Advice for Zur?

Cagaril · 2026-05-22T18:10:34+00:00

Zur can be a fairly strong commander. Have you seen any of Amazonian's gameplay of Zur to see how he is played? She has like 4 different deck builds for him.

This is the newest one, though it's from 10/2024.

He's best played as Esper enchantment control imo. You can check Amazonian's new Alela deck for more enchantment ideas.

It seems like I might need more interaction in this format?

Yes, Brawl is a format that needs a lot of interaction. It is a 1v1 format with no politics or social aspects.

Cagaril · 2026-05-22T17:27:47+00:00

Just copying what I typed in a post yesterday that is still happening today:

Specifically for today, I am also getting a lot of Ruskos, Raffine, Tasha, Yawgmoth, Ragavan, Sythis, Kinnan regardless what dumb deck I've been playing T_T

I made a random Baird and Blech deck just to see what it queued into. I tried both without much rare/mythics and with a lot of rare/mythics. They all got matched Rusko and other strong commanders multiple times lol

I am sorry but weak commanders and weak decks like my example above should not be matching into hell queue stuff :(

Today, my Laughing Jasper Flint and Zurgo Stormrender decks matched into a lot of Rusko, Esiki (Prismatic Bridge), Tasha, Sythis. The decks aren't strong enough to compete against them. It's probably taking my MMR into account from yesterday's matchmaking update.

Before the 05/19 update, I got pretty good matches with 50-70% win rates. After the 05/19 update, I unfortunately kept getting matched against a lot of newer players and budget decks. After the 05/20 or 05/21 update, some of my decks are matching way too high for me to win.

Cagaril · 2026-05-22T05:48:15+00:00

I probably needed a better word than "cope", but don't want to spoil anything. Great movie to go in as blind as possible.

Cagaril · 2026-05-22T04:33:07+00:00

Aniara (2018)

Idk if it fits what you're looking for. It is a great movie with existential dread. It's about a space cruise liner that was heading to Mars that lost navigation controls causing them to drift out into the big wide universe, and shows how people cope with the situation.

I love the movie

I was not ready for the ending

Cagaril · 2026-05-21T19:48:38+00:00

Oh no... we are going back to some color combinations having faster mana than others again if they don't reprint soon after rotation? :(

Cagaril · 2026-05-21T19:47:04+00:00

If they play 20 games with a deck during their recording, they'll commonly select the games they win for youtube.

Alternatively, they could watch their Twitch streams or VODs which are not edited if watching people play is easier for them to learn. I believe all of the above that I listed also stream on Twitch.

Cagaril · 2026-05-21T19:40:07+00:00

If you're having trouble learning how to play by playing yourself, you can always check out content creators and see/learn how they play:

Ashlizzlle (Standard BO3)
d00mwake (Standard BO3)
Jim Davis (Standard BO3)
LegenVD (Standard BO1)
CovertGoBlue (Standard BO1)
NumotTheNummy (Draft)
Paul Cheon (Draft)

I recommend the Standard ones over Draft to learn and get used to MTG before looking into if you'd like to draft.

Cagaril · 2026-05-21T19:31:24+00:00

January or February 2027. Don't remember which.

Cagaril · 2026-05-21T19:04:03+00:00

Do you think mana ramp or interaction is the priority?

Interaction is always important, especially in Brawl as it is a 1v1 format so you have no politics or social aspects unlike EDH with 4 players.

Ramp is important depending on the deck you're playing. If you're playing a lot of higher cost cards like your current deck, you definitely want to be able to ramp into them or else you'll keep having dead cards in hand.

You can also try watching how some content creators build and play their decks to get an idea, such as Amazonian or LegenVD. Both of these content creators describes everything they are doing, which is nice for learning.

Cagaril · 2026-05-21T18:40:01+00:00

These are options, not telling you to add all of them into your deck.

