The May 2026 TCG banlist has gone into effect, that means a new ranked season is starting on Dueling Nexus alongside the season 11 Battle Pass! Here is a full list of the new features coming out with this season:

• A TCG, Genesys, and Edison Ranked Season reset, featuring the new May 2026 TCG Banlist and May 2026 Genesys Point List.

• A new Battle Pass, featuring all-new exclusive Avatars, Sleeves, Portraits, Frames, Playmats, and Titles based on popular and exciting archetypes, such as Shaddoll, Elfnote, Kewl Tune, and more!

What Else is New?

Overframes and Grand Master Rarity

• Over 40 overframe cards are available with full customisation now! These overframe artworks aren’t just pre-rendered images, but generated using our standard high-quality card image generator, using meticulous human-edited cutouts that take the opacity of the effect text box into consideration to display text through.
• To coincide with this launch, we are adding our most exciting rarity yet- Grand Master Rares. Just like their real-life counterpart, these rarities will be super exclusive, being awarded to the Top 100 players in each Ranked leaderboard at the end of each season. This means players who want to get one will need to grind and win Ranked mode, allowing up to 3 Grand Master Rare tokens to be earned per season (1 each for TCG, Edison, and Genesys ranked modes).
• But it’s not just to look pretty- the black box will be filled in with the order in which the cards are unlocked! So if you are the very first person to unlock a GM Rare for a specific card, it will display 001/001 at the corner, with the denominator increasing as more people unlock the rarity for that card. So even past 100, you’d still be 001/100! This presents an exclusive chance for owners to flex extra hard as a reward for their Ranked mode performance!

Deckbuilder Overhaul

The following changes have been made to the Deckbuilder:

• The Deck List will now display a cover card you can customise and set.
• The banlist the Deck uses, as well as the date the Deck was last updated will be displayed. (requires Deck to be opened and saved once after the update was deployed.)
• The display was also updated for mobile users!

• You can now edit your Deck Name from directly inside the Deckbuilder.

• You can now filter for cards by release date. To specify whether to use TCG or OCG release dates, be sure to select the TCG or OCG cardpool respectively. When using “All Cards”, the earliest release date (TCG or OCG) will be displayed. When entering just one date, before or after, all cards released before/after that date will be displayed. Entering both will display cards released between those two dates (inclusive).

• New Effect Types for Hand activations, Quick Effects, Trigger Effects, and Conditional Effects have been added to help you look for something without specifying it in text.
• Special Characters are no longer required when searching for card names, making cards like Evil Twins easier to search for.
• A line break is no longer added to the Effect Text box when players hit Enter.
• An issue where the Deckbuilder text would misalign if the player was logged out while editing a Deck will no longer occur.
• The Deckbuilder and Game will now allow players to search for cards using their English names when playing with other languages.
• TCG version of cards have been removed from the Deckbuilder, and the correct script is now loaded depending on the format chosen in the lobby.

New Updates and QOL

Other major changes have come to the rest of the site! These include:

• A timer will now be displayed when in RPS or when Siding.
• The max timer gain from performing actions has been increased from 50% to 100% of the maximum timer’s original value. This means in normal matchmaking, players can gain up to 240 additional seconds in extra time, up from 120.

• To combat disconnections, when a player attempts to disconnect from a duel, a prompt will now appear to encourage players to Surrender before leaving to avoid the match running on for the duration of the Reconnect timer.
• Additionally, when players disconnect from a Ranked game, and attempt to queue for another Ranked game, they will instead reconnect to their existing Ranked game to encourage them to either Surrender the Match or keep playing.

• A new navbar design which displays new information! Users can now directly access the Public Deck Browser, as well as view the Top Cards and Top Archetypes used in-game with statistics, as well as easier access to our Social Media platforms.

• The Custom Game List has been updated to show whether the game is Automatic or Manual, the cardpool being used, as well as the Banlist selected, to better help you find retro formats or other games that were previously just labeled as “Custom”.
• The display was also improved for mobile users!

• A new Patch Notes section was added to the Main Homepage, showing when the game was last updated, and displaying all the new cards included in each update.

• Long names are now truncated in-game, preventing strange resizing issues with smaller display sizes.

• The card wiki is automatically updated each time the game is updated, generating relevant card info pages.

