Each player's deck is exactly 60 cards. Other than basic lands, no card may appear in a deck more than once. Each card must be legal in the Standard format; cards banned in the Standard format can't be played in the Brawl variant.
Before the game begins, each player designates one legendary creature or planeswalker card in their deck as their commander. This card begins the game in the command zone and the other 59 cards are shuffled up.
The mana symbols that appear on your commander dictate what cards may be in your deck. Mana symbols that don't appear on your commander can't be in the deck. For example, if the Dominaria card Firesong and Sunspeaker is your commander, your cards may have R, W, both, or neither, but no B, G, or U symbols may appear anywhere in your deck. This includes the card's text box as well as its mana cost; for example, Pride Sovereign from the Hour of Devastation set can't be in your deck if your commander has only G in its cost and rules text.
Each player begins the game at 30 life rather than 20. If you're playing a multiplayer game (which we recommend for Brawl!), each player draws seven cards again on their first mulligan and the player who plays first draws a card on their first turn.
As long as your commander is in the command zone, you may cast it from there. Doing so costs an additional two mana for each time you have cast the card this way this game.
If your commander is countered or leaves the battlefield, you may put it back into the command zone instead of putting it anywhere else it would go.
The Brawl variant has no other rules for playing, winning, or losing the game. Have fun!
Personal opinion: I think it actually looks better than I gave it first-glance-credit for, but I still doubt this'll go far thanks to Commander already being heavily popular.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
I really like it on paper. Being only 60 cards and allowing the use of a Planeswalker as your commander really makes it a lot more attractive.
The article also makes a good point about starting into Commander being somewhat daunting if your local playgroups are competitive, and it makes sense to have a bit of a ramp up into it with something like Brawl.
I said this in the other thread yesterday, but I foresee this perhaps getting some newer players / Standard players to try out, but in no way its going to ever convince most current EDH players (who are casual) to move over, simply by virtue of the card pool.
I see they adopted the duel-style format (60 cards and 30 life) as I expected because of the card pool, but honestly I wished they just pushed for the 1v1 harder if they really wanted to define the format (they suggested multiplayer, and we all know multiplayer is basically an undo-able format for competitive because of the sheer number of factors involved regarding the number of people, be it collusion or just bias).
The one interesting fact is that they allowed planeswalkers outright, something EDH doesn't do (and I personally prefer not to have in the format), so I can see some people who really want planeswalkers as commanders (to the point the card pool is secondary) might give this a try. At the same time it would be a good observation case to see if planeswalkers are broken even in an enclosed format like Brawl, especially since they don't actually design planeswalkers with EDH in mind (R&D has basically admitted at this point most Legendary Creatures definitely take EDH into some degree of account already).
I do wonder how many LGS are going to attempt to try this as an FNM format though.
I really like it on paper. Being only 60 cards and allowing the use of a Planeswalker as your commander really makes it a lot more attractive.
The article also makes a good point about starting into Commander being somewhat daunting if your local playgroups are competitive, and it makes sense to have a bit of a ramp up into it with something like Brawl.
All agreed. I do hope to be able to play this at an FNM occasionally.
Big negative on the 30 life starting total. This looks like a format that should be 1 v 1, in which case the life total should be at 20.
In a 4-player pod just make it a 40 life starting point. I don't see myself playing this though, unless the "Standard" I get to choose has shocklands and fetchlands and other OP stuff.
This really feels like it should have been an announcement that Frontier was becoming a sanctioned format, it already has a core base and can move from there.
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The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
I guess..... its ok. The idea of Modern Commander / Standard commander is not a new idea but allowing walkers as your commander is something new. Moving to a 60 card deck is probably a good idea given how small the set pool is.
I.... think it could be an interesting concept.... I am not really sure about this though but if it picks up I would be willing to play. I just don't think I would be an early mover on it.
EDIT: Ok..... they suggest this to be multiplayer which to me completely sinks this. If they were trying this as a 1v1 constructed format I think I would be far more interested but moving to multiplayer puts it too much in competition with commander which I cant really find all that acceptable. 1v1 commander has been plagued by the issues that it has constantly not had a consistant sanctioning and I would be far more behind this concept if it was designed to be played as a 1v1 format rather than a multiplayer FFA format.
I think this looks rather fun, not a huge fan of standard in general but this seems like something I'd drive out to a store to play with.
Plus after they rotate out you have a base for a new commander deck.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
The last thing I want to have to do as someone who likes Commander formats is deal with standard cards amidst rotation, also I can't help but feel that Standard with limits to 1 of each card will drastically cut down on available archetypes to build.
We tried a variant of Standard Commander allowing you to up the quantity based on card rarity (C=4, U=3, R=2, M=1), and it worked pretty well.
