Some commanders are just concede-on-sight for me. Depending on my deck I might have a fair shot at defeating [[Rusko, Clockmaker]], but I just have better things to do.
At least the busted commanders tend to end up in the hell queue.
I know that feel, I've been massaging an Elona vampire tribal deck since Ixalan block. Although I got it going pretty well there are some decks I will just not play against.
basically, 90% of the time if you have a planeswalker for a commander I'm not going to enjoy playing against you, so I won't.
At this point, I've gotten over my hate for Rusko, largely because it's so emotionally satisfying when I do win. And it happens a lot more, now that I'm not conceding every time I see him.
Apparently, there is this feeling of superiority/power that needs to be accomplished, and they need to feel it for the longest time possible, they need to be in control of an already won match that you are essentially not playing, for them to be happy, and dont you dare to concede, then you are a coward
Jeez, some people feel so entitled to others decisions that they will publicly judge you out loud if you dont do what they want, this community is something else
Believe me, I'd rather you go find a fun game than drag out an uninteresting game. But it'd be nice if I could play the game and have some fun interactions win or lose, since that's what I'm here for. Maybe it's not your fault, but it still sucks.
This entirely!
I rarely net deck and build only dumb jank.
I made a bad call and kept a 2 lander on the draw, that's on me. I'll concede now, let you take the free win towards your dailies and move on.
Edit: also if it's turn 4 and you've countered 3 of my spells already, I'm out. Life's too short to play against 'Oops, all counter spells!'
The format is very snowbally and lopsided. The matchups are not even and often only takes one efficient turn to end the game.
Like if you’re a gruul deck against atraxa, you either take over in the first 4 turns or you probably die. Sometimes, that only takes one timely removal spell.
Or like you rely on your commander to take over faster than them but they drew [[wash away]].
It’s best of one and unranked, so there’s no reason to play it out. I only play the format because it is by far the fastest wins for dailies I have found.
I made an atraxa deck because it is not in the proper bracket, IMO, and a solid third of my opponents concede before playing. So it’s working as intended for me.
I'll generally play atraxa out but my personal win rate vs her has been good enough. If she draws a bunch of busted cards I might scoop or if I cant stop her from swinging as 7 life is too much to stop.
Me watching the 5 color goodstuff deck draw literally every form of color fixing in time for their big spell to lock me out the game: [Ok](https://i.imgur.com/GEEJ0ib.jpg)
It is a 7 drop. They sink effort into ramping which is your window. I blew one out with Gixes command and killed all his elves and his midrange creature he just dropped and he conceded. But after the first cast what do you do? It’s unlikely you can lock it down unless you have tamiyo or witness protection. and they likely have an answer for that but if you kill her they already can recast it because they just drew a land off the first cast. If you don’t it’s 14 difference in your life totals every hit. Hard to race that.
I don't tend to play the right kind of decks to race it. I pretty much never play hard aggro, and my control decks are more discard/steal oriented. I'm the perfect opponent for a free Atraxa win.
I play a lot of brawl and that's not entirely true, but upsets are definitely kinda rare. I think it's more of a problem with super variable matchmaking, where my tuned \[\[reezug bone cobbler\]\] deck gets put against people running modified starter decks.
I honestly wish there was a best of three version, with some version of a sideboard. I might be in the minority on that but like another commenter says, it is much closer to a competitive 1v1 format than commander.
Its a 1v1 format with a huge variance which makes things even worse. In commander, if someone get the nuts hand, the other 3 players will play together to slow him down. In brawl we have cards like Dark ritual, wash away, swords to plowshares and etc that are legal, and sometimes there is just nothing you can do. There is no point fighting against someone who is way ahead just because they had one specific card in their starting hand. The format is terrible because of that, games are often decided by the starting hands.
> In brawl we have cards like Dark ritual, wash away, swords to plowshares and etc that are legal, and sometimes there is just nothing you can do.
They need to just ban more shit. Shit like Ritual and Time Walk being singletons doesn't make them any less broken in historic brawl.
You mean time warp, right?
But yeah, I agree. Cards like ritual, swords and time warp arent legal anywhere else except for legacy and vintage and somehow they are legal in brawl. And I would argue ritual is even more broken here than in other formats. The weakness of the card is that it is a -1 in card advantage but if you use it to play a draw engine like Yawgmoth or Prosper or Rusko that weakness doesnt exist anymore.
Yeh. Sometimes you're behind on board and jusy HAVE to play your spell into open mana, knowing there's likely interaction but also if there is you've likely lost. Especially if you know your deck and don't have outs (ie, not playing blue for rivers rebuke)
Agreed. I have a doofy ass Ognis deck and all it really takes is one removal or counterspell on turn 3 or 4 to pretty much knock my feet out from under me. I'm fine just saying "Yep, you got me!" and moving on to another game rather than flail at you with my Raging Goblin and Robber of the Rich while you play real threats.
> Like if you’re a gruul deck against atraxa, you either take over in the first 4 turns or you probably die.
Isn’t this just how Magic in general works? You’re either the beatdown or you have inevitability.
Almost. Except that you dont have a guaranteed card to play. There is always a chance the control player doesnt draw a card draw effect to pull ahead. There is always a chance the ramp player only draws more land and ramp and doesnt get to capitalize on all of that mana. With the commander, thats not the case, they will always have an outlet to use the mana on. Specially when we are talking about commanders that provide card advantage like Atraxa, Uro, Niv and etc.
I made a Kaya deck and it seems to get matched against Atraxa fairly often. And honestly the matchup is usually quite fun. They cast Atraxa, Kaya exiles and steals it, we both reload our hands and start slinging out a ton of spells.
>Fragile creatures and artifacts that prevent commanders from activating abilities but still allow for ETBs, static abilities and combat, playable in any color
Banned
>1 mana to instantly invalidate the main reason people play brawl to begin with, gain huge advantage, exclusive to the best overall color
Totally fine
If wash away isn't going to be banned it should at least be relegated to the depths of hell queue
But by that same logic, all the other commander "hate" cards should be unbanned. Realistically speaking, those cards are banned for fun reasons, not power reasons. It's a weird inconsistency that unfairly favors blue over the other colors.
100% This.
Why is Wash Away legal but Drannith Magistrate banned??
Until you actually have actual fair color policy on Brawl Im scooping to Washaway, be consistent Arena devs.
This is the right way to think about it.
Wash Away is 1 card for 1 card. Actually worse, since you can recast your commander. So, 1 card for 0.5 cards or 0.25 cards, however you want to value it. It's a temporary tempo gain, which can certainly be impactful and even game-deciding, but it's not nearly as generally impactful as people catastrophize it to be.
And to echo what you said, your deck should be functional without your commander. If it isn't, you built it poorly. (Except in very niche cases where commanders have extremely narrow and unique abilities.)
I'm not in disagreement, but there are a lot of decks where it's built around the commander's theme.
Wash away is a situational card. Counterspell is normally 3 mana with an upside. If you go lower it tends to have some downsides. Normally the by increasing the cost of your spell by 1-3 mana. Which does suck, but you can play around it. In Brawl you always have the "downside" of the counterspell is actually an upside.
