 1 damage until end of turn rather than 2.

We have redesigned Reciprocity in several respects with the goal of making the domain payoff less polarizing, while increasing the strength of the card overall. The memory cost is decreased to 0 from 1, and the card is given an activation ability with a scaling reserve cost as opposed to an all-or-nothing threshold condition. We've adjusted the activated ability as well by adding a Level 2+ restriction, removing the need to remove a durability counter as a cost, and removing the requirement of needing to control two domains to summon an Automaton Drone token. These particular changes aim to shift the strength of the card towards the mid and late game, and to make it feel less bad to use Reciprocity for at least one attack (it's a sword after all).

Standard Watchlist

Category 3

This category will contain all cards that are banned and restricted, proving to be too powerful or too impactful and limiting tournament deck diversity and meta health in Standard. Currently, Baby Green Slime, Carpsong Coda, Crystal of Empowerment, Corhazi Outlook, Dissonant Fractal, Erupting Rhapsody, Grim Pastiche, Icebound Slam, Lost in Thought, Sword of Avarice, Ranger Strides, Reckless Conversion, Rile the Abyss, and Unmake Duality are banned.

Ranger Strides has been moved to Category 3. This card allowed the Water Aetherwing Diana deck to be able to spike damage like an aggro deck without "burning" out resources, which is the main downside that many aggro decks face. There were concerns that aggro decks would be under-represented if Water Aetherwing Diana left the meta or stopped acting like one. However, with the over-representation of this deck in previous large events this season, it's time to give this deck a break and allow an opportunity to shift the meta in terms of deck speed representation for the rest of the season. We still believe that aggro decks play an important part in the meta, and we will continue to closely monitor the balance of deck speed representation as the meta shifts and as new cards release.

Category 2

This category contains cards that we consider very problematic and are heavily watched for potential future legality changes and category shifts. This category currently has four cards: Baby Gray Slime, Chalice of Blood, Crystalline Mirror, and Mercenary's Blade.

Category 1

This category consists of cards that we don’t consider problematic in the current environment, but are unhealthy for future balance and game design space. This category currently has four cards: Alkahest, Dream Fairy, Incandescent Reliquary, and Topsy Decree.

Pantheon Watchlist

Category 3

This category will contain all cards that are banned and restricted, proving to be too powerful or too impactful and limiting tournament deck diversity and meta health in Standard. There are no cards here yet! Hooray!

Category 2

This category contains cards that we consider very problematic and are heavily watched for potential future legality changes and category shifts. There are no cards here yet! Yahoo!

Category 1

This category consists of cards that we don’t consider problematic in the current environment, but are unhealthy for future balance and game design space. There are no cards here yet! Yippee!

That's all for this B&R update! The next B&R will be on August 21st, 2026.