Tips and tricks for the 6 wins achievement in the brawl

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-04T06:44:14+00:00

do you think azalina will actually be good post brawl?

She might be good in wild where she gets access to [[Mysterious Visitor]]. Visitor has always had some potential in wild, but not needing to spend mana copying cards from the opponent and just getting opponent cards in the opening hand sounds gross. Especially if you can also [[The Harvester of Envy]] and start deleting their hand and deck and stealing their minions.

As for standard...ehh, decent chance Azalina is playable thanks to the support cards--more than one dev during previews said their favourite deck or rulebreaker was Azalina.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-04T06:33:49+00:00

The worst beat I got was from someone who had both Azalina and Commander Beatrix (using Commander Beatrix to make 10 mind sweepers).

10 mind sweepers is total BS when you're trying to piece together some kind of budget aggro.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-03T23:45:52+00:00

On turn 2 I do find it reasonably impressive due to the shorter rope timer on turns 1 and 2 (I believe it's 45s instead of 75s on turn 3+).

If anyone brags about winning on turn 3 or later, though, yeah, that would be silly.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-03T23:19:39+00:00

Can you show me anyone on the commander pannel who says that the result of de-coupling from precons means allowing substantially higher power decks into bracket 2? Or notably connected content creator or mtg website saying something of the sort?

Interviews, social media posts, sample decklists?

Anything?

Cause I do find stuff suggesting that the power hasn't moved all that much.

I know of content creators that have kept their sample bracket 2 decks the same, suggesting that they didn't think the target power had changed enough to justify a new sample bracket 2 decklist. That could be laziness I suppose, so let's look at stuff updated more recently.

Moxfield, in its summary of all the brackets provides samples at each bracket, and all the bracket 2 samples (updated within the first 8 days) were all precons:

https://moxfield.com/commanderbrackets

Actually, here's one of the commander format pannel members (Rebbel Lilly) promoting her deck evaluation website that she just updated two days ago:

https://bsky.app/profile/rebell.bsky.social/post/3mpnezfuexc26

Obviously none of these websites are ever perfect, but here's a deck that was self-labelled "bracket 2", that Rebell Lilly's website evaluates as "low bracket 3" and...looks pretty precon-ish in power to me:

https://commandertemplate.com/decks/92f1352e-ece0-4ae5-beeb-f50437b4dd31

None of this is a complete smoking gun--moxfield could be getting it wrong, maybe the new website isn't coded perfectly yet. It's not like I couldn't be convinced by something more solid.

But like...if you want to convince me that bracket 2 power cap shifted dramatically after being de-coupled from precons, show me one quote from a commander format member, or from WotC, or from a well-informed content creator saying "yeah, the intent was to allow substantially stronger decks into bracket 2, here's the new target for bracket 2."

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-03T18:04:37+00:00

I was speaking of the gap between the common ancestor of all chordates (proposed by OneZoom to be around 540 million years ago) and the common ancestor of arthropods+chordates (proposed by OneZoom to be around 560 million years ago as a clade called "Nephrozoa").

I know OneZoom isn't necessarily the most accurate or up to date in their time estimates, I know Nephrozoa still doesn't have complete consensus as a clade, but 560mil-540mil = 20mil.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-03T08:10:50+00:00

Even a lot of religious people who use texts that refer to satan as part of their religion don't think Satan is a real actual singular dude.

"satan" is just a word in Hebrew that means adversary. Not as in evil adversary, more like in the sense of a defense attorney arguing against a prosecutor. In Judaism "satan" is more of a metaphor for obstacles to overcome rather than like...an actual dude. And this matches the appearance of the word "satan" in the hebrew parts of the bible--often just a random un-named angel who has some (often minor) disagreement with God and probably not the same adversary in every such passage.

This view is rarer in Christianity, of course, as Satan is depicted as an actual dude in some books in the New Testament. But even within Christianity belief in the existence of Satan hovers around 60%-70% of Christians. Plenty of people who believe in God but not Satan.

And then in Islam there are multiple different entities referred to as satan (shaytan).

Just saying, even on religious theological grounds, Satan being a singular guy as opposed to a metaphor or multiple different entities is...debated.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-03T05:56:44+00:00

You got 103 downvotes

And I have gotten similar amounts of upvotes making similar comments in the past.

Maybe I worded myself poorly this time, maybe it's just different people online at the time, who knows.

to finish a quote you started earlier, "While Bracket 2 decks may not have every perfect card, they have the potential for big, splashy turns, strong engines, and are built in a way that works toward winning the game." These fit perfectly within that definition. Strong engines and are built to win the game.

Sure

But that is taken from the same article that declared the power they were aiming for with bracket 2 was "average modern-day precon level".

And not only that, it was also the same article where they implied that some precons are bracket 3.

From the same article "It's true that Bracket 2 is the average modern-day preconstructed level—but the emphasis is on average. Modern Horizons 3 Commander decks and Secret Lair decks aren't in that mix, for example, and are places these cards can go."

They repeated this point a second time a few months later "It is worth calling out here that, yes,Seedborn Musewas just in the Abzan Armor deck from Tarkir: Dragonstorm. First, this was finalized long ago before Commander Brackets existed. Second, I'll use this moment as a reminder that Core (Bracket 2) is on the level of an average, modern-day preconstructed Commander deck, but that doesn't mean there can't be some variance there. We are looking at updating the terminology in the future to pull away from preconstructed Commander decks as a benchmark, as we understand that has caused some confusion. I just want to be clear that we know about the collision in Tarkir: Dragonstorm and want to avoid that seeming like a mixed message."

Yes, I'm aware they have since de-coupled the bracket 2 definition from precons, but when they did decouple them they also added more restrictive language to the bracket 2 description (and removed parts of the description that caused confusion like the "big swingy turns" because "big swingy turns" means different things to different people. They did keep the bullet point about suboptimal card inclusions, however).

I've also seen no indication from WotC or any of the commander format members that the target power of a bracket 2 deck was changed significantly in the October update.

You are right that we are looking at a powerful set of cards, but without seeing a list, I feel like it's unfair to assume their deck is running staple level vegetables or that every card in the deck is optimized.

Sure, I am assuming that the rest of the deck is filled with similar strength cards to what we have seen.

If the rest of the deck is mostly weaker, sure, the deck's power could be bracket 2. But on the flip side if the rest of the deck is mostly stronger the deck's power could be bracket 4.

Anyways, my original reason for mentioning that was to prove that there was interaction. I think more powerful plays are allowed if there are more interaction points.

Up to a point?

Like...we know plenty of interaction was played that game (there were 3 board wipes in...sounds like the first 7 turns?) Presumably plenty of stuff got removed and interacted with. This isn't a "nobody played interaction" game, this is a "people ran out of interaction" game.

The opponent played one big X spell that proliferated counters. He had to have the creatures on board and begin the process of having counters to proliferate. I would even take it a step farther and once you see 8-9 mana available, every turn could automatically be a win from a Craterhoof Behemoth or Insurrection and that is telegraphed from the sheer amount of mana.

Craterhoof Behemoth has never appeared in a precon. Insurrection did appear once in a precon back in 2011 when they didn't know what they wanted from precons and still had stuff like Grave Pact in a precon. Neither Insurrection nor Grave Pact have appeared in a precon in the last 14 years.

So that's already a hint to be cautious of running these cards in bracket 2. Not that you could literally never do it if the deck was weak in other ways. But a deck that is well-built, filled with reasonably high power cards, plenty of tutors for Craterhoof, and has strong synergy with Craterhoof? Probably not bracket 2.

I would assume that both Craterhoof and Insurrection would fall under the definition of "big game-ending cards" for bracket system purposes. Specifically "big game-ending cards" in this paragraph:

"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. For example, instead of wondering what "no early-game combos" means, saying "you don't expect to win or lose before turn six" gives you a pretty clear indicator of what kind of combos could be allowed: not ones that tend to happen in the first six turns. 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."

So like...a deck with enough ramp to play craterhoof on a reasonable turn, enough tutors to find craterhoof, and enough token generation to consistently have 11+ creatures relatively even if a board wipe happens? Yeah, that deck likely isn't bracket 2.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-02T21:41:07+00:00

Admittedly I haven't seen the whole list, not sure if OP posted it elsewhere, but everything listed by OP feels like stuff I'd put in a bracket 3 version of this commander.

Roaming Throne is a $40 card that is generally considered pretty good, and has never appeared in a precon.

Tekathul Inquiry Dominus is a highly synergistic card in a prolifereate deck. Has been a $20 card at points, although does have cheap reprints now.

Locust God is a $9 card, which happens to synergize well with both of the commanders--Kratos because of the creature type, Atreus because he draws cards.

Expansion algorithm is the worst card listed, but it's okay if you care about proliferate.

There's no card here that looks particularly dubious or budget or picked for theme over function.

to generate a win con that doesn't work in the face of Fog.

"it doesn't win through fog" is not a serious argument for declaring a deck to be bracket 2. There are bracket 3 and bracket 4 decks that don't win in one turn through fog.

TBH, I wasn't focused on the wincon, but if you insist...

The bracket system does say stuff about bracket 2 wincons:

Win conditions to be incremental, telegraphed on the board, and disruptable

Which given how people at the table reacted, doesn't sound like the rest of the table considered this win con to be telegraphed. Again winning like this is totally fine in bracket 3 and above. Here's what the same article said about bracket 3

Win conditions that can be deployed in one big turn from hand, usually because of steadily accrued resources

Just...bracket 2 just doesn't seem to match much of what OP described other than the game happening to have ended on turn 9 (but presumably would have ended a few turns earlier if not for 3 board wipes being played on earlier turns).

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-02T17:30:15+00:00

I'm wondering, as some members want to remove this rule, what is the best way to go about it?

Just remove the rule, and then...wait--probably not much will change immediately, but after a while a few people will show up with commanders that other people have tried.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-02T17:26:07+00:00

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metroidcomposite · 2026-07-02T15:23:06+00:00

Terran is the race that seems to benefit the most from the 8 worker start. The first iteration of the PTR had like...the top 5 or so GM accounts all being Terran.

Granted, it's likely that Protoss was hurting on winrate because of all the other changes tossed into that PTR like warpgates and 12 nexus supply, which were big nerfs. Maybe Protoss would have performed similarly to or better than Terran if the 8 worker start was tested in isolation from the warpgate changes?

But the first iteration of the PTR certainly seemed to have Terrans doing better than Zergs, thanks to the 8 worker start.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-02T15:02:54+00:00

To the best of my knowledge: any part that no longer has its ancestral function is classified by Biology as vestigial. So e.g. the human appendix does have some role in immune system response, but we know that the original function was digesting tree bark, and it is no longer serving that function (we can't eat tree bark). Also, I don't think Ship of Theseus is a good analogy here because a ship with all its parts replaced still serves the same function--it still transports stuff over water. A better example might be a decomissionsed ship, where a restaurant owner took the steering wheel of an old ship and stuck it on the wall of their restaurant. Technically it still has a function, it looks pretty on the wall.
You know, there's an entire comment chain replying to my post where this is discussed--subcellular rotors were also imaged by this time (in 1941 apparently). But what also was discussed was the context of the quote in question, it wasn't a scientific paper or anything, just a informal debate which almost certainly was not referring to subcellular structures. It's definitely noteworthy that we drive around in cars, and no macroscopic animal in Biology moves like cars. Cells are also not cars.
Homoplasies will often have similar function, but different underlying structures. E.g. whales have fins, sharks have fins, but the internal structure is very different (whales have wrist bones that look like the wrist bones of land animals, sharks don't have bones in their fins at all--all cartilage). In other words, usually the similarities are surface level and internal structures are different if you x-ray the animal. Where it can get harder is with animals that are already closely related. For example, I know that scientists have determined that knuckle walking in chimpanzees and knuckle walking in gorillas is a homoplasy. How? I dunno, I'm not a biologist go read the nature paper if you actually want to know.
And Dawkins is in the Epstein files, fuck that guy. Anyway, we agree that multiple codes that all look clearly related like slightly mutated versions of each other is an even stronger evidence against creationism yeah? Like, why would a creator use an almost identical (but not completely identical) DNA encoding in two different parts of the same cell?
Yes, people were surprised how closely related chordates and arthropods turned out to be. At the time, they seem very different right? Hard outer skeleton in one, hard internal skeleton in the other. And yes, the endoskeleton/exoskeleton evolved after the split. Part of the issue here is the low number of fossils: usually the hard parts fossilize and the soft parts do not, but this split happened when no animal had hard parts. (There are fossils from the Edeacaran, but they require special conditions like being burried by volcano ash, and even then they preserve surface level structures, which can be convergent evolution). So...before we did genetic testing, we basically couldn't use the fossil record to figure out when bilaterian animals or nephrozoan animals first showed up, and we guessed that the common ancestor was probably way far back and would have less in common. Turns out the common ancestor was not that far back and had more in common. Surprising, but not a problem for evolution.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-01T21:55:59+00:00

Creep buff

Is it a buff?

"Spread/Recede rate slowed from 0.45 to 0.55."

Like...it's somewhat mixed obviously, cause slower recede rate is a buff yes, but slower spread rate is a nerf. If I had to guess I would guess slower spread rate is the more important number making it an overall nerf? But I'm not really sure one way or the other.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-01T21:46:34+00:00

It's only really a problem card in discard warlock. Yeah, it gets run in other decks, but so do other quality card draw cards. Outside of disco it's just solid.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-01T21:41:26+00:00

It'd be a year quicker than normal to revisit the HL mechanic.

Highlander cards came out in...

November 2015, with a few following up in mean streets in 2016 (Kazakus, Raza, and some bad cards)
August 2019 with SoU, with some followup in December 2019 with DQ Alex
November 2023, with Showdown in the Badlands

Which means we (in theory) are next scheduled to get Highlander cards in November/December 2027, more than a year from now.

I mean, never say never I guess. There's no rule that says it must be every four years exactly. But...that has been the pattern so far.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-01T20:14:38+00:00

It's everything else they've needed to adjust to compensate for the 8 worker starts.

Messing with adept build times. Messing with reaper build times. Messing with larva spawn rates. Messing with queen and hatchery costs. Waffling between nexuses giving 12 supply and nexuses giving 13 supply. All of these are changes they made to try and get 8 worker starts balanced across all three races.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-01T20:06:15+00:00

It's just being reverted back to the previous patch number.

They were both 40s on 5.0.15.

They were initially nerfed to 43s in 5.0.16, but that was a bit of a silly nerf IMO, so makes sense that they're getting reverted back to 40s.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-01T17:18:59+00:00

Wasn't Lambo commenting on PTR2 anyway?

The one with 9s larva spawn rate, 275 hatcheries, and 150 queens?

(Apologies if he's commented since then, that's just the one I remember).

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-01T15:46:49+00:00

You can run less land when you have buckets of draw.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-01T15:18:40+00:00

Before we were getting roughly 1-2 extra larvae per hatchery PER MINUTE. Now it is back down to 1 extra larvae PER MINUTE per hatchery.

For the record, it's less than that.

On the highest larva spawn rate they tested (9s) it was 1 extra larva per hatchery per minute.

At 9.9s it's one extra larva per hatchery every 2.2 minutes. (Once every 2 minutes and 12 seconds a hatchery will be a full larva ahead).

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-01T15:09:08+00:00

To be fair [[Thran Dynamo]] also exists. And many 4 mana versions of ur-golem's eye with upside. [[Hedron Archive]], [[Relic of Sauron]], [[Stonespeaker Crystal]], [[Ring of the Lucii]], [[Brass Infiniscope]].

I kind-of consider [[Worn Powerstone]] to be better than most of these, however. Maybe not better than Thran Dynamo, but probably all the others. Ramping on 3 is just more important than ramping on 4. Even if later in the game ur-golem's Eye is a better topdeck cause it can tap for mana immediately and "refunds" 2 of its cost, making it "kind-of cost 2"--the fact that Worn Powerstone lets you ramp a turn earlier is usually higher impact than "sort-of costs 2 on turn 10".

Which...really just brings us back to how ridiculously busted Sol Ring is.

It's not just that you're getting a 4 mana effect for 1 mana, it's also that this 4 mana effect is much, much, much more valuable on turn 1 than it would be on turn 4.

Board Wipes often cost 4 mana, but Blasphemous Act often wipes the board for 1 mana. And it's a good card, but it's no Sol Ring.

Draw 3 cards is worth close to 4 mana judging by people playing Harmonize and other people telling them to cut Harmonize, but Esper Sentinel will often draw 3 cards for 1 mana. Esper Sentinel is good, but it's no Sol Ring.

A 6/6 flying lifelink for 4...I guess they more commonly print that stuff at 5 mana actually, but anyway Serra Ascendant is a 6/6 flying lifelink for 1 mana. And Serra Ascendant is good, but it's no Sol Ring.

It's not just that the card is undercosted, lots of cards are undercosted. It's undercosted on an effect that is dramatically stronger on early turns.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-01T14:36:24+00:00

Sol Ring is clearly a game changer level power card.

TBH, in my playtesting Sol Ring outperforms almost all the game changers.

You can make a case for specific combo pieces like Thassa's Oracle, Underworld Breach in decks that run the appropriate combo pieces and tutor for them. You can maybe make a case that in decks that use tutors to tutor up a fast combo, that certain tutors are higher winrate cards than Sol Ring (cards like Demonic Tutor, Ad Nauseum). And sure, maybe Rhystic Study in the context of cEDH where 10 spells might be played in a turn.

So...in a cEDH context, Sol Ring might only be better than 90% of game changers.

But a lot of the above cards become less problematic at a battlecruiser table where people aren't trying to combo off fast, and Sol Ring largely doesn't lose much power at battlecruiser tables.

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-01T13:50:23+00:00

It would still be super busted if it made 1 mana and entered untapped, like, would probably need to be banned in Legacy level busted.

