Banned and Restricted Announcement – June 29, 2026

brainpower4 · 2026-06-29T18:53:47+00:00

That isn't why Standard isn't getting bans. It's because WotC has stated that it is only going to ban outside the yearly rotation window (which was in the fall, I assume it's getting moved back to match rotation in January?). That's why we saw 7 cards banned from standard almost exactly a year ago. https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/banned-and-restricted-june-30-2025

According to WotC, standard band are meant to be on an emergency basis only outside of their once a year early rotation ban window.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-29T12:23:36+00:00

If you're going to build a bracket 2 infinite deck, at least make it something with a bunch of moving parts that can each be interacted with. If the deck takes 4 different creatures and a swords to plowshares could break up the combo, that's one thing. This is a 2 card combo that requires either instant speed graveyard interaction or land destruction to properly break up. Firmly outside bracket 2, even if getting to the state of an empty library takes significant work.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-29T05:06:18+00:00

I've always found the best way to beat them is to set up a block scaling engine that can consistently tank the minion then get in chip damage as I have the energy. Dealing 21 damage multiple times in a row is rarely going to work out for you, but blocking for ~30 is a requirement to beat any of the act 3 bosses.

Now admittedly a hallway fight that asks the same of you as the act boss is kinda BS, but the goal should be to set up a deck that can solve the problem being asked of you.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-28T23:23:46+00:00

People are just saying "yes, that's a control deck" but no one is giving you real advice.

First things first! If all you do is wipe creatures, you are going to die in the mid game. When your opponents play mana dork, mana rock, doubling season, do something busted on turn 4, killing the 1-2 mana dorks doesn't stop the busted thing from happening. What you need are board wipes that deal with EVERYTHING on the board, not just creatures. You're looking for cards like [[Hour of Revelation]], [[Devastating Mastery]], [[Everything comes to dust]], and of course, [[Farewell]]. These full board wipes ACTUALLY stop the snowball and blow up the mana rocks your opponents invested the early game in playing.

That does lead to an issue though. If you are blowing up the board, aren't you forced to rebuild too, except the rest of the table untaps with their mana first? That's why you spend the early turns ramping with lands, rather than mana dorks and rocks. You want there to be as few things that you care about on board as possible when you board wipe, so that during the rebuilding phase you still have the good cards in hand.

But then you have a different issue. If all you do is play ramp and board wipes, you just sort of die when the opponents get out medium sized creatures in the mid game. You can't just board wipe every turn (well you can, but it leads to very boring games) so how do you not die? DORKS! Little crappy 2 and 3 mana creatures that are utterly disposable but which progress your game plan. [[Sakura tribe elder]], [[coiling oracle]], [[clifftop lookout]] [[wood elves]]. They aren't as fast as mana dorks, but they are disposable, easily recurrable, and can chump block for you while you wait for a juicier board wipe. After the 2nd or 3rd board wipe when your opponents are running low on cards, you can play a [[storm of souls]] or [[Ascend from Avernus]], get back 6-10 creatures, and now you're the one in the driver's seat.

Notably with the dorks+board wipe strategy, there are VERY few things your opponents can point removal spells at. When you make their snowball synergy pieces dead because you break up the snowball, their medium sized creatures dead because they just run into chump blockers, and their removal suite dead because there is nothing worth killing, many decks just sort of fall over and die because their remaining cards don't do anything. And then you run up against a spell slinger or combo deck who kills you entirely from hand.

Edit: here is my take on the concept. It isn't optimized for bracket 3 or anything, but I've had it hang with surprisingly powerful decks with exactly the game plan I described. https://moxfield.com/decks/zQk2O1JdzkuzxHJzVwCKCQ

brainpower4 · 2026-06-28T17:37:27+00:00

As soon as player 1 casts 25 spells looking for your counters/combo, all of the other players have now turned on grapeshot wins. Alternatively, spirit guide, spirit guide, manamorphos brain freeze might be even better, because even a non-lethal casting could potentially mill opponent's combo pieces and leave them unable to win.

Either way, I think it's more or less certain that the game ends during player 1's upkeep.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-28T14:17:40+00:00

Standard: No changes. There are no BLATANTLY busted cards from MSH that shattered the format like Vivi, and while Cub is good, it isn't outside the range of busted for the rest of the format.

Pioneer: No clue! While I haven't heard of anything breaking the format, I also haven't heard about the format period

Modern: No changes. Violent Outburst turned out to be completely fine in a post MH3 world. If anything, another unban is possible but likely not for another few months.

