Welcome back to the Sunday roundup, riot crew. The week’s biggest headline came straight from Wizards of the Coast: the June 29 Banned and Restricted announcement landed with a heavy hand, reshaping two eternal formats and taking a wrecking ball to Arena Brawl. Add a fast-approaching MagicCon and a brand-new Riftbound set on the horizon, and there’s plenty to unpack. Let’s get into it.
Brawl Takes the Biggest Hit
The marquee change this cycle was in Brawl, Arena’s singleton Commander-style format, where Wizards banned six cards in one swing. The goal was to cut down the format’s most oppressive engines, and the list reads like a hit parade of blue’s best free spells and turn-chaining tricks: Force of Will, Subtlety, Wash Away, Ugin’s Labyrinth, Time Warp, and Temporal Manipulation.
Why does this matter? Free interaction like Force of Will and Subtlety warps games from turn one, letting decks push greedy lines without ever tapping out. Meanwhile, banning Time Warp and Temporal Manipulation kneecaps the extra-turn combos that were ending games before opponents got to play Magic at all. In a format built around one copy of each card and a splashy commander at the helm, that free-and-fast axis had quietly become the ceiling every deck built toward. Trimming it should open the door to slower, grindier commanders that actually get to do their thing.
Legacy and Pauper Get Tuned
Over in tabletop eternal formats, two surgical changes went through. In Legacy, Candelabra of Tawnos is banned once again. If that name sounds familiar to longtime players, it should: Candelabra was on the restricted list back in the “Type 1.5” days and got unbanned in 1999. It’s back because newer builds of colorless Tron were leaning on it to generate absurd, repeatable mana, pushing the deck past what Legacy’s interaction could reasonably answer.
In Pauper, Seeker of Skybreak got the axe. It’s an easy card to overlook if you don’t grind commons, but in a format where every untap effect and combo enabler is scrutinized, Seeker had become the glue in loops that Pauper simply couldn’t police. Both bans follow the recent release of Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes, which continues to ripple across formats as the new cards settle in.
What’s Next on the Calendar
Looking ahead, the next Banned and Restricted announcement is tentatively slated for August 10, so the current lists are locked in for a few weeks. But the bigger date to circle is MagicCon: Amsterdam, running July 17–19. Wizards is expected to reveal all three of its 2027 Multiverse sets during the Preview Panel, and the July 18 “There and Back Again” panel officially kicks off spoiler season for Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit, arriving next August. If you love a good preview-season rabbit hole, that weekend is going to be loud.
It’s not just Magic making noise, either. On the Riftbound side, the game’s fourth expansion, Vendetta, is set to drop July 31—notable both for reportedly introducing Ambessa, Mel, and Akali as new champions and for being the first Riftbound set with a unified global release date across China and the U.S. For a game still building its competitive footprint, a synchronized launch is a meaningful step toward a shared, worldwide metagame.
The Riot Take
This B&R cycle is a healthy one. The Brawl overhaul is aggressive but fair—Wizards clearly decided the format’s problem was structural, not just one bad card, and addressed the whole free-and-fast package at once. The Legacy and Pauper tweaks are the kind of quiet maintenance that keeps eternal formats honest. Pair that with a stacked preview weekend and a fresh Riftbound set, and the back half of July is shaping up to be one of the busier stretches of the year for TCG players.
What’s your take—did the Brawl bans go far enough, and is Candelabra a fair casualty in Legacy? Come share your hot takes with us on our social channels, or catch the rest of the week’s TCG roundups anytime at manariotgames.com. We read the news so you don’t have to—see you in the next one. 🎲