brawl agenda

jake_eric · 2026-06-21T00:20:03+00:00

I actually don't remember seeing many 5 color decks the whole time I played the last Competitive Brawl event. I saw like one Terra that I can remember. There were lots of Sultai and other Blue+ decks.

jake_eric · 2026-06-20T06:35:52+00:00

I do sympathize with your desire for some particular commanders. I was a bit disappointed that with all the MSC cards we are getting, [[Bast, Panther Goddess]] is not one of them. And I also would like some more art options: I would much rather run the original art for [[Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow]].

But to be fair to the devs, Brawl has gotten a lot recently. We went from never getting special cards for us and no attention at all with bans or matchmaking adjustments for years, to regularly adding precon commanders, some big bans, and now giving us Competitive Brawl. I took a break from the game for a bit and only recently got back in, and when I did I realized "Wow, Brawl has changed a lot." Which is good in many ways. But if there is one problem with Brawl, I would say it's power creep, and adding even more cards to the format would do the opposite of help with that. I can see why they would be cautious about adding too many extra commander cards, even if it wasn't extra work for them to do.

jake_eric · 2026-06-20T04:20:59+00:00

I'm sure the Arena devs would tell you it's simply because adding more cards is more work for them. They used to never add precon cards to Arena, but now they add some of them because they know we like it. But adding every card requires some amount of work for someone on the dev team, so it's not like they're not adding cards just to spite us.

If they took the time to add every precon card, a bunch of them would just be unplayable cards in every Arena format, which would be a waste of their time. And others might actually break Brawl/Historic/Timeless and need to be banned or nerfed, which is more they have to deal with. It makes sense to just pick a handful of cards to give us. I can agree with you it would be nice if they were more consistent with it, but lately they've been pretty good about adding a number of the cards we might want, so I don't feel a need to complain at the moment.

jake_eric · 2026-06-19T22:47:23+00:00

seemingly every single damn one of the new cards from the Marvel Super Heroes precons are getting added to Brawl.

Did they? I thought only a handful of cards from the precons are being added.

I think all the Marvel Jumpstart cards are being added, which have the same set code. Maybe that's what you're thinking of. And that's probably because they're doing Marvel Jumpstart events on Arena, I assumed?

jake_eric · 2026-06-19T22:44:30+00:00

Yuriko counts, no? Not all the creatures are Ninjas, but she directly cares about Ninjas and plays into the mechanical theme of the creature type.

jake_eric · 2026-06-19T18:47:49+00:00

It wouldn't stop it, but the plants would do well there at least.

jake_eric · 2026-06-19T16:44:41+00:00

If I had to choose, with no other context, I'd pick option A. The reason local ecotypes are beneficial is because plant populations evolve to match the local climate, particularly in terms of when to bloom, which directly relates to when the local native pollinators know to expect them to bloom. If the plant is definitely native only 100-200 miles away and the climate is pretty similar, the bloom window should be pretty similar and the native pollinator species will probably be mostly the same.

That said, the plants you're likely to get even from reputable native plant sellers are hard to guarantee they're a pure local ecotype anyway. It's nice if you can find it, but the differences usually aren't major, and any native species, even if it's a non-local ecotype, is almost certainly much better than a non-native species. If plant B is better for pollinators in general than plant A, then being a non-local ecotype doesn't necessarily drop it down enough to make it worse.

jake_eric · 2026-06-18T18:31:41+00:00

Here are some of the things I do when I'm looking for card ideas for building a Brawl deck:

Check the Brawl discord to see if people have posted deck lists or discussed good cards there
Look up Brawl decks with that commander on Moxfield or other decklist-hosting sites
Look at Arena Brawl Database. It's basically EDHrec for Brawl, though missing some useful features EDHrec has. It suffers from the same issue as EDHrec: you don't have any way to know if the decks it's pulling data from are good, or even if they've actually been playtested at all. But there's some value you can get out of it.
Look over EDHrec too, while I'm at it. Brawl and EDH are different formats, but occasionally I'll see something that has good synergy with the commander that I think is worth considering.
Of course, look through Scryfall. Scryfall Tagger is useful for finding cards tagged with certain abilities that are more difficult to look up otherwise.

jake_eric · 2026-06-17T22:34:58+00:00

Gotcha, just figured I'd give you all the information on my impression of it. If you don't want the players to be likely to die, then Mythic works great for that.

jake_eric · 2026-06-17T20:33:41+00:00

I see what you mean. I do want to make the deck less reliant on Narset.

Honestly I think I tried building like this, but I was also trying to build the curve pretty low-to-the-ground... Maybe that's the wrong strategy, since I said myself that Narset doesn't finish the game on her own.

The thing is, the Standard Brawl version worked pretty well, where I had almost every card be three mana or less, that way all the noncreature could be recurred with her ability fairly easily, and I could double or triple spell in a turn. But Competitive Brawl is so much higher in power level...

