Banlist Predictions (06/19/2026)

Ah s**t, here we go again – CJ, GTA: San Andreas, 2004

With the updated ban list looming around next week, I’ve decided to compile my thoughts on the current state of balance and talk about my expectations, wants, and the general possibilities of what may occur. This is not a definitive list nor does it guarantee that any of the listed changes will occur.

“It’s a bad day to be an idol(m@ster) fan” – Me and the Kotone bros

Beginning with what may be on top of the chopping block, Gakuen Idolm@ster has been doing very well for the last year with no changes even with its supposed dominance in the current game. As far as I understand it, there isn’t anything particularly overpowered from Gakuen Idolm@ster. The most represented deck has to be Re;Iris shown above with Temari, Saki, and Kotone. While I had mentioned previously that there were possible changes to 2/1 Sena and 3/2 early play Misuzu, neither have been touched, and at this point, I doubt any further changes to those two will occur either.

I don’t particularly find there to be anything egregious to Re;Iris (keep in mind, I do own this deck so there may be some bias here); as far as I’m concerned, the deck is just solid. There’s not much to it as the game plan is to get memory, get resources for Temari, and then slam her on field at three. Temari’s finishing ability is relatively fair compared to most finishers of today’s day and age. Her Icy Tail ability will only ever inflict one additional damage regardless of how many climaxes you reveal. In all honesty, unless you are playing pure Re;Iris anyways, the memory compression is rather slow and limited to six at best (Temari checks your memory minus one, so you’d probably be checking five most of the time).

If there are any hits, without impacting the main core, I would think some of these cards above would be touched. Kotone is a lynchpin for the deck. Being able to be played without colour requirement is huge since you need red for Saki at level one. With Kotone, she basically exists as an additional copy of Saki that spawns her cheaply from your waiting room for a turn. 0/0 Saki is the deck’s only way of turbocharging stock in exchange for life which does come into importance sometimes. Hitting these two will heavily reduce Re;Iris’ consistency and fallback options. This is what I feel would be fair hits without directly punching the overall game plan.

The other main deck I want to talk about is the emerging or already dominant eight standby deck from Overlord with an impressive showing from WGP. This deck, comparatively to Gakuen Idolm@ster, has some pieces that make it go over the top and could use some slight revisions. The first of which is outlined above. Once again, we are finding the issue of the rest counter re-emerging time and time again. With the rather stock-less dependence of the deck due to standby itself, it isn’t too far of a common sight to see this rather annoying loop over and over if the deck can accumulate its resources. Albedo lets you salvage a character for free whenever she is spawned from a standby trigger, making it rather easy to grab Aura over and over.

As for some other hits to the deck, one of the biggest cards that would heavily reduce the deck’s power is taking out the Tabula Smaragdina. This card is bonkers as it gives you a consistent bonder to any Albedo in your waiting room, both on play and when sent to waiting room, giving you a single card that can constantly loop your early play combos and other Albedo cards repeatedly. Rana’s hit reduces consistency and also weakens Aura’s counter as players can no longer rely upon it to grant them the free extra stock. Ainz is a common standby target that gives you significant knowledge on your triggers to let you plan ahead accordingly. With these hits, I think, will impact the deck in some capacity, lowering the overall power of the deck while keeping its core intact.

A new contender to the block, Cinderella Girls received significant updates with the release of the premium booster. Uzuki has risen to new fame. Hitting Uzuki or its changer will essentially kill the deck itself, but what can probably be done is remove the power of the early game Asuka. Asuka acts as a brainstorm that covers the missing last colour requirements for the deck’s actual finisher, Shiki. With Asuka out of the picture, players will need another way to brainstorm while fulfilling Shiki’s conditions. I don’t think Uzuki is primarily the issue even though she carries the deck. Uzuki is really a modern update on Kanata combo and honestly, a very interesting design that I think is relatively balanced.

To be honest, I don’t really know what to say for this one. Arguably, I do think the current Idolm@ster Shiny Colours dominant deck is quite fair. The mix of Alstroemeria with either a finisher in Toru or their own finishers isn’t particularly overly powerful or dominating the game in any way. The [Cherry Jelly] twins aren’t exactly broken by any measure. They do give you a lot of hand, but it’s not like you can really do anything with the overflow on top of refreshing and dumping the vast majority into the waiting room after. Koito is a commonly used card in almost every deck, but I also don’t think this card makes any significant impact in the decks overall. It is a memory condition for Toru and it’s free memory condition is nice, so if there’s one way to slow down the deck, I think Koito would be a fair hit. One other hit could be the Meguru Riki profile since it does technically help in fixing your colours for the early game if you want to run multiple colours. Otherwise, if Bushiroad wants to be brutal, they could limit either Amana or Chika with their shared climax (or limit it to exclusively a full Alstroemeria deck) like they should have for 1/1 Hiori and 3/2 Meguru for Illumination Stars (I remember, Bushiroad).

As for some lesser highlights, I do think, based on my previous post, there still could be changes to take place. Oshi no Ko could still have this profile above hit, this pseudo-spawning card which is part of what makes Akane so consistent. This and a few others, maybe even a hit on the 2/1 Koume could impact the deck more heavily.

And as a classic measure, I’ll also include Satono Diamond for the same reasons as before. I won’t go into detail again here. If you’ve read my previous articles, you’ve already known at length why I think Satono should go.

That’s pretty much it for my ban list predictions for next week. I do think we are at a more stable meta period than previously (I feel we’re still feeling the effects of the powercreep from 2021, but we’re reeling back to some extent). All of this is in conjecture comparatively to the very much pushed reveals coming out with Brown Dust 2. Arguably, the upcoming ban list could also be paved in a way to welcome that new series.