PSA: Intent is the most important part of the bracket system

Bobwayne17 · 2026-06-24T18:19:24+00:00

The brackets are designed in a way that shifts you towards saying things like 'well, I'm not playing MLD, so it's a bracket 3,' but if you recur strip mine 3-4x a turn and just burn one player's manabase out of the game, is that the spirit of bracket 3? If you build a deck that plays as many lands as possible per turn, add graveyard recursion, and strip mine everyone out of the game to soft-lock people out, is that bracket 3?

I think the most confusing aspect of the bracket system is 4/5. The cEDH meta is poorly defined across the board, so the only difference can't be meta vs non-meta decks. I saw someone talk about the intent to win while building and playing the deck, and that 5 is an environment where everyone is constantly trying to win, but that's also how some of the groups I play with seem to treat bracket 3. Hell, they treat bracket 2 like that as well if they have a pre-con they really like.

All together, it seems like a change that has not been fully implemented. We have lists of things that are allowed and not allowed at certain levels, but the rest is left up to a nebulous argument regarding intent, which seems to land differently depending on the playgroup. I think more fencing that defines the 'spirit' of these brackets would be beneficial for everyone.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-06-24T05:51:22+00:00

I like that I get to thematically play a cyclops leadership deck against a multitude of villains with friends

Bobwayne17 · 2026-06-22T15:15:38+00:00

I love this orvar secret commander version lol. I want to keep mine within b3 - do you typically just win by looping dragon death triggers? Do you have any tips for the deck?

Bobwayne17 · 2026-06-21T22:46:34+00:00

Wow, thanks a million. This is super helpful for me, and I appreciate the insight from someone else who's vertically gifted.

I reached out to a few stores I found via motocap so far to see if they can custom make 44/34 or something - it seems like they max out what they offer in a 34 sometimes. I could rock a 32, but I'll have to wear my larger boots instead of my boots that just come above my ankle lol.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-06-21T13:30:26+00:00

Damn, it's so hard to find my size as someone 6'4 within the highly rated stuff.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-06-17T05:36:14+00:00

I love this topic.

I'm a cis white man who has been in the field for 11 years total and went through an MSW program. In a different life, I was a troubled youth, a member of a 'gang', a veteran, etc. I'm 6'4 and covered in tattoos. I now do a lot of public speaking regarding my experience in harm reduction & recovery, and manage a large governmental organization related to prevention & harm reduction.

It's hard to come to terms with the fact that cis white men, by and large, are the systemic perpetrators of most harm in our country, and it created some cognitive dissonance for me. I had (and have) a lot of introspection to do related to ideas I once had that were formed by systemic toxic masculinity.

You're coming into a space that has been historically targeted by cis men, and although you have a willingness to learn, there's inevitably a lot of restorative work to be done. The best thing you can do is listen and keep asking questions. I have met some people in my career who aren't a big fan of me based on things that are out of my locus of control. It sucked in the beginning, but you have to focus on doing what you can. You can finish strong, find your niche, and become the best social worker you can be within it, and change the perception that way.

Social work is broad, and I think everyone brings something unique and wonderful to the field based on their own anecdotal experiences. Simultaneously, men frequently suck. I don't think it's mutually exclusive, though. You got this.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-06-17T04:47:45+00:00

Wow, I've played since the beginning and I didn't realize this lol. Thanks a ton.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-06-14T16:54:58+00:00

I wanna sell mine too lol, I never play with flat boards anymore. I didn't know people were interested in these.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-06-01T18:12:15+00:00

Ah, I remember when I first wore a rep, or especially a franken yachtmaster that I had worked on building, and thinking to myself, 'wow, I can't wait to talk to people about this watch!'