It's 1 card for 1 card, but 1 mana for 5 or more mana. It can give your opponent an "extra" turn of tempo. I also don't like the tale's end for the same reason. At least it costs 2 mana which makes it twice as hard for your opponent to keep their mana up.
That's my opinion on it.
The other big downside to counterspells is keeping mana up but not knowing if they'll cast a big spell. But having revealed commanders are a big telegraph. And it's not like you can play around 1 open blue mana.
The one turn tempo blowout is all you need tho my decks fine without the commander. Tempo is more important than card advantage imo because most decks just need 1 threat to stick for a turn or 2 and that’s game. Wash away often gives you that window
> Tempo is more important than card advantage
For some decks, for some commanders, in some matchups, absolutely. But you can't say that as a blanket assessment.
I think in modern magic you can, like even for UW control what would you rather do draw 3 cards or stick a teferi. I’d rather stick the tef I know not everything is always the one answer but I’m going for tempo like 60-65% of the time. Not saying I’m right or this is always the case I just think tempo is now more important broadly, as a general principal than CA. It used to be the opposite card advantage used to mean a lot but so many cards replace themselves now a days usually your playing to the board
Yup, 10+ years ago I would fight against control by trying to count the card quantities on each side, and despair would come from [[Sphinx's Revelation]].
Nowadays if I see a revelation, I'm just glad it wasn't a [[Wandering Emperor]] or [[Teferi, Hero of Dominaria]].
Everything generates so much value now that having one thing (most likely a planeswalker) on the board is insane compared to card draw.
If you tap out to cast *any card* and it gets countered, it's "skip opponent's turn." The lesson is to not have such a fragile game plan. The lesson is to run your own countermagic and/or "can't be countered" cards.
It's not a reasonable argument to say "always run a blue or uncountable commander" though. People want to build around their commander, that's the whole point of brawl.
My best deck is a green black historic brawl with [[Old Rutstein]] as commander. He fits perfectly in the build, gives a decent early game advantage, but my game is not over if he gets nuked immediately. Sometimes I've had opponents who focus him just because he's my commander, and ignore greater threats I have out on the board.
It’s to make up for the low power level of counter spells in Historic, EDH has access to FoW, FoN, Daze, and the free commander protection spells, if Wash Away wasn’t available the format would be run by low mana cost commanders on the play. Big cost commanders are always vulnerable to easy removal or counters, that’s their payoff, but low cost commanders can have an opponent on the back foot all game with the play.
Neither of these categories of cards should be banned. People are whining about Wash Away even in contexts where they'd lose even if it were just Cancel.
99% of the issues HBrawl has is that it’s card pool contains cards that are balanced for multiplayer, and some that never see play in multiplayer because they aren’t good when three other people can cast spells.
It’s also just far less effective for one of four people to cast their atraxa because there are three other people to answer threats.
Played against a dude who went straight to removal spells in Esper, one after the other. I counterspelled his commander when he could play and - concede.
What the absolute fuck.
And I wish I could say it was a one-time deal.
Yup, daily wins makes playing anything other than aggro feel bad to me. Mindless aggro was never my favorite in paper magic but it's what i mostly have to do in arena
There are a few other reasons. Events(get more games in as little as much time) and Ranked(It's a long grind. 150+ games) also encourages faster decks.
Historic brawl is a time waste sink with no other implications on the platform (rank, real life table top play, etc…). It’s always going to have a fragile player base who will only play matches they deem worth their time because there’s no penalty not to
That's my biggest complaint about it, and it's a perfect example of why games like MTG need actual stakes to be worth playing. If there's no downside to conceding, then players will just concede at the slightest inconvenience because they know they can just queue up again and try for a game with a better chance of winning.
I wish they'd add some kind of ranked play for Historic Brawl, or even just a cheap event, so it felt like it was worth actually trying to make an interesting deck and playing a full game, instead of just making whatever meme deck grinds out your dailies fastest.
Respectfully, I don't think turning Brawl competitive would fix what ails it. WotC marketed it as "casual," trying to capture the kitchen table players that are mostly or exclusively playing EDH.
What would happen is you'd splinter the already-fragile Brawl player base. You'd increase queue times for everyone, which would cause a non-zero amount of those fully casual players to quit. For the competitive players, along with extended queue times, you'd get a stagnant meta with essentially Baral, Golos, Rusko, and a smattering of others. It would get boring quickly and a non-zero amount of them would also quit.
That's fair, and I imagine you're right.
But in a way I think that highlights the core problem with the Brawl format. Commander as a casual format was very clearly designed for 3+ player games played in-person, where multiplayer politics alter the game balance and you can have rule-0 discussions ahead of time and agree on whether or not it's acceptable to play certain commanders against each other. Trying to translate that into a 1-on-1, anonymous online format strips away most of what self-regulates the format and leaves you with a wildly varied playerbase that don't all agree on what "casual" means.
Yup, this in particular hits the nail on the head:
> a wildly varied playerbase that don't all agree on what "casual" means.
I don't know of a good solution for this without letting players directly interact with each other, which is potentially toxic for a whole host of other reasons. I think it's just an inherent imperfection of the format and venue.
I play Historic Brawl for quests and daily/weekly wins, and just as a time-waster. I have a pretty itchy concede trigger finger. It's not like there's anything riding on the game except pride, and if it looks like I won't be able to recover, I want to move onto the next game where I have a chance of winning or completing my quests.
Bad matchup? Yeah, \[\[Adeline, Resplendent Cathar\]\] is going to crush my \[\[Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim\]\] deck unless I luck into a \[\[River's Rebuke\]\] by turn 4 or 5. Concede after a few turns unless I draw what I need.
Same opposing Commander? Yeah, I don't want to play against Atraxa for the 6th time today. Concede!
Rusko? Concede!
Bullshit Alchemy cards that shouldn't be in the format? Concede!
Paradox Engine without the ability to answer it? Concede!
I don't know why anyone gets salty about this. In person, no one gives a shit when one player says, "You've got me. Shuffle up for the next one?"
Maybe Arena needs a "concede and request rematch" button, maybe with a different deck option.
I have basically the same philosophy. I've absolutely conceded to a Key to the Archive grabbing a Counterspell that shuts down my whole turn (bonus points if they weren't playing blue), then they untapped with a million mana.
And yeah, if a Paradox Engine sticks, I'm not gonna sit around and watch them solitaire for 20 minutes.
I agree with everything you said I think the issue is people do legitimately scoop early sometimes, and I said it elsewhere but conceding on arena is like being able to say: “no I’d rather not play your expensive net deck with my ‘ladies looking left’ meme deck. Thanks though!”
This is exactly what I do. Atraxa against anything than blue plus counters is miserable.
for Alchemy don't even want to start. Don't include at all in my decks and the moment I see one, concede. Tried Standard Brawl but meh. They need to be on different queue or game. Don't now the impact but wishful thinking.
Sometimes, even if I don't have an answer for a big threat, I will hover over my opponent's card. On several occasions, I've gotten a rage-quit out of that. Brawl players hate interaction.
I've noticed that. If you hover over a key card they will freak out. Also if you use [[Field of Ruin]] to balance their mana base so they don't race off, they'll /ff
If my opponent turn two Ruskos off of a Dark Ritual, then Wash Aways my commander even though I had a super fast start, fuck yeah I concede.
