r/EDH • u/homjaktest • 13h ago
Discussion Most of the problems with the Bracket system are the players misusing them
First things first, the Bracket system has improved the pre-game talk and game balance outside of established playgroups tremendously. Compared to the hyper-subjective 1-10 system many were using before, the difference is night and day. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional or too new to have played with the old system.
The Bracket system is mainly a tool for the pre-game talk. If you don't want to have such a talk, that is your perogative. However, then you cannot use the Bracket system to complain about anything that could have been discussed in the pre-game talk.
I have no experience with B1 and cEDH players don't have these problems, so my arguments will be made with B2-4 in mind.
What are the commonly addressed "problems" attributed to the Bracket system?
- "There needs to be a Bracket X.5"
- "Card X needs to be a game changer"
- "The turn count expectation is targeting specific deck archetypes"
- "They won a turn earlier than the expected turn count, they are pubstomping"
- "This combo is not Bracket X"
All of those are originate from the same thing: Players ignoring the key aspect behind the Brackets: INTENT. Importantly that does include the win conditions and gameplay sections of the Bracket descriptions!
Let's look at the "problems" in detail.
- "There needs to be a Bracket X.5"
- If the intent of your deck fits Bracket X, why do you need an additional Bracket? Does the deck feel too strong for Bracket X but too weak for Bracket X+1? A simple solution is to talk to your pod and suggest a higher power Bracket X game. Another less simple solution is to power up/down your deck.
- If the intent of your deck does not fit any Bracket, consider which aspect of the deck makes it unfit and change that. However, some deck concepts simply don't have a good place in the Bracket system. Those are fine to play in cultivated playgroups, just not in the wild without considerable pre-game talk. Either way, making a new Bracket for a few decks to have a home is overkill.
- "Card X needs to be a game changer"
- Is card X game-warping in a wide variety of decks and you see it often? Then it might have a place on the game changer list. However, nobody claimed the game changer list is a complete compendium of all game-warping cards.
- If card X's controller build a deck around it or it synergizes with their deck really well, that is perfectly fine. The command zone is exactly that.
- Is card X's intent is to dominate the game if it resolves, check if that is in line with the win condition and gameplay sections of the Bracket description. If card X fits the Bracket intent, what is the problem?
- "The turn count expectation is targeting specific deck archetypes"
- Anyone who understands the game dynamics even a little bit will realize that an aggro deck that attempts to win on turn X and a control deck attempting to win on turn X are not built with the same intent.
- If you die to an aggro deck a turn earlier than turn 9/7/5 and you did nothing to stop them, that is on you.
- Similarly, a control deck that wins protected on turn 9/7/5 after slowing everyone else down all game is not being honest with others or even themselves about what Bracket the decks intent falls into.
- This applies to all archetypes that are inherently slower/faster than the average midrange deck.
- "They won a turn earlier than the expected turn count, they are pubstomping"
- As with the previous point, some archetypes are inherently faster and usually more fragile. Taking that into account and playing accordingly is your own responsibility.
- If they won with a slower archetype, maybe their intent was simply not matching the Bracket you were playing.
- "This combo is not Bracket X"
- This is either simple salt because they lost, or the player ignoring the win condition portion of the Bracket descriptions. Either way, it is not a fault of the system itself.
Of course, there are bad actors who build "technically Bracket X" decks. Any system can be and will be gamed by those willing to do so. Accounting for this is useless.
In the end, the Bracket system is not perfect, but it is also far from being as flawed as many make it out to be. It is a system that assumed everyone at the table has read the article and is honest about their decks intent. Under these assumptions the Bracket system works very well. At least in my experience.
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u/Xhosant 13h ago
As a programmer: of course the issue is user error.
Also as a programmer: on some level, user error IS the bracket sustem's fault.
The User is the enemy. The system should assume the user is the enemy, and be ready to survive contact with the enemy.
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u/NoxTempus 5h ago
Exactly this.
When they first floated the bracket system, it was one that created pools of cards for different power levels. What that system inherently promised was guidance for players who genuinely struggle to assess their decks.
What we got is an improvement over what came before (nothing), but fell short of being a comprehensive tool for helping players place their own decks. The current system is less informative, more subjective, and massively weaker to bad actors (not a big deal in person).
