Our LGS has a new stretch of Brawl planned starting Monday. I've seen at least one of our previous players siphoned off by KeyForge tho, so we'll see how turnout is this time around!
Brawl is still going (if not going strong exactly) at my LGS thanks to my own advocacy, hah. It continues to be an ideal filler event to bridge the gaps between sealed Leagues, which here run for about 2 months immediately after the release of a new set. Doubly so because going through a League or two is just about right for getting you a card pool you can build a handful of fun Brawl decks from--where if it were EDH, I'd stay home knowing anything I'd build would be an absolute joke.
Rotation rescued the format, not killed it, here. We were all deeply relieved to see the Amonkhet gods go bye-bye.
Brawl night II yesterday! Had five people, so we ended up with two lengthy five-player games. (I think there was a 3-player game before I arrived, but they cut it short to get a game started with the two players who didn't arrive as early.)
So it was Slimefoot's turn to shine, with two different players' builds of the commander winning games! I thought the Locust God player wasn't going to bring that deck again, but I guess he just loves his ridiculous card-draw engine thing too much, hah. It was quite satisfying when everyone teamed up to bring him down after he went off with Karn's Temporal Sundering.
For my part, I was surprised that the Radha deck did better than the Aryel. Heck, my Guttersnipe alone did over 20 damage, paired with a Chaos Wand (star moment: stealing Tatyova's Scapeshift, mwahaha). My Aryel setup must be better for 1v1, which is how I was testing the two decks against one another.
For next week's deck(s) I have to put in some hose stuff vs. Locust God. I'm thinking things like Damping Sphere and Amulet of Safekeeping... depending on colors, maybe Plague Mare (that was a crucial play by Slimefoot in beating Locust God, game 2) and/or Deep Freeze.
I think Brawl is here to stay, for this group! It's a perfect fit for between Sealed League series. The only thing that's bugging me a little bit is the diversity of the commander pool--even with this few players, we had two Aryel decks and two Slimefoot decks. That will improve some with the release of GRN, for sure, but I wonder if there might be other ways to spice things up. Maybe allowing legendary cards from Commander products, rotating as if they were part of the Standard sets released in the same timeframe?
I think the goal is brawl is to create a casual format for new players, which doesn't really exist in a good state right now. Commander has largely devoured 60-card-casual at most LGSs I've been to. Standard, as a tournament format, has implicit competitiveness. Draft and sealed, same deal. Commander has the benefit of multiplayer balance and casual construction and play for most groups and players...but it has a vast card pool, complicated interactions, lots of money involved in the top-end cards, and is just generally a confusing mine-field for new players. I see brawl as an attempt to remedy that, to take the things that new players like about commander - picking a favorite card and building around it, the spirit of brewing, the less-competitive nature of the format, multiplayer, etc - and merging that with a card pool that's more friendly to new players, while streamlining a few rules that make the game easier to track (commander damage) and let people do the things they want to do (planeswalkers).
I agree with this assessment 100%. As a newbie here, the thought of getting into Commander is about as appealing as getting into Modern--expensive, elite, daunting. It doesn't seem like a "casual" format in the slightest, looking in from outside. It doesn't help that the few times I've brushed up against my local Commander clique, the vibe I've gotten from them is the sort of haughty competitiveness that made me for a while reluctant to try paper Magic at all: the "you're playing that card? What's wrong with you?" sort of attitude. And Brawl is just more interesting than by-the-book kitchen-table constructed, on the other end.
I guess the question is, how big is the target audience for Brawl? Casual players on a budget, scared off by big card pools, but not too fazed by the prospect of having to retire some cards every so often? It fits me on every point, but maybe I'm a rare breed.
Had our first Brawl night at the LGS yesterday! I brought my best-I-could-do- with-my-card-pool Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage deck. We had a total of six players, coming and going over the course of the evening such that we ended up playing four games in three batches:
So as you can see, Locust God ran away with it! Slimefoot did come pretty close in Game 1, and Locust God was down to 4 life in Game 3. (He was there for a while, in fact. We probably should have gone for the kill ASAP...) It was a pretty wild deck, running extra turns, tons of draw, and clinching with Insect hordes + Throne of the God-Pharaoh. I wasn't at the table for Tatyova's win, but I gather it was also an extra turn endeavor involving Timestream Navigator and Scapeshift, so overall it was a big night for turn-taking combos!