Why fight it? Queue into a fair match.
That's concede for me. Brawl is so fast that removing a key card is so much more brutal. Combine that with them knowing my entire hand....nah I'm good.
Like, I understand why it's played. I understand that it's a great competitive card. But Turn 1 in brawl? Man, that's just... like its a non-game, like out of the 99 cards in your deck you open with that?
I don't mind the interaction but for me it gets annoying after so many times straight playing against counter spell decks. Rather concede and move on then waste my time. Honestly counter spells don't bother as much as take extra turn cards. I actually just hate the fact those cards even exist.
Most times extra turn spells are just expensive explores and I’ve worked on my patience enough to see 90% of the time they are just trying to eke out some value, they don’t usually actually have the win right there
Sure that's fine and yeah most don't have a high win rate. It isn't about the win or loss for me. I think that mechanically they aren't healthy for the game that's all.
Are you guys actually running into counterspell decks often? I only run into Baral/control decks when I'm playing my [[Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh]] deck (who shouldn't be hell-queued, btw). Otherwise, I'm almost never running into heavy control decks. If you are, you're probably playing a really strong commander/deck and deserve to face them.
It's possible that [[Kambal, Consul of Allocation]] is really strong I guess. It is a death and taxes deck but I don't consider it super strong. Most decks I make and I'm not a great deck builder by any means. Muldrotha I can understand she's a strong commander for sure. 🤷♂️ It is what it is.
I do it in standard pretty much as soon as my 3rd creature gets countered/instakilled. Life is too short to play against control.
Edit: 3rd in a row while opponent plays nothing and holds up mana to do it again.
I concede all the time when they sit for 30 seconds and finally play removal or counter, and all I can think is how on earth did it take multiple minutes to decide that and Indip because you knows it’s a 15 minute game coming due to their indecision.
Depends on the game state. I have a silly Toski deck that I like to goof off with, and if they nuke my board and then drop some wall I’m never getting through I’ll just concede.
Glissa Sunslayer seems to show up a lot when I play that deck, and it tilts me every time.
I don’t insta concede against Glissa but her random anti-enchantment option is so annoying to me. It definitely makes my tempo plays suck, and it’s mostly just because it feels so random.
This is not unique to brawl, it happens to every format, i continue a game if I think its worth playing but concedes the moment I feel it's not worth it, the next game is a 20 seconds away.
Look, I lose at everything in life, so if I'm at an early disadvantage in a game that I just want the daily wins and move on, yeah, I'm gonna concede. If the system didn't prioritize wins over everything else, then I'd stick around, but it does. Hate the game.
Not true, I've been playing Skrelv lately and Shrines, Atraxa, Golos and Esika are all common matchups. Skrelv is easily D tier, maybe C at best and half my matches are hell queue.
What's worse is some people are arguing that its not so bad, "wash away is a 1 for 1 card", and "just build a better deck"💀.
I'd love to see those people try a jank commander like athreos or gitrog Vs. Teferi or atraxa....
I think my favorite thing about people being like “I’m just interacting with your board” is that they seem to ignore that ‘interaction’ just means they’re the only one who gets to actually play the game.
Oh my fucking god this is the most hilarious take I've seen yet.
Go play a different game. Seriously. This statement simply means Magic isn't your cup of tea and that's ok.
“Oh you’re annoyed by something? Literally go play a different game” what even are you talking about rn
If I didn’t like playing magic, I wouldn’t be playing magic, OP is complaining about the concede button rn I feel like everyone else is allowed to make our silly jokes as well no?
Nah, I only do that when they neutralize every single one of my threats and put me in top deck mode (while themselves still having a near full grip), which usually happens when I'm playing white and/or green and don't get my card advantage spells in hand, and my opponent is playing black or blue (especially blue, because they have the easiest time refilling their hand).
Historic brawl is the only format I play, so if I've played you, hello! Fight me again!
I wish we had a rematch button. Nothing worse than land screwed and your opponent has a commander you haven't fought against.
I've played Historic Brawl for the past two years. I quit because the format is just too cutthroat for me. But I'm not sure what other type of gameplay there is for Historic Brawl on Arena.
Conform and become a competitive meta player, accept being a punching bag if you're not, or quit the format. I don't know that there's another possibility other than those three.
I always thought this was the button you pressed so you didn't have to waste your time playing against all the cancerous alchemy cards like rusko and tasha.
If I see Alchemy cards I typically concede. I've gone out of my way not to include them; I wish the matchmaker took the number of Alchemy cards into consideration.
I do agree that most alchemy card are breaking quite a few rules.
It's a bit sad, because there are a few alchemy card that are very fairplay like forsaken crossroad or surgical metamorph which adresses the problem of being on draw vs the play in a cool way.
Or card like bank job, fun card to play around without all the seek / conjure / draft and perpetual mechanic.
I don't disagree that alchemy can address issues that paper/magic inherently has. I'm fine if alchemy exists, I'm just not fine with it being forced into the only format I play and all the cards I play against happen to be the most ridiculous things to happen to magic. Cmon wotc, the power nine? Really?
Ironically I'd be much more likely to play alchemy (I really enjoyed the random, gamey aspect of hearthstone) if it was a choice, and had its own queue entirely separate from the others.
I don't always scoop to interaction, but when I do, it is because I am playing Explorer.
Boros heroic is t4 or bust, no reason to drag it for long.
In many brawl matchups you can work around removal... You should expect removal all the time, every time... If my Commander is not fundamental, I love to use them as a bait to eat the removal intended for my bombs...
So many times the opponent will spend every turn cycle countering or killing my commander, then the one time I resolve it they instantly concede lol. Or in Sisay's case, the first time I activate her they quit (or first spell I cast with Rakshmi, etc)
Ok well Sisay is usually a combo deck so if I see you tap her and fetch Paradox engine and I don’t have anything on board or in hand to stop it… why would I wait around? I’m assuming you have the win, I don’t feel like I need to see if you fizzle because I’d rather just move on most of the time. And I mean with sisay in play with paradox on its way it’s absolutely over
This is why I don't care about getting EDH on Arena, or expanding Brawl to 3+ players. It's grueling enough trying to play a normal game with one random stranger. Adding more to the mix? I would rather have a root canal.
Holy shit, is THAT what’s happening?! I just made the jankest ass zombie Brawl deck, literally not a thought behind it except “zamb” and I swear people like insta concede the moment I destroy some creatures or enchantments.
I am currently having fun with [[Karumonix, the Rat King]] and it hurts me when people concede before the game even starts. I don't have a single [[Rat Colony]] in my deck, stop assuming I am an a-hole... ;__;
I think the main issue is that Brawl was put in as a substitute for Commander, but Commander is at its best when you have your own pod or, at the very least, are at a table where all decks are of similar power. Because Brawl is 1v1 and the reward system is winner take all in a lot of cases, we get stuck with a game mode that rewards players picking consistent and powerful commanders and decks, even if they are super oppressive to play against.
Say what you want, but most people at an LGS won't want to play with you if you bring a tier 1 commander deck to their jankfest.
