The Commander Brackets System Needs Work

[illakunsaa]

I also call my Madoka deck Bracket 1. It does have a Cyclonic Rift and Desolation Angel but it's Bracket 1 even considering that.

I would say no. Pretty much every card you have that in list is something I would call "a good card". On top of cyclonic and angel you also got other stax combos, chaining of extra turns and game ending threats.

[materpillar]

Origins in Columbus, Ohio next year. Let's make it happen.

Just a ~4hr flight or 27hr drive. not the most unreasonable, considering I once took the train from the west coast to Nashville to attend a wrestling show.

You come to Ohio and I can at least promise some good food.

I should have recalled that Tivadar of Thorn deck too. The meme that shouldn't be a thing but the math clear makes it a thing. It tracks so well.

Tivadar's definitely not Bracket 1. It's late game is extremely resilient and often involves some flavor of flickering/recurring Archon of Coronation so my opponents can no longer damage me via combat. Certainly not Bracket 3 but not something I tend to play against randos with a precon.

I also call my Madoka deck Bracket 1. It does have a Cyclonic Rift and Desolation Angel but it's Bracket 1 even considering that.

I would say no. Pretty much every card you have that in list is something I would call "a good card". On top of cyclonic and angel you also got other stax combos, chaining of extra turns and game ending threats.

Bracket 1 is valuing theme over intent to win. It is not "a literal pile of draft chaff". Every card in my Madoka deck was meticulously chosen to maximize theme over everything. The art is either screen captures from the show or online fan art. The flavor texts are all direct show / movie quotes. I'm going to guess you didn't click on the google drive link. So I'll repost that for you.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... JJECaQ7eTt

The decks game plan is roughly "I'll cast some magical girls and attack I guess?" I built it hoping to be roughly unmodified precon level and that's definitely where its power level is at.

Now let's compare this to my Bracket 3, Kotis, the Fangkeeper. This deck's game plan is to cast Kotis on 3 and then swing on 4 and gain an advantage so insurmountable I win off of it. The deck is designed to pray upon players who build an extremely glass cannon deck without any removal and talk about how good they are. It is designed to do that on an extremely tight budget with a deck that's basically draft chaff and $0.50 rares to show that there's more to winning than EDHrec-ing some infinite combos. Thus it runs a pile of well known EDH staples like Phytoburst and Might of Oaks.

Madoka is a pile of good cards with no real cohesive game plan or intended synergies. It's Bracket 1. Kotis is a pile of incredibly synergistic common pump spells, interaction and bulk rares aiming to get under and beat degenerate decks. It's Bracket 3.

[MAGUSZANIN]

It's Bracket 1

It's playing Cyclonic Rift among other "good" cards by your own admission, and it will win some number of games just from casting that one card. That card is on the Gamechanger list for a reason, and that reason is it being obnoxiously powerful. This kind of "Bracket 1 but not actually Bracket 1" deckbuilding decision is exactly what the GC/Bracket list is designed to prevent.

So no, it's not Bracket 1. You are going against both the spirit and letter of the system. Cut Rift and the MLD Angel and then it's a LOT closer to B1. You could make an argument for B2 because it does have some strong individual cards (as most precons do these days), but I would be more willing to entertain the argument.

As it is, this is just not how B1 is supposed to work. You are basically proving my "Winter Orb + Bear Umbra in Bear Art.deck" example correct and that was supposed to be an absurd hypothetical.

[Moxnix]

Went to lgs this weakened played 4 games no one motioned power level or brackets at all had a great time. Seems to be the recurring theme non bracket player? casual fun wants to make it an experience. Asked about brackets and worried about power level? Wont be the vibe I'm looking for. I dont agree with all conclusions drawn but one rings experience matches mine and unlike isp i dont think the solution is ban more power cards now all you've done is say "yep they are all cedh now" i think it should have half as many as it does currently as at the end fo the day if you cant trust the person your playing with to follow intent what's actually on the guideline of what not to do list doesnt matter. The solution to every kind of issue ive seen with brackets are issues solved by talking not game rules. I think 5 is the most clearly defined bracket of all some people just cant come to terms with the fact that yes we could even divide these brackets with 0 technical differences just vibes and intent in fact that would have been better as it removes the incentive to min max inside the mini cedh tiers it creates.

[ISBPathfinder]

Went to lgs this weakened played 4 games no one motioned power level or brackets at all had a great time. Seems to be the recurring theme non bracket player? casual fun wants to make it an experience. Asked about brackets and worried about power level? Wont be the vibe I'm looking for. I dont agree with all conclusions drawn but one rings experience matches mine and unlike isp i dont think the solution is ban more power cards now all you've done is say "yep they are all cedh now" i think it should have half as many as it does currently as at the end fo the day if you cant trust the person your playing with to follow intent what's actually on the guideline of what not to do list doesnt matter. The solution to every kind of issue ive seen with brackets are issues solved by talking not game rules. I think 5 is the most clearly defined bracket of all some people just cant come to terms with the fact that yes we could even divide these brackets with 0 technical differences just vibes and intent in fact that would have been better as it removes the incentive to min max inside the mini cedh tiers it creates.

Unfortunately I can only control myself and ask what power level people are playing. I often run into high powered bracket 4 or even bracket 5 decks passing themselves off as something else. I am not sure that this is really my fault but when I die on turn 3 because I am playing a mono white deck into a combo deck it doesn't really feel like I am in the wrong.

I had someone say their deck was a bracket 3 deck then tutor and assemble a T4 Thassa's Oracle win while using a Duress with counter backup as he executed it against two non blue decks. Granted this was like..... RIGHT after they introduced the brackets but I also doubt that any deck that is assemble and execute with defense Thoracle should be considered bracket 3. But in his mind his deck wasn't completely optimized and his game changers were within limit.

My point is more guidance could be helpful. I understand goals of the brackets but bad actors make me have bad experiences.

