Announcement Date: February 4, 2021
Effective Date: March 5, 2021
Standard format
No changes have been made to the banned card list for the Standard format.
Expanded format
Lusamine (Sun & Moon—Crimson Invasion, 96/111 and 110/111; Sun & Moon—Ultra Prism, 153/156 and 153a/156) is no longer banned in the Expanded format.
Wally (XY—Roaring Skies, 94/108 and 107/108; Generations, RC27/RC32) is no longer banned in the Expanded format.
The list of banned cards for the Standard and Expanded formats can be found here.
Next Announcement Date: March 4, 2021
Details of Changes
No cards were banned from the Standard format. It will be an extremely rare occurrence for cards to be banned from the Standard format.
Two cards were unbanned in the Expanded format. The reasoning for these changes is below:
In an effort to maintain a more global Expanded format experience, two cards were unbanned. Lusamine and Wally are not banned in Japan, so TPCi decided to unban these cards to have a unified banned card list.
Lusamine can be a powerful card in the right circumstances in control decks. However, considering that Lt. Surge's Strategy is banned in the Expanded format, the potential of Lusamine is limited in the current environment. If Lusamine turns out to be problematic again, this decision will be reevaluated.
After the first-turn Supporter rule change at the beginning of the Sword & Shield Series, the potential problems with Wally were reduced significantly. However, evolving on the first turn can lead to dangerous combos, so the usage of Wally will be monitored closely.
Tournament results and community feedback will continue to be analyzed to maintain a healthy play environment. In particular, the Expanded format will be aggressively monitored because there are so many cards and potential combinations available to use.