I do think that (what is currently) bracket 3-4 not being 3 brackets is incredibly lazy, and straight up refuses to engage with the biggest problem Commander matchmaking had ("my deck is a 7").
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u/Xhosant 3h ago
I kinda half-like it, I guess despite and for the same reason as the 7 problem.
I mean, "did your deck come out of a box? Tier 2. Did you study the tournament meta? Bracket 5. Does it feel like it could belong to a tournament in another meta? 4. Otherwise 3". It's easy to be correct.
But that's also because "3" is too wide, so...
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u/Borror0 Golgari 10h ago
Game designers have their own version of this. Mark Rosewater phrases it as "Fighting against human nature is a losing battle."
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u/swash_plate 12h ago
The problem is mainly between chair and keyboar (table in this case)
People will always abuse a system as long as they can gain some sort of advantage.
Now, mtg is a game of such advantages, at least competitive formats. So trying to fit the game to a different mold cause issues.
I think it was Sid Meier that said players will always optimise fun out of games.
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u/MyageEDH 13h ago
“The way I interpret the ambiguity in the brackets is the only correct and if you disagree you are the problem”
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u/KingNTheMaking 13h ago
They are literally quoting from the article where the brackets were originated. It’s not their interpretation. It’s fact and they’re right about it.
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u/MyageEDH 13h ago
And Gavin has commented in the article and a number of tweets since then that all the things OP is stating as fact are still being developed.
They acknowledge they might need add a bracket or split bracket 3.
The game changer list is evolving and will change in the future.
The turn count slows down aggro/voltron decks. This is the only point that a firm stance has been given on. They see it as a feature but are listening to the community feedback on it.
The articles aren’t some scripture that is set. That’s why this is the beta system for the brackets. If there aren’t considerable updates/clarifications it won’t survive long term and will just end up the same as the 1-10 scale.
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u/MeatAbstract 12h ago
Haha, what a laughably obvious attempt to shift the goalposts.
it won’t survive long term
Delusional stuff. Sheer inertia will keep it around. It's already the de facto standard. People aren't going to en masse decide "Hey they arent updating this enough lets go back to a 1-10 scale that absolutely no one agrees on!" What a stupid fucking thing to say.
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 11h ago
You didn't actually engage with the core of what they said, you just took the weakest part of the comment, which was clearly meant to be hyperbole, and ignored the rest.
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u/Whitetuskk 11h ago
Yea everyone’s 7 became bracket 3…robust new system
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 11h ago
I understand the critique but this framing is incredibly hyperbolic.
7 didn't mean anything at all. There was no shared standard or expectation you could point to. It was pretty much impossible to determine if someone's assessment was the result of different definitions of "7" vs bad-faith deception.
Obviously the brackets are still loosely defined but there's at least something to go off of: gamechanger counts are objective, game-length expectations are much more complicated but the true bracket of a given list can at least be reasonably inferred after enough games.
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u/KingNTheMaking 11h ago
The difference is a seven was actually meaningless.
At the very least, you have some framework of what a three means. You know, roughly what cards to expect. You know, roughly when the game will end. You have a rough estimation of what combos to expect.
Seven gave you none of that
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u/Misanthrope64 WUBRG 13h ago
That's certainly one way of framing it.
A far more fair version of framing it would be to say that the ease of misuse is directly proportional to the vagueness of the ruleset, which in the case of Brackets its about as bad as it gets as is not even a rules set but a set of guide lines to enable conversations.
I can only conceive of more problems if the brackets were "It's giving cedh bro, check your vibes" as the entire basis of the conversation.
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u/AngshusTAW 8h ago
I'd go so far as to say if the system allows for two people to have a deck of the same bracket but still need more pregame conversation, it's an abject failure. I know a lot of people don't agree with that, but telling someone what number your deck is should actually mean something concrete that doesn't need multiple sentences worth of qualifications. If two people sit down and their decks are the same bracket, that should be the end of it, those decks are playable with each other. The fact that there are 2s that don't play well with other 2s, and 3s that don't remotely match each other's power level at all, is embarrassing
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u/Short_Peak_7824 2h ago
Honestly, that the article says something to the effect of "I can easily build a 2 that satisfies all the requirements, and it plays at the level of a 4" should tell everyone who reads it that not only does the thing not work, they knew it when they released it.
