It’s been a while since we’ve had news from The Citadel regarding changes to the meta. After a long period of 9 months, we are ready to shake it up. As mentioned in a overview of 2026 article that will be linked further down here, Redesigns are on their way, but in a smaller format than the first batch. The goal with these Redesigns is to hopefully reduce the size of the Restricted List with cards that seem to be stuck on their for a long time. In total, 16 cards will be banned from their original form, and come back under Redesigns. Expect these changes to come into effect on July 1st, but might take more time before they will be available to print and also be available online as well.
Redesigns 2.0
Here is the link for all cards redesigned. Redesigns wording – Google Docs. As stated previously, here is also the link to the article to better understand the goal of redesigns and why cards were picked and others were not. Balance Team Overview 2026 – AGOT.CARDS. All cards from Redesigns 2.0 are removed from the Banned List, Restricted List or pods they were in, with the exception of Pod 4 staying and Pod 5 with Daenerys Targaryen (TFM) and Incinerate staying in a pod (but with the Removal of Shadow of the East). These changes are for Joust. Melee will changes will be explained later in this article.
JOUST
Baratheon
Baratheon control decks have seen a tremendous amount of success in the forms of two decks, Baratheon Free Companies and Summer. While both those decks and their different variations use Kneel as a form of control, what really makes those decks good is the fact that you can keep your biggest threat Knelt in the form of Robert Baratheon (FotS). With both decks performing really well, we decided it was time for our friend Chef Bob to be added to the Restricted List.
Greyjoy
Another deck that has been doing fairly well and is being seen as a staple in the current meta is Greyjoy Winter. While some people don’t believe in it, it still gets picked and does fairly well in every big event. Therefore, we have decided to take it down a bit in strength by adding Ralf Kenning to the Restricted List. The reason is simple, Ralf Kenning by himself does more than the entire Kings of Winter Agenda, and we want people to have to pick between the Choke or the card that uses Choke to gain a massive advantage in Balon Greyjoy (KotI).
Furthermore for Greyjoy, we have seen that since we introduced the Pod with We Do Not Sow and Raiding Longship, traditional Greyjoy has taken a massive dip in both representation and success rate. While we still want a pod for Greyjoy goodstuff decks, we decided to alter this one if it can move the needle a bit. That, along with the Pod including Drowned God Fanatic being freed, we decided to make this card stays in check in Greyjoy goodstuff decks, and therefore have removed We Do Not Sow from Pod 20 and added Drowned God Fanatic and Bloody Cup to it, with Raiding Longship also staying.
Lannister
Lannister is a bit tricky, because they seem underplayed in recent big events. While saying that though, they do have some very strong decks, and one card in particular seems to be played in many different iterations of shadow decks. Therefore, we have decided to add Tunnels of the Red Keep to the Restricted List. The reason for this is that on top of being amazing at shutting down the challenge phase with high strength character, you can also use it on a loop as long as you have gold for it, to trigger bowels for more card draw in different phases of the game.
Targaryen
Targaryen have been dominating the meta for a long period of time now, with them having a positive win rate against all factions, and also with them being highly represented both in tournament showings and cut success rate. With that said, we have decided to take drastic measures to ensure that their dominance is brought down, with several restrictions coming to them. First on the list is everyone’s favorite horse lord, Khal Drogo (Core), making it’s way onto the Restricted List. First, this should force people to pick between him or a neutral card for the Restricted List slot, as often enough, Targaryen players could get away with a Neutral plot as it’s choice. Second, this version of Khal was played in many different builds, making him an auto include unless you wanted to play with Jumper Khal.
Next up on the list is Tyrion Lannister (JS) being added to the Restricted List. The Mercenary archetype has received a huge boost in the recent cycle, and Tyrion Lannister does a lot of work by himself between winning challenges with stealth to his ability to basically negate the discard tech/intrigue claim by being able to bring those cards into play at the cost of 1 simple gold from him. Additionally, with Aegon Targaryen (TSC) coming off the Restricted List through Redesigns, Mercenary decks had nothing Restricted, and with such a popular and dominating deck, this was simply too strong to let it stay free.
Last but not least, we have Shadow of the East, a polarizing event, being added to the Restricted List. Targaryen’s already have other efficient ways of being able to remove attachments, and having Shadow of the East completely decimating the game plans of an opponent by flipping a high econ summer plot and removing everything was quite oppressive for the Targaryen opponent. Hopefully this change gives Targaryen players more thoughts about how they want to approach deckbuilding
Neutral
A certain card has been terrorizing many people for a while now, and with more Shadow recursion coming out, more ways are being found to exploit the strength of Sparrows. The cost for this card to be effective without Shadow recursions is a fine one, but being able to effectively power claim your opponents multiple time a round with very little counter play makes it very tough on your opponents to be able to come back into the game once the lock is on. For this reason, we have decided to add Sparrows to the Restricted List. Let’s see how people manage to build their decks with this change.