[Moxnix]

Went to lgs this weakened played 4 games no one motioned power level or brackets at all had a great time. Seems to be the recurring theme non bracket player? casual fun wants to make it an experience. Asked about brackets and worried about power level? Wont be the vibe I'm looking for. I dont agree with all conclusions drawn but one rings experience matches mine and unlike isp i dont think the solution is ban more power cards now all you've done is say "yep they are all cedh now" i think it should have half as many as it does currently as at the end fo the day if you cant trust the person your playing with to follow intent what's actually on the guideline of what not to do list doesnt matter. The solution to every kind of issue ive seen with brackets are issues solved by talking not game rules. I think 5 is the most clearly defined bracket of all some people just cant come to terms with the fact that yes we could even divide these brackets with 0 technical differences just vibes and intent in fact that would have been better as it removes the incentive to min max inside the mini cedh tiers it creates.

Unfortunately I can only control myself and ask what power level people are playing. I often run into high powered bracket 4 or even bracket 5 decks passing themselves off as something else. I am not sure that this is really my fault but when I die on turn 3 because I am playing a mono white deck into a combo deck it doesn't really feel like I am in the wrong.

I had someone say their deck was a bracket 3 deck then tutor and assemble a T4 Thassa's Oracle win while using a Duress with counter backup as he executed it against two non blue decks. Granted this was like..... RIGHT after they introduced the brackets but I also doubt that any deck that is assemble and execute with defense Thoracle should be considered bracket 3. But in his mind his deck wasn't completely optimized and his game changers were within limit.

My point is more guidance could be helpful. I understand goals of the brackets but bad actors make me have bad experiences.

Again to me the solution to this is your mouth not the ban list. If you say hey were playing bracket 3 4 5 whatever and this happens its only proving my point you should not be suing this to pair you should be asking better questions like whats your win how fast is it etc if your looking for that kind of game. When you play mono white and someone dem cons you turn 3 you say " oh so your that guy thanks for wasting my time" when they try and weasel with technicalities shut it down " not gonna lie dont really care about your reasoning just want to play with anyone else" The solution to bad actors has always been ostracizing and isolating them so they have no one to play with not a banlist. Your example only proves what im saying is true brackets made that guy feel like if the had x GCS he was good to CEDH as hard as he wanted and ignore intent this is how i see it everywhere and no banlist will fix a mentality issue like this. Remove all the GC's imagine tomorrow they said no gc list same brackets but its all intent now. Would that guy have any reason to min max that build he thassa you t4 with anymore? Nope in his mind its now a terrible cedh deck and it always was that's the funny part. AS to me b5 has the CLEAREST guideline its hard for everyone to see when everyone pays 2-4 the same way though. People like min maxing with new boundaries remove their ability to min max in a new playground at all and they will be FORCED to engage with the intent section.

TLDR if your example is the guidance they gave first is totally ignored to the point where they have built miles beyond the scope of what was layed out why do you then think more cards on that list would make them behave in any other way at all? In fact wouldn't adding more cards to the list only in their minds make them more justified in CEDHing as hard as they want as their are more guard rails?

[3drinks]

I find I agree. "What's your critical turn", "Typical win con", maybe even "How interactive are you" seem more indicative of the game you're looking to enjoy. In my case, that's Kaalia, and I still jam Phyrexian Arena|apc so I'm trying to go late. Win con is finite combat damage, with a two-card indeterminate iteration with both an RNG factour and a fail case (Ancient Gold Dragon + Dragon Tempest, which can roll a 1). I guess that's why I classify this as a B2. B3 certainly if I start adding Master of Cruelties and ways to loop that. But without that, I fail to see how this is anything other than B2.

[ISBPathfinder]

Again to me the solution to this is your mouth not the ban list. If you say hey were playing bracket 3 4 5 whatever and this happens its only proving my point you should not be suing this to pair you should be asking better questions like whats your win how fast is it etc if your looking for that kind of game. When you play mono white and someone dem cons you turn 3 you say " oh so your that guy thanks for wasting my time" when they try and weasel with technicalities shut it down " not gonna lie dont really care about your reasoning just want to play with anyone else" The solution to bad actors has always been ostracizing and isolating them so they have no one to play with not a banlist. Your example only proves what im saying is true brackets made that guy feel like if the had x GCS he was good to CEDH as hard as he wanted and ignore intent this is how i see it everywhere and no banlist will fix a mentality issue like this. Remove all the GC's imagine tomorrow they said no gc list same brackets but its all intent now. Would that guy have any reason to min max that build he thassa you t4 with anymore? Nope in his mind its now a terrible cedh deck and it always was that's the funny part. AS to me b5 has the CLEAREST guideline its hard for everyone to see when everyone pays 2-4 the same way though. People like min maxing with new boundaries remove their ability to min max in a new playground at all and they will be FORCED to engage with the intent section.

TLDR if your example is the guidance they gave first is totally ignored to the point where they have built miles beyond the scope of what was layed out why do you then think more cards on that list would make them behave in any other way at all? In fact wouldn't adding more cards to the list only in their minds make them more justified in CEDHing as hard as they want as their are more guard rails?

In your opinion its on me and my opponents for not talking more about the speed of our decks. In my opinion its the fault of the system that brackets don't give guidance that I shouldn't expect to be goldfished before turn 6 in bracket 3. Me asking for more guidance isn't solely asking for bans / unbans. There is a lot of room for guidance in mindset and speed that can be outlined. I do believe that doing some goldfishing and seeing the fastest you could win is something that should factor into what bracket your deck is. Thats assuming the average good (not god) hand where you aren't disrupted how fast can you win. I really do think we need to set some turn thresholds on goldfishing tables for different brackets.

[Moxnix]

No it gives very clear guidance and everyone chooses to ignore it. Im saying the way they treat it you could add 50 bans and that will only further embolden them to storm kill youwith no gcs on turn 4-5 in bracket 2. I'm saying when the players your talking about right now are obviously ignoring the current guidance what makes you think they will care and stop serving themselves with more bans? Like my position is really simple there are already good guidelines and people ignore them to do whatever the f they feel like and not bans will ever fix that issue. You dont have to say anything isp

This weekend when is at down do you know what we said before we played? nothing at all you see i could tell just from looking at the guys and the commander i would not be using a strong deck. They never asked about power no one complained about anything no discussion was had about GCS the games were fun and long. So with no GC list at all I'm finding casual games the seconds i play anyone who wants brackets the decks are always min maxed tuned piles and as someone whos grinded mtgo a long ass time to me a tuned list is FAR more powerful than any one broken card. So when the pattern i see with my own eyes is every bracket player min maxes ignores spirit and only follows gc maxes what in the world would i think adding more cards to that list or another few sentences will change how these people act at all?

