The Cookie Run: Braverse Banned & Restricted List, Explained

Ask any Cookie Run: Braverse player how many copies of a card you can run and you will get the same answer: four. It is printed in the rulebook, it is in every beginner guide on this site, and it is correct right up until you sit down at a sanctioned event.

Sixteen cards are exceptions. Five cannot go in your deck at all, and eleven are capped at a single copy. Devsisters publishes the list as a policy notice on the official English site, the current version dates from a June 11, 2026 update, and the notice opens with a line worth reading twice: these regulations apply "in official and unofficial events."

Here is the whole thing, card by card, with the reasoning Devsisters gave for each.

The rule everyone quotes is only half the law

The baseline construction rules have not changed. A legal deck is exactly 60 cards, at least one Cookie, up to 16 FLIP cards, and up to four copies of any single card number - the framework our deck-building basics guide walks through. The Banned & Restricted Policy sits on top of that as a second filter.

The trigger for the current list is dated in the notice itself. Set 4 (BS 8+9) released in North America on March 27, 2026, and Devsisters writes that the new mechanics let them "observe a wider variety of play environments" - during which certain cards showed "disproportionately strong power levels." The list was published to stabilize the format before the NA Champion Cup in July.

One formatting trap before the list: the notice writes the older card numbers with a leading zero, as BS01-007 and BS02-035, while the card database and the cards themselves use BS1-007 and BS2-035. Same cards. If you search a marketplace for the padded form you will get nothing.

Two tiers, and the list is region-locked

The policy defines exactly two categories:

• Banned - the card cannot be included in your deck.
• Restricted - only one copy of the card may be included in your deck.

The part that catches importers is that there is no single global list. The notice is explicit that "the Global banned & restricted List for the CookieRun: Braverse TCG will differ by region, both in terms of implementation timing and applicable cards," and it routes players by region: Korea follows the official Korean website, while Asia and North America both follow the official English website. So the list below is the one that governs English-language play in both regions.

The two lists really do diverge. Devsisters' Korean card database flags two banned cards that are not on the English list at all - ST2-017 Reverse Timer and ST2-022 Time Efficiency Management Department - and neither appears anywhere in the 2,093-entry English card database, because neither was released outside Korea. It also flags Rebel Cookie (BS2-003) as banned, where the English policy only restricts it. Meanwhile four cards on the English list carry no flag on the Korean side. A Korean decklist is not a legal English decklist, and vice versa.

The five banned cards

Broken Central Clock (BS6-064) is a one-Green Stage that rests to put a card from your hand into your support area as active, but only while you have fewer support cards than your opponent. Devsisters' reasoning is the cleanest statement of design intent on the whole list: shrinking your own Support Area "is originally intended to involve substantial risk," and this card "mitigated that risk to an excessive degree."

Golden Cheese Guardian Golem (BS3-042) costs one Yellow and asks you to place one of your own Yellow Cookies into your break area, then deals 2 damage. The notice singles out its interaction with ST7-008 Elder Faerie Cookie, which produced "a structure in which it could be utilized with effectively no real risk."

Essence of Rejuvenation (BS4-040), the hero card at the top of this page, is the marquee ban. For two Yellow you place a Yellow LV.2-or-higher Cookie from your battle area into your break area, then play a different Yellow LV.3 Cookie straight out of your break area. Devsisters cites the easy condition, the speed at which it lowers your break area Level, and the fact that it "significantly prolongs the duration of the game."

Tropical Slushie (BS1-049) deals 1 damage for each Yellow LV.2-or-higher Cookie sitting in your break area, for two Yellow. It is the one card on the list that got worse over time: it was already Restricted, Devsisters kept monitoring it, and concluded that whether the single copy showed up was still swinging matches.

Sherbet Cookie (P-030) is the only banned Cookie and the only banned promo - a Blue LV.3 with 5 HP that pings every opposing Cookie on play and attacks for 3 with a 1-damage rider. The stated problem was pace: it "accelerates the overall pace of the game" to the point of "early game endings."

The eleven restricted cards

Restricted means one copy. Not one per game, not one on the board - one in the 60.

The five commons that all do the same thing

Five of the eleven were restricted in a single block, and they are the most interesting entry on the list because they are not rare, splashy, or expensive. They are Commons from the first two sets:

That table is not a copy-paste error. All five are Level 1, all five have 4 HP, all five run on MIX energy, none of them has a single line of skill text, and all five attack for 2 damage at a cost of three generic. They are the same card printed five times under five numbers - which, under the number-based copy cap, used to mean twenty legal copies of one effect.

Run the whole card pool and the reason lands. Across the 408 distinct Level 1 Cookies in the English database, HP breaks down as 42 cards at 1 HP, 214 at 2 HP, 147 at 3 HP - and exactly 5 at 4 HP. These five. Devsisters did not restrict a handful of strong one-drops; it restricted the entire 4-HP Level 1 cycle, and the official reason matches: "these Cookies offer exceptional defensive performance, often resulting in matches that last significantly longer than expected."

Since a Level 1 body is what the Break Area counts as one point toward the Level-10 loss, a 4-HP one-drop is the cheapest possible way to make your opponent spend real damage for almost no scoreboard progress. Twenty of them was a format.

The six singles that bend a color

Rarity in that table is the base printing. Every one of these six also has a Secret-rarity alternate art sharing the same card number - Stormbringer has a Secret Ultra Rare at BS4-026@1, Rebel Cookie a Secret Rare at BS2-003@1 - and because the policy names card numbers, the pricey alt art is restricted on exactly the same terms. Owning both printings does not buy you a second copy.