The Mad King’s Command has seen a lot of success since it’s introduction in the game, and a big part of the Targaryen dominance can be attributed to this plot. While we do not want to directly hit The Mad King’s Command, as it is a great tool against decks who don’t play the board as much, it is also seen as a great tool to reduce boards to 3 characters and then Aggro whatever is left. That, added with the fact that the best Aggro decks leverage jumping abilities, it became very hard to overcome any deficit encountered during that crucial round. With that said, we have decided to add a Pod with The Mad King’s Command and Marched to the Wall. It became way too easy for decks to build a board during that round and the wipe whatever remained with Marched to the Wall.
Last but not least for Joust, two of the stronger and popular decks currently are Baratheon and Targaryen Free Companies. We wanted to lower those deck’s strength a bit more through a targeted pod across Free Companies, and have noticed a few different options. The one we landed one was adding Vargo Hoat and Begging Brothers to a Pod. The reason behind this is that using Vargo Hoat and Free Companies to fuel non Mercenary Cards, and more precisely Begging Brothers to control your opponents characters easily made it hard for any opponents to overcome. Hopefully, this change forces players to decide if they want the enabler to bestow recursion or if they want the cancel option.
Melee
While Redesigns impact Melee as much as Joust, most of the changes were intended towards Joust play and therefore might have a different impact on Melee. Furthermore, no Restricted List since Stahleck means we had to take a serious look at house Stahleck went down, because 8 of the top 16 decks were Tyrell, and while not all of them played Sparrows to win their tables, there were still 8 total decks in the top 16 which played them. With that said, it was important for us to take both Redesigns and the Stahleck results into consideration with these changes. Without further ado, here are the changes to the Melee Restricted List.
Stark
While not the most represented Faction at Stahleck Melee, Stark has always had the potential to gain a high amount of power fast in Melee. One card in particular caught our attention, as it allows you to gain an extra power after it had gained one already. While that seems fine at first glance, the bigger issue here is that if the character is a House Tully character, it would be able to stand, giving you a potential big renown body to win more challenges and accumulate a lot of power. With that said, we have decided to Restrict Above the Rest.
Targaryen
While Targaryen has many cards with potential to grab power, we also feel like Targaryen is underplayed in Melee. The only change for Targaryen this time around is that we removed Queensguard from the Ban List and added it to the Restricted List. While Queensguard is getting a significant nerf, we still view a potential stand twice per phase as a problem that needs to be kept in check.
Tyrell
The biggest changes that are coming are for House Tyrell. As mentioned above, they have been dominating Melee, and this goes beyond Stahleck 2025. It was simply amplified last year. The first change to Melee is adding The Bounty of Highgarden to the Restricted List. The reason for this is that it is very hard for opponents to make any sort of read against a card that can’t be cancelled and that can transform 2 gold and limited options into 5 gold and a plethora of options.
Second on the list for Tyrell is adding The Knight of Flowers (AtG) to the Restricted List. Two stands per round to accumulate power on him for fairly cheap because of bestow recursion, it became almost impossible to stop once the ball started rolling. We see The Knight of Flowers on the same footing as both Randyll Tarly (Core) and Randyll Tarly (Redesigns II), being able to push the rush to another level once he got going.
Next on the list is a swap in Restricted cards for the remove from challenge archetype. While Megga Tyrell was instantly Restricted for Melee, she was not necessarily the card most Tyrell decks were picking to build their decks around. On top of that, a lot of resources are put into building a deck around her, which means that she might not be the best option for a Restricted Card. On the other hand, Chivalry from the South was free and made it for a very stale round the round it was flipped, because nobody would dare do any challenges to avoid getting any power to the Tyrell player who flipped it. Therefore, we have removed Megga Tyrell from the Restricted List to add Chivalry of the South.
Last but not least, with the Redesign of Goldengrove, we have decided to completely free it from the Restricted List for now. It is believed that the change for this card will be enough to make it less abusable in Melee than it was before.
Neutral
As mentioned above, like Tyrell, another issue in Melee is our good friend Sparrows. A lot of discussion went into this one, but ultimately, between Shadow Recursion but also the Faith Militant decks that could go quite fast, we decided to outright Ban Sparrows from Melee. Our goal here is to hopefully open up deckbuilding in Melee and see just how much players will adapt to both not being able to play them but also not have to tech their decks against it.
With all of that said, we strongly believe the changes to both the Joust and Melee Restricted List and the changes of 16 cards through Redesigns will give players a lot of deckbuilding options and a new meta to emerge and evolve over time. While we do not intend to have any other Restricted Lists until early January, we do reserve a spot for an October update if we see something pop up as problematic and unintended. Happy deckbuilding, I personally cannot wait to see how all these changes affect our wonderful community around the World.