Practically speaking I have found a way for the system to serve me when i do go out on occasion to the store i know ill have a better time avoiding the people who use brackets if i want a casual game.

End of the day my argument is you have to trust and have open dialogue with the people you play with and NO SYSTEM will ever be able to replace this nor should it try to. If i want to have a good time in game I find the almost a direct relation to how much i spend pre game chatting about not magic and getting to know the personality of the person I'm about to game with. Start making small talk and cracking jokes about other games before you even shuffle up and that's my vibe like. I cant speak to how everyone should handle things like this but for me im social %$#% my adhd ass barely shuts up when i go out to a card shop so this kind of thing doesnt really happen as ive asked everyone their life story and 3 terrible jokes before we even play. In fact ive noticed when i do this sometimes as I'm chatting about someone chooses to put a deck away and play a more casual one they can feel my vibe and know its not thoracle season rn you know.

Also from my perspective when they announced this everyone took their what i would call b4 decks not top of bracket 4 no need to be best but b4 by the definition is what i thought the lions share of tables would be. Instead what did we see? players who min maxed and tuned to make their decks feel exactly the same play pattern and pacing wise with 3 GC instead and said look its a 3. I dont know about you but that feels much to me like i will use these brackets however i feel like they serve me and i dont care what your intent was. What i know for sure is bracketed games are more comp minded regardless of the bracket picked everyone treats it like CEDH which is why I think many people like you dont see a distinction between 4 and 5 as players who like them already prefer the play to win at least cedh adjacent viewpoint.

I truly believe the way to make people build and play casual decks again is absolutely not to try and force them via bans but to force them to engage with the intentions in good faith and to me that's not even building to a bracket. Instead of well your 3 is not a perfect 3 sorry champ make a better 3 its hey 3 was a starting point for our discussion but what I'm really doing is matching power at this table to the best of my ability and man my 3 makes yours look like crap that's a bad MU i should pick a weaker deck. This si how it should be right i sit down. I'm super specific when i pick decks too if i can tell people really want a play to win kinda vibe.

Example if i sit down with my boros lighting bolt tribal deck i dont say its b3 i say it has 3 gc its a control deck i drag games out by cantriping off removals. It feels terrible vs ritual based spells decks but also feels terrible for aggro decks lacking draw so if you have a creature based deck that doesnt fold to high removal counts and has some resilience that would make for an exciting match. If they go man that sounds misreble i hate removal i go ahh well no worries i have some decks that dont really play control and more race what turn does yours normally pop off ? ok turn 7 let me try ivy maybe you will like that more. Then i wont stop there i will explain how i made ivy and that if my commander is not swift removed i will run away with the game but if its answered right away it really slows me down. Like i want people to have a good time and I'm willing to chat to get that.

[ISBPathfinder]

Ok, you and I can't see eye to eye on this. Thats fine.

[Moxnix]

Yea its not the specifics my assessment is we need to be doing pretty much the opposite of what your asking. You never answered the one important question though do you actually think the bad actors you have met didn't realize they were and a few more lines or bans would change those experiences? I cant tell since you didn't answer if you really believe those guys just needed some more text to get it but based on your goldifsh things I'm gonna say now and you think you can force it with rules but i simply dont believe that's possible and every attempt will only make it worse. I do genuinely wonder though was your assessment those guys just didn't get it and needed more guidance or you want cleaeler lines to berate them when they lie with after like lets say they did everything you wanted what do you expect that oracle guy would be playing then? To me that guy will always be that guy and he knew the first time he was being a dick and if you add turn gold fishing then he will skirt that too by playing oppressively control and on and on and on. So i wont keep bugging you but i would love to know do you think they were ignorant and needing more guidance or bad actors?

[materpillar]

It's Bracket 1

It's playing Cyclonic Rift among other "good" cards by your own admission, and it will win some number of games just from casting that one card.

Sure. Bracket 1 doesn't mean you're allowed to play 0 "good" cards. Bracket 1 means "Winning is not the primary goal here, as it's more about showing off something unusual you've made. Villains yelling in the art? Everything has the number four? Oops, all Horses? Those are all fair game! The games here are likely to go long and end slowly."

This deck is 100% that. It has no cohesive gameplan for winning at all. The entire point of the deck is "look how thematically on point this deck is for my favorite anime". It has good cards. It has bad cards. It has mediocre cards. Every single one of the cards was specifically chosen for their thematic tie to the show not because they're good magic cards.

It has a wishboard too which is something explicitly not allowed by current commander rules already.

That card is on the Gamechanger list for a reason, and that reason is it being obnoxiously powerful. This kind of "Bracket 1 but not actually Bracket 1" deckbuilding decision is exactly what the GC/Bracket list is designed to prevent.

I have in fact cast Cyclonic Rift before. I am aware that it is one of the best cards in casual commander. I am also aware that Homura Akemi resets timelines for everyone but herself traveling through a literal cyclonic rift in space time. Which makes Cyclonic Rift a perfect narrative fit from top to bottom for my favorite episode in my favorite anime. It is in this deck because of the later reason and not the former.

So no, it's not Bracket 1. You are going against both the spirit and letter of the system. Cut Rift and the MLD Angel and then it's a LOT closer to B1. You could make an argument for B2 because it does have some strong individual cards (as most precons do these days), but I would be more willing to entertain the argument.

If I bust this deck out in a Bracket 4 pod because it has Desolation Angel in it, it's going to ruin that game because the intent isn't a Bracket 4 despite the letter of the law placing this deck into Bracket 4.

As it is, this is just not how B1 is supposed to work. You are basically proving my "Winter Orb + Bear Umbra in Bear Art.deck" example correct and that was supposed to be an absurd hypothetical.

Bracket 1 is supposed to be a long battlecruiser slogfest where deck choices are purely based on theme and not to win. That's my deck my man. If someone sits down with their Bear tribal and tells me that it has a Winter Orb in it because their favorite animal is the Polar Bear that's a-ok with me. Card has got a bear on it. Checks out.

