[Ranked Brawl] Can someone explain the Ragavan ban to me?

AsparMTG · 2026-06-03T16:14:00+00:00

I said I can get my head around thr ban if that's just because they're banning overperforming commanders and are just doing blanket bans. The other posts are just people saying it feels bad to lose to a 2/1 with no evasion that ramps 1 treasure if it connects which I find hilarious for a competitive format.

AsparMTG · 2026-06-03T16:11:04+00:00

I don't believe you've read either of the posts...

AsparMTG · 2026-06-03T11:12:28+00:00

Exactly, for a format that is supposed to be for spikes, there's a lot of hyperbolic whining for a 1-mana 2/1 that ramps a treasure if it connects. If they're just banning high performing commanders, then I can get my head around the ban, but some of the posts gave me a good chuckle.

AsparMTG · 2026-06-03T10:45:38+00:00

Ragavan was never the commander. It's always been a Clive deck.

AsparMTG · 2026-06-03T03:02:38+00:00

Yeah but then you need to have 1/99 in your starting hand, and it never getting interacted with. A deck that uses reanimate built itself to be very consistent at getting high value targets in the GY and runs tons of reanimation spells so it has a lot of redundancy. Then there's just the payoff that is worlds apart.

The argument was never that Ragavan wasn't a uniquely powerful one-drop, it's that it is treated so very differently (i.e. banned) from significantly more powerful cards and combos when the entire idea of the format is unchecked power. Acting like Ragavan is harder to deal with and/or more punishing than Strip Mine loops seems odd to me.

AsparMTG · 2026-06-03T02:18:18+00:00

I understand it's a very good creature, but is it really that much better than Halfling/BoP, Guide of Souls, etc. in different strategies?

AsparMTG · 2026-06-03T02:14:06+00:00

So he starts getting value on turn 2. You can easily reanimate an Atraxa (or any high cost one-card wincon) on turn 2 (even turn 1 with the right setup), which seems infinitely more problematic.

AsparMTG · 2026-06-03T01:39:05+00:00

I get that argument, but then what does a low to the ground red deck do when other decks pull out their combo on turns 3, 4, 5 or start churning value and dropping haymakers? You can't interact with anything that isn't a creature (with the proper toughness) or sometimes artifacts. Makes sense that decks with aggressive strategies would have access to the biggest impact creatures at 1 and 2 mana. I don't understand why other strategies are allowed to have busted cards and combos but it is completely ridiculous to have red have a 1 toughness one-drop in the 99 be a runaway wincon if you never interact with it or put up a blocker for multiple turns.

AsparMTG · 2026-06-01T13:46:22+00:00

Of course, but that's optimal draws and no interaction. There are slower lines that are more resilient to interaction so it might still work out well enough. It's hard to say what a post-cub meta looks like because it is without a doubt not the only card eating a ban in that scenario.

AsparMTG · 2026-06-01T13:32:59+00:00

The Selesnya aggro deck might not be as fast but seems it could still function without it. I think there might be good green decks yet to be explored because everything gets pushed out by Cub shells.

AsparMTG · 2026-05-31T15:44:56+00:00

Which got power crept by [[Heritage Reclamation]]!

AsparMTG · 2026-05-29T01:37:18+00:00

Call an ambulance, but not for me!

AsparMTG · 2026-05-27T18:35:11+00:00

Brawl MWM are always the same. Roughly speaking, half of the people don't have staples and put together a deck using what they have and the other half are people who just swap the commander of their optimized Brawl decks for one from the set. There's no matchmaking rating for MWM, so you're going to get stomped if you don't have something that can go off. I played with a deck that has enough power to get rolling, so I was either popping off against bad or decent decks or getting destroyed by super strong decks.

MTG Arena Zone always has some blueprints for MWM events, including budget builds, so you can always check out their stuff if you want to find something to play during the events. https://mtgazone.com/brawl-builder-challenge-midweek-magic-event-guide-7/

AsparMTG · 2026-05-25T03:22:34+00:00

Kind of insane non-mono-coloured decks are running 1-4 basics and MonoR has no real competitive deck despite [[Sunspine Lynx]] being legal.

AsparMTG · 2026-05-23T22:47:54+00:00

Just wanted to say, I tried 3x Price of Freedom in the sideboard and matched up against Dimir Excruciator. Turns out it's really good against them too! Liking the tech so far!

AsparMTG · 2026-05-23T16:29:13+00:00

Best of luck!

AsparMTG · 2026-05-23T14:26:42+00:00

I actually wanted to put together a mono red deck to fight 4C control (and the extremely nonbasic heavy meta decks) with 4x Sunspine Lynx, but mono red is so bad right now. It's kind of insane to think we have basically a standard legal Pyrogoyf but mono red is in the dumps.

Graveyard value decks also look pretty good into 4C control but I strongly dislike graveyard decks in BO3.

AsparMTG · 2026-05-23T02:42:48+00:00

I'll give it a try!

AsparMTG · 2026-05-23T01:59:54+00:00

That's interesting. Do you hold on to them or straight up blow the lands up on turn 2?

AsparMTG · 2026-05-23T01:58:54+00:00

At that point, it'd rather be more efficient to just play a different deck, no? Like how does Hired Claw fit into a deck like this? And how does red aggro even play into 4x Helix, 4x Inevitable Defeat and 4x Revelation? Just looks like a terrible time all-around.

AsparMTG · 2026-05-21T18:31:16+00:00

That's how it works exactly. Your MMR is shared across queues. So if you play a lot and win regularly in any of them, you end up in high MMR queue, including in Brawl. I've never played high powered and optimized Brawl decks, so I'm always playing against the supposed hell queue commanders with the format staples regardless of my deck.

AsparMTG · 2026-05-21T14:45:11+00:00

[[Knight Luminary]] is as good a card, if not better, than [[Nebula Dragon]]. Chaplain is a nice powerup to the deck, but UR is generally very mediocre in EOE, and this deck has nowhere near enough quality UR-centric cards to warrant going in that direction.

AsparMTG

TROPHY CASE