#25 - Brackets

Featuring everything anyone has ever thought about Magic's new way to play Commander in the wild.

It’s three weeks before March Madness but [Brackets] have arrived. They’ve spent months taking the 1-10 power scale and cutting it in half.

I have shuffled up and played Commander with three total strangers once in my life. It was at SCG Richmond when I was still on their payroll and they flew me out to be a Special Guest™. I thought I should mix it up with fans.

No one had a clue who I was. The game was awful. I left my prize wall tickets on the table and ran to the draft queue.

The Brackets system is not for most of us. It’s for the Mothership.

Figuring out untrusted play spaces remains the great challenge of Wizards of the Coast. As much as I have a broad disdain for how much Magic has been warped around Commander, that isn’t changing, so I’m here with solutions.

This is everything I’ve ever thought about Brackets:

Each Commander deck is a 1 through 5 in the Beta. Cutting the 1-10 scale in half is a net positive. We didn’t need that many numbers because Scale Anchoring is how we wound up with some many sevens. I wrote a whole thing about it.

Gavin Verhey wrote an article that explains how each number works, so I won’t rehash that here. To me, it’s fairly self-explanatory and people who are grumbling about it are doing so in poor faith because they expect something fleshy and nascent to be bulletproof. It couldn’t have been.

First change: I don’t think we need a one and a two. How many precon-level decks are chaining together extra turns? It feels like a distinction without a difference, but hey, it’s what they did.

There are two things I believe to be true about anyone who’s building a Bracket One deck. Either they:

1. Aren’t inculcated enough to know what a One is or

2. Knows and understands they probably can hold their own against a precon

The thing is, I think Bracket One makes up a much bigger part of the Magic universe than enfranchised players believe. This game lives at kitchen tables. In untrusted play spaces and away from fridges, there aren’t a lot of 1’s I see running around. If the goal is to say, “I have a One, does everyone want to whip theirs out?” then I don’t think that is a common use case. If we merged One with Two, you’d just have to be firm when playing a silly deck that you can only match up against other Ones (the new Twos).

I think about this like alcohol. If someone asks me, “Do you want a beer?” and gives me an IPA that I’ll be tasting for the next 8-12 hours instead of a Bud Light, I still understand that’s beer. That’s One and Two. Three is a glass of wine. Four is a mixed drink.

cEDH is shots of grain alcohol.

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“Well, my deck is really a One if I don’t have my pet card in it. Great system, WotC!”

You’re so mad but for the absolutely wrong reasons.

So much of this is about intent, which a number system could never solve. I’ve written about it at length, but any system like this is designed to streamline communication, not change deck building. People can and will skirt the bracket system, intentionally creating the most busted Three you’ve ever seen.

They were always going to be the problem.

You can’t legislate decency. You can’t ban your way to Utopia.

What I’m more concerned about is that it limits creativity in deckbuilding choices by ardent rules followers. Good people who don’t want to be Bad people.

The people who would rather avoid a Rule Zero conversation about how Pox is technically mass land denial but actually is a thematic, funny choice in your deck with all of the Monty Python cards.

The people who brew Winota with only horses to find Kithkin Billyriders and other nonsense.

The people who play powerful cards in their Bracket One decks not because they want to end the game in a combo, but because they want to feel like they’re sitting at the table in a meaningful way. I think about Dan Sheehan’s Atogatog deck, which is a Three because of some tutors and a Fierce Guardianship.

As much as I love Veggie, I worry a lot about the words, “it’s supposed to be in” for a format founded in camp and free expression. Rule Zero still exists, but I have a feeling that a community not known for it’s nuance will use Brackets as a cudgel.

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The Game Done Changed

I worry that this is where we missed the mark on a few levels.

First, Brackets denote Tutors already, so why are these Game Changers™? The article defends them thusly:

Enlightened Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal, Survival of the Fittest: These are best-in-class tutors and tend to find combo pieces or just homogenize the game to play out similarly. While tutors are already mentioned in the bracket structure, these six are ones we wanted to call out specifically.