If someone sits down with their min-maxed Bear tribal that's designed to stax me out by turn 6 with cards that happen to be bears, I'm going to be significantly less thrilled. Same situation, same deck theme, wildly different intent and game outcomes.

[ISBPathfinder]

Yea its not the specifics my assessment is we need to be doing pretty much the opposite of what your asking. You never answered the one important question though do you actually think the bad actors you have met didn't realize they were and a few more lines or bans would change those experiences? I cant tell since you didn't answer if you really believe those guys just needed some more text to get it but based on your goldifsh things I'm gonna say now and you think you can force it with rules but i simply dont believe that's possible and every attempt will only make it worse. I do genuinely wonder though was your assessment those guys just didn't get it and needed more guidance or you want cleaeler lines to berate them when they lie with after like lets say they did everything you wanted what do you expect that oracle guy would be playing then? To me that guy will always be that guy and he knew the first time he was being a dick and if you add turn gold fishing then he will skirt that too by playing oppressively control and on and on and on. So i wont keep bugging you but i would love to know do you think they were ignorant and needing more guidance or bad actors?

I have no idea what was behind the bad actors. There are a bunch of people I see week after week and most of the bad actors tend to be people I have never seen before and I see like.... once ever. I don't know what to expect going in and then if discussion is had their estimate of where we are is off or they don't care I don't know. In a lot of cases I only end up having 3-6 people playing at a time when I show up so not playing with them is kind of hard especially when I kind of walk into a bad case of not lining up the same tier of decks.

It can also sometimes be difficult when we have stronger bracket three decks but they don't do LD or combo but happen to just kill everyone on turn 4-5. That kind of stuff happens and I don't really know what to say when that happens because it checks every box of bracket 3 it just pops off sometimes. Most of these are like strong sol ring starts where someone just snowballs super hard without being interacted on but the frequency of stuff like that seems high. Some of this is why I have asked for more guidance though because if we were to say a bracket 3 deck is more or less incapable of a proactive table wipe by T5 then that deck is automatically classified as a bracket 4 deck after it happens.

Some of the challenge again comes that bracket 3 feels like its the reasonable deck and bracket 4 feels like its supposed to be super degeneracy but if I trim 1-2 cards from the game changers I can sell my deck as a bracket 3 deck. I think the speed of the deck needs to be looked at a bit closer as well. At the same time I hate that no guidance is given at all for bracket 4 because literally anything more than bracket 3 could be identified as bracket 4 and I have no clue what the difference between bracket 4 and 5 is as a 15 year veteran of the format. I don't watch high end streams / recaps of the game though I just build and play the game but if I watched any fast and tuned combo deck of the top end of the format I would never be able to differentiate between what bracket 4 and 5 is. This is part of my frustration, I want something to exist that is stronger and better tuned than the intent of bracket three but I see literally nothing carved out above it. Its just everything goes after you leave bracket 3.

I really do understand that what I want and do play often exceeds what is intended for bracket 3. My frustration is that no guidance is given between where I tend to play and the super degenerate cEDH. I have my own personal banned list of cards I absolutely refuse to run. I have a lot of commanders I won't run. I have a lot of things I won't spring on people and a lot of that comes from my experience playing the game. I am frustrated that the bracket system fails anyone trying to play anything more than middle of the road leaning towards casual.

[Moxnix]

Ok your perspective at least makes more sense then you want the random guy who shows up to just be on the same page and you want the brackets to be so clear that when they come in just having a "3" is enough for a good game. I'm gonna be honest i think that's a pipe dream but i least understand what your going for now thank you for the reply. I'm less worried about sol ring being too strong and more worried about the average guy not understanding how "well i play 8 cmc 1 dorks so i can play one turn 1 every game" is a mindset that leads to decks that will always play beyond the scope of lower tiers. So I can see how sol ring randomly crashing a game can be an issue but when i see bracket 3 list with 15+ 1 drops all cards good enough i could consider to run in my cedh decks there is a larger issue at hand. Keep in mind to ME this kind of deck building is fine but to ME that's what bracket 4 is for not bracket 3 when i read this annoucement i went b2 = precons b3 = homemade better than precons and b4= optimized builds fot deck tuners. What we got was optimized deck tuners in all brackets and all the guys who used to play 4 and say " its a 7" culling 4 gc staples for next best cards and going "its a 3"

to me the more you try and make it impossible to cheat the system the more people will try even harder and go "watch me". If the rules cant win by turn 5 great ill play draw engine into best in class removal in game and play control that's how people treat things in my experience.

[onering]

Personally I think b1 and b4 are both poorly done.

I think I have seen only one person say their deck is b1 and that person was lying/mistaken. These b1 decks don't really exist outside of internet deckslists and giving b1 its' own bracket seems dumb. To me b1 is something you should ask if it's ok to be playing like uncards.

b4 on the other hand is so messy. "Bring out your strongest decks and cards" sounds like cedh to me but also want to include people who couldn't afford 300€ lion's eye diamond. I also think banning mld and then pretending it's legal to play in b4 is dumb.

Legit the only true B1 deck I've ever seen is Craw Blade. I'd suppose there's some meme Yargle, Glutton of Urborg decks out there too.

My Bracket 1 deck is Prismatic Bridge pooping out the crappy legends from Legends. It just hits different when you flip into crap like a vanilla 4/4, and your big exciting flips are the OG Elder Dragons.

[yeti1069]

I'll chime in as well (though I have done so in a few other places that I knew were being watched by members of the advisory committee and/or WotC).

For the past few years, I've been playing predominantly with totally random people on Spelltable, typically 1-3 games a night. I'd call it somewhere between 500 and 800 games a year, almost entirely with random people. That means I've got a fairly large sample set, and with the only major pieces muddying the data being that I'm in all of the games and that the least established Magic players are unlikely to be on Spelltable at all, I believe, and even more unlikely to be playing in Bracket 3 and 4 games.

