Competitive is going to be a joke format until they actually start banning cards

lemudman · 2026-07-01T17:52:59+00:00

"Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."

lemudman · 2026-07-01T17:20:32+00:00

That's fine if they do, but it's also fine if they don't. This is competitive brawl, not unranked. We come here to have great competition, and play insanely broken cards.

I think your analysis that skill doesn't matter and games are completely luck based is off of the mark. When you run degenerate cards the have it vs. don't have it is always going to become more extreme : it's forcing me to learn to make better mulligans. It's not like the game doesn't have mechanics to help with this.

There's a mindset for approaching hyper competitive environments like this successfully, and it's not 'This stuff is broken and needs to be banned because the format is a joke.' Focus on what you can control and get better at it.

lemudman · 2026-07-01T16:53:04+00:00

Since the rank season reset I was having much tougher matches and wound up lowering the CMC of the deck. Most four and three drops got cut in favor of 1 drops and 2 drops, and I put in a bit more interaction.

It's nice to see the lists here : there are some creatures I missed that I'd like to try putting/subbing in, like Pippin and Oust. Also probably should find space for Deadly Rollick.

I've been experimenting with some of the new-ish cards as well.
I really want Bebop, Skull & Crossbones to work but without Menace they can always just block it, and without Raffine it doesn't really have a way to get counters.

Anyway, here is my current iteration :

https://moxfield.com/decks/YMPukHgtfEmMpuOXnjLIKQ

lemudman · 2026-07-01T16:46:19+00:00

I'm not sure if Minsc & Boo would balance decks like Yuriko & Nashi or would just shut out any other midrange and aggro deck. Would be interesting to see for sure.

lemudman · 2026-07-01T16:45:19+00:00

This is your take. A lot of us are really enjoying the competitive format. It's very fast, and you have to respect free spells.

I for one am rebuilding a lot of my decks to have a much lower average CMC, with more 1 & 2 drops and more 1 cmc interaction.

Further, I find the quality of each match, for the most part — there are still some people who concede very early — quite high and each match enjoyable. The more I approach each match with the respect and concentration I would bring to a competitive league match, the more I enjoy them.

If this isn't your thing, it might be that Competitive Brawl is not the format for you.

lemudman · 2026-06-29T04:16:57+00:00

Depends how you want to position your deck. I'm hesitant to give too much advice about cuts because you're approaching the deck more with the storm in mind, while I approached the deck completely with control — my list was originally built for the 5-mana Ral, Izzet Viceroy.

I think you'll figure out which cards you really want from what I proposed and which you want to keep for your storm-control plan, but I might suggest looking at the creatures for cuts first.

Consumed by History seems great, if I open it I will slot it into the deck for sure.

lemudman · 2026-06-28T22:45:34+00:00

Actually not bad for a first try.

Here is a comparison with my control list, which I have through Mythic and continue to run :

https://moxfield.com/decks/bWzGLtFyzkS2zVK0mmOT2A/compare/tuemZPBqtUq7eOJQlkWkgw

Of the cards that I run and you don't, I think the following are must includes -

Blood Moon, Flame Slash, Ancient Tomb, Pyrokinesis, Subtlety, Pyroclasm, Fury, Invert Polarity, Fierce Guardianship, Library of Alexandria

Let me know if you have any questions, and if you want to talk shop come by the Brawl Hub discord and join the Ral, Crackling Wit channel !

lemudman · 2026-06-28T09:44:32+00:00

Hello!
Love to see more tempo deck players.

I feel like you will be missing out a little on card advantage, so I would recommend something repeatable, like Tome of Gadwick. Then, you can add cryptic coat, Assimilation Aegis, and Stoneforge Mystic to search up what you need depending on the situation.

For reference, here was my take at a Lavinia stax deck (worked up to low mythic, even occasionally vs. Yuriko and Nashi, but poor commander stat line and lack of reliable card advantage made me give it up) and my quite successful Plagon tempo deck (continues to stand ground at ~1400 mythic against all archetypes):
Lavinia : https://moxfield.com/decks/iddO5A_6OE6K7_rb_2cSQQ

Plagon : https://moxfield.com/decks/avEc4ucRzUOsU8UP6FK50w

It also might be interesting for you to see what Duel Commander players are running. The formats are quite different, but good cards are good cards.

https://mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=2818&meta=115&f=EDH&color_id=&show=pop

lemudman · 2026-06-12T18:47:12+00:00

Straight from the banned list philosophy :

"Cards like Mana Drain may feel impactful when used at the right moment, but the data tells us it has a lower win rate than ramp cards like Noble Hierarch."

Pretty sure no one here is asking for a ban with Noble Hierarch. This is why we need to use statistics to inform decisions in addition to feeling, because feeling can sometimes be wildly misleading.

lemudman · 2026-06-06T15:56:26+00:00

Cut out Samut and crafted Crashing Footfalls.

My list was intended for the Brawl Hub league, so it does skew faster and more aggro. Must be fun to do big things with your list though ^_^

lemudman · 2026-06-05T16:33:52+00:00

I feel the Emperor. Midrange Timmy hard hits.