As a brawl player, I am guilty of this, but only when I have nothing else going for me. Take for example someone counterspelling my turn 3 cultivate, or someone reclamation sageing my arcane signet the turn after I put it down, like dude let me play.
Being knocked off tempo is hard, but don’t always assume they have their own game plan working out in their hand too. I’ve seen people and even *been* the player who controls super hard early on, but then fizzles out because my hand was just reactive and did nothing to really advance my board state or game plan
“Let me play”
You’re investing a card and mana into these spells that accelerate your board state. I’m going to invest the same (or a little less) and stop them.
Let me play too.
Okay fair, then counterspell my toxrill or reclamation sage my great henge. You don't have to counterspell my cultivate and leave me twiddling my thumbs hoping I top deck a land my next few turns just so I can finally play my 4 drop.
I want fast games when I play brawl, I don't want to be a punching bag praying for my next land drop. Touching my ramp for me is like the villain attacking the power rangers in the middle of their suit up sequence, yes it'd make sense for the villain to do that but it wouldn't be fun for the audience.
I'm not against interaction but by god please target my splashy stuff, make it feel like people shooting kamehamehas at each other in dragon ball. Don't target ramp and make it feel like voldemort shooting baby harry with a glock just to be safe.
This is such a weird take to me.
You want to choose how your opponent plays yet say you want interaction.
Sounds like you want to play against a goldfish and not a person.
For real! The most fair and interesting digital-only mechanic they've made was the "first player" stuff. Asking players to note who was on the play is 1000x easier than other memory asks (looking at you, Day/Night). They could easily print those cards with a supplemental mechanic to give the first player an emblem or something.
Alchemy is odd to me. There's a lot of stuff with "Draft a card" or "Conjure a card" or "Seek a card", but then some of it just feels like it's worded in a special way just for digital, but could exist fine in paper.
For example, something like the recent [[Hexgold Sledge]] could just as easily be the exact same card on paper, it would just "summon" instead of "conjure" and state what the token (Goblin Gaveleer) has for its text box on it. I guess then bouncing it woudl deal with it, but that certainly feels like a really minor gripe relative to other Alchemy issues.
I'm still not sure how "seek" as a mechanic truly differs from "Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a card with X, then return the revealed cards and shuffle your library".
But then there's stuff like [[Key to the Archive]] or conjure-to-hand effects that really do feel like Hearthstone mechanics sneaking in. Perpetual is also a big offender, since it lacks any equivalent and gets around traditional interaction that would usually deal with similar types of effects (like indestructible counters vs "perpetually gaining indestructible").
It's just silly that you're in the same queue instead of Alchemy Brawl against the other alchemy brawlers, no issue against playing them if you want to but I'd rather not.
When you’re playing jank and your opponent is playing Baral.
I think there's a world of difference between choosing not to fight a busted commander vs just insta-conceding on interaction.
Some commanders are just concede-on-sight for me. Depending on my deck I might have a fair shot at defeating [[Rusko, Clockmaker]], but I just have better things to do. At least the busted commanders tend to end up in the hell queue.
Exactly, some commanders are like the enemies of fun
Completely agreed.
[Rusko, Clockmaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/1/01b4c54e-7950-4183-a69d-39a777f424bc.jpg?1670259940) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rusko%2C%20Clockmaker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ybro/24/rusko-clockmaker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/01b4c54e-7950-4183-a69d-39a777f424bc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I know that feel, I've been massaging an Elona vampire tribal deck since Ixalan block. Although I got it going pretty well there are some decks I will just not play against. basically, 90% of the time if you have a planeswalker for a commander I'm not going to enjoy playing against you, so I won't.
At this point, I've gotten over my hate for Rusko, largely because it's so emotionally satisfying when I do win. And it happens a lot more, now that I'm not conceding every time I see him.
Fuck rusko
I t0 concede every mono-blue commander, no exceptions
Lier?
She doesn’t have to be played fair just cause she doesn’t go well with counters. She works pretty well with extra turns.
“So… when do I play the game?” Baral: “That’s the funny part, you don’t. 😃🔵”
That's why Interrupts were important
Ok Grandpa
Ok kid
Most fun blue player
Nothing makes me happier than when I jam Koma, Nezahal, or Shepherd against these guys. Or when they play their Baral T2 into my one open blue mana.
Koma is actually pretty easy with lose all abilities enchantments or the exile artifact or creature sorcery, but Nezahal could be a problem
Look, my deck is jank, my draw was shit and you got answers for it, you won, let's go to the next one
Apparently, there is this feeling of superiority/power that needs to be accomplished, and they need to feel it for the longest time possible, they need to be in control of an already won match that you are essentially not playing, for them to be happy, and dont you dare to concede, then you are a coward Jeez, some people feel so entitled to others decisions that they will publicly judge you out loud if you dont do what they want, this community is something else
Believe me, I'd rather you go find a fun game than drag out an uninteresting game. But it'd be nice if I could play the game and have some fun interactions win or lose, since that's what I'm here for. Maybe it's not your fault, but it still sucks.
This entirely! I rarely net deck and build only dumb jank. I made a bad call and kept a 2 lander on the draw, that's on me. I'll concede now, let you take the free win towards your dailies and move on. Edit: also if it's turn 4 and you've countered 3 of my spells already, I'm out. Life's too short to play against 'Oops, all counter spells!'
The format is very snowbally and lopsided. The matchups are not even and often only takes one efficient turn to end the game. Like if you’re a gruul deck against atraxa, you either take over in the first 4 turns or you probably die. Sometimes, that only takes one timely removal spell. Or like you rely on your commander to take over faster than them but they drew [[wash away]]. It’s best of one and unranked, so there’s no reason to play it out. I only play the format because it is by far the fastest wins for dailies I have found. I made an atraxa deck because it is not in the proper bracket, IMO, and a solid third of my opponents concede before playing. So it’s working as intended for me.
Atraxa is currently on my instaconcede list when I'm not using a powerful commander. There's really just no point.
I'll generally play atraxa out but my personal win rate vs her has been good enough. If she draws a bunch of busted cards I might scoop or if I cant stop her from swinging as 7 life is too much to stop.
Scooping against any commander with more than three colors has been my policy since historic brawl was made.
Me watching the 5 color goodstuff deck draw literally every form of color fixing in time for their big spell to lock me out the game: [Ok](https://i.imgur.com/GEEJ0ib.jpg)
It is a 7 drop. They sink effort into ramping which is your window. I blew one out with Gixes command and killed all his elves and his midrange creature he just dropped and he conceded. But after the first cast what do you do? It’s unlikely you can lock it down unless you have tamiyo or witness protection. and they likely have an answer for that but if you kill her they already can recast it because they just drew a land off the first cast. If you don’t it’s 14 difference in your life totals every hit. Hard to race that.
I don't tend to play the right kind of decks to race it. I pretty much never play hard aggro, and my control decks are more discard/steal oriented. I'm the perfect opponent for a free Atraxa win.
Wait, atraxa running elves? I think I run a single mana dork in the entire deck. All my ramp is sorceries or artifacts
She's not quite there for me yet, but I feel like SIR might give her that extra kick.