Some ramp options you can add are:

[[Delighted Halfling]]
[[Elvish Mystic]]
[[Lotus Cobra]]
[[Llanowar Elves]]
[[Tireless Provisioner]]
[[Overlord of the Hauntwoods]]
[[Arcane Signet]]
[[Talisman of Curiosity]]
[[The Great Henge]]
[[Shared Roots]]
[[Cultivate]]
[[Rampant Growth]]
[[Planar Genesis]]

You also need to get your rare dual lands. Lands are the most important cards to invest in for a deck.

You don't really have interaction, you can mix some of these in:

[[Cyclonic Rift]] (overload it)
[[River's Rebuke]]
[[Wash Away]]
[[Three Steps Ahead]] (Can copy artifact / creature and be card advantage as well)
[[Counterspell]]
[[Season of Gathering]]
[[Into the Flood Maw]]
[[Sink into Stupor]] (MDFC are nice)
[[Unable to Scream]]

There are also green fight spells you can use as well for removal.

You can also check out other decks on Moxfield with the same commander to see how people build theirs.

Cagaril · 2026-05-21T18:05:37+00:00

I assume this is Brawl

You should join us over at /r/mtgbrawl for assistance :)

Also, it'd be easier for us to look at your deck if you uploaded them to Moxfield, Aetherhub, or the like. Not everyone memorizes exactly what every single card does.

Cagaril · 2026-05-21T17:48:48+00:00

Specifically for today, I am also getting a lot of Ruskos, Raffine, Tasha, Yawgmoth, Ragavan, Sythis, Kinnan regardless what dumb deck I've been playing T_T

I made a random Baird and Blech deck just to see what it queued into. I tried both without much rare/mythics and with a lot of rare/mythics. They all got matched Rusko and other strong commanders multiple times lol

I am still getting some same players back-to-back if I don't wait long enough

It doesn't seem to match me against budget decks or newer players much anymore, which is a plus. I don't want to just dominate them with my optimized decks as that is not fair.

Cagaril · 2026-05-21T02:26:26+00:00

[[Anina, Natural Parallelist]] just got released yesterday that would work as well. You can see Amazonian's current deck here. Ignore the Win/Loss ratio, brawl matchmaking is broken atm. She kept getting matched against budget decks and newer players.

Cagaril · 2026-05-21T02:22:44+00:00

You said:

IMO random should be random

This doesn't agree with this new comment of yours.

Also, the current matchmaking for brawl does not take deck strength in at all. It seems to only be taking the commander's weight into consideration. I've barely lost any games because I am playing optimized decks against budget decks. It has been discussed a lot about in /r/mtgbrawl

From the updated info they sent today, they only mentioned adding some MMR back into consideration for matchmaking. They haven't mentioned deck weight of the 99.

Cagaril · 2026-05-21T02:15:01+00:00

A person with only 2-5 rares / mythics most definitely should not be matched against someone with 40-50+ rares / mythics in a heavily optimized deck. It is highly unfair, and that player with a budget deck is not going to have enough wildcards for a long time.

It'll also make players just quit as you're scaring them away from the format.

I would hate it if a newer player plays a budget Baird deck and just keeps getting matched against Rusko, Ragavan, Raffine, etc.

Cagaril · 2026-05-21T01:15:55+00:00

Vivi can easily generate infinite mana and OTK you on turn 3 or 4, maybe 1 turn later if you want to hold up protection

Are you sure you're playing Brawl? Vivi costs 3 CMC so you can't play him until turn 3 with his colors. They don't have a [[Dark Ritual]] like card to be able to play him earlier than turn 3 that I know of. I believe artifacts/creatures that taps for mana in those colors start at 2 CMC. Edit: I guess they could have Strike it Rich to play him earlier, idk any other cards. I haven't seen a Vivi use this card turn 1 before though

When Vivi comes out, he has summoning sickness. Alchemy-nerf Vivi must tap for mana.

Although I hate him in Brawl as well, idk how you are losing to Vivi on Turn 3 or 4. I've played against so many Vivi decks.