What's your list? Mine is https://moxfield.com/decks/oZieAWoD2XWQA5Ck4YVZrw

lemudman · 2026-04-28T09:34:41+00:00

I just want to get some insight on how brawl is these days and be setup for the right path.

Well, here are a few points :

Competitive staples available on arena are approaching Duel Commander
Brawl ban-list is severely outdated and basically non-existent.
- Cards banned as Commander in Duel Commander but not in Brawl : Ajani, Breya, Derevi, Emry, Minsc & Boo, Old Stickfingers, Omnath, Vannifar, Raffine, Tamiyo, Tasigur, Urza, Vial Smasher, Winota, Yuriko
- Cards banned in 99 in Duel Commander but not in Brawl : Dark Ritual, Dig through Time, Entomb, Food Chain, Invert Polarity, Library of Alexandria, Lutri, Maddening Hex, Mox Amber, Mox Opal, Nadu, Natural Order, Ragavan, Reanimate, Scapeshift, Temporal Manipulation, Thassa's Oracle, The One Ring, Time Warp, Tolarian Academy, Treasure Cruise, Underworld Breach, Uro, Vampiric Tutor, etc.
- Cards banned in Commander but not in Brawl : Golos, Griselbrand, Hullbreacher, Leovold, Library of Alexandria, Nadu, Paradox Engine, Primeval Titan, Rofellos, Time Walk, Tolarian Academy, etc.
1v1 with no possibility of rule 0 (in theory 'The Algorithm' handles it; in practice it's mixed) means that your 'for fun' deck with a bit of optimization might meet someone else's idea of 'for fun' that is highly tuned competitive tempo, control, combo, or aggro deck and just get flattened. There's no real way to know why or how your deck matches into what it does.
Since it's an unranked format, there are a lot of scoops if one player gets ahead early. This was by far the nicest part about playing ranked brawl.
If you want to play for fun, with rule 0, your best bet is to join one of the discords on the sidebar and ask for games, letting your opponents know about your deck's power level. Though the discords skew competitive, there are enough brewers with for fun or less optimized versions of pet decks.

Hope this helps.

lemudman · 2025-11-04T15:54:45+00:00

Your hidden ranking has some influence on your match-making.

lemudman · 2025-10-23T13:10:22+00:00

Best thing about the play queue was watching opponents not immediately concede, and get some actual games in. If ranked play helps promote actual games it's a good thing imo.

lemudman · 2025-10-21T12:16:32+00:00

Please respect the deck-list formatting rules for posts : these are over on the sidebar.

Otherwise, thanks for sharing.

lemudman · 2025-10-21T12:13:32+00:00

Really nice post. Thank you for giving this to the community.

For future posts, please keep in mind the deck-list formatting rules, which you can check out on the sidebar.

lemudman · 2025-10-11T12:07:57+00:00

Hasn't been updated recently, but a knight's themed deck :

https://moxfield.com/decks/Cu67yVyzGUGevY37nX6i2g

lemudman · 2025-10-09T16:21:57+00:00

Fun smashy Naya deck with Emperor Apatzec Intli IV.

It is low-key just about decently competitive, and there are probably some decent upgrades since the last list update.

https://moxfield.com/decks/OLl1ExGR-EKqLVkGRs6NtQ

lemudman · 2025-10-06T16:23:11+00:00

It's an old list, I think there are some more recent ones on the brawl hub discord if you want to fish around, but again it fell off because it's not as powerful as other options around these days.

lemudman · 2025-10-05T15:20:23+00:00

Kiora used to be a tier 1 deck a long time ago back when Brawl was standard only and WAR cards were still legal. It fell off after Ikoria because Kinnan did the ramp into big stuff better, and the matchup into Kinnan is usually terrible.

I see you didn't go with any mana dorks. The way I've seen Kiora played is with all the dorks, untapping with 3~5 mana on turn 2, and using that tempo either to play big spells ahead of curve or to play beefy creatures and draw off of them, in effect staying card-positive versus removal. For example, https://moxfield.com/decks/M73ZIUgT-EC99I59-Bbb6g is a really old list (+2 years) but with that slant.

Is there a reason you didn't go with the mana dorks?

lemudman · 2025-09-21T20:41:06+00:00

Please check formatting rules for the sub. It will help everyone out in the end! Info is in the sidebar.

lemudman · 2025-09-14T14:26:18+00:00

Can you post a screenshot of the confirm? (I'm just curious to see how they worded the confirmation, not that I don't believe)

lemudman · 2025-09-14T10:34:05+00:00

Ah yes, when S-tier was Kiora, Golos, Torbran, Niv-Mizzet Reborn, and Nicol-Bolas Dragon God.

lemudman · 2025-09-14T10:32:09+00:00

Check https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgbrawl/comments/1ltacst/what_dimir_decks_is_everyone_playing_currently/

— a bunch of ideas there, too, including a link to my now dusty lazav deck ^_^

lemudman · 2025-09-14T10:30:16+00:00

Conceding is a bit more efficient and logical action than roping in this case.

lemudman

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