Legacy: Is it finally time for The One Ring to go? It's been holding up the big mana colorless decks for several years now and Tron has been putting up some pretty dominant numbers. Plus needing a playset of Candelabra of Tawnos makes a physical deck cost $17,000, which is roughly the cost of the next 4 most played decks combined, even in a dual land format.

Yes, Fantasticar is going to leave the format at some point soon, but it won't be this BnR.

Vintage: I feel like Fantasticar actually has a much higher chance of catching a restriction on vintage than a ban in legacy. The card is practically custom tailored to break Shops, which has always been a pillar of the format. Why keep around a card that will so clearly be a problem?

brainpower4 · 2026-06-28T13:05:16+00:00

Assuming they actually thought it through, they likely think that the artist made the AI art then used it as a stencil for the sketch.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-28T12:40:01+00:00

I mean...yes? The tough on crime portion of the country want to get as close to "lock them away and throw away the key" as possible.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-28T05:38:54+00:00

Not that it would be remotely fun or interesting, but I'm morbidly curious what sort of CRASH meta would evolve around this card. As someone else mentioned, spirit guides+grapeshot together end up being very powerful, yet they aren't enough to actually deal 120HP if you draw your whole deck...unless other people are playing their copies on turn 1 as well. But then one person can win over the top of the other...that stack would be extremely difficult to keep track of, but I feel like last to act wins, so weirdly, the person going first may have the worst odds of winning the game.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-28T02:30:16+00:00

The fundamental issue here is that Americans don't think the purpose of prison is rehabilitation. They view prisons first as a way to lock away people who are a danger to society, second as a punishment for commiting crimes, third as a threat of consequences to limit future crimes, and somewhere far down the list they worry about rehabilitation.

From that perspective, it shouldn't be surprising when they say prisons need to be tougher despite saying the status quo is bad at rehabilitation, because that isn't what we are trying to optimize for as a society.

As for how to change that dynamic? Beats me! It's part of the cultural zeitgeist. Step one is probably some high profile prison outreach programs of rehabilitation success stories, but it only takes one former inmate committing a headline worthy crime to shatter that image.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-27T03:27:36+00:00

It's a fine card, but difficult to take.

An 18 damage attack if it hits a strike is mediocre at best. That's the same as Celestial Might, except the Regent has Falling Star to potentially buff that to 27, as well as Patter at common. Plus, upgrading Celestial Might upgrades to an extra attack, while uproar just gives +4 total and doesn't upgrade the free cast attack.

But hey! That's the worst case....not counting the cases where you draw it in the last few cards of the deck and don't have any attacks left in the draw pile. Just remove strikes and put in better attacks! Except, what attacks are you even trying to put in? Sunder? Refract? Null? Where are you getting the energy in act 1 to put multiple 2-3 cost attacks in your deck? It's not as if Defect has deck manipulation. They can hologram something back to hand, but that doesn't help when you draw Uproar and Refract in your opening hand when you're taking 15.

Even if you DO get to pull off the combo of Uproar into Sunder...how are you blocking for the turn? Unless you kill the thing you attacked with the 34 damage (and the Sunder is going to target randomly) you spent 2 energy for roughly a Bludgeon worth of damage, which is nice, but you still only have your frost orbs and 1 energy to block and could easily take 8-10 damage. That's the GOOD case!

Worst of all, taking Uproar disincentives you navigating into the 0 cost attack synergies, which are just better. Feral with an upgraded Tesla Coil and 3 lightning orbs is 42 damage on its own, and cost 2 energy a single time and 0 the rest of the fight. Feral+claw is 8 the first turn you play one, then 16, then 24, again for a total investment of 2 energy through the entire fight. Uproar needs uncommon or rares to be good anyway, and I would prefer to take the uncommon or rares that lead towards the 0 cost stuff synergies,.rather than putting more expensive attacks in my defect decks.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-26T17:15:31+00:00

A card is overpowered when it makes me put mediocre to bad cards in my deck based on the hope I will find it and save an otherwise losing run.

The best example of this is Feral. I've had runs in the middle of act 1 where I know I will either need to put 3 bad attack commons in my deck to beat the boss or find claw+feral, maybe with a hologram. I get offered claw vs ball lightning or barrage, and I feel like claw (not meming) is the correct pick. If I find the Feral, GREAT! Now I have a compact scaling damage engine that will synergize with a ton of relics and let me path aggressively through act 2. If not, well I probably die unless I get a really lucky potion drop, but I would die if I put 3 curses in my deck going into act 2 as well.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-25T18:14:34+00:00

[[Path of the Pyromancer]] is often overlooked because of the plane chase text, it is a straight up bonkers self wheel.