So the explanation is that these are the BEST tutors, so they get called out? Imperial Seal is not a card I worry about and Survival of the Fittest is a reserved list card I’ve never actually seen cast.

Worldly Tutor and Eladamri’s Call get ignored because they get creatures and how could you combo with a creature? Fabricate is just more expensive Enlightened Tutor. Grim Tutor goes to hand and who cares about life loss?

Whatever. I think we’ve drawn a weird, arbitrary line at specific tutors that was already covered. This seems odd to me in that this is a pseudo-watchlist, yet I could never see any of these cards being banned. There’s no universe where that happens, which is a nice litmus test for Game Changers™.

My issue is that this somewhat ignores a pretty clear metric we’ve had the whole time: the salt list. Of the top 100, here are the cards that didn’t catch a Game Changer™:

Nether Void, Humility, Mindslaver, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, Orcish Bowmasters, Emrakul, the Promised End, Farewell, Smokestack, Toxrill, the Corrosive, Blightsteel Colossus, Void Winnower, Narset, Parter of Veils, Thieves’ Auction, Edgar Markov, Sen Triplets, Teferi’s Protection, Narset, Enlightened Master, Oko, Thief of Crowns, Divine Intervention, Mana Drain, Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines, Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice, Teferi, Time Raveler, Ulamog, the Defiler, Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider¹, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Demonic Consultation, Koma, Cosmos Serpent, Omniscience, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Craterhoof Behemoth, Dictate of Erebos, Aura Shards, Possessed Portal, and Overwhelming Splendor.

Quick “I did the math” point: 64% of the 100 saltiest cards are called out, either directly (Game Changers™) or in the Bracket system broadly (land denial, extra turns).

For reference, the following Game Changers™ aren’t in the top 100: Serra's Sanctum, Trouble in Pairs, Mystical Tutor, Bolas's Citadel, Demonic Tutor, Imperial Seal, Vampiric Tutor, Jeska's Will, Underworld Breach, Survival of the Fittest, Winota, Ancient Tomb, Chrome Mox, Trinisphere, Grim Monolith, Lion's Eye Diamond, Mox Diamond, Mana Vault, and, shockingly, Glacial Chasm. 19/40.

Salt scores aren’t the ultimate arbiter of power, but I think it’s telling that most players don’t seem too concerned about tutors or fast mana. I suspect that what’s actually happening is question-framing bias creating an echo effect. If the people in charge keep asking people if they’re worried about something, they go, “Oh shit, I probably should be!”

I hear the concept of “games are too fast” brought up a lot. Did anyone stop to consider that this is a design issue rather than a mana issue? There’s an entire team now dedicated to making the Latest, Greatest thing for Commander. Almost half this list are cards from the modern era of design.

The power creep is coming from inside the house.

But let’s say that games are getting faster. I would argue people love fast games. That the people saying the format need to slow down are the old guard. How do we know this? Look at the salt list.

Second change: Land denial is too specific for the concept they’re talking about.

What players are really worried about is resource denial.

Stasis and Winter Orb—#1 and #2, respectively—are entirely ignored, although Winter Orb is clarified in the article as “mass land denial” which won’t be confusing at all. Nether Void sucks to play against even if you never will. Smokestack is the namesake of the thing that people hate.

This is resource denial.

We can quibble about things that deserve to be on the Game Changers™ list (Devastation players, you gotta tell me before we shuffle up) and what was fine to leave off (I’ve cast so many bad Mana Drains in my life, I do not care) but broadening land denial to resource denial helps us tidy up this list quite a bit. It helps us eliminate the cards people really dislike: cards that slow the game down.

Are you excited to put your $35 Rhystic Study in a binder?

