r/EDH • u/DanicaManica • 1d ago
Discussion Playing Magic Part-Time and Brackets (Long)
Since brackets have been in beta, I’ve recorded a LARGE number of games. I don’t have every bit of pod matchup but I’ve tallied most of my pod’s games over the last year as well as general composition and have a crazy number of games. Embarrassingly large — I shouldn’t be outing myself.
Last year I played 658 games of commander and this year I’ve played about 120 games (rough estimate — I lost access to my spreadsheet). My number last year is majorly because at the time I worked for myself, was single, and had nights off and would go to different LGS’s every night or every other night when I want engaging in other hobbies — in total, I spent around 20 hours a week playing commander. I no-life’d a card game and became obsessive about playing catchup after an 11 year hiatus. Oops.
This year I’ve cut back. I no longer work for myself (not great), I started dating again (also not great), and I’ve just put time into my other hobbies more and other parts of my life. We should all touch grass from time-to-time.
EVEN STILL, I feel like I play an irregular amount of commander and when brackets were first announced I had my suspicions of the result it would have on the ecology of the casual side of the format. I felt like with MLD being moved into an exclusive high-power facet of the format, green cards majorly being untouched as game changers, and bracket 4 being majorly unrefined between its top and bottom ends that it would allow players to become more greedy and things that felt mean before would condition players to feel like they would subsequently feel more mean. And for the most part, all of these have been true. Maybe it’s confirmation bias but I’ll talk about it anyway.
Players are running less removal (from my anecdotal experience), 4 and 5 color decks are much more popular (also due in part to 4+ color identity legendaries being printed), and my personal records show that, archetypally, almost nobody plays control decks. Control wasn’t even popular when I got back into the game as far as commander goes but it is SCARCE. Even as far as talking to players about interaction, it’s not uncommon to hear things like “I have 2 pieces of targeted removal” or “I have one board wipe.”
People are just not equipped to deal with threats and therefore threat assessment matters even less until a ubiquitous threat announces itself — ergo; outside of outright taking someone out of the game, threat assessment is for people who are losing. I’m not advocating for that being the case but describing the casual mentality I’ve seen and why people lose ands why this expectation makes decks that aren’t “fair Magic” seem inappropriate for casual pods.
For this reason, I have had A LOT of success with combo decks. Not even combo decks but any deck that can end the game in a combo, it almost always goes uncontested. Not because combos decks are inherently better but when the brackets provide a safety in their language, people feel less compelled to play outs. Instead, the mentality is ‘against midrange decks I’ll win by just going bigger,’ and although that’s valid and is kind of the way green decks win by ethos, it’s an extremely limited scope to approach the format and is often ill-fitted for a number of decks to win concerning pod composition or turn order.
The other things brackets haven’t done a great job of, aside from giving an official capacity to make casual players feel safe within their unbalanced and irresponsible deck-building (this is fine if that’s what you sign up for, just adjust your expectations with strangers), is that it approaches turbo decks poorly in bracket 3 since the ethos of turbo decks doesn’t nearly fit into the qualifiers of bracket 3.
Turbo decks, in their function, sacrifice interaction, recursion, and utility in order to get their gameplay online ASAP. Although this is typically thought of as winning the game through a combo, it can a prison strategy (especially in bracket 4), elf ball, ramping into Ureni or Etali, and yes, combos as well.
For any Yu-Gi-Oh! players out there, this would be like if I’m playing Branded with a Last Warrior package to reliably turn 1 Last Warrior from Another Planet with a Mirrorjade and whatever else on board that I protect with Branded Opening. If the deck doesn’t do this turn 1, the premise of using slots to tech in Zombyra and Maryokutai with King of the Swamp are extremely deck. It can be fragile but that’s what turbo decks do, even in cEDH. They either go for the win and try to play through interaction or they bust and more than likely shuffle up for the next game. This is true including even with Rog-Si which is objectively like a top 3 tEDH deck.
So what’s the point of pointing my observations out over literally hundreds of games since brackets have been implemented? That players need to go beyond brackets to discuss rule zero. That seems so obvious but I think most pods just don’t. And that’s not a bad thing. If you are malleable and pretty accepting of things people play and feel like if something is wrong and you can discuss it after the fact without feeling that one bad game is a huge risk to your enjoyment for the night then sure, but if you are a person who is disposed to singular games being hugely important to you and tailoring your experience, you need to not only understand the ecology of commander as it is now BECAUSE of the bracket system but also what conversations you need to have and where you need to align your expectations given the understanding of how deck building has malformed in response to the lowest common denominator of player comforts in any given pod.
We should all try to be accommodating but that mentality needs to be shared with the entire table. If you have an intolerance to something else a player is doing you should firstly discuss it but secondly create a gamelan on how both players can be happy. This can be conceding that one game one player is allowed to play a thing then switch off, it can be you playing in the pod for a game or two before switching tables with somebody else (this isn’t difficult especially if people at LGSs are friends and know people), etc. You can disagree with the experience you want while still being agreeable. Not every instance of something you dislike has to be a Reddit post even if we all do have a guilty pleasure in reading commander IRL stories.
I’m not even going to touch on how terribly bracket 4 is at achieving what it’s meant to do because B4 is functionally useless unless you have 4 people who all have the exact same expectations. The highs and lows of the bracket and how it demarcates itself from bracket 3 leaves a weird space for certain decks to exist within the lower spaces of bracket 4 while being out of the realm of breaker 3. That deserves an entire conversation of its own but the short of it is that breaker 4 doesn’t function to facilitate deck diversity or “high power” commander since it is the only bracket where the very top and low end of decks can’t compete with each other in a healthy way.
Anyway, making a long post longer, what do you guys think of brackets? Do you still have rule zero discussion beyond brackets, do you find them more or less useful, what changes would you make, and how has commander changed since implementing them?
Thanks!
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u/_Neyana_ 1d ago
Great analysis, lots of interesting points! A couple things came to mind for me:
A lot of the problems you discuss seem to involve mismatches in brackets: someone brings a greedy midrange with lots of GC's thinking it's Bracket 4, or they bring a weaker Turbo deck thinking that will be fine in B3, etc. So people either don't know their own deck well enough, they don't know the Brackets well enough, or both. Part of it could be the fact that many Commander players are new to the game or only play this format, and they don't understand the nature of Magic in order to properly select the type of game they would like to play.
I think a big problem is that many people still conflate bracket level with skill level. They see that cEDH is bracket 5, assume that means brackets scale with player ability, and overshoot their bracket or refuse to play lower. You look at their deck, say that it's a B2, and they act as if you've insulted them, that they've built it poorly or whatever. I know that they've really tried pushing the idea that Brackets are about player experience, not skill level, but some still don't get it.
As far as improvements, I think you should either add a lot more Game Changers, or remove them entirely. Too many people just put 3 GC's in their deck and think that's what makes it a B3, or just jam all the 0-cost mana rocks in and assume they can hang with a B4 table. So you either go one way, and use GC's to delineate brackets by adding a lot more (you could double or triple the current list, maybe raise the B3 limit to 5), or you go the opposite route, remove the GC's and make the players decide on what's appropriate, via rule 0 discussions.
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u/TR_Wax_on 1d ago
So weird, I just got back from a 3 day weekend at a big event playing commander every day. Across brackets 2-4 I didn't see any salt or bad match ups and everyone enjoyed themselves. Bracket discussions were prominent in every game.
Besides that, I play 2 or more times/week at different stores and always use the brackets sincerely. Pretty much the only "bad" games I have these days are ones in which there is clearly a singular "bad actor" - which brackets can't do anything about - or because players refuse to engage with the bracket system (one particular store features a group of players like this).
Players being bad deck builders in general and not playing enough interaction are problems that have stood the test of time. If anything, the bracket system reveals folks deck building inadequacies due to not being able to just lean on some 2 card combos or game changers for cheap wins.
Lands too have always been "protected" but honestly it's only before Brackets that I had someone quit a game because I [[Acidic Slime]]'d his bounce land. These days folks are super accepting of targeted land destruction as long as it isn't looped every turn.
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u/BrokenGlassFactory 1d ago
What's worked best for me is to start out lower power and only dial it up if everyone's in.
Everyone with more than two decks probably has some that are faster or meaner than others. The good news about not every deck fitting exactly into a bracket is that you can play what you meant to be a B2 deck that ended up too spicy into a B3 pod and get a pretty good idea of where people are at while still having a fun game.
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u/Spekter1754 Rakdos 1d ago
On the whole, I think that no system can really solve the problem of playing casual Magic with strangers. The bracket system is just a publicized shorthand to get a pre-game conversation started, but even the best pre-game can't cover everything or guarantee anything. Not only do players not communicate well, they misjudge their decks and even misjudge what they actually care about.
What's the solution? Pushing past pickup games and integrating into a real community. Rapport and social checks are the glue that make casual Magic work at all, so giving them the space to grow and become defined over time is required for really satisfying time. Maybe you even make new friends.
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u/elkishdude 18h ago
Do you think it would be helpful if WOTC added a recommended code of conduct? Not a rule set but just make some sort of statement of staying on best behavior, and watching for others play experiences. Players will not and do not have to follow out but it could help just establish a frame of reference beyond, “not cool, man.”
Never going to solve for the people that really don’t care but it’s possible some people just don’t really have any guidance in this area and with some could become considerate. I dunno.
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u/DanicaManica 14h ago
I’m going to say I would be opposed to this. Being honest, having people like Rachel Weeks on the panel (someone who I just generally disagree with on many things commander) now being a component in WOTC giving an official stance on player ethics when she already prescribes a lot of that on social media is not the person I want being a representative on how people should play Magic. When I spoke about lowest common denominator taking over games in the rule zero, she’s the kind of player I’d be worried about having to navigate everything with.
That said I don’t think overstepping more is the solution anyway. Players need to learn how to communicate with each other and not be so afraid of singular “bad games” happening. It’s not the end of the world getting a game experience that’s not totally tailored to your liking. The fact that commander is becoming more agreeable and less expressive is one major issue I have with the format and its culture.
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u/Spekter1754 Rakdos 17h ago
It's an idea...but my main thesis is that the forces of social attunement have to work over time for casual Magic to work. Each player and the group has to iteratively learn boundaries. That takes time, way more time than a quick pre-game conversation.
A lot of the disconnect that players have is that they hear about how great EDH is, and then they play it with strangers and have a bad time. They wonder what they did so fundamentally wrong. The issue is that they weren't playing with friends.
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u/elkishdude 2h ago
This is very true. I generally start playing with my friends and then get connected to others to play with
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u/CMDR-Helstromme 1d ago edited 1d ago
"How long have you guys been playing? You play anything but commander? You ever play against X?" is generally how mine go. I've played a lot of limited, standard and modern, and I've played a fair bit of CEDH. My pet commander deck's got all 3 gitrog monsters, the 3 matching duskmourn overlords, and a janky skeleton/toolbox to make it all work. I can play it different ways based on the vibe of the table. It can feel like a control deck, it can push for lethal quickly by both combat damage or burn combos, or I can just tempo the table with it. It's what I feel midrange decks are supposed to be, instead of weird no-interaction and slow creature and anthem piles.
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u/unitedaway 1d ago
I can only speak from my personal experiences, but the people I’ve encountered as a whole who mostly play bracket 4 are more than likely the first ones to freak out or get bent about whatever is happening in a no stakes causal game at a LGS. I’ve also found they won’t take the extra steps to learn better play patterns/understand what finding your window to present a win means.
This is only my experiences but I am curious if you’ve experienced a lot of that as well. I played cedh for two years played in some of the early events like the og punt city. I enjoyed my time playing cedh, but in recent years I sold my deck and have had an enjoyable time building within the confines of bracket 3. The parameters being what they are/having to utilize your use of 3 gamechangers is something I’ve really come to enjoy and scratches that itch for me. I play mostly 2 and 3 bracket power level and for the most part I haven’t had issues. Sometimes a my 3 is much stronger than someone else’s 3, but that is more about deck construction/synergy/interaction packages I feel.
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u/DanicaManica 1d ago
I DO enjoy the codified version of commander with the brackets. I don’t feel like they’re perfect but overall I’d say they’re a good change. I feel like it’s ultimately best practice to keep an open mind even if things don’t fall super into the brackets and tbh commander as a whole.
I’ve played rule zero games, played rule zero decks, and all kinds of things with some people and order people are strictly about the brackets without deviation. I don’t like that.
I also play cEDH and the culture there is just totally different. CEDH effectively feels like a different format so I don’t think there’s much use talking about it in casual aside from things line picking up potentially useful tech, learning to operate in a different lane when it comes to deck building philosophy and analyzing game state (this applies to playing any other format also), or finding cool decks to tune down. I guess there are a ton of other really niche reasons to compare casual and cEDH but I typically find them too dissimilar.
As far as what I’ve seen in bracket 4, I think I’ve seen a few things. The first is that people just play EITHER the greediest piles of however many combos they can fit into a 99 with whatever powerful commander, a cEDH player using a rogue deck and arguing that it’s bracket 4 (like how I argued with a Zhulodok player about how that is a cEDH commander with tops this year), or people who play every best-in-slot control card possible without a real win condition.
Bracket 4, in my experience, mostly is a litmus test of who actually understands high-powered commander and who doesn’t and it becomes super apparent once you start the game. I don’t think think B4 players are better than a lot of B3 players. I’d actually probably argue the opposite and that might be because so few people play that bracket. I mean the bracket IMO sucks. I’ve been in too many mismatched pods with decks that shouldn’t be in the game per rule zero that snuck their way in and just too many games being way too polarizing for decks either being too strong or too weak. That’s the inherent issue. The other issues are entirely social.
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u/elkishdude 1d ago
Unfortunately, some bracket 4 players just spent a lot of money but don’t actually have the right mentality.
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u/Influunt_ 1d ago
I feel like they should make bracket 2->1, 3->2, etc., and make a more definitive bracket 4 along with more signposting for what an actual game should be like in a given bracket.
I get that a large portion of it is vibe based, and not hard rules to follow, but just a little more info & some refining of the bracket system would go a long way.
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u/elkishdude 1d ago
I also agree that there are too many categories. Not many even play B1 and if they do, does it even matter if they play in B2? It’s usually players starting out anyway. I could see B3 and B4 getting better definition.
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u/Wenital_Garts 14h ago
Interesting I thought you were going to go in a different direction with this post.
I think the bracket system gives worse players a framework to police how and what better players can play to maximize their chances of playing. It's lazy and it conditions players to get comfortable playing poorly.
If you're playing a bad deck or you're a poor player you should lose. Over and over again. That's how you learn to build and be better. I'll intentionally play into bad match ups just to learn.
With a commander being such a proxy friendly format, cost isn't an excuse.
The bracket system is the most toxic thing to ever be implemented in Magic and my pod and I are just so damn tired of it.
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u/GideonAOZ 14h ago
I am a on-again-off-again type of player, I found returning to Commander after brackets were implemented to be very daunting. I am not perfectly happy with the bracket system, but at least it attempts to address one of the biggest issues I was having with the game (pubstompers). For me, I am firmly bracket 2, I play unmodified pre-cons specifically because I want to shortcut the "pregame conversation". I will say "play any deck you want I don't care. I'm playing a precon" because I am an awkward guy but really I mean please play bracket-2, and no-game-changers!
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u/TheFunfighter 50m ago
You seem to be playing in brackets 3 and 4, while talking about "problems" of bracket 2. So might be an issue with someone mislabeling their decks in your environment. Could be you, or everyone else.
If I was playing B4, I'd expect full cutthroat interaction wars for who gets to resolve their game ending combo. Your description of decks seems to be more akin to the meandering gameplay of high bracket 2 though. In my B2 games, I'd pack up if someone was playing hardcore prison/control, MLD at any turn but the last, or some 1 turn combo that nukes everyone out of nowhere. In B4, that's just playing the game. So wtf are people doing in your pods?
Your pods really need to take a moment for introspection, and ask themselves what experience they wanna have. To me, it sounds like you're describing a B2 meta that has been powercrept unchecked, and people just started reporting higher brackets for their decks, without adjusting to the new rules. Can't have both. They won't find slow games in high brackets.
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u/keptalpaca22 1d ago
Sorry that happened to you. Or congrats. Idk I'm not reading all that but I like to play the game with friends and pretty rarely have had any of the issues I see pop up here
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u/GracelessOne 1d ago
I'm glad that you've been having fun! I'm a control deck enthusiast and I'm always trying to get people to play it more, in part because a control ecosystem pushes other people away from fast combo and towards "honest" resilient stompy. I think that's healthier and more fun.
I think that few people brew hard control because it can be an unintuitive archetype if you haven't played Magic's other formats.
Nobody really writes good guides for it in EDH and a lot of commanders that seem "control-y" are actually traps (you don't want a commander that you need to protect, because then your opponents get to trade their removal for your counterspells). This has caused it to get a reputation as something that "doesn't work", but if you know how to brew it then it's absolutely dominant against both combo and value-heavy midrange. I wish more people would!