Bracket 2 - Have had numerous games that ended far sooner than it felt like a B2 game should (turns 5, 6, 7), sometimes off a combo that came in a precon (Satya, Aetherflux Genius infinite attacks, for example). Opinions have been mixed at those tables on whether that deck/gameplay/interaction seemed suitable for B2.

Most players have agreed that B2 has room for upgrades to precons, but no one can quite agree what that should look like. My Tidus deck, for instance, has gotten fairly strong, but still is incredibly unlikely to win a game before turn 8 or 9, even against 0 interaction, and can get impeded significantly by just a couple pieces of spot removal, or a wipe (I have some protection). Is it edging into B3? Most games I've played with it since the upgrades have felt more or less evenly matched with other B2 decks.

Are stock precons the bottom, middle, or top of B2? Then there are precons that feel like they shouldn't be played in B2. Some come with Game Changers while others have things like cheap or easy infinites (I cut the card to enable the very cheap 3-card combo in Tidus very early).

Bracket 3 - This is where most of my games are played, but the bracket is enormous! It's very difficult, at times, to find a table that leads to an enjoyable game. This was true while using the Power Level "scale" and is in some ways worse with brackets.

I have several decks that feel like they're definitely too strong for B2, but that tend to fall flat in B3 if I'm seeing one or more decks at the table that are playing at the "upper bound" of the bracket. Notably, I have decks that I feel could not play at a table with some of my other decks, all of which are B3. This isn't an issue of GCs--adding a few wouldn't bring up the lowered-powered decks to compete with the higher-powered ones, and cutting all GCs wouldn't bring down the higher-powered decks enough. It's also not an issue of tutors (on the high end) since I've gone down on tutors overall over time. It's also not an issue of combos, at least not in my decks, since I largely eschew them.

I've had many B3 games end turns earlier than they feel like they should (turns 4, 5, 6, even 7 feels a bit quick for B3). There have been a lot of games where someone combo'ed off with 2 or 3 cards fairly early, and a ton of games where players didn't seem to be running interaction. Then I have decks like Teval, the Balanced Scale that aren't fast, but can completely shut down a lot of B3 decks that can't deal with something like Glacial Chasm.

I also have decks that feel too strong for B3 in most games (Ur-Dragon, Henzie, Sefris, Prosper, and Varina all come to mind) due to being some combination of explosive, resilient, or highly interactive; however, with the exceptions of Henzie and Prosper, they cannot play at B4 tables.

Henzie and Prosper I used to run in PL 7-8 or 8 tables. They can hold their own with decks in the lower range of B4, but absolutely fold to the fast, near-cEDH decks that I've commonly seen in B4 games...

Bracket 4 - This bracket feels like the least consistent in that games tend to feature either be those not-quite-cEDH decks that are playing all the fast mana, tutors, and such, aiming to combo off in the first 3-5 turns, or else are punching just a bit above what seems acceptable in B3. Those decks cannot hang together.

My Henzie deck, which is set up to drop Henzie on t2 and blitz a 4 or 5 drop that either ramps 2-3 mana or interacts on turn 3, and which can really hold other decks down with all the blitzed interaction just cannot do enough to stop someone trying to win sometimes before I've even blitzed my first creature. The few games I've won with Henzie against more tuned decks largely relied upon the strongest deck having kept a poor hand, or running into a LOT of interaction from the table immediately. In the latter case, those players often just quit the game, because they were looking to win fast, got stopped, and were then largely out of the game. Henzie tends to steamroll B3 decks, and I've had several B4 games that went the same way against tables that felt more like B3 decks with a few more GCs than powerful B4 decks.

Prosper can come out quick, and can have big, stormy turns (without actual storm), sometimes pinging the table for 10-20 damage each turn 5 or 6, and backs up the game plan with a lot of removal. I don't think I've ever even tried playing it in B3. In B4, it's largely the same story as Henzie--if there's a higher-powered B4 deck at the table, the game is probably over before I've really done anything, though it can have a stronger turn 3 if I had a very solid turn 1 or 2.

Ur-Dragon, Varina, and Sefris all feel like too much for B3, and have been complained about as such on occasion, but they're both not closing the game early (Ur is the fastest, with the possibility of killing the table as early as turn 4 or 5 with a ridiculous start and seeing no interaction, but is more likely stomping turn 6 or 7). I don't know where to play these decks, and tend to have unsatisfying games regularly with them. I don't like steamrolling a table, and I don't like games that end faster than it took to get them started.


I think having clearer guidelines on game length could help. This is a graphic I would find really useful, although I feel like most of the sections should be pushed back 1-2 turns, especially for B1-3.



Having clearer language on combos, like what constitutes "early game" and probably eliminating 2-card combos from B3 could help.

Certainly, adding another bracket that divides up B3's territory would be a big step in the right direction. A lower B3 deck can generally play at a table with B2 decks and not necessarily blow everyone out, especially if the power differential is something the players are aware of (either via disclosure or recognition early in the game) and the stronger deck gets focused as archenemy a bit. The same is true for lower B4 decks at (upper) B3 tables. This would also allow for a more gradual introduction of GCs, rather than going 0, 0, 3, ∞, ∞, it could be 0, 0, 1, 3, ∞, ∞.

I've seen arguments for limiting GCs in B4 to some number higher than 3, but I don't know that doing so would really make much of a difference, as there are plenty of decks, that get by with few or zero GCs, but it could help. At least, it would force some decision-making from amongst fast mana, tutors, free interaction, and finishers. Maybe 0, 0, 1, 3, 5, ∞ is a better progression of GC availability?

[Moxnix]

I'll chime in as well (though I have done so in a few other places that I knew were being watched by members of the advisory committee and/or WotC).

For the past few years, I've been playing predominantly with totally random people on Spelltable, typically 1-3 games a night. I'd call it somewhere between 500 and 800 games a year, almost entirely with random people. That means I've got a fairly large sample set, and with the only major pieces muddying the data being that I'm in all of the games and that the least established Magic players are unlikely to be on Spelltable at all, I believe, and even more unlikely to be playing in Bracket 3 and 4 games.

Bracket 2 - Have had numerous games that ended far sooner than it felt like a B2 game should (turns 5, 6, 7), sometimes off a combo that came in a precon (Satya, Aetherflux Genius infinite attacks, for example). Opinions have been mixed at those tables on whether that deck/gameplay/interaction seemed suitable for B2.