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Bans a Make Markets Dance

Codifying the Game Changers™ as a pseudo-watchlist is smart, even if very few of them are likely to catch a ban. Gavin admits as much during the stream:

The idea is it's part watch list. So it's part like, “Hey, these are some cards that you should know.” These are really powerful magic cards that we certainly have our eyes on. And if we do in the future end up banning any cards, it'll almost certainly be off this list. Which is really nice. No matter how you feel about how Jeweled Lotus and Mana Crypt not being legal, I think one thing everybody kind of agrees on is the surprise of it was. It was a big surprise to the whole community. And so, having a list of, like, “Hey, just so you know, these are some cards we have our eyes on,” is is really meaningful. Now, it's not it's not saying that these cards are all at risk, but it's knowing that they're there and they'll be signaling and things like that in the future.

This is important transparency. If cards are at risk, people should know that and be able to adjust accordingly.

Frustratingly, he then says there will be multiple cards unbanned in April. Coalition Victory is the only one mentioned by name. It went on to sell hundreds of copies on TCGplayer within hours.

Third change: We need transparency both ways. If you’re going to tell us what’s up for a ban, tell us what isn’t.

Hundreds of Jeweled Lotuses and Docksides sold yesterday, too. I don’t suggest this as a way to help the people scratching cardboard lottery tickets. It’s probably just a nice thing for someone who has a Dockside sitting in their binder and wondering if they should turn it into $10 or not.

(Editor’s note: Who told you to buy Docksides at $10 last week?)

The bigger problem with this new ban philosophy is that it’s contradictory. At the beginning of the stream, Gavin tells most Commander players that this probably isn’t about them:

Remember, Brackets are for random matchmaking in play spaces—mostly your LGS when you’re new² and MagicCons. Again, this is not how most people interact with the game on a regular basis.

Using Brackets as a rubric for deciding bans, which affect the entire game, seems misguided to me:

And similarly, it gives us a great half-step down. If we pull cards off the banned list, they can move on to the game changers list, where they can impact the people who want to play at the higher powers of commander without impacting the folks who want to play at the lower brackets of Commander.

I find that troubling. “The bracket system isn’t for most of you, but its effect on the ban list permeates everything.”

People who want to play at higher powers of Commander are being held hostage by this monolithic cohort of “lower brackets.” Why? Because some people are bad at communicating. I sincerely hope that this ushers in an era where we can stop coddling the casual players and let everyone enjoy the game they want.

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I know this has been somewhat negative (feedback is tough) but let me say that, overall, I give it a solid B. My gut reaction on Discord hasn’t changed much:

My lukewarm take is that this is an amazing start. I think people who are looking for edge cases and then playing to them were people who were already going to be miserable to play Commander with, brackets or not. This is fairly digestible to the laygamer that is legitimately unsure of what they're showing up with.

What I’d change:

• Merge One and Two and make it a scale of 4

• Change land denial to resource denial

• Create a Potential Game Changers™ list of cards that could be unbanned

I also think that a quick, digestible video would be great for this. 60 seconds that explains the nuances of this system. “Hey, you’ve just seen this chart, here are our four biggest FAQs.”

I’d guess they cover intent of decks, rule zero still being relevant, where it’s used, and, idk, accidental combos? Where to find more resources?

I’m excited to see where the beta goes. This is a big, mostly great first step.

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Content Roundup

Scryfall has added a gamechanger tag in case you forgot the list of 40. Moxfield has full support and will tell you what your deck is as a native part of the site. Check out their Bluesky thread for more details, but it’s not perfect. Still misses some combos, for example. Pretty impressive, all things considered.

Sam is correct. As someone who brought Jacob Hauken to the cEDH table at Richmond for my first and last random pod, I was not cEDH.

Weeks is doing the Lord’s work over on X. Would highly recommend looking at the replies over there because some of them are wild. It’s why I don’t envy whoever had to make this list. This community is truly terrible at nuance sometimes.

