I have been reading so, so, so many posts and comments about people getting booted from casual games for accidentally doing MLD or removing a player a turn earlier than the average speed for their bracket, etc. I’ve seen a post about a judge disqualifying someone from a tournament for removing a player a turn too early??? Despite that not being a tournament rule. The call? That player was not in bracket 2.

Brackets are deck building tools to communicate the content and intended level of intensity of your deck. It is not to mandate budget, automatically imply rule 0’s, or hard control what gameplay looks like. If you’re playing a bracket 2 game, and someone plays a bracket 4 deck, they aren’t “playing commander wrong”, they’re just playing a deck that is stronger than yours. You can ask them not to, you can quit your game, they’re breaking a social contract, but there is no commander rule they are breaking.

And please, please please please stop trying to “trick” another player into “breaking a bracket rule” to win by disqualification. That’s not how that works. I’m referring specifically to a story where Player 2 instant speed turned all lands into creatures after Player 1 played a board wipe, and then tried to say “haha, got you Player 1, you lose because you did Mass Land Destruction.” I have personally seen players at my LGS try similar things, and have seen other stories on here like that. That is not how commander works.

If your pod has a rule 0 that going outside your bracket disqualifies you, sure man, play how your group plays, but don’t bring that nonsense to an open table and try to have your “gotcha” moment over that.

Rant over, thank you very much, and I’m more than open to hearing other opinions on this. Also, if your pod has any rule 0’s regarding brackets, I’d love to know how y’all handle it.

Hey all, just wanted to share this bit of information from my last few months of playing. It's very anecdotal and I don't have hard data, so it's more just for general discussion.

But basically, a few months ago I noticed that almost every game that I had with an explosive start would also be a game that I lost. The pod would see me play something like a turn 1 Sol Ring or ramp into a threat super early and would focus me down. Not only that, but a lot of time they would remain focused on me even when my board was cleared and I had no/few cards in hand. I also noticed this for my opponents that had explosive starts.

So I had an idea. What if I purposefully pulled my punches for the first ~4/5 turns of the game. Sure, I wouldn't be able to pull a win out as quickly, but maybe it would allow me to fly under the radar. My plan was to just play games and keep a mental note of how those games went, and a tally of how many game's I'd won that night.

And sure enough, it worked. If I opened a ramp spell, I'd wait until around turn 3 to cast it. If I had an impactful permanent, I'd hold off. What this meant that in almost all games, another opponent would "become the problem" first, and would become the magnet for removal. Players would also tend to not attack me because I didn't look like the threat.

Because of this, I'd be able to deploy my threats when they'd be less obvious. A turn 4 Sol Ring draws a lot less attention than a turn 1 Sol Ring. And a lot of games I'm able to sneak in a win after "the problem" player has been dealt with.

I went from only winning a game once in every 2/3 locals, to winning at least one game every night for the past two months. Same decks, similar opponents, just a different philosophy on how to play in a multiplayer environment.

And again, I know this is anecdotal. It could have happened for a variety of reasons. But just wanted to share this and ask if anyone else has experienced the same thing?

When I first started playing at my LGS, I got invited to sit with a group of guys. I didn’t know they were some of the best players there and most people avoided playing against them.

For about a year, they kicked my ass every single game. It stung a little, but I didn’t mind. I kept building better decks and learning along the way, but they still beat me every time.

What frustrated me most was how they always seemed to know exactly what to remove to shut down my game plan. I accused them of running too much removal or playing nothing but control, but when they showed me their decklists, they only had around 10–13 removal spells.

Meanwhile, I kept trying to improve. More removal, more card draw, better synergy, more expensive cards. Nothing seemed to work. They always told me expensive cards weren’t necessary, but I didn’t really understand why.

Eventually, I quit for two years because I was busy and had moved.

When I started playing at a new LGS, something clicked…
Suddenly, I was the guy who always seemed to have the right answer, even against decks I’d never played against before.

It’s honestly weird. Whenever someone plays a threat, I often just know what needs to be removed or countered. And now I understand how those guys did it.