My MVP card, other than Raff himself, was Baird, Steward of Argive. I threw him in just because he happened to be historic and in the right colors, expecting everyone to have so much mana that his ability wouldn't really do anything. But there was a lot of go-wide at the table between Locust God and Slimefoot, so I got to live a lot longer as people went "eh, I'll attack the person who doesn't cost me anything"!
My play of the night: Locust God declares combat step with something like 20 Insect tokens on the board. I flash In Bolas's Clutches, steal his Windreader Sphinx, and proceed to draw half my deck. Haha!
Despite getting my butt handily kicked, I had a blast. (The Lyra player was more grumpy about all the combo kills. I guess she doesn't share my wide-eyed amusement when watching an opponent's engine go off.) It was some of the most fun I've had since my recent return to the game! The Goreclaw player, who also happens to be the store owner, even remarked, "I think I like this more than Commander. No friggin' Sol Rings."
We'll be Brawling more next week, and I'm hoping this will become the go-to activity to fill the space between set Leagues going forward. In the meantime, I'll see if I can get any of the other players' deck lists to post!
It was for multiplayer! I realize now I wasn't especially effective in my request for feedback (needed to be more specific, etc.), so I'll do a better job if I throw any of my next batch of decklists up.
Wait. ZiggyD does Magic? I thought this guy was a Path of Exile streamer?
He is primarily a PoE streamer, but he also does card game content with MtG as the one he likes best. It makes his diehard PoE fans salty when he does non-PoE stuff, but he does it anyway!
I only recently started playing paper Magic with the Dominaria set, participating in my LGS's spin on the League format. So I have 15-20 packs each of DOM and M19, a few promos, and that's it. Brawl, with its Standard pool and singleton restriction, seemed like a good fit for giving these cards some more table love! I've talked some folks into playing some of the format between leagues.
With no planeswalkers to my name, I'm eyeing Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage as my first ever commander. Given that selection, and the fact I'm pretty broke and can't go buying a bunch more singles, how do you think this decklist looks? I have very little idea about multiplayer/EDH strategy, so any advice is welcome!
Good luck to you with that. With Guilds of Ravnica on the horizon, I wouldn't expect anyone to build a Brawl deck given rotation is only a few weeks away.
There seemed to be a few interested players! Folks are looking for something to fill the time between the M19 league that just wrapped up and the Guilds release.
Whoops, sorry about that! I must have fumbled when trying to reduce a nested quote to a single.
In other news, though, it looks like I may have talked my LGS owner into playing some Brawl at the store between leagues. I don't expect it'll be a huge event, but hopefully we'll be able to get one or two four-player tables going!
We like being able to play cards we like for as long as we like, to run and tweak decks over years, and not to be forced to drop cards or decks just because the calendar says we have to.
Ah. Yeah, I'm more of a "variety is the spice" player. Running the same deck for literal years sounds like a bore, to me!
Casual players, the kind Brawl seems to be marketed towards, absolutely hate rotating formats, so from their perspective Brawl very much looks like a worse Commander, and that's a shame considering the actual gameplay is probably better.
Huh, that's not a generalization I would have expected to hold true. Why would casual players hate rotation? To me as a pretty casual player, the thought of having to buy old cards, or even to come up with a deck when cards from the whole vast history of the game are available, is so daunting as to make for a hard pass. So I have very little interest in Commander, especially when everything I hear about the getting-started-with-Commander products is that they're overpriced and generally horrible.
But maybe I'm conflating "casual" with "new"? I only recently got into paper Magic playing in a league of Dominaria, so I've got these modest collections of DOM and M19 and nothing I can really do with them except use them as backing cardboard for proxying. Brawl looks like the absolute perfect format for my situation, but yeah, it's like pulling teeth trying to round up 2-3 other people to play it.
Rotation rescued the format, not killed it, here. We were all deeply relieved to see the Amonkhet gods go bye-bye.
My decklists: Aryel and Radha
Game 1: Grand Warlord Radha (me), Tatyova, Benthic Druid, Aryel, Knight of Windgrace, Slimefoot, the Stowaway, Lyra Dawnbringer. Winner: Slimefoot
Game 2: Aryel (me), Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma, The Locust God, Tatyova, Slimefoot. Winner: Slimefoot
So it was Slimefoot's turn to shine, with two different players' builds of the commander winning games! I thought the Locust God player wasn't going to bring that deck again, but I guess he just loves his ridiculous card-draw engine thing too much, hah. It was quite satisfying when everyone teamed up to bring him down after he went off with Karn's Temporal Sundering.
