So, I played three games of Brawl last night, and I thought you might like to know what I thought.
First, I play EDH almost exclusively, with a smattering of limited thrown in. I felt that Brawl should be a relatively easy jump. It was more difficult than I thought.
The Standard legal restriction is massive. There is so much missing from each of the colours that I felt hamstrung with some of my decisions*. No Swiftfoot Boots sucked.
*Please note, as I’m not familiar with Standard, I may have overlooked the cards that I needed.
When I built my Aryel deck, I felt that it was too slow to be aggro, and didn’t have enough impact to be midrange. I was proven right.
I couldn’t match the draw and ramp that the two Simic decks had, and I failed to get a second swamp, so I couldn’t fuel my Arguel’s Blood Fast and remove things that tried to hit me with Aryel. Kumena stormed ahead with hexproof tokens and a flipped Hadana’s Climb.
This was a much more even game. I was happy to sit back with Muldrotha, Gonti, Lord of Luxury, Hope of Ghirapur, and eventually got a Hostage Taker to start taking Karn’s massive tokens off him, and try to keep his Key to the City off him. Karn used the Key and a Mirage Mirror to make his massive Constructs unblockable and eliminate Tatyova. I thought I had stabilised by removing some Constructs, casting Karn’s Key off of Hostage Taker, and ultimating Nissa, Steward of Elements for two flying hasty swamps. Unfortunately, I overlooked that Mirage Mirror doesn’t specify “you control”. I was on 7 life due to a massive hit by Tatyova’s [card]Ghalta, Primal Hunger[card]. Karn took that game.
The rats are dumb. The deck was very aggro, and my own Karn managed to fuel my draws to pull nearly all of my removal to throw at Karn’s blockers. The rats made quick work of the Golem.
Play of the game was swinging with two Rat Colonys at 3/1 each, losing one to a ping from Karn’s Walking Ballista, casting Yahenni’s Expertise to clear out the Ballista and my remaining Rat, and casting Wander in Death to bring my two rats back, ready for next turn.
Final thoughts: Brawl was interesting. I don’t think I’ll play it much outside of the people I’m teaching to play. I prefer having 25 years of cards to choose from rather than 2.
I feel like brawl should be extended into... what was that format with only the modern framed cards? Frontier? Yeah. I feel like it would open it up to a lot of more fun and interesting decks.
I feel like brawl should be extended into... what was that format with only the modern framed cards? Frontier? Yeah. I feel like it would open it up to a lot of more fun and interesting decks.
nah. Frontier would be a mistake. It would be fine at first, but eventually enough busted cards get printed that it looks like modern. And you'd just keep seeing the same cards over and over - which is sort of the point of standard, to move on and force new things into the format.
If they wanted to extend the pool, I think adding 1-2 additional years of cards would be fine, like extended used to be.
been playing brawl a lot the past week and I'm really enjoying it so far. Format is a lot more fun than I was expecting and a lot of people seem interested
I have 15 Commander decks and also pretty much only play that format. Originally, I got into Commander because I liked the concept of using underutilized cards I had lying around to make things that were fun and casual, but real talk, commander has become a mostly horrible format to play, especially with strangers. You just get wombo'd out by decks $5000 more than you or otherwise optimized to hell and back. So many games I play are 2-3 hours gauntlets of misery where everyone's spinning their wheels until someone wins arbitrarily through a combo or swinging for a trillion damage.
Brawl though, I like a lot. The rotation isn't popular, but I think that it's vital to keep people on the same footing. It just feels more balanced, faster and smoother than commander, and no one around my area is tryharding the format to death yet - I've had good handful of games with strangers that lasted ~1 hour and didn't have me wanting to die and it's awesome.
I feel like brawl should be extended into... what was that format with only the modern framed cards? Frontier? Yeah. I feel like it would open it up to a lot of more fun and interesting decks.
nah. Frontier would be a mistake. It would be fine at first, but eventually enough busted cards get printed that it looks like modern. And you'd just keep seeing the same cards over and over - which is sort of the point of standard, to move on and force new things into the format.