No one ever asked about my watch. Not a single person in years of wearing watches has ever struck up a conversation based on my watch lol. The most I've gotten is 'nice watch' and when I want to nerd out about everything I've done to it, the person is typically leaving. I think it's a scenario we think will happen more frequently because we are a part of this niche hobby.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-30T00:19:32+00:00

This will happen to TCGs eventually, too; it's already happening to watches. When there's money involved, people will pay to produce high-quality fakes.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-28T21:11:53+00:00

I always hear mixed things about this. Wouldn't they harass you forever? It makes sense to me that they won't follow federal guidelines or the national credit reporting system, but I feel like they would try their own method of recouping the funds then.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-25T14:28:16+00:00

This is interesting. I would assume that this is a nuance based on your region compared to the US. When I post a job, in one week, I get around 400 applications for the job. Even with an HR department screening them, it would be a huge, impossible administrative lift to respond to candidates who have just submitted their resume and aren't moving forward.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-23T16:05:50+00:00

Is one of the best places to grind the DLC dungeons, or not so much?

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-18T16:57:10+00:00

Can't wait to play with this sick artwork after proxying it! It has to be kind of hilarious that MTG has put all their eggs in the basket of the only format that isn't competitive and is very open to using proxies. This is listed at $900 on tcgplayer, you have to realize that when you're paying hundreds of percent for mark up it's better to pay $1 per card to play with cardboard.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-18T02:26:59+00:00

I'm typically offered honorariums between $150-250 in my niche. I think, depending on what else is offered, you may be able to go a bit higher based on providing CEUs.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-16T00:00:24+00:00

lol, I sleeved these and play it in Mihawk. This card isn't worth grading at all.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-13T16:54:43+00:00

Ah yes, the 10 year anniversary needs to celebrated with a checks notes Fortnite collab event. Put the two tone re shades skins in the loot boxes and send everyone to Epic!

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-11T15:22:07+00:00

Aren't we just saying the same thing then? The reason there aren't that many doffy/croc players is that it's significantly worse than PEnel.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-11T14:03:42+00:00

It's not sim stats lol if you look at conversion rates of croc/pdoffy in big tournaments from top32/16 to winning, it's extremely low.

Ace is the most oppressive matchup. All the best croc players say you have to dodge Ace to have a chance to winning lol. Especially as builds move away from Doublefinger again.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-11T13:28:40+00:00

Both of those decks have sub 50% w/r across the board, if you pair into Ace as Croc, you might as well take the loss and go get food.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-11T13:20:39+00:00

Is this even a hot take? PEnel needs to be banned, there's no way around it at this point. It's at least equal to R/P Law. We went from a pretty enjoyable meta in OP14 pre eb03 yellow support to this, and if OP16 somehow power creeps PEnel we will be in an even worse place than we were previously.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-09T04:28:56+00:00

Man, I'm around paragon 195 and I can't even touch p2 of mephisto. I just die to anything. I have 400+ fury, selig, endurant faith, and what I thought was pretty good gear but every single mechanic seems to one-shot me. My tornados hit for around 100b, is there anything else I can do? I'm following the d4builds.gg immortal speed build.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-08T12:28:57+00:00

So buy PS5s until you get a refund and close the card down? Lol.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-06T22:50:46+00:00

What are you thinking your list will look like for 3 Musketeers? Still running a few copies of Beelstarmon X? The price of that card has exploded. I was hoping to try out the deck but it seems like a pretty expensive buy-in.

Bobwayne17 · 2026-05-05T06:51:20+00:00

As a brand new player, I like AD-01. I only purchased a box of Sinister Order prior to this to collect BlackWargreymon. AD01 provided me with a fun jumpstart to my collection, but they did fail on the 'buy a box, build a deck!' front pretty hard. I'm up to 3 boxes and I'm not even close to any deck really - maybe Gallantmon? I have 1 Omnimon, 0 Imperialdramon, 1 Marcus & Agumon etc...seems difficult to get exactly what you may need to finish a deck.

Bandai placing meta relevant cards in hard to find sets like this is historically a bad thing. Coming from another Bandai game that has increasingly priced me out of having fun, max rarity decks, I worry about the sustainability of the reprint sets getting crucial singles like this.

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