As a reminder, most cards in Magnificent Monsters are Ultra Rare. MAMO-EN001 – 018 can come as extended arts in Ultra Rare, Starlight Rare, and Grand Master Rare. The alternate arts at MAMO-EN019-20 were only seen as extended arts. The cards in the Bonus Pack come in Secret Rare and can come in Starlight Rare.
Set ID
Card Name
MAMO-EN001
Dark Magician, the Pharaoh’s Servant
MAMO-EN002
Kuriboh – Multiply!
MAMO-EN003
Dark Magical Curtain
MAMO-EN004
Favorite HERO Shining Flare Wingman
MAMO-EN005
Favorite HERO Flame Wingman
MAMO-EN006
Winged Kuriboh Sabatiel LV10
MAMO-EN007
Stardust Dragon – Victim Sanctuary
MAMO-EN008
Starjunk Synchron
MAMO-EN009
Synchro Emergency
MAMO-EN010
Number 39: Utopia, Envoy of the Light
MAMO-EN011
Gagaga Magician – Gagaga Magic
MAMO-EN012
Gagaga Girl – Cell Phone Subtraction
MAMO-EN013
Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon, Four Heavenly Dragons
MAMO-EN014
Horoscope Sorcerer, the Stargazer Magician
MAMO-EN015
Astrograph Sorcerer, the Starfrost Magician
MAMO-EN016
Decode Talker Integration
MAMO-EN017
Cyber Code Magician
MAMO-EN018
Cyberse Contract Witch
MAMO-EN019
Sky Striker Mecha – Widow Anchor
MAMO-EN020
Sky Striker Mobilize – Linkage!
MAMO-EN021
Underworld Circle
MAMO-EN022
Orichalcos Sword of Sealing
MAMO-EN023
Rainbow’s Bridge Bifrost
MAMO-EN024
Malefic Force
MAMO-EN025
Malefic Paradigm Shift
MAMO-EN026
Assault Blackwing – Kusanagi the Gathering Storm
MAMO-EN027
Master Spirit Tech Force – Pendulum Ruler
MAMO-EN028
W:P Fancy Ball
MAMO-EN029
I:P Masquerena (Alternate Artwork)
MAMO-EN030
S:P Little Knight (Alternate Artwork)
MAMO-EN031
Witchcrafter Madam Verre (Chibi Artwork)
MAMO-EN032
Diabellstar the Black Witch (Chibi Artwork)
MAMO-EN033
Visas Samsara (Chibi Artwork)
MAMO-EN034
Ib the World Chalice Justiciar (Chibi Artwork)
MAMO-EN035
Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS – Sky Thunder (Chibi Artwork)
Hello, Pauper players! Gavin Verhey here on behalf of the entire Pauper Format Panel.
Recently, we revealed the cards from The Zeta Set, a new release from Secret Lair. While these cards are all reprints and generally don’t add anything to competitive formats, there is an interesting wrinkle in that twelve of them were printed at common for the first time. There’s been a lot of discussion about this, with players wondering what the story is here, and people being hopeful they can play with these cards.
Today, we are making these cards legal in Pauper (with a few notes). You may have heard differently in the past, and this is a change from what was said previously. Today, I want to tell you about what’s going on, how we reached this conclusion, and what to expect going forward.
Let’s get into it!
Building The Zeta Set
Outside of new-to-Magic cards, printings of Secret Lair cards haven’t impacted format legality. There has never been a reason for that to matter before, and we haven’t discussed the impact of Secret Lair releases on Pauper or for the individuals managing formats to review Secret Lair cards.
The release of The Zeta Set changed that. For reference, here are the twelve cards that are being printed at common for the first time in this release.
Dispatch
Return to Dust
Serra Angel
Narcomoeba
An Offer You Can’t Refuse
Cut Down
Sengir Vampire
Price of Progress
Vandalblast
Gigantosaurus
Baleful Strix
Soul-Guide Lantern
When these were revealed, Wizards, the Pauper Format Panel, and I talked through their ramifications and how we wanted to handle these. A few different pieces led us to the conclusion to not make them legal in Pauper.
