Summary

Effective Date: Monday, September 15th, 2025
Next B&R: October 27th, 2025.

Summary: Rile the Abyss has been moved to category 3 and is now banned. Purifying Thurible is removed from Proxia’s Vault and therefore no longer legal for play until the release of Phantom Monarchs.

The Watchlist only contains cards that were either previously legal in the Standard format or are currently legal for Standard.

See the entire list of banned cards here.

Proxia's Vault

Purifying Thurible

One of the main reasons we inserted Thurible into Proxia's Vault early was owing to what we felt was a necessity to increase the interactions against graveyard strategies, with a high focus against the widespread Rile the Abyss packages in the meta. Now that we are banning Rile the Abyss, we have decided to remove Thurible, as well. Thurible will be back on the release of Phantom Monarchs.

As a reminder, Proxia's Vault is a new way we're addressing specific meta issues by releasing cards that players are allowed to proxy, even for use in competitive events. Proxia's Vault is being updated to allow cards to be proxied indefinitely as long as the card is in Proxia's Vault. The policy guide will be updated accordingly. Read about the Proxia's Vault policy here:

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. Currently, Baby Gray Slime, Crystal of Empowerment, Corhazi Outlook, Dissonant Fractal, Erupting Rhapsody, Icebound Slam, Lost in Thought, Sword of Avarice, Reckless Conversion, and Rile the Abyss are banned.

Rile the Abyss is a card we've paid very close attention to since the release of Distorted Reflections, and has several reasons we'll cover that went into the considerations for its ban. Firstly, we observed the community sentiment towards rile and factored this into our considerations. In the past, we have banned cards that, while not necessarily unhealthy in other respects, do generate play patterns that create points of frustration for players in various ways. For Rile, we've noted a popular sentiment that it may decrease the skill expression of players in the matchup and makes games more dependent on luck. We want to provide an environment for the game where skill expression is valued and rewarded.

Secondly, we appreciated the emergence of Level 3 decks that incorporated the Rile package and thought this was healthy for the meta. However, we believe that these decks can still exist and perform well without Rile the Abyss.

Thirdly, we are electing to ban Rile now as opposed to an earlier or later ban. This reason comes in two parts: On one hand, we didn't want to ban the card so quickly going into Boston and Taipei; on the other hand, we wanted to ensure that players had enough time in the remainder of the season to create new decks and test new ideas as we move along towards our season's capstone at Akihabara. We respect the time players put into the game, and we want to ensure that players have sufficient time to prepare.

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 two cards as Rile has moved to Category 3.

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.

That's all for this B&R update! This B&R will go into effect September 15th, and the next update will be on October 27th, 2025, following Ascent Niagara.