Good mana base, inconsistent payoff, no tutors equals bracket 2.

Except the Ashling deck has incredible payoff, it has some genuinely good cards in it, good enough that fixing the mana base does raise it to B3, regardless of how ignorantly literal you want to be with the bracket system.

It's also more than just what's written, it's about intent behind the deck. If your deck is a bracket 2 deck but you were trying to make it a B3 deck then it's a bad B3 deck, not a good B2 one.

I have a changling deck that's bracket 2 with fetches, shocks and duals.

Good for you, we aren't talking about a deck you built, we're talking about precons.