For my part, I was surprised that the Radha deck did better than the Aryel. Heck, my Guttersnipe alone did over 20 damage, paired with a Chaos Wand (star moment: stealing Tatyova's Scapeshift, mwahaha). My Aryel setup must be better for 1v1, which is how I was testing the two decks against one another.
Quote of the evening: "It turns out there is a Cyclonic Rift in this format." In both games, Tatyova fired off a kicked Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep...
For next week's deck(s) I have to put in some hose stuff vs. Locust God. I'm thinking things like Damping Sphere and Amulet of Safekeeping... depending on colors, maybe Plague Mare (that was a crucial play by Slimefoot in beating Locust God, game 2) and/or Deep Freeze.
I think Brawl is here to stay, for this group! It's a perfect fit for between Sealed League series. The only thing that's bugging me a little bit is the diversity of the commander pool--even with this few players, we had two Aryel decks and two Slimefoot decks. That will improve some with the release of GRN, for sure, but I wonder if there might be other ways to spice things up. Maybe allowing legendary cards from Commander products, rotating as if they were part of the Standard sets released in the same timeframe?
I guess the question is, how big is the target audience for Brawl? Casual players on a budget, scared off by big card pools, but not too fazed by the prospect of having to retire some cards every so often? It fits me on every point, but maybe I'm a rare breed.
Game 1: Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma, The Locust God, Slimefoot, The Stowaway, Tatyova, Benthic Druid (Winner: Locust God)
Game 2-1: Raff, Locust God, Slimefoot (Winner: Locust God)
Game 2-2: Goreclaw, Lyra Dawnbringer, Tatyova (Winner: Tatyova)
Game 3: Goreclaw, Locust God, Lyra, Raff (Winner: Locust God)
So as you can see, Locust God ran away with it! Slimefoot did come pretty close in Game 1, and Locust God was down to 4 life in Game 3. (He was there for a while, in fact. We probably should have gone for the kill ASAP...) It was a pretty wild deck, running extra turns, tons of draw, and clinching with Insect hordes + Throne of the God-Pharaoh. I wasn't at the table for Tatyova's win, but I gather it was also an extra turn endeavor involving Timestream Navigator and Scapeshift, so overall it was a big night for turn-taking combos!
My MVP card, other than Raff himself, was Baird, Steward of Argive. I threw him in just because he happened to be historic and in the right colors, expecting everyone to have so much mana that his ability wouldn't really do anything. But there was a lot of go-wide at the table between Locust God and Slimefoot, so I got to live a lot longer as people went "eh, I'll attack the person who doesn't cost me anything"!
My play of the night: Locust God declares combat step with something like 20 Insect tokens on the board. I flash In Bolas's Clutches, steal his Windreader Sphinx, and proceed to draw half my deck. Haha!
Despite getting my butt handily kicked, I had a blast. (The Lyra player was more grumpy about all the combo kills. I guess she doesn't share my wide-eyed amusement when watching an opponent's engine go off.) It was some of the most fun I've had since my recent return to the game! The Goreclaw player, who also happens to be the store owner, even remarked, "I think I like this more than Commander. No friggin' Sol Rings."
We'll be Brawling more next week, and I'm hoping this will become the go-to activity to fill the space between set Leagues going forward. In the meantime, I'll see if I can get any of the other players' deck lists to post!
With no planeswalkers to my name, I'm eyeing Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage as my first ever commander. Given that selection, and the fact I'm pretty broke and can't go buying a bunch more singles, how do you think this decklist looks? I have very little idea about multiplayer/EDH strategy, so any advice is welcome!
The deck
The full list of cards I have available
In other news, though, it looks like I may have talked my LGS owner into playing some Brawl at the store between leagues. I don't expect it'll be a huge event, but hopefully we'll be able to get one or two four-player tables going!
Huh, that's not a generalization I would have expected to hold true. Why would casual players hate rotation? To me as a pretty casual player, the thought of having to buy old cards, or even to come up with a deck when cards from the whole vast history of the game are available, is so daunting as to make for a hard pass. So I have very little interest in Commander, especially when everything I hear about the getting-started-with-Commander products is that they're overpriced and generally horrible.
But maybe I'm conflating "casual" with "new"? I only recently got into paper Magic playing in a league of Dominaria, so I've got these modest collections of DOM and M19 and nothing I can really do with them except use them as backing cardboard for proxying. Brawl looks like the absolute perfect format for my situation, but yeah, it's like pulling teeth trying to round up 2-3 other people to play it.