Most players have agreed that B2 has room for upgrades to precons, but no one can quite agree what that should look like. My Tidus deck, for instance, has gotten fairly strong, but still is incredibly unlikely to win a game before turn 8 or 9, even against 0 interaction, and can get impeded significantly by just a couple pieces of spot removal, or a wipe (I have some protection). Is it edging into B3? Most games I've played with it since the upgrades have felt more or less evenly matched with other B2 decks.

Are stock precons the bottom, middle, or top of B2? Then there are precons that feel like they shouldn't be played in B2. Some come with Game Changers while others have things like cheap or easy infinites (I cut the card to enable the very cheap 3-card combo in Tidus very early).

Bracket 3 - This is where most of my games are played, but the bracket is enormous! It's very difficult, at times, to find a table that leads to an enjoyable game. This was true while using the Power Level "scale" and is in some ways worse with brackets.

I have several decks that feel like they're definitely too strong for B2, but that tend to fall flat in B3 if I'm seeing one or more decks at the table that are playing at the "upper bound" of the bracket. Notably, I have decks that I feel could not play at a table with some of my other decks, all of which are B3. This isn't an issue of GCs--adding a few wouldn't bring up the lowered-powered decks to compete with the higher-powered ones, and cutting all GCs wouldn't bring down the higher-powered decks enough. It's also not an issue of tutors (on the high end) since I've gone down on tutors overall over time. It's also not an issue of combos, at least not in my decks, since I largely eschew them.

I've had many B3 games end turns earlier than they feel like they should (turns 4, 5, 6, even 7 feels a bit quick for B3). There have been a lot of games where someone combo'ed off with 2 or 3 cards fairly early, and a ton of games where players didn't seem to be running interaction. Then I have decks like Teval, the Balanced Scale that aren't fast, but can completely shut down a lot of B3 decks that can't deal with something like Glacial Chasm.

I also have decks that feel too strong for B3 in most games (Ur-Dragon, Henzie, Sefris, Prosper, and Varina all come to mind) due to being some combination of explosive, resilient, or highly interactive; however, with the exceptions of Henzie and Prosper, they cannot play at B4 tables.

Henzie and Prosper I used to run in PL 7-8 or 8 tables. They can hold their own with decks in the lower range of B4, but absolutely fold to the fast, near-cEDH decks that I've commonly seen in B4 games...

Bracket 4 - This bracket feels like the least consistent in that games tend to feature either be those not-quite-cEDH decks that are playing all the fast mana, tutors, and such, aiming to combo off in the first 3-5 turns, or else are punching just a bit above what seems acceptable in B3. Those decks cannot hang together.

My Henzie deck, which is set up to drop Henzie on t2 and blitz a 4 or 5 drop that either ramps 2-3 mana or interacts on turn 3, and which can really hold other decks down with all the blitzed interaction just cannot do enough to stop someone trying to win sometimes before I've even blitzed my first creature. The few games I've won with Henzie against more tuned decks largely relied upon the strongest deck having kept a poor hand, or running into a LOT of interaction from the table immediately. In the latter case, those players often just quit the game, because they were looking to win fast, got stopped, and were then largely out of the game. Henzie tends to steamroll B3 decks, and I've had several B4 games that went the same way against tables that felt more like B3 decks with a few more GCs than powerful B4 decks.

Prosper can come out quick, and can have big, stormy turns (without actual storm), sometimes pinging the table for 10-20 damage each turn 5 or 6, and backs up the game plan with a lot of removal. I don't think I've ever even tried playing it in B3. In B4, it's largely the same story as Henzie--if there's a higher-powered B4 deck at the table, the game is probably over before I've really done anything, though it can have a stronger turn 3 if I had a very solid turn 1 or 2.

Ur-Dragon, Varina, and Sefris all feel like too much for B3, and have been complained about as such on occasion, but they're both not closing the game early (Ur is the fastest, with the possibility of killing the table as early as turn 4 or 5 with a ridiculous start and seeing no interaction, but is more likely stomping turn 6 or 7). I don't know where to play these decks, and tend to have unsatisfying games regularly with them. I don't like steamrolling a table, and I don't like games that end faster than it took to get them started.


I think having clearer guidelines on game length could help. This is a graphic I would find really useful, although I feel like most of the sections should be pushed back 1-2 turns, especially for B1-3.



Having clearer language on combos, like what constitutes "early game" and probably eliminating 2-card combos from B3 could help.

Certainly, adding another bracket that divides up B3's territory would be a big step in the right direction. A lower B3 deck can generally play at a table with B2 decks and not necessarily blow everyone out, especially if the power differential is something the players are aware of (either via disclosure or recognition early in the game) and the stronger deck gets focused as archenemy a bit. The same is true for lower B4 decks at (upper) B3 tables. This would also allow for a more gradual introduction of GCs, rather than going 0, 0, 3, ∞, ∞, it could be 0, 0, 1, 3, ∞, ∞.

I've seen arguments for limiting GCs in B4 to some number higher than 3, but I don't know that doing so would really make much of a difference, as there are plenty of decks, that get by with few or zero GCs, but it could help. At least, it would force some decision-making from amongst fast mana, tutors, free interaction, and finishers. Maybe 0, 0, 1, 3, 5, ∞ is a better progression of GC availability?

Excellent post i love the graphic and my biggest issue honestly much like you said is that MANY players shift that entire graph in 2-3 up 1-2 boxes and act like its fine. Tell you what i would love is LESS sweat in b4 like to me the guideline was super clear min max hard as you want in 4 choose not to use meta strategy IE play all your fast mana dont thoracle me. I know ceh guys would hate it due to time restraints and meta shifting but i would love to see thassas oracle hard banned to the first list or made a special bracket 5 only card and thats as someone who loves doomsday. Nit pick but the why aren't you dead feels like it leans into the modern no control players lets all just race mentality and i dont like that lol. I love how it shows pace though and i even agree with how you colored it. Like if your winning turn 6 in b2-3 that's too fast of pace and not what they described you tuned too far bump the deck up. I hate how 4 is branded cedh light now as they did a great job describing hey guys this is that turn 4-6 wins are fine min max your ideas but dont use the most efficient ones in the game. I feel like in a way people knew they were playing more at 4 than 3 but wanted to try the new thing and new ban list so they all kind of made 4 into 3 and didn't care that they were in 4 land before because it was not novel enough so they shifted it into cedh light so it could be but i think that was a mistake.

[3drinks]

I have a lot of (good) thoughts on that tremendously well articulated post. Not now because I'm on mobile and it deserves more than a pithy response or two.

Though I am surprised you see Prosper, Tome-Bound do anything of note at all. That thing is like, four mv, impulse draw a random card off the top, pass. Then the dinosaur deck playing to it's right untaps and tramples everyone. Fwiw, I noticed the same trend with Dockside Extortionist being worth ~1½ treasures in my experiences and I am clearly the outlier in both cases. Maybe. I'd like to watch a Prosper deck actually do something of note though. It reads like an interesting commander.

[Artaud]

Just a quick thought about Brackets and their connection to Game Changers. Why not make GC bracketed as well? Cards like Thassa's Oracle or Lion's Eye Diamond are rarely seen outside cEDH so why not make a rule that if you play those you're in Bracket 5 no matter what your deck intention was? Same could go for other Game Changers - spreading them among Brackets 3-5. This way you could play any number of GC in Brackets 3+ and your Bracket level would be determined by your GC-levels only.

[Moxnix]

I dont know about that and i dont thin that's true either i use LED in all sorts of bad decks however i agree with thassa's oracle i think it has no place outside of CEDH and i think that about almost no cards. I think it makes more sense to just ban it but i think cedh guys would hate that so making it a special ban for non cedh feels fine to me.

[MAGUSZANIN]

Just a quick thought about Brackets and their connection to Game Changers. Why not make GC bracketed as well? Cards like Thassa's Oracle or Lion's Eye Diamond are rarely seen outside cEDH so why not make a rule that if you play those you're in Bracket 5 no matter what your deck intention was? Same could go for other Game Changers - spreading them among Brackets 3-5. This way you could play any number of GC in Brackets 3+ and your Bracket level would be determined by your GC-levels only.

The main issues I see with this are granularity and bookkeeping. We really don't want to make online deck builders mandatory, which this effectively would.

Suddenly instead of needing to remember a rough list of 60 cards, most of which are tutors and fast mana so I don't play a lot of them anyway, now I need to remember which Bracket each of those 60 cards is.

Plus there is a lot of cards on the GC list that scale in power as the game moves up Brackets. If my Merfolk deck has ThOracle as an alt wincon and draw fixer, does that make me B5? Obviously not, but that is something I have seen people do. I have also seen ThOracle played as an Alt-wincon in a roughly B3 Muldrotha Selfmill, though I haven't played against that deck in a couple years.

So I don't think this would work, and it would likely cause the onboarding problems to get worse instead of better.

I've seen arguments for limiting GCs in B4 to some number higher than 3, but I don't know that doing so would really make much of a difference, as there are plenty of decks, that get by with few or zero GCs, but it could help. At least, it would force some decision-making from amongst fast mana, tutors, free interaction, and finishers. Maybe 0, 0, 1, 3, 5, ∞ is a better progression of GC availability?

Right, I have my Henzie deck as a B4 because it will steamroll most B3 lists in my playgroup, but it plays literally 0 GCs and the only fast mana card is Burgeoning. It's not really B4, it can't go infinite and it plays no GCs, even the ones that would inarguably make the deck better like Demonic Tutor. But at the same time it's firmly in the upper reaches of my Playgroup and isn't appropriate for B3 unless the pod basically says I'm the Archenemy from Turn 1.

Even B2 is pretty broad, with the gulf between precons being a LOT larger than it was even 5 years ago. Virtue and Valor hits like a truck and puts out an enormous board by turn 5 very consistently, then refills off the Commander's card draw triggers. It contains most of the really important Enchantress cards out of the box and is in the two most supported colors for that deck type.

Meanwhile we have 5 years ago with the Ikoria precons, which anyone who has played against them knows are not exactly up to modern standards. They can do ok, and they contain some powerful cards (Fierce Guardianship was in that deck), but Virtue and Valor is going to steamroll them unless the gulf in player skill is..... vast. Even if the Timeless Wisdom player draws a free counter spell, I wouldn't even care that much. So they can cycle 1-2 more cards that turn, or maybe cast one more spell while protecting their board. When the deck is mostly bad/overcosted cycling cards, is that a problem?

So adding another Bracket and making a bit more subdivision in what number of GCs each Bracket can play is probably a good thing. I would support 0-0-3-5-∞. Maybe remove 2 card infinites from B3 while we are in there. It would add an objective standard for B4 too, which would help differentiate it from CEDH and B3.

Or if we add Sol Ring to the GC list (as it should be), then 1-1-4-6-∞. Then you can let your Bracket 1-2 decks choose which GC they want to play, and that's fine with me.

[3drinks]

Bracket 2 - Have had numerous games that ended far sooner than it felt like a B2 game should (turns 5, 6, 7), sometimes off a combo that came in a precon (Satya, Aetherflux Genius infinite attacks, for example). Opinions have been mixed at those tables on whether that deck/gameplay/interaction seemed suitable for B2.

Most players have agreed that B2 has room for upgrades to precons, but no one can quite agree what that should look like. My Tidus deck, for instance, has gotten fairly strong, but still is incredibly unlikely to win a game before turn 8 or 9, even against 0 interaction, and can get impeded significantly by just a couple pieces of spot removal, or a wipe (I have some protection). Is it edging into B3? Most games I've played with it since the upgrades have felt more or less evenly matched with other B2 decks.

Are stock precons the bottom, middle, or top of B2? Then there are precons that feel like they shouldn't be played in B2. Some come with Game Changers while others have things like cheap or easy infinites (I cut the card to enable the very cheap 3-card combo in Tidus very early).

I'd agree with this. Not all pre-builts are created equal and they are at varying scales of B2, and B2 itself would benefit from cleaner description. T8/9 lines up with where Kaalia tends to win with finite combat damage and five drop tutours to find my pieces instead of...undercosted universal tutours for cheap I win buttons. I guess in the face of 0 interaction, I'd move faster (than your Tidus) but I don't ever anticipate pods with zero interaction – even though more and more players locally are leaning this way into non-interactive decks that just want to do their own thing/not bother reading your cards.

Bracket 3 - This is where most of my games are played, but the bracket is enormous! It's very difficult, at times, to find a table that leads to an enjoyable game. This was true while using the Power Level "scale" and is in some ways worse with brackets.

I have several decks that feel like they're definitely too strong for B2, but that tend to fall flat in B3 if I'm seeing one or more decks at the table that are playing at the "upper bound" of the bracket. Notably, I have decks that I feel could not play at a table with some of my other decks, all of which are B3. This isn't an issue of GCs--adding a few wouldn't bring up the lowered-powered decks to compete with the higher-powered ones, and cutting all GCs wouldn't bring down the higher-powered decks enough. It's also not an issue of tutors (on the high end) since I've gone down on tutors overall over time. It's also not an issue of combos, at least not in my decks, since I largely eschew them.

I also have decks that feel too strong for B3 in most games (Ur-Dragon, Henzie, Sefris, Prosper, and Varina all come to mind) due to being some combination of explosive, resilient, or highly interactive; however, with the exceptions of Henzie and Prosper, they cannot play at B4 tables.

Bracket 4 - This bracket feels like the least consistent in that games tend to feature either be those not-quite-cEDH decks that are playing all the fast mana, tutors, and such, aiming to combo off in the first 3-5 turns, or else are punching just a bit above what seems acceptable in B3. Those decks cannot hang together.

All this to say B3 and B4 is too blurry. Like there's one too many bracket levels. You can't separate them just by 3 GCs vs no limit GCs. There's an intangible missing in the descriptor of those brackets.

I think having clearer guidelines on game length could help. This is a graphic I would find really useful, although I feel like most of the sections should be pushed back 1-2 turns, especially for B1-3.

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Having clearer language on combos, like what constitutes "early game" and probably eliminating 2-card combos from B3 could help.

No notes.

[ISBPathfinder]

Fwiw, I noticed the same trend with Dockside Extortionist being worth ~1½ treasures in my experiences and I am clearly the outlier in both cases. Maybe. I'd like to watch a Prosper deck actually do something of note though. It reads like an interesting commander.

I saw quite a range in expectation from two different metas. I went from one meta where I expected 0-2 treasure in the first 2-3 turns to another meta where I expected 3-5 in the same time. If the damn thing was just ramp it wouldn't be so bad but the metas where it was good it was also a damn good combo finisher too. Different metas and different players get lots of variance in its expected rewards because the people you play against dictate its value. There is no right or wrong answer in what value to expect from it because it changes so much from group to group.

Just a quick thought about Brackets and their connection to Game Changers. Why not make GC bracketed as well? Cards like Thassa's Oracle or Lion's Eye Diamond are rarely seen outside cEDH so why not make a rule that if you play those you're in Bracket 5 no matter what your deck intention was? Same could go for other Game Changers - spreading them among Brackets 3-5. This way you could play any number of GC in Brackets 3+ and your Bracket level would be determined by your GC-levels only.

I wholey agree with this idea. I just don't think they want different brackets of essentially banned cards. It gives the best outcome though of curtailing power brackets but its also the most work and leaves the most rules which is likely why they don't. I have thought for years now they essentially need a different banned list for cEDH though. Its not like Flash was a problem anywhere else for instance.

[Moxnix]

I actually think a separate CEDH only banlist would be amazing it would not only keep things like thoracle out of casual but it would be a big step in solidifying expectations about your deck builds. Give casual guys flash back and go " we trust you to understand this is not for protean hulk etc" something to remind people at the end of the day your own evaluation is key and king in this system so if you cannot be honest about your power that's a you problem. I actually love yeti's heat map perhaps it would clear up disconnects where some people think things are clear and others dont. Not to be hair splitter but i feel like turn 6 is a big deal in casual meta in that decks that can consistently win or do the ting on t6 to me are in a differnt class than ones that have that power on t7 and its not win turn as control exists but if the control deck can successively hold down a t6 table thats a key. The more i think about this the more I'm convinced half the people who play want b3 to be a turn 7-8 pace and the other half who like optimizing more want it to be a turn 6 pace and most of what's fought over is that induvial preference. If we establish that consistent turn 6 kills are not ok in bracket 3 then it opens up bracket 4 to be something other than cedh light. The issue here is it seems many people who ARE the min max type liked the idea of building on 3 GC and not seeing the same staples over and over but they wanted the pacing to be turn 6 not 7-8 and the reality is playing b3 at t6 pace makes it unplayable for people who have t7-8 decks and prefer that pace as the t6 decks smash them. I think ALOT of the confusion would be solved if wotc came in and said yes or no to the turn 6 pace now based on what they have said the in very weak language say " dont win turn 6". I think a graphic or stronger wording that sets just this one expectation would go a long way however since its pretty split im sure the half that is on the other side will not like it.

To me the turn 6 or faster speaks to tuning and optimization cross many games and that falls in line with b4 descriptions and should be the place with the wider range of decks played. Alternatively if players really like the 3 GC t6 paced games that could be its own bracket and they could add one more sweaty 3 or 3.5 could be a power level that's defined as HIGHLY upgrade precon or nearly optimal with a less powerful strategy etc. The reality is 3 non cedh brackets is in act not enough to fit the scope of play when we have pacing's from t4 all the way out to t10+ and decks being even 1-2 turns faster consistently means they blow the others out of the water.

[illakunsaa]

I think wizards should create an app/add features to companion that lets people track the games they play.

1. It should have the ability to rate games on a scale of "did I have fun or not" (similar to arena) and do it anonymously (aka without having to tell to your opponents how you rated).
2. Ability to link a decklist to any given game. So that wotc could see if there is correlation between certain cards and unfun games
3. Maybe some additional things like did people use the bracket system or was the game competitive (playing for prices).

I believe these should be pretty easy to implement to something like companion and it would give wotc actual data on games people play. Currently game changers and brackets are very vibe based and vibes change from one game to the next.