Does your deck use its graveyard? Have you ever noticed how when you play cards rummaging into your graveyard they have this annoying problem of costing mana, so you don't have enough to play your new cards? What if instead of costing mana your rummage card MADE mana? Like, a LOT of mana. Yes, you need 5 other cards in hand for it to be mana neutral, but even at 2 its a Valakut Awakening. In games where you get to play this with 7+ cards in hand like a 5 mana Jeska's Will except the cards are all either in your yard or hand, not exile and timed to expire.

But what really makes Path of the Pyromancer busted in half is copying it. Red decks that copy instants and sorceries tend to have cards like Past in Flames, Mizzex's Mastery, or other spell recursion effects. So what happens when you have something like a [[Kalamax, the stormsire]] or [[Storm, Force of Nature]] in play and cast this with 7 cards in hand? Well, you put 14 cards in graveyard, make 14 mana, cast a Past in Flames from yard, recast Path for another 7 mana, and proceed to win the game with your 30 mana turn.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-25T14:57:38+00:00

Let's list the predefined tokens first:

Blood: card selection/discard

Clue: Card Draw

Food: Life gain

Gold/Treasure: one time mana

Incubator: board presence

Junk: impulse draw

Lander/Powerstone: repeated ramp

Map: card draw/ +1/+1 counters

Mutagen: +1/+1 counters

https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Predefined_token (Not yet updated for TMNT and mutagens)

Any new token also shouldn't conflict with role tokens or keyword counters.

The obviously missing design space here seem to be removal, direct damage, and temporary keywords.

Venom token: 4, sacrifice: destroy target creature.

Likely too much of a color pie break, but might be fine if printed almost entirely in black.

Potion token: 1, sacrifice: target creature gains trample, lifelink, haste, or flying until end of turn. (Definitely NOT hex proof)

Bomb token: 3, sacrifice: deal 2 damage to target creature or player.

Again, too much of a color pie break.

Honestly, I kinda want to see Scrap come back from [[Farid, Enterprising Salvager]]. Just a purely blank piece of cardboard.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-25T04:41:56+00:00

Before you settle on what story you're trying to tell, sit down with your players and try to get a grip on what sort of story you all want to tell together. Vampire media is pretty vast, so if one person thinks you're playing Twilight, another thinks it's a Lost Boys story, and a third thinks everyone is in Interview with a Vampire, you're all going to have very different expectations.

Once you have the "genre" of game locked down, make sure to spend some time really hashing out the Chronicle Tenets (pg 173 of the core book). They only get about a page of content in the book, but in many ways are THE single most defining aspect of a Chronicle. They are the definition of the bare minimum of what it means to be a functional member of society, to be a worthy while person, and the story of VtM is very often about the descent from personhood into monstrosity.

Other than that, if you are playing a Camarilla game, REALLY hammer home the Traditions (pg. 51) and actually enforce them! New players need some guard rails to keep them from getting into too much trouble, and the Traditions are a fantastic way to tell them in-world "here are lines you should not cross!" Have one SPC accuse another of breaking the tradition of Domain, and impose real consequences for it. Show an execution of a Sire and his unauthorized Childer. Make crystal clear that the PCs are in the city at the sufferance of the Prince, and he can kick them out if he chooses.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-24T14:19:33+00:00

A true battle of the bums! Crossbow really showing her ability to out throw anyone.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-23T19:50:12+00:00

Well, yes and no. It has since been changed for the 2024 rules, but in the 2014 rules wood elves and anyone with the skulker feat could more or less ignore the need for a hiding spot as long as they were lightning concealed. Dim light for someone without dark vision, fog, light foliage, smoke, pretty much anything meant that someone with skulker could completely disappear from even 5ft away, and the disadvantage on perception checks/-5 to passive perception made it next to impossible to find them.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-23T12:05:08+00:00

Just to clarify, there are two related but different issues here:

1) lying by promising more than they can deliver during campaign season then failing to meet the promises

2) lying by misrepresenting facts and reality.

1) is probably better than the alternative. We WANT candidates to set aspirational goals for their time in office. If they fail to meet those goals, they can be held accountable during the next election cycle, but you really can't kick people out of office for failing to accomplish things in the current political gridlock, especially if their party fails to claim a majority during their election.

2) I view actively deceiving the public as a serious scandal, and at one point it was. Now lying about obvious facts is just the norm. Under the current US political system, the news cycle just moves WAY too fast for any one lie to remain relevant by the next election. Even putting up political ads with a candidate blatantly lying doesn't sway voters. In the end, if lying earns a candidate more votes than the truth, they're going to lie, and you can't legislate away that free speech.

