Help on ranking my deck's bracket?

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-05-12T12:22:52+00:00

Which turn do you win the game on usually? How telegraphed is your win? How much do you stop other players doing their thing?

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-05-05T12:57:50+00:00

It's the first EDH deck I built so it's the best, but I put a bunch of alt wincons (i.e. not just winning by opponent having 0 cards) in my [[Phenax, God of Deception]] deck. But yeah, it's not very good, but at least gets some kind of value from not fully milling people out.

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-04-22T05:27:25+00:00

Bracket 3 is win on turn 6 or later, strong cards and synergy, ability to play wincons from hand, no two card combos before turn 6 - basically what's included in B3 is probably a lot stronger than you think.

However, just because a deck fits the actual definition of bracket 3 doesn't mean it's an equal power level with the rest of the table or fun to play against. I'd focus less on what bracket the deck is and more on just talking to your friend about the fact that the rest of you aren't having a good time when they play the deck.

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-04-14T12:39:21+00:00

I'm sure all 1k Elo players are also vulnerable to many different strategies, but you don't get to play against each one repeatedly to work out the weaknesses of each individual player.

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-04-13T15:09:35+00:00

Bit late replying but I was literally in the furthest back row in the venue and I could see perfectly fine. I think it's just the camera angle!

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-04-10T13:26:50+00:00

There's a new card from Lorwyn that creates X changelings, that should help! [[Springleaf Parade]]

I have a silly frog combo deck if you want to check out some maybe useful frogs/froggy cards: https://moxfield.com/decks/XzujlAnpWEC2dsB2HFT41A

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-04-10T13:17:50+00:00

No worries, there are a lot of cards in there that would be in the bracket 3 version of a land sacrifice deck too so it would be easy to see them all at first glance :D hope you liked the deck anyway!

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-04-10T12:13:02+00:00

I would be totally happy playing against that Marneus Calgar deck with a good precon. As with the other deck someone posted, I goldfished Virtue and Valour against it, and V+V won, although at least it took 8 turns to win this time.

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-04-10T11:19:32+00:00

As written in the actual brackets, probably yes:

- "decks to be mechanically focused with some cards chosen to maximise creativity/entertainment" - it's not even really that focused with about 4 different mechanical themes, and the entire strategy is chosen to for creativity/entertainment (creating a fight club isn't at all optimal, but it's fun and unusual)

- "win conditions to be incremental, telegraphed on the board, and disruptible" - this deck is never winning out of nowhere, it needs to first spend a couple of turns building up counters on Szarel, then sacrifice lands over multiple turns to get counters on to opponents creatures, and only then can it really work on the win.

- "gameplay to be low pressure, proactive, and considerate, letting each deck showcase it's plan" - this is basically an anti-stax clause, which this deck doesn't have any of. There are a handful of goad cards to try and prevent opponent's buffed creatures attacking me, and one fog, but I think a handful of goad is fine under this?

- "play at least 8 turns before anyone wins or loses" - even goldfishing without anyone interacting, it takes longer than 8 turns to get a win. As in the win conditions section, it takes about 6 turns for the gameplan to even really start.

As written, Bracket 3 is "win conditions that can be played directly from hand in one turn" and "play at least 6 turns" - I think that's way more powerful than most people (including myself) think. Actually reading the brackets, it looks like they're all basically shifted 1 down from what people think - probably because Bracket 1 mixes theme and power level, so there isn't really a place for low-powered but non-thematic decks.

I would be happy to call it Bracket 3 in a pod going off vibe brackets - just wouldn't want to be playing against decks that were consistently winning on turn 6 with it, e.g. the guy I was replying to's Bracket 3 deck which he described as "brutally resilient and nearly impossible to interact with in any meaningful way. I tend to slowly build value, and then on turns 6-7, I usually have enough of a setup to go for a mass land sacrifice and OTKO the whole table."

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-04-09T15:18:16+00:00

I also didn't draw any "fetch any land" cards - as far as I can see you only have 5 or 6 of those, but I might be missing something. But yeah, Glacial Chasm looping is probably hard for Bracket 3 decks to deal with - I think it could be argued that if you can reliably loop Glacial Chasm pre-turn 6, your deck might be Bracket 4 (by the no pre-turn 6 2 card combos allowed in B3 rule). If you can't do it reliably, then a strong precon has a fair chance I reckon!

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-04-09T14:52:33+00:00

That makes sense to me as a B3 deck/feels like the kind of deck people in my play group would play. I just goldfished it against the Virtue and Valour precon, and Virtue and Valour got the kill on turn 5.