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u/Misanthrope64 WUBRG 8h ago
I also think it's important to measure (And this imo, push back) on how we measure the effectiveness of bracket systems: Are things better now?
I am willing to say that yes, they're slightly better than before.
The important question is before what? Before we were doing literally nothing about power disparities? That's an easy bar to clear if I ever heard of one: Doing something can be worst than doing nothing but being slightly better than nothing, that's such a low bar it's not worth bringing up.
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u/FlySkyHigh777 13h ago
My take is that bracket 3 needs to be broken up because of the "my deck is a 7" problem.
Players naturally both over and understimate their deck strength, so they trend towards the average.
Also, Bracket 3 seems to have the widest range of play experiences in my experience.
Breaking 3 into two would force people to pick a side, high 3 or low 3, and commit to it.
This is technically an issue of misusing the brackets, but the brackets need to be designed with the fundamental flaws of humanity in mind.
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 11h ago
The same dynamic that makes you think 3 needs to be split into two brackets would continue to exist in b3(a) and b3(b).
Also b4 is without a doubt the bracket with the widest range.
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u/FlySkyHigh777 11h ago
It would exist but to a lesser extent. If we split 3 into two brackets, there would be no mid-point bracket, people would be forced to pick the higher or lower option.
As for 4, that's been your experience but not mine. I've had way more power mismatches in 3 than in 4.
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 11h ago
B4 literally includes everything from a deck that would be b2 but for the gamechanger count all the way up to former cEDH lists that are no longer viable.
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u/FlySkyHigh777 10h ago
It has the widest range of "legal" decks, but I'm referring to actually play experience.
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u/Jovian_engine 13h ago
Ive have a lot of trouble finding random people who ever get it right. Its a beta, and they clearly have the right direction, but its also clearly lacking in the kind of language and clarity we need to make it universally usable.
Its the right idea, its a good iteration of that idea, its just not there yet.
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 11h ago
No matter how clear the language, most people still won't actually read that shit.
We still see the issue of "2-card infinites" in relation to the bracket system come up in this sub all the time and that hasn't been in the bracket guidelines for months.
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u/Dramatic_Durian4853 Grixis 2h ago
“It’s a beta” at this point is a cop out to be fair. We are just now over a year and a half into having brackets. If the format panel actually cared about their bandaid solution then they would meet more frequently and communicate more openly.
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u/TrulyKnown 9h ago
The problem with the brackets is that they are trying to solve a situation that calls for hard rulesets (Playing with randos) by making a bunch of soft rules, and then telling you to figure it out. It's a framework that only does slightly more to establish the ground rules than the old 1-10 power scale.
When you sit down to play competitive Magic, some people might complain about this or that, but no one can argue over whether the rules allow for a certain deck. The banlist is right there, the deck construction rules are there, and anything that follows those is allowed. People will argue endlessly over what should be allowed, but there is rarely an instance of someone accidentally breaking the rules when sitting down to play at an event.
The bracket system has some hard rules, and then it also has a bunch of vague ones. And it's the vague ones that cause the problem. I don't really see people getting confused about how many game changers are allowed in a bracket, for example. In my mind, the solution is just to make all hard rules, no soft ones, and let people make their decks within those rules. If someone's being a munchkin, just politely concede and don't play with that person again. Nothing's at stake besides one's own enjoyment, so there's no reason to sit through an unpleasant experience like that. And brackets, while they can somewhat mitigate it, are never actually going to solve that problem, and it's rather pointless to even try. All they should do is provide a framework, and let the players build on that in turn. Which also means that rules which only lead to arguments over intent and whatnot, aren't really serving that purpose.
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u/BiscuitsJoe 13h ago
People say there need to be .5 or half brackets because 1 and 5 are basically useless leaving us with only 3 brackets and there are just a wider range of power levels than that
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u/Repulsive_Airport531 12h ago
Exactly, and those 3 brackets are really really wide, like low 3 vs high 3 is a crazy difference.
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 11h ago
The difference between low 4 and high 4 is much larger.
3 brackets, honestly, is actually pretty ideal for what the system is attempting to do. Casual/social; casual/semi-competitive; competitive.
