MTG Salvation

I’ll be honest: I never fully enjoyed the “Rule 0” or “Power Level” discussion when jumping into a pod of unknown players at my local game store. It’s one key reason I tend to spend Friday Night Magic with family, playing with my brother, nephew, dad, and a few close family friends. 

These early discussions just don’t have to happen. We all know what each others decks are, we know what we’re getting into when we sit down at a table to shuffle up and play (to steal a line from The Professor). 

So when the new Bracket System was revealed by Wizards of the Coast earlier this month, I didn’t quite think I would be the target audience for this. Nothing was really going to change in my core group - I would play Grand Arbiter, my nephew would try to do Eldrazi Shenanigans, and we’d both be relentlessly targeted by the group each time. Fun times. 

Yet, while at MaigcCon Chicago, I got to see this new Bracket Beta in action, both in designated areas as well as organic conversations among the pods I found myself in downstairs at McCormick Place over the weekend. And it highlighted the fundamental need for this type of system - especially when it comes to keeping players honest about what kind of experience the table is looking to enjoy.

Breaking out of my comfort zone

When I go to MagicCon, I still feel a bit uncomfortable jumping into a pod with a bunch of players I don’t know. I get that for many people the “gathering” is a large draw of the game, but I do still find myself just more timid than I ever used to be. Maybe it’s the crippling anxiety I’ve developed over the last few years. 

This is why I do appreciate that at the Command Zone of each MagicCon there are staff present that are helping players find a pod to sit down and play with - and one that matches the kind if experience players are looking for. 

My first match of the day, however, happened in the press room with other media there to cover the show. This was more relaxed, each of us choosing a deck that wasn’t necessarily our strongest, but something simply fun to play. It was here that I first started to encounter the new Bracket language during that pre-game discussion, with us deciding on Bracket 2-3 decks (So Arbiter was off the table). Instead I opted for a mono-Green Miku, Voice of Power deck to power my first game.

This was a ton of fun, and while wacky shenanigans still happened, it felt like the Bracket system had done its job. It was just a fun game of Commander where my Green deck didn’t do much at all (thanks to a board wipe by fellow MTG Salvation writer John Carson).Eventually the table lost to an infinite combo that ended with each of us being drained by Aetherflux Reservoir.

The first pod I played out in the Command Zone was an interesting mix of great gameplay and, if I’m honest, a smidge of confusion when it came time to our last game. However, it also gave me one of the biggest laughs I had all weekend when our opponent unrolled a literal strip of astroturf as their playmat, telling us that the intention is when players around them get salty, there is literal grass they can touch.

Casual doesn’t always mean casual

I play a pretty high powered deck as my main Commander deck. I fully admit that when I sit down at a table, more often than not I will not be playing my Azorius Salt deck I thoroughly love. This is one reason I do enjoy just playing with family. We all play what we want, and if you’re targeted by the group, so be it. 

But I also understand that not everyone is looking for a high-powered game experience. This is where the Bracket system feels so welcome. The shorthand of “This deck is a Bracket 3” or “This deck is Optimized” is so much clearer (assuming the players around you have also looked at the new system) than an arbitrary power level.

Yet there is still the problem of defining what is “casual” and what isn’t. This is where the subjective nature of this system comes into play - and players being honest about what kind of deck they’re bringing to the table.

When I think a Casual game of Commander, it brings to mind the jank decks that aren’t always meant to win the game, but at least do something cool. It means few if any of the cards that grace the “Game Changers” list that Wizards published alongside its new Bracket Beta. I certainly don’t expect to see early game infinite combos, The One Ring, etc. 

When we sat down we initially said we had decks that were between Brackets 2-4, though we were looking for an overall casual experience. However, this is where having a broader discussion on exactly what “casual” means helps ahead of time, and it might be worth having some more defined direction from Wizards and the newly created Commander Format Panel could help some. 

By the last game in our pod, I was back playing my fun, but not really all that powerful mono-Green Miku deck. I was getting a little mana screwed (odd for Green, but hey, it happens). Meanwhile one of our opponents was going off with what felt like an infinite combo that, as I got up from the table after the game felt anything but casual.

It was here where I felt the Bracket System and the level of detail it currently goes into is a great thing - but could use some refining. 

During a panel Q&A with press, Wizards of the Coast’s Gavin Verhey told us that the idea behind the bracket was less about defining “power level” but more about setting expectations for the type of experience players should expect when sitting down across from the rest of their pod. However, this is only a starting point, as I learned on that Saturday. A more in-depth discussion about what’s “casual” to me and what is “casual” to someone else, especially if they are running a deck that technically is outside the Optimized or CEDH brackets but can still feel pretty one sided in a game, is necessary. 

However, I think for many of us, having that more in-depth discussion gets in the way of just playing a game. I know I don’t want to spend time taking a quiz on what casual means to me when all I want to do is sling cardboard. But I don’t think it can be avoided when the goal is to create an experience where everyone has an enjoyable game, regardless of the Win-Loss record at the end of it all.