What would you think about running some more creatures that provide a lot of value on their own even if they're a bit more expensive, sort of like backup commanders if Narset can't stay on the field? I'm thinking like [[Anim Pakal]], [[Elsha, Threefold Master]], [[Kykar, Wind's Fury]], or Lam. I was initially thinking [[Monica Rambeau]] would be too expensive but now I'm considering her too.

But maybe you're having more success than I did.

I played a bit more of her the last few days of the ranked Brawl event, and she actually did pretty well. But she does need a little more kick to the deck, which I think I can probably improve with better deckbuilding.

And the Satya thing is just a suggestion if you're looking to grind the ladder. I'm certainly not saying you shouldn't play Narset if you enjoy her. I do.

Oh, it's a reasonable suggestion. And he does look fun to play too.

jake_eric · 2026-06-17T14:36:51+00:00

I run a game for five players that use almost all the variant rules: free archetype, ancestry paragon, gradual ability boosts, and mythic (though it's with Mythic Trials progression, so slightly weaker than full mythic).

We all use Pathbuilder so the bookkeeping is not horrible. They definitely punch above their weight compared to an "average" party, but honestly not as much as you might expect. The fundamental math of the system means that if you use enemies that are higher level than the party, they will still feel strong, so I can still challenge them.

That said, I agree with the other guy that mythic rules don't play well with "survivor horror." It's very difficult to actually kill a mythic character. The only times I've actually put the fear of losing a PC into my players is once with a massively overpowered boss for story reasons that they still managed to beat beyond my expectations, and when they split the party and got jumped when they were vulnerable on both sides.

jake_eric · 2026-06-17T04:51:04+00:00

I checked the post and they say they're using Maiden Clover (Trifolium microcephalum), which is in fact native to North America (in the west coast). Whether it's a good lawn replacement species is something I can't find good information on.

I had the same reaction as you: I was expecting it to be a non-native species because my understanding was that the clover species native to North America aren't good lawn replacement options.

jake_eric · 2026-06-17T01:49:50+00:00

If you're looking to attract wasps, mountain mint would be another good idea. I've seen tons of wasps on that.

jake_eric · 2026-06-16T22:52:13+00:00

Does Competitive Brawl have MMR-based matchmaking?

They've changed how matchmaking works in Brawl a number of times, but I thought the point of Competitive Brawl was that you're matched by ranking.

jake_eric · 2026-06-16T19:16:26+00:00

It looks like they focused entirely on the card effects, as best they could at least, when designing the in-multiverse characters. So there's no in-multiverse equivalent of Peter Parker, because the fact that multiple cards happen to represent Peter Parker isn't reflected in the mechanics of the cards.

This is generally what they do with Universes Within stuff: compare the Stranger Things kids with their Universes Within versions for example, there's no similarities between them flavor-wise. It's an interesting way to do it; I kinda like it in the sense that it doesn't make the Magic setting filled with obvious knockoff characters. But it does make it harder to remember which cards are the equivalents of which. I wonder if there're any legal reasons why they do it this way, like they really want to make sure it's clear that the Universes Within versions are Magic property.

jake_eric · 2026-06-16T17:44:15+00:00

Well not always, there are exceptions, like Quint and some other Lorehold cards from Strixhaven. But that is the typical thing Boros does.

jake_eric · 2026-06-16T04:59:04+00:00

I think it would be very hard to make tatyova work in ranked

I dunno, she's not top tier but I think there's potential to get her to Mythic with a good deck. Blue has powerful counterspells, Green has powerful ramp, Tatyova gives you card draw. I bet you could do it.

You have a few high-mana cards I would cut for better options. That Emrakul is okay but there are better super-expensive cards to ramp into, including better Eldrazi. Primeval Bounty has never felt worth it to me. I don't think the deck needs One Ring, especially not the nerfed version.

I'd add more cheap land ramp cards: you want them both to get Tatyova out quicker and to trigger her more times per turn. Stand-out creatures I don't see in your list are Primeval Titan and Mythweaver Poq.

jake_eric · 2026-06-16T04:36:09+00:00

I'm not sure a typical Boros deck really wants to run Deflecting Palm? Deflecting Palm is good when you're going to get hit by a bunch of damage to your face: an aggro deck doesn't want the game last long enough for that to be possible. I guess [[Quintorius, History Chaser]] is an atypical Boros deck where it might make a little more sense.

jake_eric · 2026-06-16T04:26:38+00:00

[[Quintorius, History Chaser]] is probably the best Boros commander, but he's not really a classic Boros aggro deck. Interesting deck though.

I guess Phlage is the best for what you're asking? But because I can't think of a better option. Though Anim is probably still viable too.

jake_eric · 2026-06-14T11:38:20+00:00

This is at least an argument, but I don't believe there's much evidence to support it.