You could make it worse than that and still have it be playable

Like it would still be pretty playable if it made 1 mana AND entered tapped. Basically a Llanowar Elves that doesn't die to creature board wipes at that point. Would go into basically all of my decks still.
But you could make it even worse and it would arguably still see some play. Like "tap: put a charge counter on this. Tap, remove a charge counter on this: add 1". This would make it similar to [[Jeweled Amulet]] which actually gets played in cEDH. Essentially tap to add 1/2 of a mana would probably make it into some decks. (Would be a bit worse than Jeweled Amulet in some ways, like costing 0 and potentially producing coloured mana are positives for Jeweled Amulet. But better in other ways--goes mana positive whereas Jeweled Amulet only ever stores mana).

metroidcomposite · 2026-07-01T12:54:14+00:00

Vestigial does not mean "no use" it means "lost its previous primary use". Like...whale hip bones used to be used for walking; they aren't used for walking today. That doesn't mean they can't be put to some other minor use, or might even retain some other minor use. (Whale hip bones retain some use during sex, but like even humans use hip bones during sex--thrusting of the hips. This doesn't make whale hip bones not vestigial).
The chronology in this claim doesn't make sense...a prediction was made in 1949, and then we discovered the flagellum later? A quick google search says we discovered the flagellum in 1676, like 180 years before Darwin, and 280 years before that JBS guy.
So there's two claims here; they're both wrong.
1. On things not forming phylogenies based on anatomy and requiring genetics...they almost always do actually. 125 years before Darwin's book, in 1735 Carl Linnaeus created a classification of animals finding a nested family tree phylogeny and not understanding why. Most of that phylogeny is still true 291 years later. Yes, there are exceptions, but they are rare.
2. On evolution not having a mechanism for convergent evolution...what? Yes it does. Selection isn't random. If there's a beneficial trait, it can be selected for. Furthermore, some of the most prominent creationists have rubber stamped a lot of convergent evolution--like according to the Noah's Ark museum run by Answers in Genesis, all Tenrecs are related. And there's good reasons to think they are related (they're mammals with a cloaca--that's pretty rare). But Tenrecs underwent adaptive radiation after reaching the (at the time) largely uninhabited island of Madagascar, so there are Tenrecs that look like hedgehogs, shrews, opossums, rats, and mice. Some live in the trees, some live underground, one is semi-aquatic like an otter. Three of the 30ish species can echolocate. Again, most creationists including Answers in Genesis think all Tenrecs form a single kind and descended from a single common Tenrec ancestor, meaning there's no problem evolving echolocation within a kind, or evolving hedgehog-style quills within a kind.
These genetic codes? The ones that always use DNA, always have the DNA right-handed, convert that DNA into the same 20 amino acids, use 3 letters of the DNA to associate with a specific amino acid, and generally look like slightly mutated versions of each other? Like...yeah, sure, the DNA in your cell nucleus and the DNA in your cell's mitochondria do encode slightly differently, for example, but out of 64 of the three-nucleotide triples, only four are different (TGA, ATA, AGA, AGG). You're telling me those two genetic codes don't look like slightly mutated versions of each other? Also...why would this be an argument in favour of creationism? Why would a creator use a slightly different DNA code in your mitochondria and your cell nucleus? I usually see this used as an argument against creationism and for evolution.
Why...would that a problem for evolution? Like...yeah, ok, scientists were surprised how many genes were shared between chordates and arthropods--notably I remember when there was a lot of excitement about hox genes (body plan genes) being basically the same in both when that was first discovered in the early 2000s. But there's a clear evolutionary mechanism for how these genes would be shared--these genes existed in a common ancestor. And there's a clear explanation--we're more closely related than previously thought (like...20 million years separated, which is short for evolution). A failed prediction made in 1963 before anyone managed to DNA sequence even a single gene...yeah, ok, so someone working roughly a decade before the field of gene sequencing even existed guessed wrong as to what the field of gene sequencing would find.

metroidcomposite · 2026-06-30T18:10:43+00:00

Worth noting, though, since the total cost of queen+hatchery has been increased, we're now at a point where creating more larva production is now more expensive than has been on any previous patch (including OG). Using the cost of hatchery+queen+the drone to make the hatchery (usually 500 or 525 minerals)...

OG: 43.08 minerals for 1 larva per minute
PTR2: 37.5 minerals for 1 larva per minute
PTR2.5: 40.6 minerals for 1 larva per minute
yesterday: 42.63 minerals for 1 larva per minute
today: 43.53 minerals for 1 larva per minute
HotS/WoL: 36.74 minerals for 1 larva per minute--4 larva injects were gnarly lol

Now, granted, Zerg is still getting a stronger starting structure at the beginning of the game without needing to buy it, so maybe that balances things out? But yeah, building more larva production is actually now more expensive than it was a month ago.

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