For one, these cards would have a large impact on Pauper and, for many of them likely, not in desirable ways. A card like Narcomoeba would need to be immediately banned, and it is unlikely that many of the others would make the format more fun.
Second, there was no playable game experience intent put behind the downshifts of these cards. Every single other Pauper-legal card in Magic history was put at common by someone designing the gameplay of a set or product. Whether it has been a card in a main set, a downshift in a reprint set, or Utrom Monitor in a Co-Op product, each card was looked at by a designer that decided that common felt right for the card. Even the common Go for the Throat in the Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks was put there by a game designer. The cards from The Zeta Set, by contrast, have rarities that have nothing to do with game design. The intent of these common cards was not to be cards we would normally print at common, and the intent was not to change any their legality in any format.
Third, having cards enter the format through future Secret Lair releases, creating an influx of new Pauper cards at somewhat random times, seemed like something frustrating to monitor when preparing for tournament play. Others and I felt like the Pauper community would not want this. I had guessed that the potential for cards to be printed into Pauper through a Secret Lair release felt against the spirit of the format.
So, taking all this into account, we collectively—the Pauper Format Panel and Wizards—decided to not make these cards legal in Pauper.
Listening to the Response
Pauper is a format built by and for the community. That’s why we have the Pauper Format Panel. That’s also why I think it’s extremely important to listen to feedback. And listen to feedback, we have.
Over the past week, we’ve all heard pretty loudly that a lot of the community wants these cards to be legal in Pauper and have us ban any cards that we believe are over the line, rather than categorically saying downshifts in Secret Lair releases don’t impact legality. So, we’ve done some research and I’ve been having some discussions.
So, let’s address my three points from above.
First and foremost, as much as myself and others at Wizards can see the distinction and intent behind these and other Pauper-legal cards, I recognize that this is not how players perceive things. Regardless of how a card got made, whether it was printed as a common in paper or on Magic Online, rarity has been the one governing truth around the format and what people have come to expect with every product we release, especially for products sold in boosters. That “C” at the bottom of the card is a truism for the traditionally black-and-white rules of Magic. We’ve heard that note a lot over the past week from all of you.
Second, if there was going to be a constant influx of cards from Secret Lair, I would be a lot more concerned about it. Cards getting added into the format out of nowhere shortly before an important event would likely be a source of frustration. However, after discussing this with the Secret Lair team, everyone agreed that any future downshifted common cards will be shown to us. While that doesn’t mean we can necessarily veto them, it will help make sure we can provide feedback on them. Additionally, randomized booster products, which could include downshifted cards at common, are not on the roadmap for Secret Lair at this time (see this article for details). This gives me a lot more confidence about solving for these individual cards.
That brings us to these twelve cards and how they play. Wizards, the Pauper Format Panel, and I continue to be of the opinion that these aren’t really adding net fun to the format. Some of them will have to be banned outright, and several others will certainly be on the watchlist. However, if we are just asking if the cards are fun for the format, we have a tool to answer that: the banned list.
What We’re Doing
We’ve read a lot of discussions and arguments for allowing these cards. As Pauper is a community-driven format, I always want to really weigh what the community says strongly. And I want to recognize that, while a lot of the community was for this change, many people agreed with not including these cards in Pauper. We understand the reasoning for the gut feeling of “These don’t look like they should be legal.” However, given this is not going to be a commonly repeated release model for common cards that will continually cause disruption, the points made about not arbitrarily distinguishing between products made sense to us. For the long-term direction of Pauper, it made sense to maintain the simple distinction that a common rarity in paper or on Magic Online dictates a card’s legality. There are lots of common cards in strange places that may not be the healthiest for Pauper, but it’s not our role to categorically remove them. That’s what the banned list is for.