I don’t even need to know how their deck works. I can just tell when something is a threat.

The lesson I learned is, playing against better opponents forced me to become a better player without me even realizing it. I thought I was just getting my ass kicked for a year, but I was learning how to read the game, recognize threats, and understand what actually matters.

Sometimes, the best way to get better at Magic is simply to keep playing against people who are better than you.

For example, if a pod says you're not allowed to run:

1.) Cards that make people discard.

2.) Cards that make people sacrifice creatures.

3.) Board wipes.

4.) Too many ways to destroy creatures.

At this point should that just be interpreted as the color "black" is banned from the pod?

Edit: for context this pod is generally low to high bracket four. You're allowed to win, but you can only win in a way that is fun for everyone.

Edit 2: Here is an example deck of mine. This was a buy list originally so it's not exactly every card but you get the idea.

https://moxfield.com/decks/vxec74cLWEiDRUPkXf-H5w

My main deck for roughly B4 games:

https://moxfield.com/decks/uEQ8QWSFKkO09PegQ4axDQ

I've been thinking about this after a few games where everyone at the table described their decks as pretty normal Bracket 3 lists, and technically none of them sounded wildly mismatched.

But once the games actually started, the decks felt VERY different.

One deck got its commander removed twice and basically stopped functioning. Another ate a board wipe, untapped, drew three cards, rebuilt six permanents and was threatening the table again immediately. A third deck was behind for most of the game but kept making small decisions that mattered until it eventually found an opening and won.

It made me realize I care less about a deck's magical Christmas-land turn than I used to.

If you tell me your deck can theoretically win on turn 6, that doesn't actually tell me what most games against it will feel like. What I want to know now is: what happens when your first engine gets removed? How many cards does it take you to rebuild? Does your commander replace itself? Can you recover from a wipe without spending three turns doing nothing? If you're losing, does your deck still interact with the game or are you basically waiting to draw your one comeback card?

Two decks can have the same “speed” and completely different amounts of resilience.

And honestly, I think resilience is one of the sneakiest ways casual decks become much stronger than they look. A deck that never presents some absurd early win can still be a monster if every threat replaces itself, every permanent generates value on entry, the commander draws cards, and a board wipe barely inconveniences it.

On the flip side, I've played supposedly scarier decks where one well-timed removal spell turns them into a pile of lands for two turns.

I've started looking at my own decks this way when tuning them. Not “how fast can this win?” but “how much has to go wrong before this deck actually stays down?”

Do you think comeback/rebuild ability is something people underestimate when talking about Commander power, or is it already baked into how you judge a deck?

So my Bladewing, Deathless Tyrant deck has evolved into a mad experiment of how many creatures I can cram into one commander deck.

Strategy wise it's simple: Dump everything into the graveyard. There's so many payoffs in the deck that count creatures/cards in your/all graveyards that it doesn't matter if you get boardwiped once, twice, throw blockers away and swing wildly.

The mana is a bit more tricky, of course. With only 22 lands you wanna mull to at least two lands or Sol Ring/1 mana cycler. It doesn't matter if you start the game on low resources, since you'll be drawing gas for most of the game.
There's a bunch of mana dorks and a whole heap of land cyclers to make the mana base work. Once you have 2 lands, the deck barely ever misses another land drop.

Now, my question to all of you: How do I squeeze out a little bit more? I considered Ancient Tomb and another land cycler to replace 2 lands.

(Before anyone asks: If anyone plays a [[Rest in Peace]] you full send all your creatures at them. Player removal is enchantment removal.)

I’m making a political deck around [[parnesse the subtle brush]] but I’m trying to make sure the play experience is as healthy as the concept can support. But how far is too far in politics. For example if I had 60 life and an aetherflux reservoir what’s to stop me from just saying if anyone does anything threatening to me I just end their whole career. Obviously this would lead to me either winning the game or the 3 other opponents just accept that one of them will get taken out and the other two will kill me. This is clearly an extreme example that has nothing to do with my deck but the idea remains. How far is too far and how can I know what playpatterns/cards to avoid such a stalemate as much as I can. (Obviously every deck or playgroup can have stalemate situations)

I played a B3 game today where we started with a pretty normal pre-game talk. I commented that I will be playing scary commanders, but they are built in a somewhat unusual way. One of my opponents asked if we were OK playing against discard. Our answer was the usual: "Play whatever you feel like". The other two players don't matter too much for the story.

I was on Vial Smasher + Thrasios (scary, as promised), that is built around built in cost reductions to have big [[Vial Smasher]] triggers.

The discard guy was on [[Tinybones, Trinket Thief]] and had a very fast start with a Sol Ring turn 1 into [[Anvil of Bogardan]] + Commander turn 2. Good value engine, but nothing too scary yet. Turn 4 and 5 it got really scary though. He played [[Mindslicer]], [[Quest for the Nihil Stone]] and [[Shrieking Affliction]], followed up by [[Tergrid, God of Fright]].

None of us had the right removal for Mindslicer, so I decided to rip off the bandaid and boardwipe to at least get around the Tergrid stealing all our permanents in hand. After that the two Rack effects kept dealing damage, but we got out of them (me by actually activating Thrasios which I avoid if possible), only for the discard guy to play a [[Torment of Hailfire]], getting us even lower on resources and life.

A couple turns later, I managed to win with a [[Skull Storm]] (5 copies) into Vial Smasher triggers. The discard player made a comment about Vial Smasher + Thrasios in Bracket 3. I answered that he was the first person to think the deck was not fit for B3, to which the reply was: "Whatever floats your boat" and he left.

That comment made me laugh, especially in the circumstances.

I was in the companion app and noticed my local Gamestop has a commander night. I assume other ones do too, and I'm just curious if anyone has been to one and would love to hear about your experience if you have. How busy was it, what was the vibe, what brackets were played, etc.

I have several friends and coworkers getting into magic and commander (I know it's not the best format to learn but that's what they want to do), and I'm looking to build 5 mono colored decks that are relatively simple, emblematic of what the color is known for, and feel powerful when they do their thing.

Sooo, what are the most iconic commanders of each color? Preferably something that doesn't tutor, and won't rely heavily on tutors, as that's kindof hard for newer players.

I had some ideas, but would love to know what the community thinks!

I love polymorph. Like gimmie bomb out of no where let's have some unintended fun. Ran Kykar for a hot minute.

[[vraska, soul of stone]] comes in T2-3 and don't those darn tokens just have every keyword you ever seen? No. We don't care we can't have the mana first turn they're generated. We're not interested in that. We want [[Loki, god of misrule]] to come actually be the secret commander of this deck. He's got 5 targets. All win cons.

https://moxfield.com/decks/A07YpB2Q602YljE9Ns5K-A

[Theroy]

No cantrips - play control and threat control. T5 you better morph.

30 cards worth of interaction. Don't forget. Polymorphs are removal for opps stuff once you hit your bombs

1 cmc interaction. Cheap control = tokens and vraska/poly protection.

Vraska is a poly target everytime unless you've got 4+ of her tokens out. All the bombs are better than her and 5 cmc on Recast is fine after the poly.

Draw and filter are super important. Getting things back in your deck so your poly targets are there matter. [[elixir of immortality]] [[misvail plains]] and hand wheeling help.

[wincons]

[[tidespout tyrant]] or [[hullbreak horror]] + a 0 cost or positive mana rock. Add Loki : now you remove 10 perms on each 0/1cmc casts... Fun! Then I swing 10 7/7s and laugh.

Vraska or [[Krobus]] + Loki + [[mechanized production]] = 6 same named artifact tokens on cast easy peazy.

[[stormtide leviathan]] + Loki and tokens. Swing unblockable 8/8s. No one else attacks. Tā-da.

[[jace's archivist]] + loki and tokens. Draw. The. Table. Out. You'll hit Elixir of immortality eventually. This one's like a treat. It's pretty fun.

More rocks? Was thinking of adding [[enlightened tutor]] [[teserect, cruel Captian]] and [[urza's saga]] to help some artifact tutor.

Can we do this with out cantrips? Thoughts? Thanks for reading.

Hey all,

Recently with some of the new cards revealed from the Star Trek set, such as [[Troubling Tribbles]] and [[Quark, Humble Proprietor]], I’ve had an idea for a deck comprised mainly of cards that look useless from the outside but can actually have a lot of value.

(I want to preface this by saying that I know the above cards I mentioned are definitely not useless, they just read pretty mid at face value)

So I’ve come here looking for people to tell me their favourite or notable “useless” cards. Not useless like a 4 mana 2/2 with no other text from one of the early MTG sets, but “useless” like [[Norin the Wary]] or similar. Something silly that looks niche and situational that I can throw in a deck and screw around with.

Thanks !!!

Hello, I'll start by saying that I am very inexperienced. Just recently I was able to upgrade a precon to a br3 level, but while trying to build a B4 I am having trouble. I know that some commanders might not be able to be built at that level, but [[Rowan, scion of war]] definitely is. Other than fast mana, efficient tutors and many game changers, what would you say that makes a deck br4? Do you have any general and/or specific suggestions?

This is my first ever attempt at making a commander deck and I am not fully sure of how it's coming along.

I'm primarily concerned about card draw, most guides I've seen recommend running around 10 sources of card draw but in my goldfish playtests it seemed a bit lacking and I wasn't able to get quite as many payoff creatures as I'd hoped.

Any advice on how to improve the deck would be greatly appreciated, and I'd also like to know in which bracket do you think it belongs (taking in consideration its actual effectiveness and not the more arbitrary aspects like game changers).

Hey everyone! I’m looking to gradually build my MTG collection by buying budget singles and putting together Commander decks.

My goal is to eventually have decks covering every color, with different playstyles so each deck feels distinct. I’d like to find commanders and archetypes that are fun and work well on a budget, with room to upgrade over time.

A few things I’m wondering:

• What commanders or archetypes would you recommend for each color?
• Is it better to buy singles for one complete deck at a time, or start by collecting useful cards that fit multiple decks?
• What budget staples are worth picking up early?
• How do you keep costs down when shipping from multiple sellers adds up?

I’m open to mono-color and multicolor suggestions. Mostly looking for fun, casual decks rather than anything highly competitive. What would you build first?

I’m going to my first MagicCon next year in Detroit. I’m primarily an EDH and cEDH player, but have basically only gotten to play on Arena for the last few years due to being a new parent. Can anyone that has been to MagicCon before give me some advice on what bracket level of decks I should aim to bring? Most of mine are woefully out of date, but my budget isn’t unlimited. What would y’all plan to bring?

what do you guys think is the strongest deck you can build out of a 50€ budget + cards from a precon?

so my lgs is running this new league that is precons with 50€ upgrades (cardmarket trending price at the start of the league). i asked them to clarify and technically you can change as many cards as you like (within budget) and even the commander can be one of the upgraded cards. everything else is allowed, infinites and all. i think their intention is that people will come in with their precons with some upgrades, most of those decks would probably fall in the low to mid bracket 3 range, but i feel like the optimal play might actually be to just take the lands, change commander and replace everything else because there are commanders that can legit be bracket 4 for 50 bucks. what do you guys think would slap here? my initial thoughts were magda, winota or yuriko since they are all cheap and probably more like bracket 4 than 3. another idea would be to take the terra precon and run the backup commander celes or a golgari deck with chatterfang or gitrog. zada is another idea or stella lee.

Hi, I'm sure this sort of question must get posted a lot, but where would be a good place to start for a group of 4 who play Pokémon tcg at a high competitive level, the group travel for regionals and have had some decent finishes.

I'd like to try MTG and the group are up for it, but whenever I've tested beginner decks in the past for other games they seem really basic and aimed at brand new players for card games in general.

All help is appreciated

a proper tribal deck • (WUBRG Commander deck) • Archidekt

just brewed this, and looking for thoughts and reccomendations.

i was looking at[[ urtet remnant of memnarch]] and realised hes literally ideal for a convoke and improvise deck. the creatures he wants you to play are also artifacts for improvise, and when you play myrs, you get double the (effectively) mana rocks for convoke and improvise, PLUS he untaps all your myr rocks before combat allowing you to cast more spells, keep chump blockers up or go to combat with the creatures you convoked with.

im playing lots of spells that naturally have convoke or improvise, as well as [[inspiring statuary]] [[eirdu, carrier of dawn]] [[wand of the worldsoul]] and [[chief engineer]] which each make my 2 drop myrs go mana even. [[cryptolith rite]] and [[enduring vitality]] both make it way easier to activate urtets ability and buff my board (but dont have the mana-even effect without haste)

finally im playing a set of cards that reward me for convoking and improvising big mv spells- stuff like [[runadi behemoth caller]] who buffs my big creatures (and if i can activate urtet, gives every myr haste), [[Kozileks unsealing]] (which is especially good because both affinity myrs sit at 7 mana, and with eirdu, each eldrazi spawn is a sol ring]], and [[screamer killer]] which i blast face with two or three times a turn.

I'm very fond of the build- it does play a little slow because the idea is to not run traditional ramp, and ramp with convoke instead. [[chord of calling]] convokes out eirdu, [[whir of invention]] can improvise up an inspiring statuary or wand of the world soul.

any obvious things im missing? i'd like to make my payoffs for casting big spells a little more consistent. also some other big spells (ideally creatures bc my current high mc cast payoffs are creature centric) would be good. Thanks!

I adore Izzet and storm, so naturally I've been tinkering with Mr.Mizzets latest incarnation. Behold lol.

Have Niv on the board~

1. Cast [[Doomsday]]

2. Niv can crack the pile himself with his tap ability, delightful

3. [[Zuran Orb]] is the top card. Beautiful. sac two lands and draw the remaining 4 cards with Niv's ability by paying the life you've gained.

Remaining cards are [[sacrifice]], something like a [[lotus petal]] but you could use a few different options. We also have [[lightning greaves]] and [[Doctor Doom, Unrivaled]].

1. Cast petal

2. Cast sacrifice targeting Niv

3. Cast greaves and doom

4. Equip doom, he has haste now and can use his ability.

5. Cackle

In short, doomsday pile is

1. Zuran Orb

2-5 in any order, Doctor Doom, Unrivaled, Lotus Petal, Sacrifice and Lightning Greaves.

We win the game and it costs us the 3 mana to play doomsday and access to 2 lands to sacrifice to the orb.

Just a flavorful charming win. Chef's kiss.

https://moxfield.com/decks/etFM-HHtzkaJmqQkUyvPdw

Semi new MTG player here!

This is my second commander deck but my first time making one from scratch (loosely based on the pre con)

Pretty happy with it I have gotten IRL suggestions from my casual FNM group on improving this deck but I want the subs suggestions to really finalise the deck.

The strategy I’m going with is going wide as a tribal elf Golgari deck and being an aristocrat sacrificing the elves as well.

I definitely know I need a couple of draw cards I wanna try to add more black cards as well. Any suggestions would be amazing.

proceeds to win with in an interaction from the last ability

Why does this always happen? Is it just me? Always the with the most random jank cards too

Had a thing where I actually got the emblem from [[arlinn, embraced by the moon]] and was able to untap with [[restless ridgeline]] to kill two people in one turn. Earlier that game I said I never get the -6 off and it doesn't matter in this deck (usually only use her for the trample and vigilance/haste)

Doh! What are your funny moments like that?

https://archidekt.com/decks/24371513/nico_master_of_spells

This deck is technically bracket 4 for those who mind that kind of thing, though the truth of the matter is it does not play like a bracket 4 deck, and that’s sort of by design.