If they wanted to extend the pool, I think adding 1-2 additional years of cards would be fine, like extended used to be.
At the end of the day I think the constant change of the legal the change of the sets is good, but I almost wish there was some amount of consistency to it. I feel like there is an awkward area where top different set ideas for the same color tropes collide (for example black/green +1/+1 counters vs -1/-1 counters) and that causes an imbalance in the colors that work best in the format. Maybe this will be solved as the sets of standard continue forward considering Brawl is a relatively new format.
But it seems to me that there's an imbalance that needs some tweaking.
First, I play EDH almost exclusively, with a smattering of limited thrown in. I felt that Brawl should be a relatively easy jump. It was more difficult than I thought.
The Standard legal restriction is massive. There is so much missing from each of the colours that I felt hamstrung with some of my decisions*. No Swiftfoot Boots sucked.
*Please note, as I’m not familiar with Standard, I may have overlooked the cards that I needed.
So, on to the games!
Game one was Aryel, Knight of Windgrace Knights (me), Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca Merfolk, and Tatyova, Benthic Druid stompy.
When I built my Aryel deck, I felt that it was too slow to be aggro, and didn’t have enough impact to be midrange. I was proven right.
I couldn’t match the draw and ramp that the two Simic decks had, and I failed to get a second swamp, so I couldn’t fuel my Arguel’s Blood Fast and remove things that tried to hit me with Aryel. Kumena stormed ahead with hexproof tokens and a flipped Hadana’s Climb.
Game two was Muldrotha, the Gravetide ETB (me), Karn, Scion of Urza (who had to use a few cycling lands from AMN to make the 22), and Tatyova again.
This was a much more even game. I was happy to sit back with Muldrotha, Gonti, Lord of Luxury, Hope of Ghirapur, and eventually got a Hostage Taker to start taking Karn’s massive tokens off him, and try to keep his Key to the City off him. Karn used the Key and a Mirage Mirror to make his massive Constructs unblockable and eliminate Tatyova. I thought I had stabilised by removing some Constructs, casting Karn’s Key off of Hostage Taker, and ultimating Nissa, Steward of Elements for two flying hasty swamps. Unfortunately, I overlooked that Mirage Mirror doesn’t specify “you control”. I was on 7 life due to a massive hit by Tatyova’s [card]Ghalta, Primal Hunger[card]. Karn took that game.
Game three was 1-on-1. Karn again againt my Yahenni, Undying Partisan Rat Colony deck.
The rats are dumb. The deck was very aggro, and my own Karn managed to fuel my draws to pull nearly all of my removal to throw at Karn’s blockers. The rats made quick work of the Golem.
Play of the game was swinging with two Rat Colonys at 3/1 each, losing one to a ping from Karn’s Walking Ballista, casting Yahenni’s Expertise to clear out the Ballista and my remaining Rat, and casting Wander in Death to bring my two rats back, ready for next turn.
Final thoughts: Brawl was interesting. I don’t think I’ll play it much outside of the people I’m teaching to play. I prefer having 25 years of cards to choose from rather than 2.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
If they wanted to extend the pool, I think adding 1-2 additional years of cards would be fine, like extended used to be.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Brawl though, I like a lot. The rotation isn't popular, but I think that it's vital to keep people on the same footing. It just feels more balanced, faster and smoother than commander, and no one around my area is tryharding the format to death yet - I've had good handful of games with strangers that lasted ~1 hour and didn't have me wanting to die and it's awesome.
At the end of the day I think the constant change of the legal the change of the sets is good, but I almost wish there was some amount of consistency to it. I feel like there is an awkward area where top different set ideas for the same color tropes collide (for example black/green +1/+1 counters vs -1/-1 counters) and that causes an imbalance in the colors that work best in the format. Maybe this will be solved as the sets of standard continue forward considering Brawl is a relatively new format.
But it seems to me that there's an imbalance that needs some tweaking.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries