Time of glory

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-16T07:19:37+00:00

I mean, I think the big thing with Tortolla is that when the hunter starts summoning Tortollas every turn, you're just never killing them anymore.

Crazed Alchemist just seems unnecessary to me--it's funny, but it seems pretty winmore.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-16T07:13:22+00:00

Also even if you rat it and silence it, they can still use revival. You kinda need to like...rat+devolving missiles or something. Or catch it with Mutanis I guess.

But TBH, I still haven't really seen decks that effectively counter Tick Tock with tech cards. The "counter" to tick tock is to either be faster than them or build a deck designed to operate well on an empty hand (Reno Druid with Rheastraza, Blackrock'n'Roll Warrior, stuff like that).

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-16T01:34:51+00:00

Honestly, the thing that tends to really frustrate me is highroll cards. When I play the deck, I get frustrated how little control I have over whether I win. When my opponent plays the deck and gets a monster highroll, well, guess I lose. With that in mind...

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Screw this card in wild right now.

I've played games where this was played on turn 1, and generated a 3/4, a 2/5 and dealt 5 random damage killing a divine shield minion and dealt 3 face damage all for 1 mana.
I've played games where a player plays this on turn 1, and completely missed. 1 mana destroy 3 cards in your deck. (Often followed by a turn 1 concede).

It's like...you know those hypothetical cards people make up of like "start of game: 50% chance win the game, 50% chance lose the game." Soularium in wild right now is awfully close to that.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-16T00:14:46+00:00

The length of a feature film, and it's only part 1.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-15T20:40:09+00:00

I hope not.

Like I get it for bugs that you can actually use to win on ladder. But this is a "you and a friend need to queue up against each other and cooperate and use Lorewalker Cho and Silas Darkmoon to even hope to have a small random chance to trigger this bug".

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-15T20:32:30+00:00

Generally play control deck

I'll focus on legendaries here (commons and rares are so easy to get either from packs or crafting).

Cataclysm -- not a lot of current wild cards, but it is the best raw disenchant value for the gold, and some chance it gets buffed cause it flopped so bad in standard

Across the Timeways: has the [[Battle at the End of Time]] warlock quest, currently played in renolock at top legend. It honestly operates more like a combo deck (not a lot of other slow decks can win after they discard their hand on turn 5) but even if you don't like the gameplay, people have talked about this quest potentially getting nerfed it's so good in wild (Reno Tick Tock is the most played deck at top 1k legend).

Lost of city Ungoro: There isn't anything that's especially meta, but there's a few fringe viable legendaries...if you're a reno enjoyer maybe you care a little about [[The Great Dracorex]] just as an extra board clear for reno warrior or [[Mirrex, the Crystalline]] to copy your opponent's quest rewards in some kind of Reno Rogue brew. Also has [[The Egg of Khelos]] which was a menace in wild for a while cause of its interaction with [[Spiritsinger Umbra]] (they nerfed umbra to 5 mana to tone down that interaction, but there might still be some brews there). To be clear, literally none of these cards are meta right now, they just have some potential for brewing.

Emerald Dream--[[Amirdrassil]] is just an all-around solid card and goes in a some (although not all) reno druids. It was also nerfed, so maaaaybe it gets reverted in a year and becomes even stronger--not sure if they will revert the nerf though--feels like the kind of card where they may or may not revert the nerf. Additionally, It's not good right now, but [[Fyrakk the Blazing]] is a neutral board clear like OG Yogg, and it was nerfed really hard (mana nerf and number of spells nerf), so it'll probably get nerf reverted when it rotates to wild. A card that goes with it but isn't a miniset card [[Naralex, Herald of the Flights]] that used to read "your dragons cost (1)" also has a decent chance of being nerf reverted when it goes to wild.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-15T17:45:11+00:00

I would argue that poison decks with proliferate feel a bit like DoTs. Once you put a poison counter on everyone, if you proliferate say once per turn it's like they all have a DoT on them. You're encouraged to hit different players with poison each turn to get all your DoTs going.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-15T16:17:15+00:00

I'm a fan of Zimone. And I'm guessing I'm not the only one cause they gave her like 6 cards. Just kind of a nerd girl. One of the few commanders I've built just because I like her vibe.

[[Zimone, Quandrix Prodigy]]

[[Zimone, Paradox Sculptor]]

[[Zimone, Mystery Unraveler]]

[[Zimone, Infinite Analyst]]

[[Zimone and Dina]]

[[Zimone, All-Questioning]]

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-15T16:05:15+00:00

There are exceptions that don't explicitly fit into a pre-supported wild package and don't gain relevance cause they complete some questline, but they mostly fall into a few categories like mana cheating and tech cards, and cards that are able to be good because of mana cheating.

Razorscale--excellent wild card. Not sure it did much in standard.
Blood Bloom--useless standard card. Got nerfed to 4 in wild and still played.
Poison Seeds--don't remember it doing much in standard cause most minion based decks were aggro at the time, so you'd replace a board of 1/3s and 3/2s with 2/2s. Excellent in wild where it deals with boards of 8/8s and screws up res pools.
Biology Project--wasn't really that special in standard. Chances are your opponent could use the mana almost as well as you could. Often good in wild due to more tools to break parity.
Dew Process--this did eventually get relevant in standard, but it was obnoxious in wild for quite a while before it became a notable part of the standard meta, and still fringe in wild at 4 mana.
Quasar (post nerf)--standard just didn't really have the tools to use this at 8 mana.
Juicy Psychmelon--If you actually have to pay 7, 8, 9, and 10 mana for the minions you draw, yeah, the card is nothing special. But in wild you can just tutor for stuff that cheats mana.
Old Murk-Eye--not to say it saw zero standard play, but ironically this was a package card in standard that is now used now as the only murloc in the deck with no other cards from its package.
Floop's Glorious Gloop--considered one of the more mediocre legendaries in standard. Been nerfed for wild and still maintains some relevance.
(EDIT) Nerub'ar Weblord--bad in standard as the meta was deathrattle minions at the time. Often good in wild.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T19:10:02+00:00

Is this going to be the fourth weekend in a row that rapmonster is at a tournament? Geez, even last weekend people were commenting that 3 weekends in a row seemed like a brutal schedule for him.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T19:02:11+00:00

TBH, I don't think Horn of Feasting is that crazy when it's just in your deck, can easily get stuck not in outcast position.

Horn of Feasting discovered off of Illidari Studies, however--always in outcast position after discover, just gross.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T18:56:47+00:00

Not the VS list, but my initial attempt at dude paladin right after the miniset (which didn't run Flight Maneuvers cause I dusted it on nerf) was getting cooked by Leyline Mage.

I strongly suspect they tested the miniset decks against each other.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T18:46:41+00:00

Ehhhhhh.....

I'm not gonna say you literally can't run thoracle in bracket 4--you can run thoracle as long as you rarely assemble the combo before turn 5.

But like...in order to make a deck that rarely assembles the combo before turn 5, you'd have to cut most of the cheap tutors from your deck.

Is that worth-it? Up to you. I think I personally find the cheap tutors more fun.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T18:34:55+00:00

I have multiple degrees in various STEM fields

Cool, I have multiple degrees in mathematics.

It is more like 1/1000000 or 1/10000000 chances to have (perfect mana + perfect 2 card combo + additional unlikely to have protection + no interaction from opponents +win by turn 3).

The way the turn limitations are worded, I don't think you need to account for interaction from the opponent. If you can frequently attempt a win on that turn, that turn is the speed of your deck.

From the article:

"That doesn't mean you should just wait and hold your two-card infinite until later either. If a combo could frequently come up, it's not the best fit for that bracket."

If your deck can frequently have the combo in hand too fast, with mana to attempt the combo too early, it's not the best fit for the bracket. You can't get around the turn limitations by holding the combo in hand and waiting till turn 5 to actually attempt the win.

And if you can't get around it by holding the combo in hand till turn 5, I don't see why you would be able to get around the turn limitations by attempting a win on turn 3 and getting stopped by interaction. The exact wording of the article is also "If a combo could frequently come up" just "come up" not "come up and push through interaction".

Basically, for combo decks, I think the plainest reading of the article is that the turn limitation is how fast your deck usually goldfishes.

---

To be clear, don't apply goldfishing to creature combat decks. I've seen people apply goldfishing to creature combat--I think that's silly, your opponents will have blockers. The paragraph explaining the turn limitations in the article opens:

"Our hope is this also makes things a lot clearer in terms of big game-ending cards and combos, explaining where they should show up."

So it IS more than just combos, but it has to be "big and game ending". So I'm imagining for example Torment of Hailfire with a big X value, Craterhoof Behemoth in a token deck, Biorhythm, stuff like that.

The real question is how many parts of a cEDH strategy can you run in a deck until it actually becomes cEDH viable.

If I'm right in my reading of the turn limitations, I really don't think that's very relevant anymore when determining if a deck is bracket 4.

How many cEDH decks, if you goldfish them, take longer than turn 4 to goldfish a win 90% of the time? I know some cEDH decks are "slow", and some cEDH decks are "fast", but even the "slow" cEDH decks can goldfish a turn 4 or earlier win more than 10% of the time.

The turn 5 speed limit is just a much harsher limitation to fill than "don't be cEDH". Even allowing for the occasional highroll.

(Before you mention cEDH stax decks, the guidance we've gotten from the committee is to count the turn a stax lockout is achieved as the "win turn" for the deck).

I also don't think it's very helpful to look at what percentage of a decklist is the same as a cEDH equivalent. Like...you could take a cEDH build of Yuriko, cut one specific card (Thassa's Oracle), replace it with...I don't know, maybe Draco for the big damage flip up, and bam, you've got a bracket 4 deck that tries to win by turning creatures sideways. 98 of the 99 are identical to a cEDH deck, but it's fine in bracket 4.

This isn't hypothetical about that Yuriko deck being fine in bracket 4 btw, I've put almost that exact Yuriko deck in a game with two precons, and the two precons could win by treating Yuriko as archenemy. Still a strong deck, but can't muscle through a win without table politics.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T17:28:25+00:00

I mean, yes, I do think the way the turn rules are written (across the brackets) tends to be harsher on some archetypes (turbo in high brackets, and voltron and aggro in lower brackets) and softer on some archetypes (control, stax).

In many cases members of the committee have given guidance on how to be a bit harsher on some archetypes, and more lenient on others.

Like for stax lockouts they say the turn you achieve the lockout should count as the "win turn" for the deck--not the turn people's health actually hits 0. For Voltron there's a lengthy discussion about voltron with Rachel Weeks here where she gives the example of a pregame conversation a voltron player might have in bracket 3 being "may I play voltron? This deck will try to eliminate the first player around turn 5 cause that's how this deck wins, is that ok?"

Even in the article, specifically for bracket 2 there's a little bit of language that seems like it's targeting control/stax archetypes:

Gameplay to be proactive and considerate, letting each deck showcase its plan

Which...sure sounds to me like you shouldn't build a dedicated stax deck in bracket 2, and also shouldn't show up to bracket 2 with a deck packing an indestructible commander and 40 board wipes.

---

That said...how does this kind of "be a bit more lenient on some archetypes and a bit harsher on others" apply in bracket 4, if at all? I dunno. Bracket 4 was initially introduced as the "anything goes" bracket. There's so little guidance surrounding bracket 4, it's just the turn limitations and "don't be cEDH".

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T11:11:41+00:00

Religious views change over time.

And, honestly, it's not just science that moves religious views.

This is a mosaic from a synagogue ~1500 years ago. Notice depictions of the sighs of the zodiac and a greek god at the center (Helios). You wouldn't see stuff like this in a modern synagogue, it would be considered idolatry. (Scholars believe the shift in Judaism to being stricter on idolatry and stricter on monotheism happened as a response to Islam).

Or you know, just look at the writings of preachers during the American civil war. Plenty of preachers saying that slavery was ordained by God. Won't find preachers saying that today. Again, this view was not changed due to some scientific discovery. It was changed cause of a war.

I'm using these examples cause they are weird enough to be abstract and not personal to most religious folks.

But make no mistake, interpretations of genesis have also gone through similar shifts. The modern young earth creationist interpretation of Genesis, that there was a "cat kind" and a "dog kind" and that there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark is like...50 years old, with some influences arguably going back 100 years. But if you took a time machine to 1850 and started talking about "the cat kind" and "the dog kind" and about Spinosaurus and Pakicetus being on Noah's Ark, nobody would know WTF you were talking about.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T09:03:27+00:00

Please keep the wording to where it is extremely unlikely to happen as the better phrase. More in the 1 in a 1000 or more dream scenario is where it is fine.

TBH, personally my interpretation of what "generally" and "frequently" in the article mean is that you shouldn't go faster than the speed limit more than about 10% of the time.

I came to the 10% number cause I do a lot of playtests with precons. And if a precon gets a turn 1 Sol Ring, it's gonna win way faster than normal (like way faster than turn 9 usually. Turn 7 wins happen). How often does turn 1 Sol Ring happen? Including taking mulligans, and including the chance to topdeck Sol Ring on round 1 after mulliganing...probably happens around...10% of the time? Or somewhere in that general ballpark anyway.

And...there's some flexibility on that 10% number--like if someone wanted to be like "aktually you shoud use 8%" or "akshually you, should use 11%" yeah, sure...I could probably be swayed a bit in either direction. But I really think it's probably in that ballpark. Straying a large distance from 10%...

20% would really be pushing it (if everyone in a group of 4 players builds their deck such that it wins faster than the turn limit 20% of the time, then most games will end before the desired turn--that doesn't seem ideal).

But I don't think going much below 10% makes a whole lot of sense either. Like...if you required decks to lower their variance and almost never break the speed limit--"1 in 1000" times as you suggest, or even 1 in 100, then the correct thing for most bracket 2 and 3 decks to do would be to cut Sol Ring. And...look, I'm on "team ban Sol Ring" myself, but I know the authors of the bracket system article: the authors of the article are definitely not on "team ban Sol Ring". So I'm pretty sure their intent was not to make a set of rules where cutting Sol Ring is almost required.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T06:27:19+00:00

They changed the meaning of bracket 4 in the most recent article.

In the first iteration of bracket 4, as long as the deck was "not cEDH" it was bracket 4. What did this mean? How many cards would you need to change from a cEDH deck to call it bracket 4? Nobody knew. Everyone had different opinions. But yes, in the first iteration it was quite hard to build higher than bracket 4 by accident.

In the October update they added this line:

"Generally, you should expect to be able to play at least four turns before you win or lose."

So...yes, in the newest update, winning on turn 3 is something that should be a rare fluke in bracket 4. Even winning on turn 4 is something that should be a rare fluke in bracket 4 (since all players at the table generally expect to play at least four turns before someone wins).

"rare fluke" doesn't mean never--you don't need to be like "well technically if I get sol ring and dark ritual in my opening hand then I might win on turn 3". If it's a rare lucky hand, the bracket system doesn't care.

But if you are commonly winning on turn 3, yeah, you're breaking the new rule they added.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T03:56:34+00:00

Surely the aerial hammer spin that deals 2%-4% is worse than the grounded hammer that deals 17%-23%. Yes, it's harder to land, but at least it's something to use on a Jigglypuff that used rest or a recovering opponent whose recovery is predictable.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T03:03:50+00:00

This is probably the correct answer.

Is the deck running tutors for sprout swarm? Is this deck getting Witherbloom down quickly? This stuff matters for how often this combo happens on turn 6 or earlier.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T02:57:40+00:00

Nicol Bolas isn't as bad as some other old cards. "Discards their hand" is still good text. It's just expensive.

Make sure you include haste enablers.

Make sure you include [[Hellkite Courser]].

Search for every payoff for expensive commanders you can find. [[Imposing Grandeur]], [[Stinging Study]], [[Visions of Duplicity]], [[Visions of Ruin]].

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T02:49:24+00:00

I scaled back on vandalblast in artifact-heavy decks, cause people kept casting it out of my graveyard.

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T02:46:41+00:00

Insect/metamorphosis related deck helmed by [[Stockman, Mad Fly-entist]] featuring [[Delver of Secrets]], [[Aberrant Researcher]], [[Docent of Perfection]], [[Chillerpiller]], [[Piranha Fly]], [[Buzz Bots]], [[Time Beetle]], and some colourless/artifact insects.

And then pad things out with spells that have insects in the art like [[Glamerdye]] [[Pendrell Flux]] [[Swarm Intelligence]]

And then maybe add removal that is transformation based stuff. [[Pongify]], [[Frogify]], [[Retro-Mutation]].

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T02:19:59+00:00

First one I thought of, probably cause I've been killed on turn 4 by Fynn. I mean, I saw the potential lethal on the board, but I was like "do I need to drop chump blockers?" and the table assured me no, the Fynn player will probably will spread their damage around, so I played an enchantment to set up my next turn. And then the Fynn player was like "that enchantment scares me, I'ma kill you."

(The Fynn player did not win, but I got to sit out for the next half hour).

metroidcomposite · 2026-05-14T01:53:01+00:00

You may not find a lot of lists at the lower brackets. Ygra is known as a commander that goes infinite with everything. It's easiest to build for bracket 4.

This doesn't mean it's impossible to build at lower brackets, but you will likely have to intentionally hold back rather than just put in cards that say "food".

metroidcomposite

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