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The latest Banned and Restricted announcement for Magic: The Gathering came on August 10th of 2026. This comes hot off Prerelease weekend for The Hobbit, continuing the trend of B&R updates coinciding with new releases.
Today's announcement saw changes to three formats: Standard, Legacy, and Vintage. Additionally, an update on the state of other formats and a final decision on a trial unban in Pauper were covered.
Three Heavy-Hitters Banned in Standard
To the shock of many players, Wizards finally did it. After many months of no changes, three cards were finally banned in Standard:
All three have been tearing up the meta for quite some time in a variety of decks. These cards contribute to fast, polarizing gameplay that many felt exerted too much pressure onto the format.
Stormchaser's Talent was used mainly in Izzet Prowess 
decks, as well as some Lessons decks. These decks created a cheap token and let you cast Boomerang Basics to pick up the Talent, draw a card, and replay it again.
This play pattern has been prominent since the days of Esper Pixie and Cori-Steel Cutter Prowess, showing it was a major card in many problematic decks.
Badgermole Cub was the other early-game powerhouse that had everyone talking. This card would enable players to generate tremendous amounts of mana early and create powerful lines in Landfall decks.
Initially, Wizards was hesitant to make more changes to Standard because things seemed reasonably balanced. Recently, though, Badgermole Cub was enabling some very powerful Selesnya Aggro decks along with Practiced Offense.
When combined with threats like Leatherhead, Swamp Stalker, you had a deck that was a bit too oppressive.
Last, but not least, Gran-Gran. This cheap Creature from Avatar: The Last Airbender enabled powerful synergies with the set's many Lesson spells. Thanks to the cost reduction she provides, players could chain card draw, removal, and counter spells repeatedly.
This archetype has remained a potent threat over the past nine months. It's even evolved to be a more powerful Jeskai (Blue-Red-White) build taking advantage of Jeskai Revelation as a finisher. Banning Gran-Gran doesn't fully kill the deck but makes it far more manageable in the future.
This was somewhat of a surprise to many players. During the last update's follow-up WeeklyMTG stream, it was stated that bans were unlikely to come until we got closer to rotation later in the year. Instead, action was taken to help stabilize the format now ahead of the upcoming Regional Championship Qualifier (RCQ) season.
With an exciting new format, there should be plenty of fun things for players to do here soon.
No Changes in Pioneer
No cards were banned in Pioneer this time.
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Wizards highlighted a wide variety of decks being played right now. There is a high prevalence of Izzet Prowess, Lessons, and Badgermole Cub-based decks, much like in Standard.
However, there are also other major players like Mono-Red Aggro, Greasefang variants, and Azorius Control - just to name a few.
The format is quite fun for those able to play it. Many of these decks show continual innovation. We'll likely see more updates and potential bans in 2027 when Pioneer is expected to get more Competitive representation.
One Card Banned in Legacy
There was one change to Legacy with the banning of The Fantasticar.
This powerful Vehicle raised a lot of red flags from players when it was printed. Legacy has access to Lands that tap for two mana, 0-cost Artifacts, and Rituals that generate extra mana that all made this particularly dangerous.
No write-up was provided with the English article, stating that explanations would come in the WeeklyMTG stream. However, savvy internet users quickly learned that there was a write-up on Wizard's Japanese page.
Both Wizards and Legacy players felt there was a decent chance the format could deal with The Fantasticar. However, a wide variety of archetypes began appearing that could use it. These include Vroomsday (named for Doomsday), Artifact-heavy decks, and even a more fair-Dimir build.
The card's growing play rates lead to Wizards making the final decision to ban it. In addition, Wizards also noted that they now have internal checks to flag potentially problematic cards in the future. It was suggested that if The Fantasticar benefitted from this process, it may not have made it to print as it is.
One Card Restricted in Vintage
In a move that surprised no one, The Fantasticar was also restricted in Vintage. We don't have an explanation yet, but this change was far less surprising than the Legacy ban.
The car was the talk of the town thanks to its synergy with Mishra's Workshop, which allowed you to play it on turn one. From there, you cast cards like Mox Sapphire, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, and so on to put 16 Haste power onto the battlefield. Chances are good you'll win very quickly from there.
While you had to work at it a bit more in Legacy, it was simply too easy to break in Vintage. This lead to the restriction, which allows players to run a single copy of a card as opposed to outright banning it.
That means players can still set cruise control to victory, but they'll only be able to pull it off a smaller amount of the time.
No Changes in Pauper
During the last B&R announcement, we (the Pauper Format Panel) said we would be keeping an eye on Sneaky Snacker.
Many spells in Pauper allow you to discard a card to draw two new ones. These include cards like:
When you discard a Sneaky Snacker this way, you'll usually draw your third card, allowing you to bring back the Snacker you just discarded.
This play pattern has become quite popular in decks like Mono-Red Madness and Mardu Synthesizer. When Abandon Attachments was printed, it led to more Tolarian Terror decks running it as well.
The big tell was in Naya Gates, which had many questioning why a Blue-Black card should be in a Red-Green-White deck.
So, we monitored things, with six of the seven Panel members attending various events. While we noticed that Sneaky Snacker decks were popular, we also noticed that they were putting up pretty underwhelming results. Based on additional monitoring, we decided not to ban Sneaky Snacker at this time.
We also announced that Bonder's Ornament would remain unbanned following its trial unbanning back in May.
With several months of results, we can say this appears to have been the appropriate call. Only a handful of decks are running it. Some decks that previously used it a lot - like Jeskai Ephemerate - have been preferring to run Bender's Waterskin instead.
No Changes to Digital Formats
No changes were made in any of the MTG Arena-exclusive formats. These include Alchemy, Historic, Timeless, Brawl, and Competitive Brawl.
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In the non-Brawl formats, the only deck that Wizards noted they had their eye on was Historic's Ruby Storm deck. This deck, which has been a fan favorite in Modern since the release of Modern Horizons 3, got a big boost in the form of Hex Magic.
This has led to an uptick in the prevalence of High Noon strategies, though Reanimator was also singled out as a positive inclusion to the format.
On the Brawl side of things, Wizards noted that the recent non-Competitive Brawl changes have been a big help for the format. It's possible more cards will be addressed in the future, but right now they're simply keeping tabs on how things are evolving.
The same is true in Competitive Brawl, with the format continuing to evolve. Given how new it is, players are still finding fresh ways to build decks and discover the best things to do.
Conclusion
That's everything that changed in the fifth Banned and Restricted update of 2026.
The changes to Standard, Legacy, and Vintage were huge, getting players who enjoy these formats excited. Those gearing up to compete in RCQ events will have a great opportunity to build for a brand-new format.
The next B&R Update will happen on October 10, shortly after the release of Reality Fracture, then we'll get one more for the year sometime in December. Keep your eyes peeled!
Paige Smith
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