Banned & Restricted Changes Rock Digital Magic and Commander!

Posted on February 9, 2026

It's time once again for another banned and restricted update!

Following last year's final B&R announcement, Wizards revealed that they would be putting out more frequent updates in 2026. Now that we're into February, the first announcement is finally here!

The big news of the day was Commander, which had been hyped at the end of last week's WeeklyMTG stream. Additionally, several digital formats saw a variety of changes, though none of the major competitive paper formats were impacted by this update.

The Competitive Paper Formats

Before I jump into the digital and casual formats that were affected, let's look at the recaps where things were left unchanged.

No Changes to Standard

Following the results of Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed, it's been apparent to just about everyone that there's still plenty of room for the format to evolve.

After World Championship 31 last year, people feared Lessons would take over the format. Eventually, players found counterplay against Lessons, leading to a rise in Badgermole Cub-based archetypes. With this most recent Pro Tour, Badgermole Cub decks were heavily targeted and pushed out of the event with all new decks taking its place.

Many players have expressed concern about the overall play patterns of the format being a bit too powerful for a format like Standard. However, there's simply no denying that the format hasn't come close to settling at this point in time, making a lack of bans sensible.

No Changes to Pioneer

Pioneer was noted as being fairly solid in terms of overall health, though there are concerns over the potential power of Izzet variant decks. This shouldn't be a surprise given the color pair's high profile during Standard that's led to numerous bans in the past year. No changes were made at this time, but Wizards continues to monitor the state of the format and may take action in the future.

Speaking as a personal fan of the format, the current builds of Izzet Prowess and Lessons are quite new. Wizards is likely waiting to see if things change in the coming months before taking any potential action in the next B&R update in a little over a month.

No Changes in Modern

Modern was noted as being in a fairly healthy and balanced state in the past few months. Things are pretty straightforward for this format, with very little noted apart from a good and healthy amount of diversity. Easy "no changes" here!

No Changes in Legacy

Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student // Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar

Many players had hoped that decks like Dimir Tempo and Oops, All Spells would get hit with this update. Unfortunately, it seems that this was not meant to be. Neither deck was hit and Oops didn't seem to be mentioned at all! Wizards noted they are seeing some churn and are hopeful things will change, thus not necessitating a ban at this time.

No Changes in Vintage

While some ire was aimed at the infamously powerful Lurrus of the Dream-Den, nothing seemed truly out of place in this classically overpowered format. Things currently seem as balanced as they can be in a format of this magnitude, and thus nothing is changing.

No Changes in Pauper

Hey, it's my spot! As a member of the Pauper Format Panel, I can speak on this one a bit.

Basically, as the article notes, we're seeing a lot of discussion surrounding the top decks, including Red-Aggro variants (Madness, Rally, etc.), Spy Combo, and Mono-Blue Terror. None of these decks is putting up a level of dominance that suggests we should take action at this time. Things seem fairly balanced and overall healthy, even if some subsets of players dislike some of these decks performing strongly.

By the numbers, the best performing deck of the bunch currently appears to be Mono-Blue Terror, which is noted in the announcement. However, these lists are not so overbearing that we're looking to take action at this time. It's something we're monitoring closely to see if things change for the worse in the coming months.

The Digital Formats

With the paper formats out of the way, let's turn our attention to the digital-only formats on MTG Arena, starting with Alchemy.

Changes to Alchemy

Alchemy saw tons of cards changed, mainly focusing on two cards - Kona, Rescue Beastie and Val, Marooned Survivor. Kona proved to be pretty strong in best-of-one play thanks to the Kona Omniscience combo decks which have also been impacting Standard. While Val, Marooned Survivor was noted as being aimed more at Historic, it's also a change which impacts Alchemy at the same time.

Eleven other cards were also changed via rebalances to try improving the cards to better the overall health of the format by lifting other archetypes instead. You can read all of these rebalances in this week's MTG Arena Announcements article.

Changes in Historic

The real meat and potatoes changes came with the Historic format. Historic has seen tons of bans in the past couple of years thanks to cards being banned upon entry into the format. As time has gone on, though, some cards have slipped through the cracks and proven themselves to be a bit too powerful.

Additionally, several of the cards that have been pre-banned left many scratching their heads as to why these cards were banned in the first place.

The bans were primarily done to hinder four of the most powerful decks in the format, those being Eldrazi, Boros Energy, Lotus Field Combo, and Scholar of the Lost Trove Combo.

Eldrazi Temple and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger should need no introduction if you've been following Modern for the past year. These cards fuel the Eldrazi and Energy decks, respectively, and have made the archetypes among the best things you can be doing in that format. The Historic format simply doesn't have the tools to handle these decks the way Modern can, and as such they are banned.

Lotus Field Combo is another that should seem familiar if you've played Pioneer at all in the last few years. The archetype has been immensely popular as a way to combo kill your opponents using the immense amounts of mana this land provides. Given the format's access to the powerful Underworld Breach and kill conditions like Tendrils of Agony, it's not a stretch to see how this deck has received a ban.

Crop Rotation, the powerful Legacy and Commander land tutor, took a bullet so as to make it a bit harder for the deck to achieve its primary game plan.

Scholar of the Lost Trove is the odd one out here for a couple of reasons. Unless you're a Commander fan who has played with this card, you might not be familiar with it. However, it's right in the perfect spot to be a solid player for Historic, having previously appeared on the client via Jumpstart.

