Flesh and Blood: May 2026 Banlist Review

As usual, before Omens of the Third Age(OMN), the new set, comes out, LSS announced another banlist update for Classic Constructed and Silver Age and a lot of changes.

These changes will be valid from May 29th onward:

Classic Constructed::

The following cards are banned:

- Channel Lightning Valley;

- Electromagnetic Somersault (1);

- Phantom Tidemaw;

- Reaping Blade;

- Skyward Serenade;

- Volzar, the Lightning Rod

Silver Age:

After popular vote, the following heroes will be out of the format for a season:

- Ira, Crimson Haze;

- Kayo;

- Kano

And the following heroes will now return to the format:

- Chane

The following cards are also unbanned:

- Aether Spindle (1);

- Burn Up // Shock;

- Lightning Press (1)

And the following cards are banned:

- Beckoning Haunt;

- Deathly Delight (1);

- Ebon Fold;

- Flourish (2);

- Reaping Blade;

- Vantom Wraith (1);

- Volzar, the Lightning Rod

Classic Constructed

This is what LSS had scheduled since last banlist update. So, we won't go too deep into them. We'll just add some new information the devs themselves brought.

Flesh and Blood's competitive format doesn't have a rotation. Like so, as the game grows and more cards enter the pool, old cards become problems. Either because they're too strong for the current meta or because they limit what future sets can do. As a result, they need to be reviewed and banned from time to time.

These bans were aggressive, which shows the dev team isn't afraid to be assertive when the situation calls for it. Nonetheless, they probably won't have to do this again anytime soon.

Channel Lightning Valley came out at a time we called "Book Burning", when the dev team implemented one of the most important bans in the history of the game. It redefined what Flesh and Blood should be, and we see its impact to this day. Channel goes against the standards established at this time, while Electromagnetic Somersault (1) just creates too much value for a single card (even though its design is decent). I've mentioned several times before how problematic it was in the Living Legend format, and, naturally, it was quite difficult to deal with in Classic Constructed as well.

Skyward Serenade came out with a printing error that completely changed how it worked and made it a lot stronger than it should be. Speaking of efficiency, Reaping Blade is pretty efficient for its class. This design should be on a Warrior card, in fact (it costs 1, has 3 power, and doesn't come with any condition).

We can't talk about Volzar, the Lightning Rod without talking about Oscilio, Constella Intelligence first. Oscilio was designed as a combo strategy, as was Kano, Dracai of Aether, and many players like this game style. However, when Oscilio finally found space in the competitive format, it made players frustrated and created completely polarized matches.

Once OMN came out, things would only get worse. Oscilio would get new tools and new ways to set up combos and deal Arcane damage. So, Oscilio must "move on" without his weapon and will have to solve a new puzzle with the new set. He'll still be great at setting up turns with Gone in a Flash, but he'll have to find new ways to deal more Arcane damage.

Phantom Tidemaw is in the same category as Berserk and Talk a Big Game. At first, this aura seems pretty innocent, but when the dev team was still testing it out, they found a Zyggy Starlight strategy that centered around protecting it at all costs and using it as a weapon. This would push off the meta a few decks that can't deal enough damage every turn to remove it from the board. As a result, they banned this card before this hero could become a problem.

Silver Age

For the first time since Compendium of Rathe, the community was able to vote on the three heroes they wanted to rotate out of Silver Age. The three most voted heroes were Ira, Crimson Haze, Kayo, and Kano, so they are now unavailable in this OMN season. Keep in mind that, once the next set rolls around, they'll return.

But one other hero is returning to the format: Chane. After leaving the format through the dev vote so that Silver Age could have a "cleaner" start, Chane is now returning in this OMN season. And this return is what prompted the dev team to ban many other cards as well.

Apart from Flourish (2) (which is a direct hit to Briar) and Volzar, the Lightning Rod (which was banned in this format for the same reason it was banned in Classic Constructed), the other bans are clearly supposed to nerf Chane. Each of these cards was useful to his game plan. Maybe banning them won't be enough to control him, but it's a start.

Three cards in the Chapter 3 Silver Age precons, as well as Blaze Firemind, were banned before this banlist update: Aether Spindle (1), Burn Up // Shock, and Lightning Press (1). Because of the way precons are released, these three cards had to return to the format (at least for this OMN season)

That's a lot of changes, so these formats will certainly change. Since we're getting a new set soon, we'll go through the changes to Classic Constructed when we review OMN.

It's Runeblade Season

Ever since Silver Age was released, it has been through some troubling times. The Pro Quest season was completely dominated by Kayo and Briar, and, after the bans, Ira, Crimson Haze was by far the best deck. The voting system can fix some of these problems, but some variables might put this format once again in a state of emergency.

Once Chane returns, the new Runeblade/Lightning set comes out, and all these cards are unbanned, he might end up dominating the format again. This, in turn, could make the meta quite difficult for other aggro decks, like Fai or Dash.

Once the format leans heavily into aggro, we'll have some ways to answer it. Oldhim is one of the best defensive decks in the game, while Iyslander can make these decks a bit slower because of Frostbite or just beat them outright.

The next weeks will be quite stressful for the Silver Age format, and we'll have to wait for the next events to see whether these changes kept it healthy or if they just threw us back into another Shadow/Lightning era.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!