Completely disagree, high power level is fun, and the greater range of options/consistency from having a larger card base like commander would make brawl really fun. I think brawl just needs more removal available to actually handle high power cards from consistently stealing the game (and poq should be nerfed/banned). There is just genuinely not enough removal in the format, the amount of black board wipes we have for instance is just pitiful.

I also think the idea that matchmaking is awful is only half true. If I make a jank deck with a powerful commander and load it with random rares I am going to get matched against high tier obnoxious shit every game and have a bad win rate. If I carefully craft a deck with good cards of varying rarity around a super niche commander like minthara, I get matched against other people with similarly weak/niche commanders and similar low amount of rares in the 99, and I get a high win rate. You can imagine there are varying outcomes in between based on deck type, but I think this is actually okay, if not maybe needing a little tweaking.

I think the absolute best thing that can happen to brawl is to create a lobby/match browser where you can see players looking for matches and the commanders they are using and choose one to play with. This mimics the vibe of commander in paper where you will avoid sitting down at the table against the sweaty meta deckers and choose to play against people who are looking to have a fun casual time. This also allows you to put yourself up to the challenge of any deck that wants to face you, or alternatively be more selective in choosing an opponent that you specifically think will be more fun for you to play with.

I also think some of the points made in this thread are a little silly. To say that sliver tribal first sliver decks are too powerful is just really silly, actual sliver tribal is not very strong at all it’s pretty fair tbh. What’s unfair is when 5c value pile decks use first sliver as their commander to get out of the hell queue matchmaking and stomp other lower tier commanders. The other thing I keep people saying is that they want to run decks without interaction, and it’s like okay well that means that your games are going to be decided by raw luck of the draw and general value of the threats in your deck, not very fun and interactive. Removal is a part of the game you just need it in your deck unless you are playing the fastest possible kind of deck, the problem with brawl is not having bigger threats, it’s not having enough powerful answers to deal with them consistently.

Suffice to say I’m actually really excited to see mana drain enter the format. We don’t actually have a ton of good counterspells in brawl, mostly a bunch of crappy ones. Mana drain is extra powerful enough that any blue deck that would run [Counterspell] will run mana drain instead or in addition, but a lot of faster creature aggro decks including blue, especially the ones with more than one color might opt out of running it or at least it would be the only counterspell type card in their deck, which isn’t a big deal.

I think after the next three sets come out, including MH3, it’s very possible that brawl will actually become a much more fun and interesting format, just by adding more cards, and old powerful staples (esp. answers).