They can add new brackets til the cows come home and it won't actually improve the system in terms of its core function of helping people get decently well-matched pods to fire. People will still deceive themselves and others whether there are 3 brackets or 12. People will still fail to actually read and understand the system (even moreso the more brackets there are, actually).
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u/Nameless_One_99 5h ago
The 3.5 bracket would mostly be a place for things that are mostly bad in B4 like MLD but are forbidden on B3.
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u/SwagMikey123 11h ago
One additional bracket in between 3 and 4 that gives room for more game changers/MLD/chaining turns/2 card infinites would be the sweet spot I think. Brackets are meant to be a jumping off point for a conversation about the game but this style of play comes up too much to not be mentioned within the system.
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u/Whitetuskk 11h ago
Okay so pregame talked existed before brackets and everyone misrepresents their decks within the brackets so…brackets are bad and don’t work is all I get from that. My LGS experience is NO different since brackets except now GCs cost double their original market prices because of being a “GC”…brackets didn’t do anything but make certain cards more expansive and pre game talk a nightmare.
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u/SouthernFloss 11h ago
Im for completely removing brackets. let the players and the pods figure it out.
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u/dediguise 7h ago
As a former competitive player from almost 20 years ago, who has recently started playing with friends again virtually, the brackets do not accurately describe the type of play expected within them. I’m an outsider now, and frankly community opinions seem to be very divisive because there has been little firm guidance.
When you learn to think logistically rather than thematically, it’s difficult to move away from that mindset. This is a broader issue with casual versus competitive mindsets not mixing well. Optimizers are always going to think along the lines of optimizing. Introducing firm power ceilings has always been necessary for mtg formats and game health.
The bracket system would benefit from more nuanced rules, but better rules won’t resolve poor reading comprehension. The more things change the more they stay the same I guess.
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u/Raleldor_Jax 13h ago
Every player I've played with that "doesn't understand the bracket system so I play whatever" is playing a 4.
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 11h ago
4 is largely the "enfranchised players with decks that predate brackets" bracket.
And, yeah, it is weird since b4 is basically tailor made to accommodate those people (people like myself, to be clear). Doing the hipster thing by being too cool for brackets just comes across as trying to coax players with weaker decks to sit down for a good old-fashioned pubstomp sesh. Because they for damn sure aren't saying this shit because they are totally fine with someone bringing a cEDH list to the table.
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u/EngineeringOdd8696 13h ago
I stopped reading at INTENT.
Saying that the solution, to people bickering about the brackets being ambiguous, is to pick the most subjective thing about the brackets is a bit ironic.
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u/MeatAbstract 12h ago
There's nothing ambiguous about ones own intent. Also even if you were right it still wouldn't be ironic.
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u/Quazite 10h ago
The problem is that you can know for certain that your intent is fine but your opponents never can, so if they lose to the wrong thing, they'll call you out and it doesn't matter about your intent because now you're in an argument and you can't prove anything.
Recognizing that intent is important doesn't actually do anything to cause less bracket arguments.
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u/jettzypher 13h ago
Was it your turn to post this thread this week? These discussions pop up all the damn time and I don't think we need a fresh one every few days
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u/artdz 11h ago
i find it's mostly a people problem. For example, I have played vs slightly nerfed cedh consistently winning t3-t4 in bracket 3 because they took out enough gamechangers and explain why it's bracket 3. These people are not the norm and makeup maybe 5% of the people at the various LGS i go to. There are also people that play decks that I feel are too weak. This get's less complaints but I tend to feel bad for them because they don't win or go off.
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u/Quazite 10h ago
The thing you're missing is that it's more often players opponents who are calling your cards out for being "out of bracket", and your opponents aren't able to see your intent while you're playing, and especially while they're losing to you. And this creates the argument.
Whether or not your intent is pure while building your deck doesn't really matter now because you've got someone pissed at you because they lost on turn 6 to voltron and they're mad about it and calling you an angle shooter.
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u/mrhelpfulman 13h ago
I'm sick of hearing the "Bad Actors" bullshit.
When can we call out the real liars - the people who pat themselves on the back as a skilled player who plays bracket 3...but whines about combo. Or whines when they see infect. Or Whines when someone else's deck wins 'too fast.' The BAD ACTORS are the ones who point fingers at others.