The one rule we added that was different: Allow inclusion of creatures that share a non-Human creature race type with the Commander even if they are outside the Commander's Color Identity. It allowed people to play the WB Vampires in Olivia, Mobilized for War Standard Commander decks to fill out the tribal theme while preventing them from jamming in a bunch of White Sorcery spells. Thoughts?
Very hard not to look at this as a cash grab move.
Exectuive 1: "Folks, standard is failing and our profits are down. We can't just keep churning masters set to make people buy premium products, they're starting to notice our scheme".
Executive 2: "Standard has been bad for years, but you know what people like? Commander"
Executive 3: "Why don't we make Commander with only standard legal cards, so people are forced to buy into our new product even though it is bad?"
*Cheers in the room*
*End scene*
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.
Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
Seems like a legit way to enter commander. Standard cards are easy to get by and once your deck rotates, you can add the 40 cards to make it a full fledged commander deck.
I get the feeling this is going to become a very small race between about 4 commanders, scarab god (the scarab god dexk already plays like this would only now it's main card is consistent)
Kumena (lots of ok merfolk and in the pump and control colours this is the swarm deck )
Ghalta (because who doesn't like 40 power turn 4)
Baral (because who doesn't like control and wizard tribal all in one )
There maybe a couple of others in the new set but I think you'll need to play these or go home. Which is a shame as I was hoping a due of the more junk rares would be the best commanders. I'm a little curious if the will ban scarab god right off as it seems the most abusable in the current format (along with ghalta).
(Also maybe, Chandra (but mono red control dosnt have the right cards ATM), hazorat (depends on the number of small aggressive creaters you there are to work with), admiral, elenda could both work but it depends heavily on dominari.
Alot of the spoiled potential commanders from dominari seem to have to high a CMC or not enough support from the existing sets
From the read it seems like this thing will use the Standard Ban List so the I am curious how it will affect things being banned and vice versa.
Very hard not to look at this as a cash grab move.
Exectuive 1: "Folks, standard is failing and our profits are down. We can't just keep churning masters set to make people buy premium products, they're starting to notice our scheme".
Executive 2: "Standard has been bad for years, but you know what people like? Commander"
Executive 3: "Why don't we make Commander with only standard legal cards, so people are forced to buy into our new product even though it is bad?"
*Cheers in the room*
*End scene*
So much this.
Standard barely fires anymore lets add another format to compete with it.
Great plan.
Yay, sell more... cards...
Very hard not to look at this as a cash grab move.
Exectuive 1: "Folks, standard is failing and our profits are down. We can't just keep churning masters set to make people buy premium products, they're starting to notice our scheme".
Executive 2: "Standard has been bad for years, but you know what people like? Commander"
Executive 3: "Why don't we make Commander with only standard legal cards, so people are forced to buy into our new product even though it is bad?"
*Cheers in the room*
*End scene*
Ashiok, youre spot on !
Every piece fits together & i cant bear their faked enthusiasm bout an idea, that certainly is not recent ! They come now forth with it, cuz the situation forces them.
I've experimented with 60 card Commander decks before to test various commanders who couldn't quite make the cut becsuse they didn't have enough support in a 100 card deck. This is actually a pretty interesting format...
I kind of wish they would extend it to "Frontier" legal cards to increase the card pool. This would at least pull the idea of it being a standard cash grab away a little bit. Anyhow I'll definitely be brewing up a decklist for some cool standard legends.
Very hard not to look at this as a cash grab move.
Exectuive 1: "Folks, standard is failing and our profits are down. We can't just keep churning masters set to make people buy premium products, they're starting to notice our scheme".
Executive 2: "Standard has been bad for years, but you know what people like? Commander"
Executive 3: "Why don't we make Commander with only standard legal cards, so people are forced to buy into our new product even though it is bad?"
*Cheers in the room*
*End scene*
Ashiok, youre spot on !
Every piece fits together & i cant bear their faked enthusiasm bout an idea, that certainly is not recent ! They come now forth with it, cuz the situation forces them.
So I'll concede to you that a large driving factor of this was very probably sales. I would like to note, however, that as an avid commander player, I've had more than a few people tell me they would never consider getting into commander because of the high price tags, competitive environments, deck storage space, etc. Basically, this format really does solve a bunch of barriers to entry that the format has/had. Even if this format only really attracts players that are already committed to standard just to play between rounds, I think format diversity is really important for the most people to have the most fun. I'm pretty on board with this format, despite its likely-greedy origins.