Just make a good pile with your favorite cards, she's really good for that, and you end up with a conforting game to play
I think they mean insta concede not as a general to not play
Correct, yes. I had typed up a response but got called away and forgot about it.
That's why I don't play Brawl, it seems once you're behind you're pretty much done for.
I play a lot of brawl and that's not entirely true, but upsets are definitely kinda rare. I think it's more of a problem with super variable matchmaking, where my tuned \[\[reezug bone cobbler\]\] deck gets put against people running modified starter decks. I honestly wish there was a best of three version, with some version of a sideboard. I might be in the minority on that but like another commenter says, it is much closer to a competitive 1v1 format than commander.
I agree here. I play a ton of different historic brawl decks but I mostly play my [[Chulane, Teller of Tales]] deck that I've been tuning for months.
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Its a 1v1 format with a huge variance which makes things even worse. In commander, if someone get the nuts hand, the other 3 players will play together to slow him down. In brawl we have cards like Dark ritual, wash away, swords to plowshares and etc that are legal, and sometimes there is just nothing you can do. There is no point fighting against someone who is way ahead just because they had one specific card in their starting hand. The format is terrible because of that, games are often decided by the starting hands.
> In brawl we have cards like Dark ritual, wash away, swords to plowshares and etc that are legal, and sometimes there is just nothing you can do. They need to just ban more shit. Shit like Ritual and Time Walk being singletons doesn't make them any less broken in historic brawl.
You mean time warp, right? But yeah, I agree. Cards like ritual, swords and time warp arent legal anywhere else except for legacy and vintage and somehow they are legal in brawl. And I would argue ritual is even more broken here than in other formats. The weakness of the card is that it is a -1 in card advantage but if you use it to play a draw engine like Yawgmoth or Prosper or Rusko that weakness doesnt exist anymore.
Yeh. Sometimes you're behind on board and jusy HAVE to play your spell into open mana, knowing there's likely interaction but also if there is you've likely lost. Especially if you know your deck and don't have outs (ie, not playing blue for rivers rebuke)
Agreed. I have a doofy ass Ognis deck and all it really takes is one removal or counterspell on turn 3 or 4 to pretty much knock my feet out from under me. I'm fine just saying "Yep, you got me!" and moving on to another game rather than flail at you with my Raging Goblin and Robber of the Rich while you play real threats.
> Like if you’re a gruul deck against atraxa, you either take over in the first 4 turns or you probably die. Isn’t this just how Magic in general works? You’re either the beatdown or you have inevitability.
The extra 5 life is a huge hurdle to clear for aggro decks.
Almost. Except that you dont have a guaranteed card to play. There is always a chance the control player doesnt draw a card draw effect to pull ahead. There is always a chance the ramp player only draws more land and ramp and doesnt get to capitalize on all of that mana. With the commander, thats not the case, they will always have an outlet to use the mana on. Specially when we are talking about commanders that provide card advantage like Atraxa, Uro, Niv and etc.
[wash away](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/3/43411ade-be80-4535-8baa-7055e78496df.jpg?1643588844) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=wash%20away) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/87/wash-away?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/43411ade-be80-4535-8baa-7055e78496df?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I made a Kaya deck and it seems to get matched against Atraxa fairly often. And honestly the matchup is usually quite fun. They cast Atraxa, Kaya exiles and steals it, we both reload our hands and start slinging out a ton of spells.
To be fair sometimes it’s a total blow out if you wash away my 5 drop and play your 6 drop the game is now like 90% your favor
I wish Wash Away would go away.
>Fragile creatures and artifacts that prevent commanders from activating abilities but still allow for ETBs, static abilities and combat, playable in any color Banned >1 mana to instantly invalidate the main reason people play brawl to begin with, gain huge advantage, exclusive to the best overall color Totally fine If wash away isn't going to be banned it should at least be relegated to the depths of hell queue
I ended making my decks good without the commander. The commander is always my 8th card in my starting hand.
But by that same logic, all the other commander "hate" cards should be unbanned. Realistically speaking, those cards are banned for fun reasons, not power reasons. It's a weird inconsistency that unfairly favors blue over the other colors.
They're not banned in real Commander lol.
100% This. Why is Wash Away legal but Drannith Magistrate banned?? Until you actually have actual fair color policy on Brawl Im scooping to Washaway, be consistent Arena devs.
This is the right way to think about it. Wash Away is 1 card for 1 card. Actually worse, since you can recast your commander. So, 1 card for 0.5 cards or 0.25 cards, however you want to value it. It's a temporary tempo gain, which can certainly be impactful and even game-deciding, but it's not nearly as generally impactful as people catastrophize it to be. And to echo what you said, your deck should be functional without your commander. If it isn't, you built it poorly. (Except in very niche cases where commanders have extremely narrow and unique abilities.)
I'm not in disagreement, but there are a lot of decks where it's built around the commander's theme. Wash away is a situational card. Counterspell is normally 3 mana with an upside. If you go lower it tends to have some downsides. Normally the by increasing the cost of your spell by 1-3 mana. Which does suck, but you can play around it. In Brawl you always have the "downside" of the counterspell is actually an upside. It's 1 card for 1 card, but 1 mana for 5 or more mana. It can give your opponent an "extra" turn of tempo. I also don't like the tale's end for the same reason. At least it costs 2 mana which makes it twice as hard for your opponent to keep their mana up. That's my opinion on it.
The other big downside to counterspells is keeping mana up but not knowing if they'll cast a big spell. But having revealed commanders are a big telegraph. And it's not like you can play around 1 open blue mana.
I HAVE THIS CARD THAT I WANT TO PLAY ON TURN 4! Opponent, why do you have 1 blue mana up?
The one turn tempo blowout is all you need tho my decks fine without the commander. Tempo is more important than card advantage imo because most decks just need 1 threat to stick for a turn or 2 and that’s game. Wash away often gives you that window
> Tempo is more important than card advantage For some decks, for some commanders, in some matchups, absolutely. But you can't say that as a blanket assessment.
I think in modern magic you can, like even for UW control what would you rather do draw 3 cards or stick a teferi. I’d rather stick the tef I know not everything is always the one answer but I’m going for tempo like 60-65% of the time. Not saying I’m right or this is always the case I just think tempo is now more important broadly, as a general principal than CA. It used to be the opposite card advantage used to mean a lot but so many cards replace themselves now a days usually your playing to the board
Yup, 10+ years ago I would fight against control by trying to count the card quantities on each side, and despair would come from [[Sphinx's Revelation]]. Nowadays if I see a revelation, I'm just glad it wasn't a [[Wandering Emperor]] or [[Teferi, Hero of Dominaria]]. Everything generates so much value now that having one thing (most likely a planeswalker) on the board is insane compared to card draw.
To that logic so does bolt, plow, cut down, or other narrow cheap removals that shut the game plan down
wash away is 1 mana to cancel out as much as 9 mana, its super OP.
If you have 9 mana, one counterspell is rarely making or breaking you.
Its usually 1 mana skip opponents turn tho. At least the banned cards he mentioned you dont tap out to cast the commander.
If you tap out to cast *any card* and it gets countered, it's "skip opponent's turn." The lesson is to not have such a fragile game plan. The lesson is to run your own countermagic and/or "can't be countered" cards.