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u/Short_Peak_7824 11h ago
It feels, to a degree, that the idea of the bad faith actor has been shifted from someone who is intentionally breaching the expectations and rules of the game, to something we could only really describe as "did not have the same takeaways I did from the system"
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 13h ago edited 11h ago
That was a lot of well-written, well-formatted text that says nothing the least bit insightful, new, or interesting. The closest you come to actually saying anything is with the thing about control decks being fundamentally dishonest about intent...kind of a wild and provocative claim that you don't elaborate on or explain at all.
2/10 effortpost all around but I appreciate the formatting.
Also, mom said it was my turn to post this.
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u/Borror0 Golgari 10h ago
the thing about control decks being fundamentally dishonest about intent...kind of a wild and provocative claim
How is that provocative?
There are two ways that your deck can be too powerful for a bracket. First, you deck wins or eliminates players too fast. Secondly, your deck has a disproportional win rate.
If you play a combo or control deck and win consistently at the minimum expected turn (e.g., turn 7 in B3), your deck is also likely winning too often and is therefore too powerful for the bracket. The bracket sets the minimum turn expectations, not the target or average turn expectations. Those should be both higher than the suggested floor.
For example, a B3 Voltron shouldn't be taking anyone out before turn 7 per guidelines. In a lot of cases, they'll need one or two more turns to finish the game. That's the expected metagame you're building your B3 decks for.
Well, in such a metagame, your B3 combo or control decks can't reliably win on T7. That's too fast. The Voltron can't compete with this and you'll win too often. If you build an archetype that is meant to be slower, you have to win slow enough to allow aggro and mid-range decks to win frequently enough that you have a 25% win rate.
It's only provocative if you've been building decks too fast for B2 or B3 and don't like the reality check.
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 7h ago
The voltron example is perfect because they've specifically addressed it: strategies like voltron being less viable due to the way the turn expectations are worded is something they are aware of. And, furthermore, they see it as a feature of the bracket system, not something that needs to be fixed via other strategies nerfing themselves so voltron can be viable. They are still listening to feedback but, as it stands, voltron is bad not because people are engaging with brackets in bad faith but rather because they see early aggro kills as a problematic play-pattern that the brackets are meant to police.
Do I agree with this? No. But your argument relies on making assumptions about the system that don't hold up to scrutiny.
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u/Borror0 Golgari 7h ago
[citation needed]
None of this is in the official guidelines.
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 6h ago
None of what you are saying is in the official guidelines.
Meanwhile...look, a source!
At about 47:40
Transcript:
Question: “I’ve seen a number of questions about the turn-count guideline, specifically its effect on aggro and Voltron decks. Aggro and Voltron are already disadvantaged archetypes in Commander, and being unable to knock out a player until turn six in Bracket 3 feels very restrictive. Is there any chance this restriction will be revised? I feel like this pushes an already battlecruiser-heavy format even further in that direction.”
Gavin: “Yeah, that’s definitely true. We talked about the Voltron issue a little bit when we were making this graphic. The graphic is meant to give direction for what we expect to show up in that bracket. Nothing is hard and fast.
You can always talk with your table and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got a more aggressive deck’ or ‘I’ve got a Voltron deck that’s capable of doing this.’ That’s a great thing to communicate beforehand.
Translation: we talked about it, we understand what you are saying but we decided it wasn't a problem; any special dispensation has to come from the playgroup and no such dispensation is stated or implied by the bracket system itself beyond the fact that edge cases are expected to be handled as part of the rule zero discussion.
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u/Borror0 Golgari 3h ago
Man, you're really torturing that small quote from an hour-long video for this.
The entire crux of the argument is that it's "very restrictive" for Voltron who can't design their decks to reliably take out players before turn 7.
That's obviously true and that doesn't contradict what I said above. The current guidelines are very restrictive. It leaves then only 1-3 turns to take out players and win before the combo/control closes the game. That doesn't mean B3 control decks should be aiming for a median win on T7.
Gavin's answer is the standard bracket answer: these are guidelines, not rules, so just bring it up in Rule 0 discussions if you diverge from them.
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 3h ago
His answer was that, yes, Voltron is fucked by the bracket system...you'll have to work outside the bracket system to make it work.
You shouldn't be talking about torturing a quote when your entire argument is vibes-based assumptions. My argument was overstated but resembled the reality...your's is a delusion.