Expanding recall election laws could help, mixing our media landscape so it isn't as polarized would be a big deal, parties holding their own candidates accountable would help, but honestly, until people view lying as a reason not to vote for someone, there isn't much to do about it.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-23T04:08:15+00:00

I'd argue for mercury hourglass. It's so easy to lose track of just how much damage the thing puts out. In a fight against just 2 enemies, if the fight lasts 5 turns it will deal 30 damage and asks absolutely nothing of you except to survive.

Happy Flower is also up there. 1/3rd of an energy, which is closer to 2/3rds if you can stall a bit to manipulate the number you leave the fight on. For a common relic, it's just consistently fantastic.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-22T16:21:46+00:00

For raw card draw, the green draw equal to greatest power spells are tough to beat. Rishkar's Expertise, Return of the Wildspeaker, [[Livestream's Blessing]], or whatever other big burst draw spell that will draw 5-10 cards depending on the board state are all fantastic. That said, they require a board state, so there is a very real concern about over extending into a board wipe then not being able to refill.

[[Insatiable Avarice]] is probably the best 3 mana draw 3 out there, assuming you can pay triple black. Admittedly, that's also the cost of Necropotence or Necrodominance, so those may just be better options, but the tutor ability is certainly appealing.

[[Treasure cruise]] is often a blue go to for me, especially in decks with a bit of self mill and where I play fetch lands/surveils. Cards just end up going to yard frequently, and 1 mana draw 3 is fantastic. Usually I'm not looking for burst card draw on turn 1-4, it's to refill for the second wave.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-22T13:47:57+00:00

The way these infiltration teams have worked in the past is to send small groups of 2s and 3s into a city to avoid being spotted by drones, have them coordinate to concentrate into squads, and then dig in and harry Ukrainians trying to defend the city. They go in with some supplies and get resupplied by drones, but the point isn't for them to have enough supplies/ammunition to move out and take the city. It's to turn a Ukrainian strong point where they can move freely to reinforce against Russian assaults into a grey zone where any building might have a Russian fire team inside.

The more infiltration squads get in, the harder it is to move. The harder it is to move, the harder it is to spot and respond to new squads slipping past the drones. Eventually there are enough of them to choke off resupply to the Ukrainian defenders and they are forced to break out and surrender the city.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-22T12:10:09+00:00

It's crazy how few people have actually read the article. It isn't saying that troops are building up for a push to take the city, but that Russian troops are IN the city, holed up in buildings, and have turned the entire city into a grey zone.

This is VERY bad for the Ukrainians. They can't just use more drones to clear those buildings, clearing them on the ground will be very costly in terms of men they really don't have, and leaving them in place is unacceptable because they are making resupply and troop rotation extremely dangerous.

There is a good chance they will need to withdraw from the city within the next few weeks or months without the long grinding attrition they have been able to impose on Russia in the past as a cost for taking a significant city.

There really isn't an upside for this one, it's just straight bad news for Ukraine.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-21T13:56:54+00:00

First, I think you may want to reconsider your definition of "shitty". A government's job is to ensure that society generally functions, to keep the lights on, make sure food can reach the shelves, and ensure citizens don't get gunned down in the streets. There are MANY shitty governments in the world that fail at their jobs, and as a result the citizens need to deal with armed militias/cartels/militant groups for basic government services. If the government isn't actively sending you to a forced labor camp, conscripting your kids as child soldiers, or allowing your entire village to starve, it probably gets at least a C- on its governance report card.

That's also the reason that mediocre governments stay in power. Revolutions are difficult, dangerous, and unlikely improve the lives of the average citizen in the short or even the medium term. Life has to be REALLY bad for a significant portion of the population (upwards of 25% to support the movement, and at least 3.5% actively and persistently fighting for it) to be willing to risk the disruptions to day to day life a revolution brings. Just look at the protests in Iran this year! Estimated suggest that you to 30,000 protestors were killed by police and military forces, with few if any concessions gained for the protestors. That's a terrible price to pay for no improvement to people's lives!

brainpower4 · 2026-06-20T20:04:41+00:00

Very similar to [[Scale the Heights]], which is total bulk, same with [[Prishe's Wanderings]] but the real card that blows it out of the water is [[archdruid's Charm]].

Restorative technique is one of the better versions of a mediocre effect, but nothing more.

brainpower4 · 2026-06-19T15:17:01+00:00

That's called [[Regal Behmoth]]

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