So, we have decided to change course on this. These cards will be legal for tournament play effective Monday, September 7. There are a few notes on that.
First, we are going to ban a couple of cards off the bat. Our criteria for what to ban here are cards that we feel extremely confident would be over the line because they cause decks that currently exist to win the game quicker and much more efficiently.
The first one we’re banning is Narcomoeba. Spy decks are already a strong force, and this card would certainly put them over the top. Narcomoeba has a long history of being powerful in conjunction with Dread Return, which is legal and played in Pauper, and so we’re just taking it out of the format preemptively.
Second, we are banning Price of Progress. Red aggressive decks have been among the strongest decks in Pauper for a while, and a card that easily doles out 6 or more damage for two mana is an inappropriate rate especially when drawn in multiples.
Several of the other cards are going to be kept on a tight watch list. We are being more permissive in leaving these cards unbanned for a short time to see how they play out, but we are keeping them on a tight leash heading into the next banned and restricted list update. We’ve heard from many players that they’re excited to play these cards, and we want to provide them with that chance. There are cards that are extremely powerful for Pauper, but unlike the other two, they don’t contribute to winning the game quicker and more efficiently. We want to comment on a few of the most notable ones, though the others may certainly see play as well.
Baleful Strix is a card which points the format even more toward grinding out games by trading with big threats like Tolarian Terror and being easy to recycle with cards like Blood Fountain or Ninja of the Deep Hours. It’s an extremely powerful card, but it could also lead to some new decks, so we’re giving it some time to see play. It will, however, be kept on a very short leash.
Vandalblast is an extremely strong sideboard card against Affinity, removing many of their creatures and supportive artifacts—even lands. While a lot of Affinity’s mana will be insulated as they’re indestructible Bridges, Vandalblast is still an incredibly powerful card against that deck. That said, Affinity is both great at building back up and recursion, has sideboard cards like the Elemental Blasts that can fight Vandalblast, and, given Affinity has been a playable deck at the top of the metagame for years, another strong sideboard card against it could be appropriate. It’s worth seeing what happens before deciding if it should stay or not.
Dispatch and Cut Down are best-in-class removal spells. In this format, Dispatch is comparable to Swords to Plowshares a lot of the time with the prevalence of artifact lands. However, players have long requested a strong white removal spell, so it’s possible that Dispatch may revitalize some strategies and actually help fight against cards like Writhing Chrysalis and Sneaky Snacker that players have asked for extra answers to.
These cards are on our radar as they will make an impact and could shift the format in ways that would make it less varied, balanced, and less fun to play. You can expect that we’ll be checking in on these cards in the next two banned and restricted list updates, which will be on October 12 and in December. On October 12, we will take action on anything that is immediately a problem. In December, we’ll take another look after all those changes to make sure we’re happy with everything that is left.
In terms of legality, these will become legal in tabletop Pauper next Monday, September 7. This would normally be immediately upon release, but given that this announcement is coming late in the week and people may have Pauper events this weekend, we didn’t want to change the metagame within 48 hours of those events. We worked with Magic Online (a huge thanks to that team for working to accommodate this) and managed to get this into their next update, which will be on September 23. We know that this does create a short window of time where legality is different between tabletop Pauper and Pauper on Magic Online, which is something we typically try to avoid, but it is a side effect of legalizing cards that nobody was prepared to implement.
This does mean things are going to be a little less stable in Pauper for the next few months, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we have to ban cards in October and December as a result of this. This will likely be a memorable time of format exploration and testing, and I know many players have wanted to see a new infusion of cards into the format. I just want to set expectations in advance as people prepare for events that we may take action during upcoming banned and restricted list updates.