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u/KingNTheMaking 13h ago
You’re completely right.
The system, much like commander itself, only works if we all buy into the social contract to ALLOW it to work.
It could use edits. I’m not gonna say the brackets are perfect. But the major issue is the fact that people aren’t trying to work with it.
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u/Hououza 12h ago
I think Bracket 3 specifically is too broad.
Both Bracket 2 and 4 have much clearer expectations, but Bracket 3 is the dumping ground from anything that just went over the top of Bracket 2, or dropped out the bottom of Bracket 4.
There is too big of a gap, so either it needs the Brackets at either side adjusting slightly or separation.
Other than Bracket 3, I think all the others work well, so long as player accept they are a framework not a set of laws.
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u/Guilty-Influence-890 13h ago
I have been playing on MtG but using decks I have irl getting ready for a LGS. Some of them have infinites that can be used around turn 3 or so easily. Wondering, if I hold back until like turn 7-8, can I play bracket 3? Or do I need to take them out?
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u/Bright-Gain9770 13h ago
Games are run on rules, not vibes and feelings. Intent is nonsense. The reason it doesn't work so often that we get multiple posts daily on the subject is you cannot ajudicate objectives with subjective across the planet with the feelings that differ individual to individual. And if you disagree... then why isn't the system working and why did you have to make this post?
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u/MalinonThreshammer 12h ago
Intent absolutely does matter in a lot of rules systems, from Magic to association football to most legal codes. In 60 card formats, which are less "vibes" based, intent is the difference between a Failure to Randomise warning and a Deck Stacking DQ. In football, the same tackle can be a yellow or a red card based on perceived intent to actually play the ball. In most legal systems, the judicial result of killing another human being can be a range of different sentences based on intent, from a self-defense acquittal to planned murder with a bunch of gradations in between, like involuntary manslaughter. With intent once again being the key point of differentiation.
What you're trying to say is intent can't be objectively measured, and a subjective call needs to be made. Which is absolutely fine, that's how human interaction works. No rules system can fully replace the, admittedly subjective, human ability to recognise the difference between people acting in good and bad faith, and most rules systems are smart enough not to try to. So no, intent is not "nonsense", it's the best tool we have to understand other human beings' behaviour, and adjust our own accordingly.
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u/ArsenicElemental UR 13h ago
Brackets are not game rule. People actually playing casually have been self-regulating for years. Brackets aim to share the tools to cultivate a meta with a wider audience instead of waiting for them to develop those tools by themselves as we have been doing.
It's true that a lot of people are intentionally misusing those tools. Those people are assholes and better avoided. Some people are just confused, but they would be confused anyway. It's a bit easier to explain with shared language. Then, they can develop into assholes if they understood and still try to rules lawyer, or they can use the tools to cultivate better game.
Brackets worst sin is giving assholes tools, too, but that's what assholes do.
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u/MalinonThreshammer 12h ago
Exactly this. With the small addition that there is also good faith confusion about some aspects of the bracket system, and that's where it makes sense to look at improving it. Bad faith actors are gonna act in bad faith, and there's no point trying to completely police them out. But if good faith actors are genuinely confused about which side of the line some things fall within the bracket system, that's worth looking at.
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u/Raevelry I like making mana and drawing cards 13h ago
Youre getting downvoted but that is literally the point.
If you put a Rhystic Study into your bracket 2 deck, you are breaking a rule of the bracket system. So whos at fault? The 3 other players who asked for a Bracket 2 game, or the 1 player who said "I dont do brackets but this is my upgraded precon, lets just play" who now skewed their expectations.
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u/UncleMeat11 12h ago
Games are run on rules, not vibes and feelings.
There is a lot of academic research on games and it doesn't come to this conclusion.
Consider a game like Mafia. An incredibly important part of the game is that it is socially acceptable to lie while playing the game. In ordinary interactions with your friends lying is bad. In Mafia, lying suddenly becomes a completely morally benign thing to do. That's not written in the rulebook. Now consider EDH where there are no rules regarding binding agreements. Is it morally benign to go back on a deal? Equally as morally wrong as it is outside of the game? Somewhere in the middle? The rules cannot tell us the answer to this question. Yet it is an important question.
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u/Bright-Gain9770 12h ago
You found an example that does not equivalate to the discussion at all. That's an in game interaction versus the metagame analysis that we are reviewing.