Bug Fixes

• Several issues and bugs present in Manual Mode have been fixed.
• Chat messages will now play a SFX when sent. This helps mobile players know when their opponent or Spectators sent them a message.
• Missing in-game music has been re-added.
• An issue causing 3D mode squares to be used in 2D mode when blocking zones has been fixed.
• Fixed an issue where cards with the “always treated as” text when equipped with rarities would not work properly.
• A similar issue where cards with aliases and a rarity couldn’t be referenced by other cards, for effects like searching, has been resolved.
• English strings are now used when translated strings are unavailable in other languages, fixing an issue where some prompts and displays appeared blank.
• An issue where certain post-errata cards could be used in Edison mode by equipping them with Rarities has been fixed.
• Alt Arts are now usable in retro formats, such as Edison and GOAT.
• Effects that declared card names now no longer display additional options for things like pre-errata or Rush variants, using the current game mode to determine which version of the card to display.
• Excavations appearing face-down on mobile have been fixed, now displaying a “face-down” icon instead to signify if a card is face-up or face-down when selecting it in a window.
• The registration page will no longer appear blank when a user that already has an account attempts to register, instead displaying an error that the user already owns an account linked to that email address, prompting password recovery instead.
• Xyz materials appearing face-down in the window preview now display face-up properly.
• The prompt window blocking the opponent’s hand from being selected will now reposition itself when hovered over.
• When hovering over cards who had their names changed by a card effect, the correct name it was changed to will now be displayed.
• Very long replays that used to stop working halfway through or not be saved at all are now saving and being replayed properly.
• Fixed an issue where MR2 hands were shrunken.
• Sleeves are now assigned to the correct player when reconnecting or spectating.
• 3D mode Deck/GY hitbox will now correctly reflect their actual size.
• Fixes to various Achievements that previously did not work, including Deck in Hand, Overwhelming Magic, Hope for a Better Future, Embodiment of Greed, Necrovalleyless, Duelist from a Different Dimension, Tribal Drive, and Magicians’ United.
• XP Text should now display at the end of every match. Previously, it’d sometimes not show up.
• Rikka Sheet bug is fixed.

What Comes Next?

We’re still hard at work to provide users with the best possible in-game experience, and are working on a few things:

Manual Ranked Mode

• Manual Mode is still in development, but its already available for play in Unranked Matches and Custom Games!
• Unranked Manual Mode will feature Single matchmaking, while Ranked Manual Mode will feature a separate MMR from Automatic Mode and accompanying skill-based matchmaking.
• We are going to roll out a Judge Exam and system within our Discord server soon. Judge calls will be fully integrated with our server, and judges will receive exclusive in-game rewards for their services. More information will come soon.

Site Lobby Redesign + Featured Game Modes

• We’re planning to improve a lot of aspects from the Site Lobby design! These include a new Duel Zone layout that supports addition functions such as more game matchmaking modes, informational panels about each mode, and more.
• In addition to this, we plan to roll out a Featured Game Mode playlist, similar to Master Duel’s Festivals, which are limited time modes with exclusive matchmaking and participation rewards. Planned modes include Retro Formats, OCG, and other popular modes!
• These changes will accompany some mobile improvements to the overall user lobby experience.

Streamer Mode

• Being added really soon, Streamer Mode is designed to help Streamers and Content Creators!
• Enemy names and cosmetics will be censored in order to avoid potential NSFW content. Additionally, the option to mute Chat and mute Spectators is already available.
• Do you stream DNX? Consider joining the DNX Partner Program!

Mobile Compatibility Fixes

Currently, the site’s mobile mode is in open Beta. We plan to continue to improve the mobile experience for players on-the-go. Changes planned include:

• Drag and Drop support for Deckbuilding and Side Decking (no more Swap button)
• Being able to View Cards when Selections Occur
• Tablet Support
• Enabling the Back Button to go back in-game rather than back to the last URL visited.
• Full-Screening the game, preventing the URL bar from taking up space.
• Updating all UI elements to be sized properly.
• Adding the new options found in the Desktop navbar to the mobile sidebar, such as for viewing Top Cards, Top Archetypes, and the Public Deck Browser.
• Fixing an issue where the sidebar menu runs off when scrolling downwards.
• Fixing an issue where card searches in the Deckbuilder will be obscured.
• Adding Manual Mode compatibility with Mobile.

Challenges

• Not to be confused with Achievements, Challenges will feature three modes- Daily Challenges, Weekly Challenges, and Seasonal Challenges.
• These challenges will reward players with XP for their Battle Pass, and Credits to use in the Boutique.
• These Challenges will be simple, repeatable tasks that should come in normal play.
• And more!

Join the Nexus

f you are interested in helping us grow our platform, consider joining our team! We are currently looking to partner with Content Creators to promote our platform! We are in the beginning stages of development a referral system for partners, which allows their watchers and consumers to support them and gain exclusive in-game prizes while doing so!

We are also currently looking for volunteers to help us expand our platform!

• If you are a Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Korean, or Thai speaker, we need your help localising our game into your language!
• If you are a Graphical Designer, and looking to have your work featured on our platform, we are in need of people who can design game assets, renders, illustrations, and artworks.
• If you are an EDM Musician who’d like your music featured in our site, we are looking for audio engineers to contribute to our ever-growing OST, and SFX library.
• If you are a Lua programmer, we are looking for Card Scripters to get card updates out even faster for players to enjoy.
• If you are a writer, journalist, or editor, we are currently looking for authors to write News Articles, Discussion Posts, and more for our site.

PLEASE keep in mind that these features are in active development, and bugs could therefore appear. If you experience any issues with these game changes, please report them to us in our Discord server, under the #open-beta-feedback channel. We would love to hear if you have any suggestions on what you would like to see added to Dueling Nexus!

One Final Thing

Character Reveals and Lore Drops Coming Soon

Awhile back, we put out a casting call for voice actors regarding plans to further develop our mascot characters. While many players may already be familiar with Nyx from her role as the AI you duel in Solo Mode, you may have noticed other names as well in the Emotes and within our Discord server. I’m happy to announce we’re making progress in fleshing these characters and their world out, which you will see in future Social Media interactions and YouTube videos! We can’t wait to bring you more of Shiloh, Dimitri, Lorelei, Petra, Avester, and of course Nyx, so be on the look out for more updates soon!