Thank you for all of your feedback over the past week. I know there’s been some mixed messages as we figured this all out, all the way up to an article earlier this week saying these cards would not be legal in Pauper. It took a little bit of time to have all the right conversations and make all our ducks were in a row to implement this. It’s not often we change course on something we’ve settled on, but I’m happy we could take the time, listen, and put in the work to make it happen. One of the strengths of Pauper is its great and passionate community, and it was certainly felt this week.
Have fun building with the new cards, and we’ll be watching to see what decklists show up as people play ahead of October 12.
A PSA Gem Mint 10 Alpha Black Lotus, for Magic: The Gathering, is currently on the block at the 2026 Summer Goldin 100 auction.
There is only a population of three PSA Gem Mint 10 Alpha Black Lotus cards ever graded, and rarely hit the auction block (this particular card was reholdered). One of these three PSA 10 Black Lotus cards went for $511,100 in 2021 in a wild auction on eBay/PWCC, where several bids were disallowed (see “‘Magic: The Gathering’ Alpha Black Lotus Goes for $511.1K“); a CGC Pristine 10 Black Lotus was sold in a private sale in 2024 for $3 million (see “Sells for $3 Million“). PSA-graded cards tend to carry a premium at auction (see “Prices Rebalance“), so with just under a month left for buyers to bid on this item, this card definitely has the potential for a record sale.
Also of note, Goldin is auctioning off a CGC 9 1998 Pokémon Japanese CoroCoro Comic Promo Holo Illustrator Pikachu card. A PSA 8.5 version of this card recently hammered at $843,750 (see “Auction Block“).
Arcane Tinmen will release Fuka and The Empress, new Dragon Shield: Art accessories, into retail on November 13, 2026.
These accessories showcase artwork by Yumeko, who worked on the Japanese Mystical Archive cards for Magic: The Gathering’sSecrets of Strixhaven set (see “More Collector Information“). The line consists of Matte Dual Art sleeves and a playmat. The sleeves come 100 to a box; the playmat will has a silky top and rubber backing. Both will retail for $24.99 each.
Wizards of the Coast announced Play Booster shortages for Reality Fracture, a new booster set for Magic: The Gathering, which is scheduled to hit stores on October 2, 2026.
The shortages are due to low water levels in the Panama Canal because of a drought. The low water levels have caused a shipping jam up in the waterway. The canal issues will likely only affect the availability of Play Boosters; the displays will be available for the prerelease and release weekends, but the supply of displays may dry up fast. WotC hopes to replenish these supplies within a few weeks after release.
For more information on 2026 Magic: The Gathering releases, click here to check out ICv2’s release calendar.
Square Enix will release Legacy Collection, a restock of the first reprint booster set for Final Fantasy TCG (FFTCG), which will hit stores on March 31, 2027.
This set is the first FFTCG set comprised entirely of reprinted cards. It contains 200 cards selected from the over 3,000 cards printed to date for the game. These cards are all staples from the competitive tournament scene. For collectors, the set also has rare full-art cards as well as two foil-stamped signature cards: Yuna [12-105L] with a foil-stamped signature of Tetsuya Nomura, and Warrior of Light [19-128L] with a foil-stamped signature of Miki Yamashita.
Display boxes also come with one of six different Crystal cards enclosed. Each pack contains five cards; 20 packs come in a display box.
Matthew Hodgins, director of Secret Lair for Magic: The Gathering, reviewed the experimental ordering process that occurred with the recent Commander Deck: Hatsune Miku drop set offering.
Wizards of the Coast had been having issues offering up Commander and special edition decks via Secret Lair recently. Hodgins noted the Dandan deck (see “‘Dandan Deck’“) and Goblin Storm deck as two drops that frustrated fans seeking to buy the decks. These decks sold out almost instantly, as flippers bombarded their ordering system using all sorts of tricks to acquire multiple decks (see “Goblin-storming Flippers“).