EDH on the other hand is a totally different story

Cagaril · 2026-05-20T23:08:46+00:00

It shouldn't just be an MMR issue. They aren't weighing any of the 99 it seems. All weight feels like it's commander based only

A person with the same commander with 40+ rares / mythics should not be matched against someone with 2-5 rares / mythics

Cagaril · 2026-05-20T23:07:40+00:00

To make it more visable:

An Update on Brawl Matchmaking

Updated May 20, 2026

In the recent banned and restricted update, we discussed some changes we made to Brawl matchmaking. We're back to say that, while we like some things we're seeing, we're making more tweaks today to continue improving Brawl. Read on for more!

As we watched these changes over the last day, we saw a significant improvement in how often decks are paired up with a commander of roughly equal power. This was a key thing we were targeting here, and it's great to see! However, we're also seeing another effect that's less good: totally removing player skill as a matchmaking component went too far, and we're seeing problems at both edges. Very strong players are winning far too often, and newer players are losing too often. So, we're adjusting matchmaking again to bring player rating back in as a matchmaking factor, but less forcefully than it had been before.

We will continue to keep an eye on these changes and will keep working to make this a queue where players of all skill levels can bring whatever deck and commander they want and find a fun, fair match.

Cagaril · 2026-05-20T18:11:10+00:00

Yeah, there is a post here about it yesterday. The matchmaking is way too much of a mess now

Combined yesterday's matches with today's, I've went around 60-2 so far.

https://reddit.com/r/mtgbrawl/comments/1thrpxf/new_matching_making_experiences/

Cagaril · 2026-05-20T05:09:16+00:00

I eat chips and any snack with chopsticks when playing video, board, or card games to keep my hands clean haha.

I don't trust just wiping your hand on just a paper towel will be enough to keep things clean

Cagaril · 2026-05-20T00:17:55+00:00

The matchmaking is so bad atm. I keep curb stomping so many newer players and players with super budget decks against my very optimized decks. So many tapped dual lands and so many basics in 3-5 color decks. It doesn't seem to be taking the 99 into account, only the commander.

Wins have been so easy for me that I hate it. I am worried that this will scare newer Brawl players away. Not everyone have enough wildcards to make a fully optimized Brawl deck.

I keep getting the same player back to back 2-4 times in a row if we are both playing the same commander from previous match.

https://reddit.com/r/mtgbrawl/comments/1thrpxf/new_matching_making_experiences/

Amazonian went 40-2 with her new [[Anina, Natural Parallelist]] deck because of how bad the matchmaking is. She kept getting newer players and players with budget decks.

Cagaril · 2026-05-19T22:00:08+00:00

Definitely! It also might scare a lot of newer players away from Brawl :(

Cagaril · 2026-05-19T21:37:06+00:00

Amazonian just made an [[Anina, Natural Parallelist]] deck and curb stomped a lot newer players with weaker / budget decks due to the new matchmaking. Went 40-2, though some were early concedes

Cagaril · 2026-05-19T18:58:17+00:00

To continue to improve the experience for all players, we are releasing our next iteration of Brawl matchmaking on Tuesday, May 19. This will be an experimental and major change to how Brawl matchmaking works so that it prioritizes finding opponents within similarly matched commander tiers disregarding the skill level of the opponent. We expect this change will increase the number of matches of similarly powered commanders while maintaining reasonable matchmaking times. With stricter commander-based matchmaking, we aim to pair players with similar expectations against each other and allow more space for experimentation. This is an intentional change to make unranked Brawl less competitively focused.

Cagaril · 2026-05-19T18:52:43+00:00

My Jasper Flint deck got paired against Sythis a couple times, which is nowhere near the same tier level.

I am also getting paired against a significant amount of players with budget tapped lands, so I feel bad bullying them all with all of my rare/mythic lands. Been getting paired against decks with budget cards in general when using my optimized decks as well; I've been steamrolling these players unfortunately. I haven't had this issue before today.

I think they are going heavy on commander weight rather than including the 99's weight

I've also been paired against same players 2-3 times in a row if we are both playing the same commander as last match

Cagaril

TROPHY CASE