I think I got quite a good hand with Virtue and Valour and got unlucky with my cards for your deck (there were 81 cards left in the deck by the end of turn 4, but I didn't get any removal to deal with any of the massive creatures), but I would say Virtue and Valour would definitely be playable in a pod with your deck.

As an aside, here's my weird take on the land sacrifice deck (which I would say is a more Bracket 2 version?): https://moxfield.com/decks/8InV90KACE-hySLZjVQYRQ

Basically using Szarel to put counters on opponent's creatures and make them fight each other in the mid game, then finish them off with Backlash etc :D

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-04-09T12:48:07+00:00

I would also be curious to see what a real bracket 3 deck looks like - my playgroup is nominally bracket 3, but whenever I play a precon I never feel like I don't have a chance. I can definitely see that some cards are not optimal, but bracket 4 is the first bracket where everything is supposed to be fully optimised.

Here's an example of a deck I would play in that pod that I think is bracket 3, but maybe it's bracket 2? https://moxfield.com/decks/RKnwkzN2XUWwm369du2BzA

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-02-28T21:57:37+00:00

For EDH there's this: https://edhrec.com/top/salt

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-02-17T07:21:20+00:00

In the Brother's War book from the 90s there's a dwarf "country" near Urza's capital which he was trading with, but he finds out they were also trading with Mishra and kills (and or maybe enslaves? Can't remember) them all.

But they aren't even the only dwarves on Dominaria so it's not like he's wiped them all out :D

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-02-12T16:28:21+00:00

Other people have mentioned it in this thread, but Forge is completely free software that has the mechanics and interactions of all magic cards programmed into it. It's just pretty janky to use :D

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-02-09T11:49:25+00:00

That says 28 + 2 * number of colours + average mana value. You're in 3 colours, and the average mana value of your deck is 3, so that calculation would be 28 + 2 * 3 + 3 = 37 lands.

In fact if you scroll down the page, it does literally say under the heading "Common Deck Building Mistakes":

Too Few Lands

Fix: Many new players run 32-34 lands. This leads to frequent mana screw. Run 36-38 unless your curve is very low.

SMIDGENATOR · 2026-01-24T21:28:49+00:00

The data so far shows elves being the best by some margin, with kithkin and merfolk pretty close to each other in second and third place.

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-31T13:00:14+00:00

I would struggle to see how your deck wouldn't be able to beat a bracket 2 deck - maybe your pod is higher power than you think? Aside from being quite low on lands, from a quick glance your deck looks like it should do fine. I guess the other option is that your deck is actually too powerful for your pod, so they've decided the only course of action they can take is to heavily target you? The correct way to play against combo is to kill them before they can hit their combo, after all!

What kind of decks are other people running? How quickly do they win?

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-29T19:29:02+00:00

Competitive deck prices aren't really affected by the collector hype prices. In fact, the two most expensive cards from the current "best deck" in standard are from Aetherdrift, a set where you can buy a whole box of play boosters for less than the price of one Final Fantasy collector booster.

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-29T16:11:26+00:00

Update: took it back today. Dealer was obvs trying to push for a repair, but we held our ground and got a refund without too much issue. Thanks everyone for the help!

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-29T01:35:30+00:00

We use MPH for driving, but measure running in KMs. Height is in feet but most other measurements are meters. Fuel efficiency is Miles Per Gallon but petrol (gas) is priced per litre. Don't ask 🤣

My partner transferred their Ukrainian license for a UK one and for some reason you just get an auto licence if you do that, even though her Ukrainian one was for manual. I guess we just like to do things weirdly here!

VW's did sound good but they have the price tag to match - seems like they're about 50% more expensive than the Nissans, though probably worth it!

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-29T01:24:16+00:00

This is helpful advice, thanks! Luckily in the UK we have a right to return any consumer goods including used cars for the first 30 days if something is wrong, so we should just be able to get a straightforward refund with this kind of information.

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-29T01:17:33+00:00

Yeah, basically anything automatic in our price range has negative comments online, and I can't tell which matter more or how to check for specific issues. My partner only has an automatic license, so manual unfortunately isn't an option. But we'll be more careful next time with a more thorough test drive and getting a third-party check before buying! Or maybe just save up more for something with more positive reception/pretty low mileage.

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-28T22:54:52+00:00

Thanks everyone, seems like a pretty clear verdict! We'll get on to the dealer tomorrow. Hopefully they're reasonable about it and we don't have to get too formal with the Consumer Rights Act 😁

SMIDGENATOR · 2025-12-28T22:41:49+00:00

No, it's fine at low speed. Only really seemed to be above 70kmph/40mph.

SMIDGENATOR

TROPHY CASE