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Ban & Restricted — July 25th, 2025 - Grand Archive

Effective Date: Friday, July 25th, 2025 Next B&R: August 25th, 2025 Summary: Lost in Thought is moved to Category 3. Tidestone Bovine is added to Category 1. Polaris, Twinkling Cauldron is receiving an errata: it now has 1 memory cost. Gaia's Blessing is removed from the Watchlist entirely. The Watchlist only contains cards that were either previously legal in the Standard format or are currently legal for Standard. See the entire list of banned cards here. Proxia's Vault Polaris, Twinkling Cauldron Polaris, Twinkling Cauldron receives an errata by increasing its memory cost from 0 to 1. Polaris is a card that we designed with the goal of giving Arisanna decks increased resilience toward Ally-focused strategies, while also greatly improving the consistency of its win condition. However, Polaris has proved too effective against these Ally strategies without any significant drawbacks. We try to stay away from unhealthy design spaces where too much power gets focused into one card without reasonable penalties. Polaris in particular has proved to be so powerful that it not only invalidates some opposing strategies, but it also severely limits options while deckbuilding for the Arisanna player. This errata seeks to address the power level of Polaris in a healthy way while also paving the road for more space to design additional support for other kinds of Arisanna strategies, without being forced into a Polaris/Cosmic Bolt deck every time. As a reminder, Proxia's Vault is a new way we're addressing specific meta issues by releasing cards that players are allowed to proxy, even for use in competitive events. Proxia's Vault is being updated to allow cards to be proxied indefinitely as long as the card is in Proxia's Vault. The policy guide will be updated accordingly. Read about the Proxia's Vault policy here: Watchlist Category 3 This category will contain all cards that are banned and restricted, proving to be too powerful or too impactful, and limiting tournament deck diversity and meta health. Currently, Baby Gray Slime, Crystal of Empowerment, Corhazi Outlook, Dissonant Fractal, Erupting Rhapsody, Icebound Slam, Lost in Thought, Sword of Avarice, and Reckless Conversion are banned. Lost in Thought has been a powerhouse card in almost every water strategy. These strategies have not been challenged as much as we'd hoped with the available cardpool. With the increased meta share of powerful graveyard strategies, and with the advent of DTR and its further support for graveyard focused decks, we are banning Lost in Thought, effective on July 25th. We hope that this ban will push the meta to be more diverse and healthy, by disabling water decks from generating undue card advantage. We will continue to evaluate the health of graveyard interaction broadly. Cards in Category 3 Category 2 This category contains cards that we consider very problematic and are heavily watched for potential future legality changes and category shifts. This category currently has two cards. Cards in Category 2 Category 1 This category consists of cards that we don’t consider problematic in the current environment, but are unhealthy for future balance and game design space. This category currently has four cards. Tidestone Bovine is added to Category 1. Bovine has been a staple of many water strategies due to its consistency to fuel the graveyard and inflate the pool of floating memory far more efficiently than other sources. We recognize that this is not typically the power level we seek to design in allies that are repeat enablers. As such, we will continue to monitor this card in the upcoming meta. We hope that the ban of Lost in Thought is sufficient to hit the absurdly high card advantage potential of these strategies, but will reevaluate Tidestone Bovine and other water cards as we continue into the DTR meta. Gaia's Blessing has simultaneously been removed from the watchlist. As we've seen other decks flourish and develop, as well as with the ban of Baby Gray Slime, tamer Ally decks are in a healthier space. We no longer feel that Gaia's Blessing is as considerable of a threat to design space for Tera Animal and Beast strategies. Cards in Category 1 That's all for this B&R update! This B&R will go into effect July 25th and the next update will be on August 25th, 2025! Link to article: https://www.gatcg.com/article/ban-and-restricted-july-25th-2025

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