This seems like a friendlier format for new players to get into than Standard. Though I don't keep up with standard, the general complaint is the drastically inflated price of the necessary cards to build competitive decks. It's easy to crack one-ofs in drafts and fat packs, so therefore it'll be easier, and over-all cheaper, for a new player to build a brawl deck than a Standard deck where you might need 4 of each chase card. I'll agree that Brawl is just a silly attempt for Wizards to squeeze more of a profit, but I do like that it will be easier to play. I might even consider building one since I draft, but never accumulate the necessary cards to build a standard deck.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/ways-play/join-brawl-2018-03-22
Each player's deck is exactly 60 cards. Other than basic lands, no card may appear in a deck more than once. Each card must be legal in the Standard format; cards banned in the Standard format can't be played in the Brawl variant.
Before the game begins, each player designates one legendary creature or planeswalker card in their deck as their commander. This card begins the game in the command zone and the other 59 cards are shuffled up.
The mana symbols that appear on your commander dictate what cards may be in your deck. Mana symbols that don't appear on your commander can't be in the deck. For example, if the Dominaria card Firesong and Sunspeaker is your commander, your cards may have R, W, both, or neither, but no B, G, or U symbols may appear anywhere in your deck. This includes the card's text box as well as its mana cost; for example, Pride Sovereign from the Hour of Devastation set can't be in your deck if your commander has only G in its cost and rules text.
Each player begins the game at 30 life rather than 20. If you're playing a multiplayer game (which we recommend for Brawl!), each player draws seven cards again on their first mulligan and the player who plays first draws a card on their first turn.
As long as your commander is in the command zone, you may cast it from there. Doing so costs an additional two mana for each time you have cast the card this way this game.
If your commander is countered or leaves the battlefield, you may put it back into the command zone instead of putting it anywhere else it would go.
The Brawl variant has no other rules for playing, winning, or losing the game. Have fun!
Personal opinion: I think it actually looks better than I gave it first-glance-credit for, but I still doubt this'll go far thanks to Commander already being heavily popular.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
The article also makes a good point about starting into Commander being somewhat daunting if your local playgroups are competitive, and it makes sense to have a bit of a ramp up into it with something like Brawl.
I see they adopted the duel-style format (60 cards and 30 life) as I expected because of the card pool, but honestly I wished they just pushed for the 1v1 harder if they really wanted to define the format (they suggested multiplayer, and we all know multiplayer is basically an undo-able format for competitive because of the sheer number of factors involved regarding the number of people, be it collusion or just bias).
The one interesting fact is that they allowed planeswalkers outright, something EDH doesn't do (and I personally prefer not to have in the format), so I can see some people who really want planeswalkers as commanders (to the point the card pool is secondary) might give this a try. At the same time it would be a good observation case to see if planeswalkers are broken even in an enclosed format like Brawl, especially since they don't actually design planeswalkers with EDH in mind (R&D has basically admitted at this point most Legendary Creatures definitely take EDH into some degree of account already).
I do wonder how many LGS are going to attempt to try this as an FNM format though.
All agreed. I do hope to be able to play this at an FNM occasionally.
I̟̥͍̠ͅn̩͉̣͍̬͚ͅ ̬̬͖t̯̹̞̺͖͓̯̤h̘͍̬e͙̯͈̖̼̮ ̭̬f̺̲̲̪i͙͉̟̩̰r̪̝͚͈̝̥͍̝̲s̼̻͇̘̳͔ͅt̲̺̳̗̜̪̙ ̳̺̥̻͚̗ͅm̜̜̟̰͈͓͎͇o̝̖̮̝͇m̯̻̞̼̫̗͓̤e̩̯̬̮̩n͎̱̪̲̹͖t͇̖s̰̮ͅ,̤̲͙̻̭̻̯̹̰ ̖t̫̙̺̯͖͚̯ͅh͙̯̦̳̗̰̟e͖̪͉̼̯ ̪͕g̞̣͔a̗̦t̬̬͓͙̫̖̭̻e̩̻̯ ̜̖̦̖̤̭͙̬t̞̹̥̪͎͉ͅo͕͚͍͇̲͇͓̺ ̭̬͙͈̣̻t͈͍͙͓̫̖͙̩h̪̬̖̙e̗͈ ̗̬̟̞̺̤͉̯ͅa̦̯͚̙̜̮f͉͙̲̣̞̼t̪̤̞̣͚e̲͉̳̥r͇̪̙͚͓l̥̞̞͎̹̯̹ͅi͓̬f̮̥̬̞͈ͅe͎ ̟̩̤̳̠̯̩̯o̮̘̲p̟͚̣̞͉͓e͍̩̣n͔̼͕͚̜e̬̱d̼̘͎̖̹͍̮̠,͖̺̭̱̮ ̣̲͖̬̪̭̥a̪͚n̟̲̝̤̤̞̗d̘̱̗͇̮͕̳͕͔ ͖̞͉͎t̹̙͎h̰̱͉̗e̪̞̱̝̹̩ͅ ̠̱̩̭̦p̯̙e͓o̳͚̰̯̺̱̰͔̘p̬͎̱̣̼̩͇l̗̟̖͚̠e̱͉͔̱̦̬̟̙ ̖͚̪͔̼̦w̺̖̤̱e͖̗̻̦͓̖̘̜r̭̥e͔̹̫̱͕̦̰͕ ̗͔̠p̠̗͍͍̱̳̠r̰͔͎̰o͉̥͓̰͚̥s̟͚̹̱͔̣t͉̙̳̖͖̪̮r̥̘̥͙̹a͉̟̫̟̳̠̟̭t͈̜̰͈͎e̞̣̭̲̬ ͚̗̯̟͙i͍͖̰̘̦͖͉ṇ̮̻̯̦̲̩͍ ̦̮͚̫̤t͉͖̫͕ͅͅh͙̮̻̘̣̮̼e͕̺ ͙l͕̠͎̰̥i̲͓͉̲g̫̳̟͈͇̖h̠̦̖t͓̯͎̗ ̳̪̘̟̙̩̦o̫̲f̙͔̰̙̠ ̹̪̗͇̯t͖̼̼͉͖̬h̹͇̩e͚̖̺̤͉̹͕̪ ͚͓̭̝̺G͎̗̯̩o̫̯̮̟̮̳̘d̜̲͙̠-̩̳̯̲̗̜P̹̘̥͉̝h͍͈̗̖̝ͅa͍̗̮̼̗r̜̖͇̙̺a̭̺͔̞̳͈o̪̣͓̯̬͙̯̰̗h̖̦͈̥̯͔.͇̣̙̝
