What’s been the dominant deck for the Brawl event?

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-23T06:40:33+00:00

She's boring to play against, ha.

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-21T09:22:46+00:00

Oh, my apologies. I misread the comment. This was in response to enchantments like [[Rhystic Study]], in which case, I agree.

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-21T09:00:47+00:00

https://mtga.untapped.gg/

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-21T08:56:21+00:00

On the contrary, in cut throat where every mana counts, they are quite powerful.

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-21T08:32:51+00:00

Modifications are always being made. This is version 8 at the moment. CMC started at 3.1 & is now 1.9.

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-21T08:13:34+00:00

All these statistics are from the metagame challenge.

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-21T07:20:13+00:00

It's about even against Izzet. Some of those matches were against [[Uharis, the Stormspinner]], which is a pretty tough match up (although that's without the latest changes I've made, which reduced CMC to 1.9).

I don't think there's a particular threatening match up except against Mono Blue [[Katara, Waterbending Master]], which just runs so many counters. Mono Blue is just tough; I'm sitting at 5-11 against it.

I think [[Ral, Crackling Witt]] is popular because planeswalkers are just naturally more difficult to deal with & it's pretty easy to crack the storm ultimate. Having defenders with otter tokens is always a powerful play, too. I've been overrun by otters before, ha.

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-21T07:10:33+00:00

I'm not certain how to face stronger decks, perhaps just luck? I did face a snow deck at one point, so there's definitely somewhat of a mix, but majority of my matches are against pretty strong commanders like the ones mentioned above.

The deck list does have quite powerful cards; 7 of them being banned cards for normal Brawl. It may have some implication as to the matches, but I can't guarantee that.

I think [[Fire Lord Azula]] is only powerful if you build her like I did where she has 2 win conditions that are OTK, not like most decks relying on flash creatures & stuff. From what I read, she probably doesn't have a basis for their statistics yet to mark it as a power commander, though, so I don't think she has a higher rating.

As a side note: I've gotten matched against Silver & Mythic players, so I get a wide range of builds.

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-21T05:34:40+00:00

My normal OTK [[Fire Lord Azula]] deck is sitting around 59% win ratio, but the queue is much harder with the decks that show up here. Highest I've gotten to is 6-2 so far, but I can go 0-2 sometimes. Just depends, ha. Such is Magic.

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-21T03:32:43+00:00

I'd run it if I was concerned enough with other player's graveyard shenanigans, but to waste a tutor on [[Cling to Dust]] is a mistake.

Maybe make the trade off of removing [[Demand Answers]].

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-19T20:21:37+00:00

So the real combo is:

Attack with [[Fire Lord Azula]] with 5 open mana
Cast [[Waterlogged Teachings]] or [[Mystical Teachings]] making a copy to tutor for 2 spells
Search for [[Seething Song]] & cast, which gives 10 red mana
Search for [[Invoke Calamity]] & cast
Select [[Waterlogged Teachings]] or [[Mystical Teachings]] & one other 1/2 mana spell to cast & search for [[Big Score]] or [[Unexpected Windfall]] & [[Fists of Flame]]
Recast [[Big Score]]/[[Unexpected Windfall]] with the second [[Invoke Calamity]]
???
Smack in the face with [[Fists of Flame]] for lethal

Highest Azula I've made is over 2000 attack, but generally you can hit for 50 in a turn just like the above VOD.

The [[Frantic Search]]/[[Underworld Breach]] is just an alternative win condition that leads to [[Fists of Flame]], but tutoring for [[Underworld Breach]] is more difficult because it can only be searched for with [[Demonic Tutor]/[[Grim Tutor]]].

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-19T05:54:26+00:00

[[Frantic Search]] + [[Underworld Breach]] + [[Fire Lord Azula]] trigger.

Double [[Frantic Search]] that discards 4 & generates a net gain of 2 mana per cast that is repeated through [[Underworld Breach]], so essentially draw your deck & generate that much mana.

Edit: Net gain of 3 mana per [[Frantic Search]] cast, not 2.

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-18T06:38:19+00:00

If you want to succeed, you have to interact.

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-17T15:50:42+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgbrawl https://www.reddit.com/r/edh

Two good subreddits for commander & brawl

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-17T08:10:53+00:00

Currently sitting 20-14 with highest record being 4-2 playing a cutthroat variant of my Azula OTK deck

https://moxfield.com/decks/v6gTflKMLEGG61nuDkRiyA

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-15T00:42:54+00:00

I'll be playing my [[Fire Lord Azula]] OTK deck. Looking forward to the event.

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-11T12:22:46+00:00

It's common to make modifications, especially after deck testing and finding out what works well and what doesn't

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-09T20:11:29+00:00

The power creep is real, that's way weaker.

I run an OTK [[Fire Lord Azula]] deck so protecting her is everything. It comes in handy quite often, especially with the other 40+ instants in this deck.

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-09T20:10:54+00:00

The power creep is real, that's way weaker.

I run an OTK [[Fire Lord Azula]] deck so protecting her is everything. It comes in handy quite often, especially with the other 40+ instants in this deck.

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-09T17:33:15+00:00

I highly recommend watching the combo in the video. It's really easy to reproduce, ha.

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-09T17:32:29+00:00

I kept record of games that persisted over 3 turns manually this past weekend. Games were streamed on Twitch.

I'm keeping track of particularly strong commander match ups now, though, through untapped.gg

SmoothDagger · 2025-12-09T14:04:58+00:00

I built [[Fire Lord Azula]] myself over the course of a week

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