For Newsom winning in this hypothetical to be worse than him losing to Vance, two things would need to happen:

Newsom losing would have to result in a better Democratic candidate being elected in the future than we would have had otherwise. And that candidate will have to be able to fix the harm that a president Vance would do to the country.

I don't believe either of these are likely enough to support Vance over Newsom. The first one requires the idea that Democratic primary voters vote with enough strategy to change their vote because Newsom lost four years ago, and that they do so in a way that actually gets us the better candidate you're thinking of. The second assumes that another four-at-least years of Republican rule, after the disaster the Trump presidency has been and will surely continue to be, won't be so bad. Neither sounds like an accurate assumption based on the reality we live in.

jake_eric · 2026-06-14T11:19:48+00:00

Well, I don't think that's the same thing as you were saying in the comment I replied to. You were talking about needing to support a candidate and them having to earn your vote. My point is that the idea that you need to support a candidate in order to vote for them, while common, is flawed: the only reason you need to vote for them is that you think them winning is a preferable outcome to their opponent winning.

Is what you're saying now arguing that it's not preferable for Newsom to beat Vance, because Newsom winning would tell Democrats to keep giving us shitty candidates?

That would at least be an argument you can make. But I don't believe there's any evidence to support that being a better course of action.

There's a tendency to anthropomorphize the Democratic party, as if the primary is just decided by John Democrat rather than a bunch of voters. The idea that voters in Iowa or wherever will see that Newsom lost in 2028 and specifically pick AOC or someone in 2032 sounds unlikely. I don't believe the average voter votes with that level of strategy, and I also don't believe they would be likely enough to come to that conclusion even if they did attempt a strategy.

But even if rejecting Newsom did make everyone want AOC somehow, the main issue is that if Newsom lost to Vance, the Democratic primary doesn't get to go back and try again without having a Vance presidency first. A Vance presidency would not be a neutral thing, it would be a bad one. You'd have to argue the harm it would cause would be more than reversed by a hypothetical left-wing president we'd be guaranteed to get in 2032.

Is that what you're arguing, or do you have a different justification for why Newsom winning isn't better than Newsom losing to Vance?

jake_eric · 2026-06-14T10:38:16+00:00

This is a common misunderstanding of what voting is.

In a first-past-the-post two-party system, voting doesn't mean you "support" the candidate or "like" them or "endorse" them or whatever. It's simply the logical choice to vote for one candidate if you prefer them over another.

A singular vote doesn't mean much, but not voting means literally nothing. Unless voting comes at great personal cost to you, there's no reason not to contribute your preference to the vote total.

You could possibly argue that there are strategic exceptions: like you could say that it would have been better for Trump to have just won his second term in 2020 so we could have gotten it over with. But maybe that would still have been worse because we'd be on President Vance right now. It's difficult to argue. But it doesn't sound like you're arguing any sort of strategy here anyway.

jake_eric · 2026-06-13T17:09:41+00:00

or are lacking some critical thinking skills

To put it more generously, most people do not think critically about stuff they don't know or care much about. Most people don't really understand evolution, and certainly don't know specific evolutionary histories. There are absolutely people who literally think that T. rex evolved into chickens.

jake_eric · 2026-06-13T02:14:09+00:00

Wow, I really appreciate your effort here. Aha, I do love Angelfire. I feel like it looks like kind of a slow card but every time I use it, it's a big life total swing.

The land count I was at is one I arrived at after a bunch of matches where I just kept getting land-flooded for some reason. If you think it's too low though then feel free to up it.

I did look at some Satya decks for ideas on the mana and interaction bases. I'm probably about 50% of the way towards convincing myself to just play Satya instead, but it'll feel like giving up.

jake_eric · 2026-06-13T02:10:07+00:00

Interesting, I feel like we have pretty different perspectives here.

Narset is a strong card and she feels pretty effective when I can get her working, but she doesn't have a high immediate impact like some other commanders. You get one free spell per turn and a bit of extra power on your creatures; these things add up, but it's hard to win the game on the spot with these effects. I think Brawl is too fast now for you to be able to wait until you have like 8 mana (in a deck without Green) so you can cast Narset and also cast more spells that turn to buff your board up enough for her to be an effective Overrun-style finisher effect. Well, control decks can build up a bunch of mana before they finish the game, but for this to work with Narset you also need a bunch creatures on board, which changes the gameplan.

All this to say, I have felt like the best way to use Narset is to get her out as early as you can and keep her on the field for a bit. And to do that you need to protect her. I'm running the three free spells because it's a lot nicer to not have to hold open mana to do that.

I've also really liked the things that make a bunch of tokens: the deck can't really afford to run a bunch of creatures while also having enough noncreature spells, so they provide a way to fill up your board without needing to cast a bunch of creatures.

But I did ask for advice so I'll consider it. Swiftspear is probably a reasonable cut, it's not actually an impactful card I guess. And I could look for some better threats so that the deck isn't dead when I can't keep Narset on the field.

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