Kibler has a thread of somewhat bad-faith arguments without reading the article or trying to ascertain context. It’s kind of useful as a case of, “If a Magic Hall of Famer walks away this confused, how does a rando engage with it?” but I would encourage him to be curious rather than judgemental in the future. Ted Lasso poisoned my brain.

Alan always comes correct with the dank memes.

Command Zone goes for almost an hour and a half on the topic. I didn’t watch because I wanted to have my own takes on all of this. Going to queue it up as soon as I press send.

It does feel, on one hand, that this gives them some cover. Making your first move undoing what ultimately undid the Rules Committee still feels a little weird to me. I suspect they’ll bring back J-Lo and Mana Crypt, waiting on Dockside for a bit since it’s not in the same category of mana rocks.

Same. Play against it or don’t. Still fine on the list.

Underrated part of all of this: we don’t have to deal with that silly system of cards being rated 1-4. Remember that? We dodged a bullet, chat.

Unban speculation is going to fuel a lot of awful discourse in the coming days. Fans of unbanning Prime Time, please don’t @ me.

Dana is absolutely correct. Red, in particular, needs tools. Maybe there’s a case for Dockside coming back after all. What’s the Mystic Remora to Jeska’s Will?

That’s the rub: some people love to pubstomp. They want to win and Commander is the game they play. They’re just priced out of cEDH.

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Odds and Endstep

• Tolarian Community College, who I quasi-slammed last week, is doing its annual fundraiser for Trans Lifeline. Donate. If you don’t like this, here’s a button that can help:

• Still unsure? I liked MaRo’s pretty thorough, devastating to the bigots post on DEI in Magic.

• Okay, now that it’s just us, check out the PT Aetherdrift viewer’s guide on the Mothership. I particularly enjoy Riley’s new unhinged headshot. Tremendous guy.

  

• Magic has a movie. Maybe. The IP has been licensed? Whatever. Please, get the team that did Honor Among Thieves involved. I rarely rewatch movies but it was so damn good. Magic has a chance to be funny. Take it.³

Ham’s not a fan.

• My quick hit thoughts about DFT limited: it feels like a banger. Green seems super overpowered because Vehicles have too much counterplay dedicated to them in design. Play big creatures. Crush people with them. Don’t play GW, though. Because of the whole vehicles thing. Force green until you can’t because everyone has wised up.

  

  The DanDan trophy for Chicago is GREAT

• Achievements are live on Arena. So far, I really dislike having another thing I have to click on because I’m OCD and want a clean screen. There’s too many to process. I’m not hunting through the list to try to get them all. Kudos to anyone who can.

• BONUS BRACKETS CONTENT: I ran a poll to see if precons are really that much stronger than your random level One deck. Most people think a table of precons is going 7+ turns. I think that’s fine for a One to sit at.

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Giveaway Update

It goes unclaimed again! I have a new sponsor for this section which I’ll announce Saturday if their stuff gets here in time. Otherwise, I’ll dredge something out of my closet. And it’ll be great.

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Thank you to the following paid subscribers: Casey, John Dale, Will, Alex, Connor, Joshua, Denis, Kyle, Ben, Patrick, Sam, Tyler and Ian. Maybe one of them with take one of these codes for MTGO and get 120 play points:

CCGW-EXCI-H893-JQPK-DBKR

CCGW-UWFN-AVZK-JXIR-COIN

Saturday, I’ll be doing a deep dive on DFT limited and give you some updates on my PTQ prep. See you then!

Passing the turn,

Jake

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Bonus Seymour of the Week

He’s being a sweet boy lately.

1. I’ll forever be convinced this was people voting for the wrong ‘Clex

2. Because let’s be honest: most people aren’t getting a random pod of strangers at their LGS after a few weeks. You begin to know people who show up. You know what they’re playing.

3. I’m really dragging my feet on that history of humor in Magic piece I teased two weeks ago. Usually a sign it’s just not good. I don’t know.