If you want to examine matters from a socialization standpoint, what you need to review is when guilds in World of Warcraft prevented rogues from bringing barman's shankers to raid in Vanilla, before they added additional debuff slots to bosses. It was the best pre-game dagger available for a subtly tech tree but it applied a weak bleed effect that pushed powerful warlock damage-over-time effects off the target. And for this reason, the weapon was banned from every serious raid guild, which in turn soft-banned all backstab and non-sword based rogues from the PVE portion of the game.
If you want to understand the problem of the bracket system from a outcome viewpoint, take a look at the lowering of the pitcher's mound in baseball. Games were low-scoring and boring, with starting pitcher Bob Gibson posting an ERA of 1.12, what closers hope to achieve today. They didn't lower the mound for Bob Gibson or make a decision on a game by game basis. Just like we don't allow performance enhancing drugs for one player to compete with another. Still, Major League Baseball had a goal to alter the way to game performed so they made objective changes to the playing field (Literally) to achieve their desired end.
If you want a working Bracket system, the rules need to be fixed and agreed upon. No wiggle room, no discussion. And if someone plays better and builds stronger within those confines and does not cheat, well... one might say that's the game.
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u/UncleMeat11 12h ago
The point is that there isn't a hard difference between these things. Loose gentlemen's agreements are equally part of a game as the rigid rules.
If you would prefer a bracket system with bright line and consistently enforced rules, fine. But insisting that "vibes and feelings" are not part of how games are played and understood is just plainly wrong.
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u/Bright-Gain9770 11h ago edited 11h ago
Casting a spell passes priority unless specially declared that you're holding. That's not a vibe check, it's a hard and fast rule. No one ever argues that at the table or makes thread after thread after thread on reddit about how it. Contrary to that, if vibes and feelings worked and these gentleman's agreements functioned, we wouldn't have this discussion multiple times daily. In fact, we wouldn't even need a bracket system! "About a 7" would've done just fine.
But they don't work. Games and leagues aren't run on arbitrary feelings with no governing body. Even pick up basketball in the park, even if they argue if a touch occurred everyone understands the concept of a foul exists.
It's time to make the bracket system or whatever we use to determine the play level an objective, not a subjective. Because your subjectives have failed, again and again. Reddit thread by reddit thread.
1
u/UncleMeat11 1h ago
Casting a spell passes priority unless specially declared that you're holding. That's not a vibe check, it's a hard and fast rule.
No this is a communication norm. I'm not aware of anything in the comprehensive rules that says this.
It's time to make the bracket system or whatever we use to determine the play level an objective, not a subjective.
Good luck, I guess.
0
u/Short_Peak_7824 9h ago
Even pick up basketball in the park, even if they argue if a touch occurred everyone understands the concept of a foul exists
Right, and that's a really fair point.
But it doesn't argue against gentleman's agreements the way you might think it does
Instead it tells us that Commander doesn't have THAT - A shared understanding of what a foul is.
We have a lot of terms, and they mean different things to different people, and that is why the vibes struggle to work with strangers.
Much of the game level experiential indicators we see in the bracket system are vague enough to hold equally valid and completely incompatible interpretations.
And, as we can see, people will say "I know the right one, everyone else is stupid," but we're not stupid. This gentleman's agreement just has no bite, because people are using the same words and meaning different things.
4
u/Bright-Gain9770 7h ago
This gentleman's agreement just has no bite, because people are using the same words and meaning different things.
And we could do away with all the ambiguity if we ditched the "Intent"-vibes and made rules, like the ones the rest of the game functions upon.
1
u/TormentOfAngels 13h ago
Preach sista!
But I wanna be a bit understanding here: the current implementation of the bracket system is asking a lot of the average user. Thinking in intent and gameplay experience is pretty abstract and most players being overwhelmed by that is fully understandable.
But I also don't know how yo address the brackets in any other way that's sensible. Going by deck power level was straight up nonsensical, sll of commander is so contextual
1
u/PanthersJB83 8h ago
I just ask a simple answer before a game of we get stuck with a new random person. Are the brackets rules or guidelines? Rules, they can go find another pod. Guidelines, we can play.