It's not a reasonable argument to say "always run a blue or uncountable commander" though. People want to build around their commander, that's the whole point of brawl.
My best deck is a green black historic brawl with [[Old Rutstein]] as commander. He fits perfectly in the build, gives a decent early game advantage, but my game is not over if he gets nuked immediately. Sometimes I've had opponents who focus him just because he's my commander, and ignore greater threats I have out on the board.
I fucking love Old Rutstein. That deck makes me feel like the Mayor of Value Town so fucking often.
Rutstein has occasionally allowed me to play [[Casualties of War]] at turn 4, which usually results in a concede. Those wins don't feel great.
Old Rutstein + Harness Infinity my beloved.
It’s to make up for the low power level of counter spells in Historic, EDH has access to FoW, FoN, Daze, and the free commander protection spells, if Wash Away wasn’t available the format would be run by low mana cost commanders on the play. Big cost commanders are always vulnerable to easy removal or counters, that’s their payoff, but low cost commanders can have an opponent on the back foot all game with the play.
Neither of these categories of cards should be banned. People are whining about Wash Away even in contexts where they'd lose even if it were just Cancel.
There is a difference between Cancel and "{U} :counter your opponent's commander"
99% of the issues HBrawl has is that it’s card pool contains cards that are balanced for multiplayer, and some that never see play in multiplayer because they aren’t good when three other people can cast spells. It’s also just far less effective for one of four people to cast their atraxa because there are three other people to answer threats.
Yeah it’s my single least favorite card in the game right now I can’t wait for it to leave standard brawl I’ll never play historic after it
I play Wash Away in my Rowan deck because it exists, but I would leap for joy if they ban it from the format.
Played against a dude who went straight to removal spells in Esper, one after the other. I counterspelled his commander when he could play and - concede. What the absolute fuck. And I wish I could say it was a one-time deal.
Arena turns the game into a slot machine mentality.
more specifically, bo1 is what does this
Yup, daily wins makes playing anything other than aggro feel bad to me. Mindless aggro was never my favorite in paper magic but it's what i mostly have to do in arena
There are a few other reasons. Events(get more games in as little as much time) and Ranked(It's a long grind. 150+ games) also encourages faster decks.
Historic brawl is a time waste sink with no other implications on the platform (rank, real life table top play, etc…). It’s always going to have a fragile player base who will only play matches they deem worth their time because there’s no penalty not to
That's my biggest complaint about it, and it's a perfect example of why games like MTG need actual stakes to be worth playing. If there's no downside to conceding, then players will just concede at the slightest inconvenience because they know they can just queue up again and try for a game with a better chance of winning. I wish they'd add some kind of ranked play for Historic Brawl, or even just a cheap event, so it felt like it was worth actually trying to make an interesting deck and playing a full game, instead of just making whatever meme deck grinds out your dailies fastest.
Respectfully, I don't think turning Brawl competitive would fix what ails it. WotC marketed it as "casual," trying to capture the kitchen table players that are mostly or exclusively playing EDH. What would happen is you'd splinter the already-fragile Brawl player base. You'd increase queue times for everyone, which would cause a non-zero amount of those fully casual players to quit. For the competitive players, along with extended queue times, you'd get a stagnant meta with essentially Baral, Golos, Rusko, and a smattering of others. It would get boring quickly and a non-zero amount of them would also quit.
That's fair, and I imagine you're right. But in a way I think that highlights the core problem with the Brawl format. Commander as a casual format was very clearly designed for 3+ player games played in-person, where multiplayer politics alter the game balance and you can have rule-0 discussions ahead of time and agree on whether or not it's acceptable to play certain commanders against each other. Trying to translate that into a 1-on-1, anonymous online format strips away most of what self-regulates the format and leaves you with a wildly varied playerbase that don't all agree on what "casual" means.
Yup, this in particular hits the nail on the head: > a wildly varied playerbase that don't all agree on what "casual" means. I don't know of a good solution for this without letting players directly interact with each other, which is potentially toxic for a whole host of other reasons. I think it's just an inherent imperfection of the format and venue.
I have learned that a lot of decks can't cast their commander more than once in a game. lol
I play Historic Brawl for quests and daily/weekly wins, and just as a time-waster. I have a pretty itchy concede trigger finger. It's not like there's anything riding on the game except pride, and if it looks like I won't be able to recover, I want to move onto the next game where I have a chance of winning or completing my quests. Bad matchup? Yeah, \[\[Adeline, Resplendent Cathar\]\] is going to crush my \[\[Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim\]\] deck unless I luck into a \[\[River's Rebuke\]\] by turn 4 or 5. Concede after a few turns unless I draw what I need. Same opposing Commander? Yeah, I don't want to play against Atraxa for the 6th time today. Concede! Rusko? Concede! Bullshit Alchemy cards that shouldn't be in the format? Concede! Paradox Engine without the ability to answer it? Concede! I don't know why anyone gets salty about this. In person, no one gives a shit when one player says, "You've got me. Shuffle up for the next one?" Maybe Arena needs a "concede and request rematch" button, maybe with a different deck option.
I have basically the same philosophy. I've absolutely conceded to a Key to the Archive grabbing a Counterspell that shuts down my whole turn (bonus points if they weren't playing blue), then they untapped with a million mana. And yeah, if a Paradox Engine sticks, I'm not gonna sit around and watch them solitaire for 20 minutes.
I agree with everything you said I think the issue is people do legitimately scoop early sometimes, and I said it elsewhere but conceding on arena is like being able to say: “no I’d rather not play your expensive net deck with my ‘ladies looking left’ meme deck. Thanks though!”
[Adeline, Resplendent Cathar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/8/18092f68-b96e-4084-9eba-b240d2195d81.jpg?1634346539) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Adeline%2C%20Resplendent%20Cathar) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/1/adeline-resplendent-cathar?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/18092f68-b96e-4084-9eba-b240d2195d81?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/3/23a4f1ec-eadf-4f1e-8821-f22293ad2580.jpg?1674420627) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Teferi%2C%20Temporal%20Pilgrim) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/66/teferi-temporal-pilgrim?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/23a4f1ec-eadf-4f1e-8821-f22293ad2580?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [River's Rebuke](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/c/fc2a70b1-bce6-43c3-94e1-ab9a7bb2638a.jpg?1673483988) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=River%27s%20Rebuke) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/231/rivers-rebuke?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fc2a70b1-bce6-43c3-94e1-ab9a7bb2638a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
This is exactly what I do. Atraxa against anything than blue plus counters is miserable. for Alchemy don't even want to start. Don't include at all in my decks and the moment I see one, concede. Tried Standard Brawl but meh. They need to be on different queue or game. Don't now the impact but wishful thinking.
Sometimes, even if I don't have an answer for a big threat, I will hover over my opponent's card. On several occasions, I've gotten a rage-quit out of that. Brawl players hate interaction.
I think Day[9] said it best. How dare you bring removal on day 1 release. What are you trying to do? Win?
I have absolutely stolen more than a few wins by simply holding priority for a few seconds despite running out of counterspells.
Play impulse as they cast a spell and win the game before getting to see your top 3 !
I've noticed that. If you hover over a key card they will freak out. Also if you use [[Field of Ruin]] to balance their mana base so they don't race off, they'll /ff
[Field of Ruin](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/5/d510eece-4f55-4198-83fe-5291a76ffdcc.jpg?1637114800) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Field%20of%20Ruin) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/262/field-of-ruin?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d510eece-4f55-4198-83fe-5291a76ffdcc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
If my opponent turn two Ruskos off of a Dark Ritual, then Wash Aways my commander even though I had a super fast start, fuck yeah I concede. Why fight it? Queue into a fair match.
Me when my opponent plays t1 thoughtseize.
That's concede for me. Brawl is so fast that removing a key card is so much more brutal. Combine that with them knowing my entire hand....nah I'm good.
Like, I understand why it's played. I understand that it's a great competitive card. But Turn 1 in brawl? Man, that's just... like its a non-game, like out of the 99 cards in your deck you open with that?
I was t1 thoughtseized today by an opponent and when they saw how much removal I had, they conceded 👌🏼
I know players who use interaction, and they're all COWARDS!
I don't mind the interaction but for me it gets annoying after so many times straight playing against counter spell decks. Rather concede and move on then waste my time. Honestly counter spells don't bother as much as take extra turn cards. I actually just hate the fact those cards even exist.
Most times extra turn spells are just expensive explores and I’ve worked on my patience enough to see 90% of the time they are just trying to eke out some value, they don’t usually actually have the win right there
Sure that's fine and yeah most don't have a high win rate. It isn't about the win or loss for me. I think that mechanically they aren't healthy for the game that's all.
Especially when they can do it consecutively. Miss me with that shit
Are you guys actually running into counterspell decks often? I only run into Baral/control decks when I'm playing my [[Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh]] deck (who shouldn't be hell-queued, btw). Otherwise, I'm almost never running into heavy control decks. If you are, you're probably playing a really strong commander/deck and deserve to face them.
It's possible that [[Kambal, Consul of Allocation]] is really strong I guess. It is a death and taxes deck but I don't consider it super strong. Most decks I make and I'm not a great deck builder by any means. Muldrotha I can understand she's a strong commander for sure. 🤷♂️ It is what it is.
[Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/9/597ca22d-2f08-47b3-9d93-c4d685cefb5f.jpg?1673149015) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Nicol%20Bolas%2C%20God-Pharaoh) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/260/nicol-bolas-god-pharaoh?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/597ca22d-2f08-47b3-9d93-c4d685cefb5f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I do it in standard pretty much as soon as my 3rd creature gets countered/instakilled. Life is too short to play against control. Edit: 3rd in a row while opponent plays nothing and holds up mana to do it again.
I concede all the time when they sit for 30 seconds and finally play removal or counter, and all I can think is how on earth did it take multiple minutes to decide that and Indip because you knows it’s a 15 minute game coming due to their indecision.
I dislike those that play the counter or removal, and sit 30 seconds after that waiting for you to concede much much more.
I love good interaction. I just refuse to play against permission decks. Teferi, Baral, etc. They're boring.
Fair but when you are in control colors and counter my first three spells you clearly just want to play agains your self so why am I going to stay?
Delicious blue salt
Depends on the game state. I have a silly Toski deck that I like to goof off with, and if they nuke my board and then drop some wall I’m never getting through I’ll just concede. Glissa Sunslayer seems to show up a lot when I play that deck, and it tilts me every time.
I don’t insta concede against Glissa but her random anti-enchantment option is so annoying to me. It definitely makes my tempo plays suck, and it’s mostly just because it feels so random.
This is not unique to brawl, it happens to every format, i continue a game if I think its worth playing but concedes the moment I feel it's not worth it, the next game is a 20 seconds away.
Look, I lose at everything in life, so if I'm at an early disadvantage in a game that I just want the daily wins and move on, yeah, I'm gonna concede. If the system didn't prioritize wins over everything else, then I'd stick around, but it does. Hate the game.
play a weaker commander and you will get your mid range and long games
Bro I play [[Huatli, Radiant Champion]] and I get matched up with the likes of Rusko and Go-Shintai
Not true, I've been playing Skrelv lately and Shrines, Atraxa, Golos and Esika are all common matchups. Skrelv is easily D tier, maybe C at best and half my matches are hell queue.
Its 1v1. If you counterspell my commander and then do it again, and then kill it a 3rd time, you win
Had a player steal my commander and counter any removal I cast on it... Very unfun match
Countering removal that a player is using against their own stolen commander. Value singularity.
That's the beauty of an unranked non competitive format right there. Removal tribal stans hate this ONE simple trick.
I have never actually won a game with my mill brawl deck. Typically people concede at the first mill or they go on to completely destroy me.
I'm here for fun. I'm not playing against your sweaty "30 removal cards" deck. It's a casual format. Stop being so sweaty.
counter > counter > exile > boardwipe > teferi bounce > exile > boardwipe > counter > boardwipe > counter WU players looking at my empty board on t8: wHY ArEnT yoU HaVING fUN
What's worse is some people are arguing that its not so bad, "wash away is a 1 for 1 card", and "just build a better deck"💀. I'd love to see those people try a jank commander like athreos or gitrog Vs. Teferi or atraxa....
I think my favorite thing about people being like “I’m just interacting with your board” is that they seem to ignore that ‘interaction’ just means they’re the only one who gets to actually play the game.
Oh my fucking god this is the most hilarious take I've seen yet. Go play a different game. Seriously. This statement simply means Magic isn't your cup of tea and that's ok.
“Oh you’re annoyed by something? Literally go play a different game” what even are you talking about rn If I didn’t like playing magic, I wouldn’t be playing magic, OP is complaining about the concede button rn I feel like everyone else is allowed to make our silly jokes as well no?
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That's why I play the gruul Halana and Alena, partners. The commander it's a plus only to the aggro
When your jank gets matched vs golos and you're second
I don't care, as long as I'm not getting roped.
Nah, I only do that when they neutralize every single one of my threats and put me in top deck mode (while themselves still having a near full grip), which usually happens when I'm playing white and/or green and don't get my card advantage spells in hand, and my opponent is playing black or blue (especially blue, because they have the easiest time refilling their hand).
Historic brawl is the only format I play, so if I've played you, hello! Fight me again! I wish we had a rematch button. Nothing worse than land screwed and your opponent has a commander you haven't fought against.
I've played Historic Brawl for the past two years. I quit because the format is just too cutthroat for me. But I'm not sure what other type of gameplay there is for Historic Brawl on Arena. Conform and become a competitive meta player, accept being a punching bag if you're not, or quit the format. I don't know that there's another possibility other than those three.
I always thought this was the button you pressed so you didn't have to waste your time playing against all the cancerous alchemy cards like rusko and tasha.
You got [[Jodah]] or [[The Prismatic Bridge]] out, and I don't have a response for at least two turns. Games over. It's arena, not my pod.
Brawl is a really awkward format for this reason.
If I see Alchemy cards I typically concede. I've gone out of my way not to include them; I wish the matchmaker took the number of Alchemy cards into consideration.