By placing a Scholar into your graveyard and reanimating it with something like Persist, you can churn through your deck until you eventually win off of a Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. The low level of interaction in best-of-one made it a bit too good, thus leading to the ban.

Several other cards were listed as being unbanned.

Magus of the Moon

Harbinger of the Seas

Force of Vigor

Force of Negation

Endurance

Wilderness Reclamation

Agent of Treachery

Many of these were unbanned as a means of improving the counterplay options for the format. While cards such as Magus of the Moon and Harbinger of the Seas may come across as a bit extreme, their weakness as creatures leaves them more vulnerable than your average hate piece. Since some of the decks impacted by these changes rely heavily on nonbasic lands, this provides a great way to counteract them.

Force of Vigor, Force of Negation, and Endurance are more straightforward ways to interact with your opponents' game plan in a reasonable manner.

Both Wilderness Reclamation and Agent of Treachery represent options that were once too powerful for the Historic format many years ago. However, as time has gone on, the format has become more and more powerful. As such, Wizards feels it's worth giving these two cards a chance to see how they perform in the current environment.

Changes to Timeless

Last but not least is Timeless. This Vintage-esque Arena format has truly been the wild west of Magic formats since its introduction to the client. The last Arena Championship event saw the overwhelming dominance of White and Black-based Necropotence decks and it wasn't particularly close.

As this archetype has continued to overperform with time, Necropotence has been restricted to hopefully remove some of its power and bring a little balance to an otherwise unfair format.

It should also be noted that while Brawl is also an online-exclusive format, it saw no changes this time around. The last changes seem to be having a positive impact on the format, as well as the recent experiments in competitive Brawl events.

Changes to Commander

The big news of the day was, naturally, the Commander banned and restricted updates. Two big changes came down from the Commander Format Panel via Gavin Verhey as well as discussions on numerous other cards along the way.

First up was Biorhythm, a card that has been frequently cited as something that could potentially come off the ban list. Many players were concerned that this could lead to games ending quite fast and out of nowhere. However, it seems to fall into the same relative space as cards like Worldfire and Coalition Victory which can end the game pretty much on the spot as well. As a result, this card has been removed from the ban list, though it remains an addition to the Game Changers list for now.

I still remember watching the initial reveals for Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths where they previewed Lutri, the Spellchaser, and his almost immediate banning in Commander.

The response was fierce from the community right from the get-go, though it also made sense as a ban thanks to its instant obligatory inclusion in any Izzet-based Commander deck. Turns out that Lutri's restriction isn't a restriction at all in Commander where you can only have one of every card in your deck anyway.

The solution was a simple one players had hoped to see for some time. Lutri is unbanned, but remains banned as a Companion. This is a good change that will hopefully allow people to play with their favorite electric otter in the format going forward.

Both Rhystic Study and Thassa's Oracle were previously discussed as potential ban candidates in the prior Commander Format update. In these cases, the community feedback rang true and strong to leave these be. Competitive Commander players love the card as a win condition, and for as frustrating as Rhystic Study can be to play against, players still love it as an iconic part of the format overall.

Thus, both cards will remain part of Commander for now, though Gavin notes that they'll still be watching Rhystic Study still going forward.

To continue the ban and unban discussions, three more cards were brought up as potential unban options for the future.

Both Sundering Titan and Iona, Shield of Emeria are infamous for their oppressive gameplay in the past. Sundering Titan plus a repeatable flicker card can wipe out entire mana bases, exiling titan and decimating land bases. Iona, on the other hand, makes it trivial to lock a single player out of being able to play the game and is a particularly gross card in combination with Painter's Servant.

The theory for Sundering Titan is that the format has adjusted to better handle it, and that something like Iona could be better suited for the format thanks to the innovation of the Game Changers list.

The other potential option was Griselbrand. Gavin noted that this card would easily have a huge impact on the format, particularly in cEDH. There the card draw could be a huge shift for such a competitive environment, though not one that couldn't be handled. Additionally, it was seen as just another cool card in a space where players should have the opportunity to play their cool cards from throughout the game's long history.

In addition to all the ban and unban discussions, one single card was also added to the Game Changers list: Farewell. This powerful board wipe has proven to be intensely contentious among the community for the way it resets the game with little to no drawback.

The way it exiles the cards as well is noted as being more devastating compared to something like, say, Planar Cleansing which only destroys them. As such, it makes its way to the Game changers list alongside several other powerful cards.

Lastly, the other big element that was covered was hybrid mana, which was discussed during the previous Commander format announcement. The discussion involved whether cards with hybrid mana costs could be treated as one color or the other for the purposes of a deck which only used one of those colors.

The player base was heavily split down the middle on this one - an uncommon occurrence according to Gavin. Per the article on the Commander updates, here's how things players responded to this matter from a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being a very positive feeling and a 1 being very negative.

5 (Very positively) 25%

4 (Positively) 19%

3 (Neutral) 19%

2 (Negatively) 17%

1 (Very negatively) 21%

This shows that there isn't a good enough consensus to make the change and as such the Commander Format Panel and WotC have opted to keep things as they are for now. They will continue to monitor the situation and see how the player base continues to feel on the topic going forward.

That wraps things up for this round of updates! The next banned and restricted announcement is currently scheduled for March 23rd following the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

If you'd like to check out all the official materials regarding today's announcements, you can find it in the below.