In a 4-player pod just make it a 40 life starting point. I don't see myself playing this though, unless the "Standard" I get to choose has shocklands and fetchlands and other OP stuff.
This really feels like it should have been an announcement that Frontier was becoming a sanctioned format, it already has a core base and can move from there.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
I.... think it could be an interesting concept.... I am not really sure about this though but if it picks up I would be willing to play. I just don't think I would be an early mover on it.
EDIT: Ok..... they suggest this to be multiplayer which to me completely sinks this. If they were trying this as a 1v1 constructed format I think I would be far more interested but moving to multiplayer puts it too much in competition with commander which I cant really find all that acceptable. 1v1 commander has been plagued by the issues that it has constantly not had a consistant sanctioning and I would be far more behind this concept if it was designed to be played as a 1v1 format rather than a multiplayer FFA format.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
Plus after they rotate out you have a base for a new commander deck.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Standard legal cards means no Doubling Season.
That's one of the primary reasons PW are not commanders for Commander.
No thanks.
Spirits
The one rule we added that was different: Allow inclusion of creatures that share a non-Human creature race type with the Commander even if they are outside the Commander's Color Identity. It allowed people to play the WB Vampires in Olivia, Mobilized for War Standard Commander decks to fill out the tribal theme while preventing them from jamming in a bunch of White Sorcery spells. Thoughts?
Exectuive 1: "Folks, standard is failing and our profits are down. We can't just keep churning masters set to make people buy premium products, they're starting to notice our scheme".
Executive 2: "Standard has been bad for years, but you know what people like? Commander"
Executive 3: "Why don't we make Commander with only standard legal cards, so people are forced to buy into our new product even though it is bad?"
*Cheers in the room*
*End scene*
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
From the read it seems like this thing will use the Standard Ban List so the I am curious how it will affect things being banned and vice versa.
So much this.
Standard barely fires anymore lets add another format to compete with it.
Great plan.
Yay, sell more... cards...
Poop.
Ashiok, youre spot on !
Every piece fits together & i cant bear their faked enthusiasm bout an idea, that certainly is not recent ! They come now forth with it, cuz the situation forces them.
I kind of wish they would extend it to "Frontier" legal cards to increase the card pool. This would at least pull the idea of it being a standard cash grab away a little bit. Anyhow I'll definitely be brewing up a decklist for some cool standard legends.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
So I'll concede to you that a large driving factor of this was very probably sales. I would like to note, however, that as an avid commander player, I've had more than a few people tell me they would never consider getting into commander because of the high price tags, competitive environments, deck storage space, etc. Basically, this format really does solve a bunch of barriers to entry that the format has/had. Even if this format only really attracts players that are already committed to standard just to play between rounds, I think format diversity is really important for the most people to have the most fun. I'm pretty on board with this format, despite its likely-greedy origins.
Just want to play with modern legal cards to return my Nahiri, the harbinger of eldrazi !!!!!!
Good luck WOTC, and godspeed.
STANDARD|UW Control MODERN| UBG Midrange PAUPER| UG Fog COMMANDER| UBG The Mimeoplasm
Spirits
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG