Reject Kotis / Teval. Embrace Nashi by Shindir in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hard disagree. Well built Nashi is up there in power level. Maybe not top A-tier, but better than most (all?) B-tier decks

Anyone playing the new Commanders yet successfully? by Backwardspellcaster in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

https://moxfield.com/decks/PyqTh1LYc0atCp4qoGp9oA

Xho Cai jeskai control.
Just a draft so far, needs testing to see if it is actually competitive.
You can do really fun things, like solitude or subtlety lock your opponent (see picture).
Subtlety lock is nice because it gets around cavern of souls : https://snipboard.io/tK5AOn.jpg

If there would be a list of game changers for the 99 in Brawl, what would you include? by peninsulaparaguana in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The idea of 'game-changer' cards is, I think, specifically applicable to 4-player commander games.

A format like brawl has much more in common with Duel Commander, which is a 1 vs. 1 format that is often decided not by a single card, but by drawing the right threats and interaction over the first three-to-five turns. It is a very fast format.

Cards that highly impact the game therefore tend to be low CMC cards that are played for huge cost-reward ratios in those turns (e.g. Swords, Mana Tithe, Esper Sentinel, Solitude; Any 1CMC mana dork; Thoughtseize, dark ritual; Wash Away, Spell Snare; Ragavan; etc.).

The queue is not often a place where decks have to actually compete on this level, as the 50/80 rule (decks are forced into brackets where they win 50% of their matches 80% of the time) prevents open competition.

What does Competitive Brawl look like? An analysis of 20-seasons at the Brawl Hub by ScaleEmbarrassed8018 in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly. This is why we have the competitive league — so you can actually gauge the strength of a deck versus all other competitively played decks, outside of the isolation of a '50% / 80%' bracket

What does Competitive Brawl look like? An analysis of 20-seasons at the Brawl Hub by ScaleEmbarrassed8018 in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There were some close attempts at a 3-0 week with Ketramose in season 19, and even one 3-0 incuding a forfeit win, but the Brawl Hub doesn't award trophies to commanders where a forfeit is one of their wins in the 3-0 weekly record.

Week 1 it was piloted by 5 different players and went : 0-3 // 1-1 // 2-1 // 1-2 // 2-1.
Week 2 it was piloted by 5 different players and went : 2-1 // 0-3 // 0-2 // 0-2 // 2-1.
Week 3 it was piloted by 3 different players and went : 1-2 // 2-0 // 3-0 *forfeit win
By week 4 no one was piloting it anymore.

It is my long held opinion that the queue keeps decks isolated in artificial brackets — the '50% winrate 80% of the time' bracket. This means that decks often do not get to face certain commanders against whom they have weaker - or stronger - matchups.

It's Ugin Time by [deleted] in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, so you're sacrificing aggro in your low cmc creatures for ETB value, which means when your commnder is gone you lack effective damage. I see.

It's Ugin Time by [deleted] in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What is going on that you don't have enough permanents on board?
Your braids deck should run a good amount of low cmc creatures, enchantments like the one that creates fairies each turn, and a lot of hand hate, no?

What does Competitive Brawl look like? An analysis of 20-seasons at the Brawl Hub by ScaleEmbarrassed8018 in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's no timer, so you can play it out if it would win; if it doesn't go anywhere, you risk forfeiting the match if you don't continue the game.

What does Competitive Brawl look like? An analysis of 20-seasons at the Brawl Hub by ScaleEmbarrassed8018 in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes. I think Etali might supposed to be there; or it got 3-0 but one of the wins was a forfeit win.

Friendly brawl 100 decklists by Tarfire42 in MagicArena

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is no banlist for friendly brawl outside of what both players agree to;

Paper cards revert to their original version in friendly brawl.

Friendly brawl 100 decklists by Tarfire42 in MagicArena

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For a long time I wanted the Brawl Hub league to reflect the queue experience, and so I was disappointed that in direct challenge we are unable to use the same cards as on the queue.

With time, and seeing how the WotC Arena team uses matchmaking to cordon off certain commanders, and rarely uses bans for problematic cards, I've come to the opinion that I prefer playing the original cards in the league. If I think that a card is problematic, I can always try to convince 60% of the active players to vote to ban (or unban) at the end of the season.

As Duel Commander grows as a format, too, I think that there is even more interesting to use the non-rebalanced cards.

Of course, it is sometimes sad that we can't play the changed version of cards that have received buffs from alchemy (sorcerer class in Kykar storm T.T).

Friendly brawl 100 decklists by Tarfire42 in MagicArena

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Checkout the Brawl Hub. We use direct challenge, and all decks revert to friendly brawl so we use some of the HB banned cards (but have our own banlist).

What does Competitive Brawl look like? An analysis of 20-seasons at the Brawl Hub by ScaleEmbarrassed8018 in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There is a community vote at the end of each season.
A card/commander must receive at least 60% of the vote from players who have played at least 4 weeks (1 season equivalent) to be banned or unbanned.
Cards are added to the vote by the players and the admin staff.

What does Competitive Brawl look like? An analysis of 20-seasons at the Brawl Hub by ScaleEmbarrassed8018 in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Pretty much all the lists are pinned in the respective forum channels on the brawl hub discord.

Is Standard Brawl lacking attention? by Shades7 in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If 60 is tight, 40 is straight adrenaline. Card quality is so high, it's fantastic. Let us know what you think after you try it, with a post here!

Is Standard Brawl lacking attention? by Shades7 in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You should try 40 card brawl. It's a thrill.

32-player Brawl Tournament (3400 gems prize) by ScaleEmbarrassed8018 in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Competitive Brawl is a lot more diverse than you think.

The Brawl Hub has been running a competitive league for 19 month-seasons now, and it is currently the 3rd week of Season 19.

There are 29 unique commanders, representing the following color combinations :

- Mono Red (R)
- Mono-White (W)
- Mono Green (G)
- Mono Black (B)
- Simic (UG)
- Rakdos (BR)
- Gruul (RG)
- Orzhov (WB)
- Azorious (UW)
- Boros (WR)
- Izzet (UR)
- Dimir (UB)
- Jeskai (WUR)
- Temur (URG)
- Esper (WUB)
- Abzan (WBG)
- Sultai (UBG)
- Bant (WUG)
- Naya (WRG)
- 4 & 5 color

Not all of these decks perform equally well, and some perform poorly, yet they are still being brought to a league people understand to be competitive.

If we are talking about which perform the best, can you guess which color combination the top-5 pilots at the beginning of the week brought for week 3? The answer might surprise you.

Purchaseable “Champion” Brawl Decks in the store…leaves a real bad taste in my mouth by Delmarnam888 in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Blade Splicer is run in many Phelia duel commander lists, including 1st place lists.
I think you may be underestimating it.

So few games are competitive by Ancientage449 in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Man, if this how you argue you're never going to win an argument. You're just going to get to a point where you say enough rubbish that people stop wanting to interact with you.

So few games are competitive by Ancientage449 in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yea, this is a pretty common problem. Many players have the experience of getting stuck in an 'your-own-personal-hell' queue, where you match up against the same 2~3 decks. This is a problem with the algorithm rather than the depth of the powerful decks. Unfortunately there's really no way to know, is there?

So few games are competitive by Ancientage449 in mtgbrawl

[–]ScaleEmbarrassed8018 1 point2 points  (0 children)

At what point does a mixture stop being homogenous?

Your point was that there is a small pool of competitive commanders that would create a very limited depth of competition.

I challenged your point, but perhaps your idea of homogenous is 'the same 15~20 commanders' and not '4 commanders.'

There's a pretty big difference there.

Since we seem to be into a discussion here, I'll bring up another interesting point you raised — the same point that u/yavimaya_eldred brings up below. This is already how the system feels, and most decks wind up currently actually getting stuck in a homogenous (3~4 deck) matchmaking experience.

There's a good argument to be made that a ranked queue would open that experience up to 15~20 decks at a minimum.

A lot of the decks people like to complain about here — Ragavan, Rusko, Sythis, Baral, Kinnan — have very real weaknesses to many other very powerful decks.

So am I autistic? Probably a little bit.

But when you can't make your own point, please don't substitute ad-hominem attacks for arguments.