Stormbringer Cookie (BS4-026) gets the most pointed writeup in the notice, and it is about a card warping the format from inside your opponent's hand. Devsisters says its existence "significantly diminished the value of LV.2 Cookies," pushing players into decks built only from Level 1 and Level 3 bodies, and that "regardless of whether the Yellow player actually has this card in hand, its mere presence has restricted the opponent's freedom to play." The one-copy cap is explicitly designed so that once it hits the Trash or Support Area, it is gone for the match.

Tiger Lily Cookie (BS3-013) is a Red LV.1 with 2 HP that pumps itself and reduces incoming attack damage of 2 or more down to 1. The notice flags multiples of it landing early, plus its durability alongside BS1-022 Giant Cherry Bomb. Worth noting for anyone reading old card text: this card was errata'd on February 10, 2025 to specify attack damage, which is the wording the database now carries.

Crunchy Chip Cookie (BS3-111) discards a random card from the opponent's hand for two Purple, and its attack deals 2 extra damage if a Soul Jam sits in your support area. Devsisters cites usage "far beyond expectations" and the fact that its attack can neutralize Traps and deal damage in the same action.

Peak of Apathy (BS8-069) and Soul Jam: Light of Apathy (BS8-072) are the Green Realm of Apathy engine, and both got capped. Peak of Apathy is an EXTRA that unlocks when your support area is at least two cards behind your opponent's, then refunds a Green card from your trash. Light of Apathy digs two cards into your support area under the same behind-on-resources condition and equips to Mystic Flour Cookie for +1 HP. Devsisters restricted both for removing the downside of the support-shrink plan - the same reasoning that banned Broken Central Clock outright.

Yellow and Green took almost all the damage

Sort the sixteen by color and the list stops looking like a grab bag:

Yellow lost three of the five bans on its own - Golden Cheese Guardian Golem, Essence of Rejuvenation and Tropical Slushie - and all three do a version of the same thing: they convert your own break area into damage or into a replayed threat. Green's three entries are all the support-area-shrink package. If you have been reading our Yellow card rankings or the meta tier list and wondering why those two colors kept showing up at the top, the policy notice is the answer sheet.

The pattern across every entry: Devsisters is not banning raw power. It is banning cards that erase the risk attached to a mechanic. Break-area recursion, support-area shrinking, and 4-HP one-drops all had a built-in cost, and every card on this list refunded it.

Two cards have moved between tiers

The list is not append-only, which is the single most useful thing to know if you are deciding whether to sell into a ban.

Rebel Cookie (BS2-003) went the good direction. It was banned, and the current notice moves it to Restricted, with Devsisters writing that "when limited to a single copy, it can function as a strategic card capable of turning the tide of the game." It is a Red LV.2 with 4 HP whose skill deals 2 damage for two Red and whose attack deals 3.

Tropical Slushie (BS1-049) went the other way, from Restricted to Banned, after the restriction failed to bring Yellow win rates back in line.

Two data points is not a trend, but it does establish that both directions are live, and the notice says outright that the list "may be updated or lifted depending on gameplay trends."

The card database will not tell you any of this

This one is a genuine trap, and it will bite anyone building a deck checker.

The official English card database at cookierunbraverse.com carries per-card fields named card_is_ban and card_is_limit. Pull the file today and every one of its 2,093 entries reads zero on both - including all sixteen cards above. Query the English JSON and you would conclude the format has no restrictions whatsoever.

The Korean card list is the opposite: the same fields are populated there, flagging 8 banned entries and 12 restricted entries. So the fields are real and Devsisters does maintain them - just not on the English file.

The takeaway for anyone automating a decklist check: the English Banned & Restricted List lives in the policy notice, not in the card data. There is no API for it. Read the notice.

What to do with your deck and your wallet

If you are playing English-language events, three practical consequences fall out of the list.

Check your Yellow and Green lists first. Those two colors carry seven of the sixteen entries. A Yellow recursion deck built before June 2026 is likely running one or more banned Items, and a Green Realm of Apathy list is now capped to a single Peak of Apathy and a single Light of Apathy - which changes it from an engine you assemble reliably into one you draw into.

Do not read a restriction as a price collapse. Restricted cards still get played; they are one-ofs rather than playsets. Bans are the real demand event, and even then the notice's own history with Rebel Cookie shows a ban can be lifted. The buying guide covers how to think about singles generally, but the specific advice here is to avoid panic-buying four of anything sitting near the line.

Re-read the policy before an event, not after. The notice has been revised at least once since it first went up, its title carries the revision date, and Devsisters asks players to review it "before participating in any tournament to avoid penalties or disqualification." Our tournament guide covers the rest of the pre-event checklist; this is the item to add to it.

Quick Action Checklist

• Sixteen cards are affected: 5 banned, 11 restricted to one copy, under the English list that governs both North America and Asia.
• The five bans: Broken Central Clock (BS6-064), Golden Cheese Guardian Golem (BS3-042), Essence of Rejuvenation (BS4-040), Tropical Slushie (BS1-049), Sherbet Cookie (P-030).
• The five Commons everyone owns are capped: Melon Bun (BS1-007), Banana (BS1-032), Bellflower (BS1-057), Salt (BS2-035), Ninja (BS2-053) - the only five 4-HP Level 1 Cookies in the game.
• Korea runs a different list. Do not import a Korean decklist and assume it is legal, or the reverse.
• Ignore the database ban fields on the English file - they read zero for every card, including banned ones.
• The list moves in both directions. Rebel Cookie came off the banned list; Tropical Slushie went onto it.
• Search card numbers without the padded zero - the notice writes BS01-007, the card reads BS1-007.