For the Hatsune Miku deck, WotC ran a little logistics experiment with their preorder process. Instead of a first come, first serve model, they extended the preorder to a 24-hour window, where everyone who ordered their deck within that window would receive one. For late comers to the drop, WotC implemented a backorder system (they would still get the deck, but it would be up to a year later). This system is similar to what Fanatics does with their Topps Now DTC products, which usually have longer limited ordering windows to mitigate a mad rush of orders for popular drops.
Hodgins confirmed plans to run a DTC sale for Commander Deck: Odds and Ends, which had been recently leaked through the Hatsune Miku deck fulfillment process. The deck is rumored to contain all sorts of valuable reprints such as Sensei’s Diving Top, Esper Sentinel, and more. It will be sold via the same 24-hour limited window process in a few weeks.
He also noted a few other points involving Secret Lair drops. They have been addressing the queue throttle that customers experience when first entering the line to purchase a drop set, and are trying to reduce the time people spend waiting in the queue as their projected wait time evolves by rebuilding their sales projections and scaling queue infrastructure. WotC has also revamped their shipping methods and rates for NA and have been working on reducing the time for backorder fulfillment.
Weird Co.’s Cyberpunk TCG crowdfunding campaign has smashed the tabletop funding record on Kickstarter, and has ended up the third most-funded project all-time in any category on the Kickstarter platform.
The Cyberpunk TCG Kickstarter campaign sent fans, supporters, and edgerunners-at-heart on an epic fundraising ride for the ages. On April 1, 2026, it passed Cosmere RPG to become the most-funded tabletop campaign of all-time (see “Most Funded Tabletop Game of All-Time“). Today, Cyberpunk TCG hit third on the all-time most-funded Kickstarters list, in any category, raising $26,934,598 from 47,636backers (about $565 per backer). This beats Cosmere RPG’s end total by over $10 million.
The only two campaigns, in any category, that raised more money on Kickstarter than Cyberpunk TCG were the eufyMake UV Printer campaign, which raised $46,762,258 from 17,822 backers (about $2624 per backer), and the Surprise! Four Secret Novels by Brandon Sanderson, which raised $41,754,153 from 185,341 backers (about $225 per backer).
Featuring ‘Odd-Eyes,’ ‘Lunalight’ and ‘Speedroid’ Themes
Konami Digital Entertainment will release new Legendary Arc-V Decks Collector’s Set, for Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, into retail on August 7, 2026.
This collector’s set features three 55-card Decks (each with a 40-card Main Deck and 15-card Extra Deck) that include a Secret Rare and 6 Ultra Rares per deck. The decks also come with a bonus packet that contains a Secret Rare copy of 1 of 6 cards from that Deck. These decks are similar to the Legendary Modern Decks 2026 (see “‘Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG: Legendary Modern Decks 2026’“) as they come with multiples of popular staple cards needed to play competitive decks.
The three decks have the following themes: Odd-Eyes (used by Yuya, from the Standard Dimension), Lunalight (used by Celina, from the Fusion Dimension), and Speedroid (used by Yugo, from the Synchro Dimension). The collector’s set contains 168 cards: 3 Secret Rares, 18 Ultra Rares, 144 Commons, and 3 bonus Secret Rares (that have a chance to upgrade to Starlight Rare). Decks will retail for $31.99.
For more information on 2026 Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG releases, click here to check out ICv2’s release calendar.
Kayou Limited announced six English Edition starter decks for My Little Pony TCG: Friendships Begin, which will hit retailers on May 1, 2026.
The starter decks allow players to choose their favorite Pony, and go head-to-head in a game where they will try to complete their Pony’s story before their opponent. The starters to choose from are as follows: Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy. Each comes ready-to-play and consists of 70 cards. The decks also include three 5-card booster packs.
Each deck will retail for $19.99.
Kayou Limited recently released Fantasy Wonderland, a booster set for My Little Pony CG, into retail on April 18, 2026 (see ” ‘My Little Pony CG’ Booster Set“).
Gavin Verhey
Brother Of Runes 