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Banned and Restricted Announcement Coming Monday
This upcoming Monday will see the next Banned and Restricted Update for all formats, marking the second update of 2026.
Last time, very little changed for most paper formats with only Commander receiving major changes. Additionally, plenty of changes happened that impacted a number of digital formats. These included Alchemy and Historic rebalances and unbans, as well as one major restriction in Timeless.
It will be interesting to see if anything happens this time. The general consensus seems to be that many formats, particularly Standard and Modern, are in a great place right now. The February update noted that there were concerns about Izzet Prowess in Pioneer and many players continue to hope for further bans in Legacy.
Will things shift or will it be another round of "no changes?" We'll just have to wait and see what Monday brings, though as always it's sure to bring with it some excellent insight into every major Magic format.
Dandan Secret Lair Comes and Goes
The Secret Lair Dandân Deck has officially surfaced.
This fan-favorite format is now a fully playable two-player deck built around one unforgettable blue Fish, featuring brand-new Dandân art, from Kelogsloops, for the first time since 2006. Available now through the Chaos Vault ?
— Secret Lair (@mtgsecretlair.com) March 16, 2026 at 12:00 PM
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The Chaos Vault opened once again this Monday to reveal the long awaited Dandan Secret Lair.
Revealed at MagicCon Atlanta last year, Wizards brought in format creator Nick Floyd to help hype it up and promote it. After a series of cryptic posts on social media, the Lair was revealed on Sunday via email and an article on DailyMTG.
Sadly, the hype gave way to disappointment rapidly as Monday came and went. The Lair sold out in just over 30 minutes, leaving many unable to acquire their copies. Worse still, several people - including prominent content creators and former WotC staff members - noted that they reached the checkout only to be told their order was cancelled as their payment was being processed.
Outcry was quite extreme from the community, who hoped for more out of this long-hyped product. As of now, it's looking unlikely that more will be produced, leaving many players once again frustrated by issues regarding the Secret Lair product line.
A Deadpool Secret Lair Announcement?
Despite the distaste by many community members over the Dandan Secret Lair, another upcoming Secret Lair appears to have been revealed.
This new Lair - dubbed "I Fixed It (You're Welcome)" - was posted to Reddit after being shown off by Taalia Vess on Instagram. It shows a variety of cards appearing to have been altered by infamous fourth wall breaker Deadpool.
Each one takes a weaker version of a card and has it made into a stronger version. These include Worn Powerstone turned into Sol Ring, Swiftfoot Boots turned into Lightning Greaves, Lightning Strike turned into Lightning Bolt, and more. There's also an Island that's been changed into a Mountain, with a clever addendum to the artist credit as Mark (Dead)Poole.
An additional post revealed that the Mountain may in fact be a bonus card, with that slot having been replaced in another video by a retro frame Deadpool, Trading Card.
No details have been revealed, though it's expected to be released on April 1st as the annual April Fool's Secret Lair release.
Destiny 2 Announces Collaboration with Magic: The Gathering
In an extremely surprising announcement, video game developer Bungie revealed a new collaboration with Magic: The Gathering for their popular game Destiny 2.
These include a variety of cosmetics, armor sets based on popular Planeswalkers, and even an Emrakul inspired Ghost.
You can check out all the details for this announcement on Bungie's This Week In Destiny article for this week.
Decklist of the Week
Izzet Prowess | TMT Standard | Muhan Yu, 1st Place China Regional Championship
- Creatures (10)
- 2 Eddymurk Crab
- 4 Elusive Otter
- 4 Slickshot Show-Off
- Instants (11)
- 1 Secret Identity
- 2 Bounce Off
- 4 Burst Lightning
- 4 Opt
- Sorceries (14)
- 2 Wild Ride
- 4 Boomerang Basics
- 4 Sleight of Hand
- 4 Stock Up
- Enchantments (4)
- 4 Stormchaser's Talent
- Lands (21)
- 7 Island
- 2 Multiversal Passage
- 4 Riverpyre Verge
- 4 Spirebluff Canal
- 4 Steam Vents
Export Arena
In this week's Metagame Mentor, Frank celebrates the four most recent Regional Champions while exploring updates to the Standard metagame!
Read here: magic.gg/news/metagam...
— Play Magic (@playmagic.com) March 19, 2026 at 6:00 PM
A whopping four Regional Championship events happened this past weekend across the greater APAC region. This included RCs for Australia/New Zealand, Japan/Korea, Southeast Asia, and China. Each one was won by a different deck.
Here are the winners and their deck's archetype for each region:
- Australia/New Zealand: Simon Linabury - Mono-Green Landfall
- Japan/South Korea: Ma Noah - Bant Rhythm
- Southeast Asia: Richmond Tan - Izzet Elementals
- China: Muhan Yu - Izzet Prowess
Many of these archetypes are no stranger to these Decklist of the Week segments, often coming out on top of Standard events for the past several months.
The most interesting of the bunch is Izzet Prowess. We've seen Izzet Prowess lists in the recent past since the bannings of Vivi Ornitier and Cori-Steel Cutter, though they've been a mixed bag in terms of how good they are.
The most recent builds are making use of the card Elusive Otter, as well as using some clever mana bases to be able to cast the Grove's Bounty Adventure side. In addition to this, the addition of another true dual land in the form of Steam Vents is helping the mana consistency greatly. This results in the deck feeling like a much more cohesive list.
Congratulations to all the winners on their fantastic achievements this past weekend!
Paige Smith
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