Welcome to Vantage Point! We hope the cards previewed so far have allowed you to see Netrunner from a new perspective.
Since the cards in Vantage Point were finalized in November, the Standard Format Curation Team has been stress testing established Elevation Standard decks with the new set, and exploring some of the new options that are available. We owe a debt of gratitude to the banlist playtesters who have helped us test how the new tools impact existing archetypes. We believe this banlist balances the design and development vision behind Vantage Point with the needs of competitive players.
This banlist becomes active for Casual play on March 2nd 2026, with the release of Vantage Point. It becomes active for Competitive-level events on March 13th 2026, when Vantage Point becomes Competitive-legal.
Summary of Standard Banlist 26.03 Changes
Daily Casts unbanned
Deep Dive unbanned
DreamNet unbanned
Info Bounty unbanned
Hoshiko Shiro: Untold Protagonist banned
Luminal Transubstantiation banned
Nyusha “Sable” Sintashta: Symphonic Prodigy banned
Svyatogor Excavator banned
Explanation of Changes
Since the release of Elevation and the accompanying rotation, the decreased size of the Standard cardpool has had a much stronger impact on Corps than on Runners. Corps simply have more functions that need to be filled: agendas, central server defense, and a plan for scoring, all on top of their basic economy. Rotation left at least one gap unfilled for each Corp faction.
Our team did our best to address this through a continual weakening of both sides throughout the Elevation meta, as the banlist grew from 23 cards to 29. However, our efforts were a bandage, not a cure: no ban or unban can create meaningful central defenses, for example, without introducing a host of other issues alongside it.
With Vantage Point, the Design and Development teams had opportunities to fill these gaps, especially for Corps. As a result, we are now able to give Runners back some tools in this new context, so they can respond to new threats.
Runner-Side Changes
The majority of the Elevation Standard bans were Runner bans, so we started testing for this update by evaluating which Runner cards could be unbanned.
Both the Deep Dive and Daily Casts bans were intended to counteract Runners’ ability to exploit Corp weaknesses: Deep Dive punishes a lack of central defense while Daily Casts punishes Corps that try to extend the game. We believe that the improvements to Corp economy, as well as the presence of new central defense, allow these tools to reenter the card pool. One such card is our new take on a familiar effect:
⬩ Flagship
Unique Weyland Consortium Upgrade: Ritzy
Rez cost: 3 – Trash cost: 4 – Influence cost: 2
HQ or R&D only.
Runs against this server cannot be declared successful. (This effect does not cause runs to become unsuccessful.)
Persistent → During each run against this server, the Runner cannot access more than 1 card other than this upgrade.
“Gilded lily? You can get one in the gift shop.”
Illustrated by Dimik
Surprisingly, in our testing we found Shaper gained less of an advantage from these two changes than the other Runner factions. Shaper’s theming around alternate credit sources often meant they either didn’t have the money to install Daily Casts, or the payoffs to leverage the raw credits it provided. And the wide range of central server defence in Vantage Point meant Shapers often needed to spend a fair bit of influence just to compete on that same level.
The strongest Deep Dive delivery mechanism, unsurprisingly, was one that could take five clicks from turn one. When played out of Nyusha “Sable” Sintashta, Deep Dive played like a rigged slot machine. No matter how much Corps teched against it, Sable would always be able to pull off a Dive before the Corp was ready. With Sable banned, we believe Criminal Deep Dive decks will be slower to reach their big jackpots.
Daily Casts has its strongest support in Anarch shells, with The Price and Paladin Poemu often eliminating that upfront cost almost entirely, sometimes with perks. This kind of reliable economy without sacrifice has always been essential to Anarch, and giving another tool like this would continue to homogenize the faction around ‘reg value’. To encourage more diversity, we decided to ban the strongest reg enabler: the identity that provides an average of one card or credit every turn with next-to-no downside, Hoshiko Shiro.
Both of these identities have established themselves as Best In Faction. By banning them in exchange for unbanning the powerful economy cards that were banned in the past to keep them in check—Info Bounty and Dreamnet—we hope to incentivise Anarch and Criminal players to use more of their card pool.
Corp-Side Changes
With the Runner adjustments established, we then considered which Corps were taken above and beyond by Vantage Point. As noted when it was first banned back in 24.12, Luminal Transubstantiation has a tendency to create extremely swingy games. In the Elevation meta, this is exactly what Haas-Bioroid needed to combat proportionally more powerful reg Runner decks. Now, with HB getting new agendas in Vantage Point to establish a more reliable game plan, we found Luminal could enter retirement yet again.
Ob Superheavy Logistics is one of the strongest identities in Elevation standard, and Vantage Point brings it a range of new tools to use. While we are generally wary about making aggressive bans before a meta has developed, we believe that a light ban is justified given Ob’s dominant position in 25.12 and the new tools it’s receiving. Svyatogor Excavator is a powerful enabler for asset-based Ob strategies, and its clickless ability enables many of the archetype’s most aggressive lines. We believe that this ban tempers the most powerful Ob lists while still allowing fans of the identity to play with new toys.
Other Considerations
Sting! Unban
Whenever possible, we prefer to minimize the number of cards on the banlist. However, kill decks often excel in new formats, and we want to see how AU Co. incorporates cards from Vantage Point without also regaining Sting! before we take any action.
Extract, The Basalt Spire, Ob Superheavy Logistics Ban
We considered a wide range of even stronger bans targeted at Ob decks. However, we decided that we wanted to let the meta develop so we can make the most informed decision on whether to proceed further with bans on Ob cards.
We are looking forward to seeing where you all take the meta when Vantage Point releases on March 2nd!
Standard Ban List 26.03
Effective date: 02 March 2026 (Casual), 13 March 2026 (Competitive)
Changes from Standard Ban List 25.12 appear in bold.
| Runner | Corp |
|---|---|
| Bukhgalter | Bellona |
| Cleaver | Cayambe Grid |
| Endurance | Cyberdex Sandbox |
| Hoshiko Shiro: Untold Protagonist | Cybersand Harvester |
| K2CP Turbine | Dr. Vientiane Keeling |
| Matryoshka | Drago Ivanov |
| Moshing | Engram Flush |
| Nyusha “Sable” Sintashta: Symphonic Prodigy | False Lead |
| Rezeki | Gold Farmer |
| Trick Shot | Luminal Transubstantiation |
| Tsakhia “Bankhar” Gantulga | Nanisivik Grid |
| World Tree | NBN: Reality Plus |
| Project Vacheron | |
| Sting! | |
| Svyatogor Excavator | |
| Touch-ups | |
| Tributary |
Vantage Point will be released on March 2. It will be available from our online store, our retail partners, and as a free print-and-play PDF immediately, and from our print-on-demand partners as soon as it’s approved.