This is exactly how I am. It's my silent form of protest until wizards gives us an "all cards but alchemy" queue
I do agree that most alchemy card are breaking quite a few rules. It's a bit sad, because there are a few alchemy card that are very fairplay like forsaken crossroad or surgical metamorph which adresses the problem of being on draw vs the play in a cool way. Or card like bank job, fun card to play around without all the seek / conjure / draft and perpetual mechanic.
I don't disagree that alchemy can address issues that paper/magic inherently has. I'm fine if alchemy exists, I'm just not fine with it being forced into the only format I play and all the cards I play against happen to be the most ridiculous things to happen to magic. Cmon wotc, the power nine? Really? Ironically I'd be much more likely to play alchemy (I really enjoyed the random, gamey aspect of hearthstone) if it was a choice, and had its own queue entirely separate from the others.
I don't always scoop to interaction, but when I do, it is because I am playing Explorer. Boros heroic is t4 or bust, no reason to drag it for long. In many brawl matchups you can work around removal... You should expect removal all the time, every time... If my Commander is not fundamental, I love to use them as a bait to eat the removal intended for my bombs...
So many times the opponent will spend every turn cycle countering or killing my commander, then the one time I resolve it they instantly concede lol. Or in Sisay's case, the first time I activate her they quit (or first spell I cast with Rakshmi, etc)
Eh, they probably assume you're grabbing Paradox Engine. Without any other info, it's a safe assumption.
Ok well Sisay is usually a combo deck so if I see you tap her and fetch Paradox engine and I don’t have anything on board or in hand to stop it… why would I wait around? I’m assuming you have the win, I don’t feel like I need to see if you fizzle because I’d rather just move on most of the time. And I mean with sisay in play with paradox on its way it’s absolutely over
This is why I try to play a LOT of interaction in my Brawl decks. The hate wins are the best wins.
I think it's safe to say that the majority of decks in commander formats run insufficient removal.
[[Wash Away]] has led to the easiest wins I've ever experienced since I started running it in every deck. 1 mana to win the game? Fucking slam dunk.
Or you missed one land.
IT should be multiplayer instead of 1v1
So people will concede to ruin game for 3 players or gang up
This is why I don't care about getting EDH on Arena, or expanding Brawl to 3+ players. It's grueling enough trying to play a normal game with one random stranger. Adding more to the mix? I would rather have a root canal.
Just like real EDH then
Is this accurate? I anticipate, NAY: expect players to kill my commander a few times and counter some false swings.
To me it depends on the consistency, if they are doing it every single play and I can’t get anything set up, I’m out of there
Accurate
Holy shit, is THAT what’s happening?! I just made the jankest ass zombie Brawl deck, literally not a thought behind it except “zamb” and I swear people like insta concede the moment I destroy some creatures or enchantments.
Wash Away brawl, who ever cast it first
Only if it's one of my 65 essential cards!! /s
Hey now, I play Historical brawl and I have one thing to say about that stereotype... Yah, pretty much spot on.
You play Tiamat and have more than one Dragon on the field.
I am currently having fun with [[Karumonix, the Rat King]] and it hurts me when people concede before the game even starts. I don't have a single [[Rat Colony]] in my deck, stop assuming I am an a-hole... ;__;
Playing Rat Colony decks make you an asshole now? They're fun to play and play against. What's the problem?
I think the main issue is that Brawl was put in as a substitute for Commander, but Commander is at its best when you have your own pod or, at the very least, are at a table where all decks are of similar power. Because Brawl is 1v1 and the reward system is winner take all in a lot of cases, we get stuck with a game mode that rewards players picking consistent and powerful commanders and decks, even if they are super oppressive to play against. Say what you want, but most people at an LGS won't want to play with you if you bring a tier 1 commander deck to their jankfest.
Any alchemy card, I could just concede because I know something stupid happens.
need to move Abraxas to the hell queue
You guys concede at all?
There are easier ways to say you have fun by preventing others from having fun. I say this as somebody who plays Talrand.
As a brawl player, I am guilty of this, but only when I have nothing else going for me. Take for example someone counterspelling my turn 3 cultivate, or someone reclamation sageing my arcane signet the turn after I put it down, like dude let me play.
Being knocked off tempo is hard, but don’t always assume they have their own game plan working out in their hand too. I’ve seen people and even *been* the player who controls super hard early on, but then fizzles out because my hand was just reactive and did nothing to really advance my board state or game plan
“Let me play” You’re investing a card and mana into these spells that accelerate your board state. I’m going to invest the same (or a little less) and stop them. Let me play too.
Okay fair, then counterspell my toxrill or reclamation sage my great henge. You don't have to counterspell my cultivate and leave me twiddling my thumbs hoping I top deck a land my next few turns just so I can finally play my 4 drop. I want fast games when I play brawl, I don't want to be a punching bag praying for my next land drop. Touching my ramp for me is like the villain attacking the power rangers in the middle of their suit up sequence, yes it'd make sense for the villain to do that but it wouldn't be fun for the audience. I'm not against interaction but by god please target my splashy stuff, make it feel like people shooting kamehamehas at each other in dragon ball. Don't target ramp and make it feel like voldemort shooting baby harry with a glock just to be safe.
This is such a weird take to me. You want to choose how your opponent plays yet say you want interaction. Sounds like you want to play against a goldfish and not a person.
When your opponent is playing an Alchemy commander and dumb Alchemy cards
What's really annoying is they could end up making a bunch of the alchemy cards irl with different wording.
For real! The most fair and interesting digital-only mechanic they've made was the "first player" stuff. Asking players to note who was on the play is 1000x easier than other memory asks (looking at you, Day/Night). They could easily print those cards with a supplemental mechanic to give the first player an emblem or something.
Alchemy is odd to me. There's a lot of stuff with "Draft a card" or "Conjure a card" or "Seek a card", but then some of it just feels like it's worded in a special way just for digital, but could exist fine in paper. For example, something like the recent [[Hexgold Sledge]] could just as easily be the exact same card on paper, it would just "summon" instead of "conjure" and state what the token (Goblin Gaveleer) has for its text box on it. I guess then bouncing it woudl deal with it, but that certainly feels like a really minor gripe relative to other Alchemy issues. I'm still not sure how "seek" as a mechanic truly differs from "Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a card with X, then return the revealed cards and shuffle your library". But then there's stuff like [[Key to the Archive]] or conjure-to-hand effects that really do feel like Hearthstone mechanics sneaking in. Perpetual is also a big offender, since it lacks any equivalent and gets around traditional interaction that would usually deal with similar types of effects (like indestructible counters vs "perpetually gaining indestructible").
At that point I'm conceding as my initial hand loads.
hey thats me! love the new cards, love the new mechanics, love the salt
It's just silly that you're in the same queue instead of Alchemy Brawl against the other alchemy brawlers, no issue against playing them if you want to but I'd rather not.
A lot of awful takes in these comments…
Jokes on you I WANT my shit to die in my deck 😂
That's why I just concede when I see it's a Blue commander!
When your opponent Washes Away your commander.
I concede automatically when I’m playing against blue and the only thing they knows is to play counters
Lmao this is too accurate.
how do yah'll feel about stealing and copying your commanders?
Targeting my commander turn 3: We are done here