Riftbound Ekko and Stacked Deck Bans: Reasoning and Consequences

Effective September 18, 2026, two cards are banned in both the Standard format and 2v2 - Ekko, Recurrent, and Stacked Deck. Here you can read the full announcement.

Let's dive deeper into each card and what ripple effects this might have on the game.

Ekko, Recurrent

Ekko's story is very simple. It's a part of a Lux infinite combo deck that is not a simple A+B combo, but rather what we'd call an engine combo deck. This means that the entire deck is built to support the combo, and every single card plays some role. Ekko's role was paramount, as it allowed to ready up all the Runes and it self-Recycled.

Players complained about the combo for a couple of reasons:

• Power
• Super long one-sided turns
• Very hard to interact with
• Doesn't participate in the conventional game of Riftbound

In short, you'd sit down, knowing that whatever you do is irrelevant to them, they are not going to play by the same rules of the game, play patterns are going to be completely different than what you'd expect from a game of Riftbound (conquering, holding, developing to base, interaction), and it all culminates in them hoarding the clock, performing a 10-minute turn where you feel compelled to keep looking at their hands to make sure everything is all right.

This was the basis for a lot of complaining. However, there was one competitively minded Magic: The Gathering pro who took a proper approach to it - instead of complaining, it decided to break the deck.

To then proceed to win the event

And culminating in this insane aura-maxxed post

And with that, Lux combo seems to be done for. Crucially, we ought to take a look at the reasoning. In the announcement, it is explicitly mentioned that:

'A match of Riftbound should be a fun and interactive experience for both players, and this change should help ensure that.'

This is a firm stance against decks that are solitare-esque, but also heavily circumvent conventional rules and gameplay. We shall see how this approach manifests in the future.

When it comes to potential consequences, it's mainly that the deck is gone and people can free up those 1-2 sideboard slots they may have devoted to this deck specifically, like Divine Judgment.

Stacked Deck

The second card is Stacked Deck - an innocuous card selection spell.

The main reasoning behind the banning of Stacked Deck is as follows:

'Kennen’s play rate and win rate warrant a targeted ban that doesn’t obliterate the deck and strategy, but brings it more in line with other top decks.'

Therefore, the main driver was Kennen and its insane popularity, crucially combined with a high win rate - which would be alarming enough, yet given the popularity, it's even more egregious.

The consequences of this ban are much more robust.

The macro perspective is that Kennen gets a hit to its consistency, and all the other Purple decks lose a card that has been an auto-include very often, hence freeing up three main deck slots for future deckbuilding. While the second part doesn't sound like a downside, if we zoom in on specific decks and synergies, the aftermath is considerably more interesting.

All the blue-purple decks that used Student get a hit. Stacked Deck was a very easy way to get a trigger for the Student(s), especially given that it could be cast in showdowns directly.

Likewise, every purple deck that used Abandoned Hall is getting a similar hit for the same reasons. Decks like Diana get a double punish in this case, since they are a Hall and a Student strategy.

Fizz, a card that was deemed banworthy, is getting an indirect nerf. If you didn't have anything specific to use your Fizz on, it was very common to cash it in for a Stacked Deck, which now is not an option. It is yet another hit to decks that utilised Stacked Deck and Fizz, which happens to also often be blue-purple.

Red-purple decks have now also lost the god opener, wherein on turn one, going second, they'd play Stacked Deck into Noxus Hopeful. This line will no longer be possible.

Specific archetypes also get hit. Sivir Aurora loses three card selection spells which are so important to find the key Aurora.

Likely the biggest loser of the bans - Diana.

Diana is not only a deck with Student, Abandoned Hall, and Fizz, but it also used Stacked Deck very effectively using the Legend's ability. Now, it's going to be much more common for that mana to go unspent - which makes the Legend basically blank.

Conclusions

I am super curious to see the actual aftermath of the bans in competitive play. Decks will have to re-adjust with new slots available, but some decks get actively nerfed despite not being targeted in the first place. It's going to be exciting to see the events unfold, especially for such a seemingly ordinary card like Stacked Deck.