Reality Fracture Format Update - Banlist and Watchlist Announcement
Summary of Changes
- Yoshimary, Ever Faithful – Remains on Watchlist
- Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh– Banned as Tiny Leader (Commander)
- Umezawa's Jitte – Unbanned & Added to Watchlist
From Rog to Dog and Back Again
In our previous announcement, we held off on banning the commanders of the Tier 1 Boros ‘legends matter’ deck. Despite its highly resilient 67% to 68% win rate, we wanted to see if removing Flawless Maneuver would organically bring the deck's power level in line with other top-tier strategies. At the time, it was genuinely unclear exactly where the root of the problem lay: was it Rograkh, Yoshimaru, Flawless Maneuver, or simply a critical mass of strong, aggressive cards in the format's best two-color pair?
We now have the results from the post-Flawless Maneuver ban metagame. Before diving into the data, we want to extend a huge thank you to Committee Advisor and TLR Founder Olivier Manin. Olivier was one of the first voices to point us specifically towards Rograkh following his extensive testing for a TLR event back in June. His early insights have been perfectly validated by what we have increasingly observed through our own gameplay and testing.
Looking at the recent post-ban tournament results, the data highlights exactly why further intervention is necessary:
| Commander Archetype | All-Time MW% | Last 2 Months MW% | August 2026 MW% | September 2026 MW% | Tiny Rivals 2026 MW% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
RogDog (Rograkh + Yoshimaru) |
71.0% (115-44-3) |
64.1% (41-23-0) |
63.2% (24-14-0) |
72.7% (8-3-0) |
85.7% (6-1-0) |
|
Yoshimaru (Other Partners) |
57.7% (15-10-1) |
50.0% (8-7-1) |
50.0% (2-2-0) |
37.5% (3-4-1) |
0.0% (0-2-0) |
Ultimately, these findings have led to the decision to ban Rograkh. Removing the zero-mana enabler will hopefully handicap the deck's most explosive early scaling. However, this action does not completely close the door on Yoshimaru. The Dog remains a very strong, fast-growing threat on its own, and we will continue monitoring it closely to see how the Boros shell adapts.
Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful - Remains on Watchlist
Getting to the Elephant in the room, Yoshimaru.
This card was at the same Boros Legends Aggro deck that we wanted to weaken, and is arguably stronger than Rograkh. We have chosen to leave Yoshimaru legal, in large part due to it's greater flexibility, and higher playrate in decks that are not the "RogDog" shell. Partner decks with Esior, Wardwing Familiar, Keleth, Sunmane Familiar, Thrasios, Triton Hero, and others have left a lot of space open for white aggro, midrange, and tempo decks to still play Yoshimaru in powerful capacities that we are happier with existing as options in the format.
We have looked at Rograkh's other decks as well, with partners like Thrasios, Triton Hero, Tymna, the Weaver, and Keleth, Sunmane Familiar, but found these decks overall to add less diversity and reasonable play patterns than the decks that exist with Yoshimaru.
We are still keeping an eye on Yoshimaru decks, as many of their powerful starts are largely still on the table. However, removing Rograkh will noticeably decrease their explosiveness. Losing a zero-cost partner means that powerful cards like Gut, True Soul Zealot, and Flare of Duplication will now require much more active support to function.
Furthermore, we have done extensive testing on these alternative Yoshimaru pairings, spearheaded by committee core member Laglaunt. This was supported by the concerted efforts of players on our official Discord and the Weekly Tiny Brawl tournament server, as well as players from NorCal, Exilius from Monterey, MX, and others from our dedicated paper communities. This testing has confirmed that these other options exist at a far more manageable speed and power level for the format.
Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh - Banned as Tiny Leader (Commander)
Ever since Jeska, Thrice Reborn was banned in early 2024, Rograkh has been a consistent presence as the most popular red partner. Pretty much immediately after, and even a little before that, we had seen Rograkh stepping up to partner with Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful. This commander pair formed a powerful, fast, and consistent engine right in the command zone, around which a boros aggro shell worked very well. In more recent times, this crept far more from just being a powerful option, to the best deck in the format, boasting a high play-rate, high win-rate, and a high rate of converting a top 8 to a win.
We have recently seen another card hit the banlist in Flawless Maneuver, in no small part because of how well this deck took advantage of it. Even with that card removed from the deck, it has still had an extremely high winrate and we have determined that it's impact upon the format is outsized and oppressive, and ultimately did not lead to a better format.
There were several other possible bans to consider, including Yoshimaru, Flowering of the White Tree, and Urdnan, Dromoka Warrior - these white legendary cards are the ones that push early starts from the deck beyond the range we like and lean unto the more gamebreaking territory, but strong synergy with commanders from cards in the deck is something we want to continue to promote, and we like the impact the boros legends shell can have upon the format in less extreme cases.
Umezawa's Jitte - Unbanned & Added to Watchlist
At the format's inception, a good few cards were banned before seeing play - Jitte was one of these. It has in the past been an oppressive or powerful card in many formats, ranging from standard all the way back to modern and legacy, and remains a powerful card in vintage cubes, and other formats like Canadian Highlander. Throughout our extensive testing, we have deemed the card safe. As a two mana card that cannot impact the board until equipped and connecting with an equipped creature, we have found the powerful effect to be within the bounds of the cost, and the risk of paying that cost in the face of removal. It has proven to play well in decks that plan to play a longer creature-based gameplan.
While some decks can be effectively stopped by Jitte, there is a lot of in-built counterplay to it, from the typeline - being an equipment, especially one without an effect when it enters, leaves, or similar means that removal for either the Jitte itself or the creature it is equipped to can be punishing. We have also not seen more dedicated equipment decks playing cards like Sigarda's Aid that could potentially get around some of these downsides doing well recently.
Final Notes
We appreciate the community's continued passion, feedback, and tournament reports. The data and insights you contribute directly shape these decisions.
A special thank you to the community testers and playgroups who dedicated time to generating data for this cycle, as well as to Core Member Esper and Consultants Adri and Nushio for their insight and contributions to compiling this write-up.
Thank you for reading, thank you for playing, and as always. . .