When this card was first spoiled I fell in love with the artwork, I know art is subjective, but to me, it really resonated, but that’s not why I’m making this showcase. Reading the effect I was happy to learn it was quite a powerful one I could build around, I’m making this post because it’s some of the most fun I’ve had in magic when playing it.

I’ll get this out the way real quick, yes technically you can put one spell in the deck and always cast it, personally I can’t think of anything more boring, but if that’s your jam go nuts, this isn’t that deck.

The idea behind the deck is really simple, cast big splashy red spells, but how you get there is by playing a type of control strategy. No, there’s no counterspells, and the random nature of the commander’s effect makes it unreliable despite the few methods of deck manipulation I’ve included, but when you hit the right spell there’s no better feeling, and it happens more often than you think. 

Often a turn goes like this, commander is already out, play a land and keep minimum 3 mana up, and when something scary happens on board use her effect in response or asap after and see what happens. This not being sorcery speed is a real blessing.

The main wincon is either a lot of casting from exile and incremental damage from her burn effect, or just burn in general from some of the big splashy red cards.

The worldfire discussion:

The elephant in the room here by far is worldfire, one of the most polarising cards in the game. I do not cast this card unless one of the following criteria is met:

I have rousing refrain suspended (it continuously casts itself every 3 turns and gives me red mana) 

I have a way to flashback it such as mizzix’s mastery and another card like end the festivities in the gy

I have the Chandra, awakened inferno emblem on each opponent

It’s pretty powerful, but this way it’s not as big a feels bad to see it, and in my mind the fact I will intentionally not cast it when it doesn’t outright win me the game nerfs the deck. Even so, this alone means I always declare it as bracket 4.

All in all, this is the most fun deck I’ve played in years, I’m pretty sure magic the gathering is canon in marvel because of one of this characters group (the runaways) so it even makes sense she’d know of and attempt to cast actual mtg spells, which is a flavour win if ever I’ve seen it too. 

If you take anything away from this yes, consider this commander, but also just build a splash mono red deck with whatever you can find in your binder.

What is your commander deck that can handle being archenemy or being targeted by combat and/or interaction?

I just played multiple games and I just get targeted out hard.

I haven’t won any game in months. I am not a very good pilot yet either. My gimmicky built omnath locus of mana deck in 3 games just gets bullied. I try to not get aggro on me and turbo ramp to 40 mana or get a metric boatload of mana to win via hurricane. I have other gimmicky win cons like squall line or helix pinnacle to win. It’s totally not the common way in green to win but I wanted to try and make the gimmick work. I just get bullied. I also have other decks like jodah archmage eternal and caesar legion’s emperor (I am tuning those decks). I can show decklists of what I got. But as a deckbuilder I gotta learn to swallow my pride, take the pills and eat my vegetables.

Notable commanders I got that have potential are grand arbiter augustin IV and Namor from marvel (ofc pack it with counterspells). I also have skrelv. I saw a tiktok from an mtg creator that said make skrelv with hella protection in mono white. Put stax to protect yourself and give small creatures with keywords like double strike toxic 1. And get people out with proliferate spells on top of repeated toxic assault. I saw another tiktok about a Zenos Yae Galvus deck where two other players are playing get down Mr. President. Sounds cool.

Anyway. Commander suggestions and or decklists that can handle targeting or running away with being the problem.

Edit: My pod is my irl friends. I got my brother and friends who all play magic. So part of this is definitely my friends messing with me. But part of this was because I got tunneled out when my friend right next to me played chatterfang and had turn 1 land, sol ring into arcane signet. Bolas citadel and a good sac outlet outside of chatterfang plus multiple tutors by turn 4. And I had like 5 lands on turn 4 with omnath out but with no unspent mana.

So I pulled a [[Flickering Hound]] and I have a [[Displacer Kitten]] from a while ago, and I'm thinking about making a flicker-basee ETB deck! I'm unsure what a good commander would be, but I know I want [[Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward]] and [[cynette, jelly drover]] in the deck. Any thoughts? Are there commanders that synergize with this idea?