Setting proper expectations

On Sunday I was pretty determined of two things: I was going to play my Grand Arbiter deck that day, and I was going to ensure that my expectations of what gameplay experience I wanted wasn’t going to be turned on its head, leaving me with a sour taste in my mouth as it did the day before.

Fellow MTG Salvation writer Jason Fanelli and I headed towards the Command Zone, found a casual table, and within seconds of sitting down I told the pod I wanted to play my Optimized Azorious Salt deck. This told the table up front that, while this can be a casual game where we are there to have fun above all else, I wanted to play with power. 

Thankfully, no one shied away from this, and we all brought powerful decks to the table. And it turned out to be the best games we had all weekend. 

The first game saw me playing Grand Arbiter against a pack of creature decks, from Zangeif, the Red Cyclone to a Dihada, Binder of Wills, and an Uril, the Miststalker deck. 

Uril was doing work, with our opponent quickly getting a few Auras attached to him, pumping the creature up considerably. Jason was also finding his footing with Zangeif, building up a strong army of defenders, ready to turn sideways or, as we’d find out later, pull out some pretty game changing effects. 

Meanwhile, Dihada and I were hitting the table with Smothering Tithe taxes, slowly building up my Treasure token collection. However, for most of the game I had been doing next to nothing, playing Search for Azcanta and The Council of Four to create some card draw and build up a small army of Knight creature tokens to protect my life total. 

Uril was swinging for 11 damage at that point, however, and given it was Commander damage, it wouldn’t take much for him to knock us out of the game with ease - especially since he now had flying in addition to his base Hexproof. I had kept a Path of Exile to do away with the Uril if he attacked my way, but our Dihada player reminded the table that the creature had hexproof, ruining my plans. Thankfully, Jason had an answer for all of us: Archetype of Endurance which removes hexproof from opponents creatures. A moment later, Path of Exile was fired off, dealing with the immediate threat.

However, another creature Jason played at that point was a looming issue: Shaman of the Forgotten Way. This card had the ability to turn life totals on their head, making them equal to the number of creatures you controlled. For me, it would mean going immediately from 40 life down to 3. This was an issue, especially if someone had a flyer or trample - someway to get around my blockers. While I had counter magic in the form of Cryptic Command and No More Lies in my hand, I was tapped out at the time as the turns went around the table.

Thankfully, Jason didn’t have the creature power on the battlefield to pull this off - yet. However, casting his Commander and a well-timed Nylea, Keen-Eyed a few turns prior meant that he now had the resources to do this swap. So he did, which would immediately put himself in the driver’s seat thanks to his overwhelming creature total compared to the rest of us. 

However, remember those Smothering Tithe Treasures? No one was paying the tax, so I had seven treasures ready to fire off and the perfect answer: Cyclonic Rift. While the Shaman activation was on the stack, priority passed my way and I immediately sacked all the treasures and Overloaded Rift, removing my opponent’s permanents while keeping my own firmly in place. This means that when the Shaman ability trigger resolved, everyone but me would be left with zero creatures on the battlefield and their life totals would immediately equal that number, resulting in my win.

It was a stellar play - and one everyone at the table cheered because of how unexpected it seemed. But I think the other reason no one was real salty or upset about this was because the expectation was set from the outset that we would be playing powerful decks that are full of Game Changers like Smothering Tithe or Cyclonic Rift. We all knew and fully expected that kind of experience and we went into the match firmly aware of the power of each of our decks. 

Back in our other casual pod the day before, we talked about playing just fun decks between Brackets 2-4. It should have been easy to expect a player to pop out an Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines or The One Ring and other high powered cards, but it came as a shock when that started to happen. It felt like the pod wasn’t being entirely honest about what “casual” meant. 

However, knowing right from the jump that we wanted to play those high powered decks, using the “Optimized” language to describe them in our Sunday pod, the only shock at the Cyclonic Rift play was the timing, not the fact that it was in the deck to begin with. 

As a result, it became my favorite pod of the weekend, even if I lost the next game quite horrifically thanks to an incredible infinite combo drain by Dihada (I was back to playing Miku - trialing the deck to give to my daughter over the weekend was a highlight in itself). 

It gave me an appreciation for what the Wizards team and the Commander Format Panel is trying to do here: solve this power expectation problem that has existed ever since Commander exploded into the most popular way to play the game. And I think it was largely successful. Talking with other players at the show over the weekend, the feedback was mostly positive, though there are always going to be pain points, from players being honest about what’s actually in the deck, to others simply not being comfortable even having a full discussion about the system. 

But the conversations were happening on the whole, which is a good sign. That was honestly my biggest concern: how often did the Rule 0 conversation even happen to begin with, and would this new Bracket system help to truly set expectations in place of “My deck is a 7”?

Time will tell how valuable this new system turns out to be, but for my money, it was a great debut on one of Magic’s largest stages. And I’m actually excited to check out my local game store in the coming weeks to see how well this translates across the breadth of Magic players who may not have been at MagicCon Chicago, but are looking to set proper expectations themselves in their local community to ensure a fun and satisfying game experience overall.