The Banned and Restricted List was updated today but only one format was altered. Vintage saw changes to three cards. Thorn of Amethyst and Monastery Mentor were both Restricted while Yawgmoth's Bargain was taken off the Restricted List. These changes take effect September 1st, 2017 and will be implemented on Magic Online on August 30, 2017. The next update to these lists will be on October 17, 2017.

The additions to the list were designed to shake up the Vintage metagame. As of late, the format has been dominated by Mishra's Workshop decks and Monastery Mentor decks. The latter is one of "the best win conditions for Blue decks" as described by Ian Duke while the former was restricted to help promote interactive matchups with Workshop decks. Yawgmoth's Bargain was removed from the Restricted List as an experiment in unleashing old powerful cards to see what havoc they may (or may not) wroth.

In the Ixalan Mechanics Article, Matt Tabak discussed the change to the way Planeswalkers work. Moving forward all Planeswalkers will be Legendary and be subject to the Legend Rule. The Planeswalker Uniqueness Rule is being removed from the game. This means that a player can control a Jace Beleren and a Jace, the Mind Sculptor at the same time, but if that player then plays a second Jace, the Mind Sculptor, they would have to pick one copy to keep.