Shining Fates Banned List and Rule Changes Announced
With Shining Fates not quite two weeks away from its official release, the changes made to the Standard and Expanded Format Banned Lists have been revealed. Nothing is changing in Standard, which should come as no surprise. Expanded is seeing no new cards banned, but instead two cards are leaving the Banned List as of March 4, 2021: Lusamine and Wally! The official announcement gives a few more details, including the reasoning behind the change.
News:
Shining Fates Banned List and Rule Changes Announcement
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.
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.