Paper TCG · Report · 10 Aug 2026

The August 2026 Hall of Fame revision, in English

Effective today. Nineteen cards changed status — ten tightened, nine loosened. Several loop decks are gone, but not all of them, and the one that survived is the loudest thing in the announcement.

Takara Tomy published this on 27 July via the official regulation page and the @t2duema account. Everything below is checked against the official page.

What "Hall of Fame" means

Duel Masters does not use a banlist in the Western sense. The official regulation page defines five categories, not the two or three you might expect:

Only one Premium Combo pair currently exists — Forbidden Hero Momoking Dom X and Future King Dragon Momoking JO — and this revision did not touch the combo categories at all. The official page states that explicitly.

Banned outright — Premium Hall of Fame

All three are cost-cheating or reanimation enablers.

• Faerie Gift （フェアリー・ギフト） — 1-cost spell. Reduces the cost of your next creature by 3. Two decades old, and still the standard way to put something enormous on the board early.
• Operation of Unknown Purpose （目的不明の作戦） — 7-cost spell with Shield Trigger. Recasts a spell of cost 7 or less from your graveyard for free. An engine piece for graveyard combo.
• Feast of the Eclipse King （蝕王の晩餐） — 3-cost spell. Destroy one of your own creatures, then reanimate one costing exactly one more.

Newly restricted to one copy

• Mei-sama the Awakened （お目覚めメイ様） — an alternate-win creature, the payoff for Dream Mate decks
• Haiku Baron Drache der'Bande （俳句爵 Drache der'Bande）
• Leviya's Earth Plate （レヴィヤの地版）
• Zombiepon no Suke （ゾンビポンの助） — the piece that made Dokkoi Loop the fastest combo deck in the format
• Roaring Awakening: Red Zone Buster / Blue Awakening: Dogiragon X （轟く覚醒 レッドゾーン・バスター／蒼き覚醒 ドギラゴンX）
• Miracle 1: Doremi 24 （ミラクル１ ドレミ24）
• Garyu Tower First Floor: Saint Castle （我竜塔第一層 セイント・キャッスル） — Japanese coverage describes its defensive numbers as "bug-like"

One analyst's read: the office has turned into a "loop deck exterminator." Operation of Unknown Purpose, Feast of the Eclipse King, Leviya's Earth Plate, Zombiepon no Suke and Doremi 24 are all combo pieces, and hitting five at once is not a coincidence.

Two of the choices look like ordinary metagame corrections instead: Drache der'Bande and Saint Castle powered two of the format's top decks, so restricting them was widely expected.

There is also a visible inconsistency. Mei-sama was restricted, but Gorgy Ohja （轟䡛合体 ゴルギーオージャー）, another alternate-win creature, was not. The suggested explanation is that Mei-sama's deck could also just win by attacking, and Gorgy Ohja's cannot.

Loosened: Premium → Hall of Fame

Milzam, Spirit of Miracles （奇跡の精霊ミルザム）

Restricted in February 2016, promoted to Premium a year later in February 2017, and now back down to one copy — nine years in the zero-copy tier.

The original problem was Heaven's Gate putting Milzam into play alongside Emeraluda, generating enormous advantage and adding six shields' worth of potential triggers, which powered the Heaven's Gate Loop deck.

Why now, per Japanese analysis: the format has since gained creatures like Bay B Segare that shut off oversized mana counts outright, and the officials appear to want Heaven's Gate decks propped back up. There is also a comparison being drawn — Fiona Akashic, a loop deck that received no restrictions at all this revision, can reportedly assemble its loop by turn four if unimpeded. Against that baseline, Milzam at one copy is not the scariest thing in the room.

Loosened: Hall of Fame → Unrestricted

• "Ryusou" Churis （“龍装”チュリス）
• Forbidden Mechanism VV-8 （禁断機関 VV-8）
• Garamuta, Matchless Dread Emperor （無双恐皇ガラムタ）
• Great Hero "Chain Windmill" （大勇者「鎖風車」）
• Inferno Sign （インフェルノ・サイン）
• Aragoto Musubi （アラゴト・ムスビ）
• Evil God M. Romanov （邪神M・ロマノフ）
• Clone Vice （クローン・バイス）

• Churis was restricted in 2022 for being a 5-cost Dragon that could attack on turn three and Revolution Change into the Dogiragon line. Released now because Dogiragon Buster is itself restricted, and because Onimaru "Shuto" — which does a comparable job for three mana and is not restricted at all — already exists.
• VV-8 was restricted in 2020 for reliably buying an extra turn around turn five in Deaddamd decks. Released now because plenty of decks simply kill on turn four, making the extra turn redundant.
• Chain Windmill and Aragoto Musubi were restricted in 2017 for powering Mono-Green Loop. That deck's actual core, Bay B Jack, is still in Premium Hall of Fame, so releasing these two does not bring it back.
• Inferno Sign competes with Brain Slash, already unrestricted and, in the analyst's view, simply better.
• M. Romanov spent 2012 to 2022 in Premium, came back to Hall of Fame in 2022, and is now free. Good synergy with Primal Saga from July's set, but at 5 cost the analyst expects it to stay rare.

What is predicted to die

These come from the card shop write-up. Read them as one forecast, not settled fact.

The one to watch is Fiona Akashic, which came through completely untouched. If the officials really were targeting loop decks, the survival of a deck that can go off on turn four is the loudest thing in the announcement. The suggested explanation is usage rate — it simply was not played enough to trigger a restriction.

Expect a week or two of instability before anything settles.

The Japanese reaction

Mostly about the announcement image. The official post laid all nineteen card arts out in one graphic, and a lot of the replies were people noting how densely packed it was — ギッチギチ / ミッチミチ, roughly "absolutely stuffed." Nineteen cards is a lot to fit in one picture, and the picture communicated the scale before anyone read the list.

This lands during the 25th anniversary year, in the middle of a run of commemorative products.

If you own English cards

The same official page carries a separate list, headed Prohibited Cards （使用禁止カード）, that has nothing to do with the Hall of Fame and does not change with revisions. It has two entries: the red-backed Garuberias Dragon promo from CoroCoro Comic, April 2004 — and "Duel Masters TCG in any language other than Japanese."

That second line means the entire 2002–2006 English print run is not legal in official or sanctioned Japanese events. Not restricted. Not limited to one copy. Simply not usable. Casual play is unaffected; this is a standing rule, not something this revision introduced.

A note on the card names above

Duel Masters has had no official English release since 2006, so most of these cards have never had an English name. Everything above is a literal translation given alongside the Japanese, so you can match it against Japanese videos, decklists, and the official database. Where the community already uses a different rendering, theirs is probably the better one to search with.

Sources

Primary. The nineteen card names, the category definitions, and the prohibited-cards list were checked against the official regulation page at dm.takaratomy.co.jp/rule/regulation/, last updated 27 July 2026. All nineteen names match.

Secondary, for analysis.

• Card-by-card reasoning on the nine loosened cards: a note.com article by ヤマト, 6 August 2026, which credits Duel Masters Wiki (dmwiki.net) and the キャンテ YouTube channel. Its claims about which older cards remain restricted were verified against the official lists.
• Deck-impact predictions: card shop write-ups. Read knowing the authors sell cards.

Where the secondary sources disagree, both views are given above. Where they disagree with the official page, the official page wins.