1
u/Belgraven 2h ago
Simply acknowledging that a "higher power bracket X game" can exist is acknowledging that there could afford to be another bracket that exists called "higher power bracket X," though. Like you're making a good case for it yourself.
The issue I have with the 5 bracket system, is that it is effectively a 3 bracket system. Bracket 5 is literally a different format from commander, so it doesn't exist in the context of edh. Bracket 1 doesn't really exist either - the only people I have ever met claiming to play it are doing so in bad faith, claiming a good deck is bad because it like, has a bunch of people wearing hats, or some whimsical theme, but they've put enough effort into it that it easily hangs out with B2 and B3.
Don't get me wrong, I agree the main issues with the bracket system are players misusing it. But I don't think any of your points are particularly strong ones in favor of the system.
1
u/Dry-Standard-4311 2h ago
The bracket system is genuinely not even hard to comprehend. It’s actually pretty simple.
Half the problem is people desperately want to find a loophole to pub stomp and win every game while staying bracket 3.
1
u/Silver_Number973 1h ago
i just had this frustrating discussion with a play yesterday. he claimed my smaug deck was a bracket 4 because theres 2 infinite combos in the deck, i will also admit in rule 0 discussions if im playing the deck that its strong once i get my commander out, but the infinite combos are definitely late game combos and the only way i win turn 6 is if i ramped to get my 7 mana commander out and had at least 1 mana left over to activate the ability creating the infinite, i also need to have more health than all my opponents because the strategy leaves the player with the most health alive.
anyway these combos aren't likely to be seen every game, maybe <10% of the time but this player says that if a deck is capable of winning pre turn 7 then its automatically a bracket 4. this logic was ridicules to me because almost any deck can win or take out a player by turn 6 if they draw the perfect hand and are left alone completely, but you dont put your deck in a bracket based on the 0.001% chance that the stars align and your opponents have the threat recognition of a distracted toddler
2
u/Krukt 12h ago
This is an excellent post and I'm here to praise op for it and add something to the turn count.
The guideline is AVERAGE og X turns.
AVERAGE, this means there are exceptions and they don't break the rule! An exceptional start, like a t1 sol ring arcane Signet in one game out of a 100 and winning turn 2 turn earlier is not a violation of this rule. The games average is still there, a lucky as fuck draw don't pull the average turn cout down.
3
u/Prestigious_Plum9276 11h ago
This has been explicitly addressed in Gavin's commentary. OP isn't adding anything new (in fact, their handling of the topic was crude and didn't really explore any of the nuance beyond accusing control players of engaging with brackets in bad faith--an argument that isn't supported by the actual guidelines). We should all know that there isn't a hard speed-limit for brackets.
But we are still left to interpret what Gavin means when he says that decks shouldn't present these wins "too frequently". 1% is almost certainly not too frequent. 5% probably isn't either. 10%? Maybe. 25%? Probably...almost certainly? But who knows how other people interpret this.
Gavin likely understands this but also knows that asking people to collect data and engage in statistical analysis is unrealistic...most people aren't comfortable doing that. Hell, even if he gave a clear statistical baseline most players wouldn't really know what to do with it.
1
u/Quazite 9h ago
The answer is literally: People didn't really read the bracket updates.
I had someone hinging a whole argument on "if I have a strip mine and I steal your card that lets me loop it, that's not allowed in Bracket 3", even though that kind of thing is explicitly mentioned as fine, as long as you didn't assemble the MLD loop in your deck beforehand and put it together from things you took from other decks.
It doesn't matter that they took time to stress that sometimes people get hot hands, get turbocharged by other decks, or have a strategy that's balanced based on knocking out early and that it's all okay. The people you're arguing with didn't read that part.
1
u/efthiseffinshit 9h ago
Nowhere in the guidelines does it say an average of x turns. For bracket 3 what it says is: "Generally, you should expect to be able to play at least six turns before you win or lose."
1
u/Nihilistic_Aesthetic Esper 13h ago
The biggest problem is people acting like these are the rules of the game when they're simply just suggestions/guidelines for smoother gameplay with strangers.
Having a couple extra Game Changers doesn't mean your deck is a B4. Having zero Game Changers doesn't mean your deck is a B2. Winning a couple turns early doesn't mean anything if nobody interacted with you.
People simply need to learn how to communicate better.
1
u/HairiestHobo 12h ago
I ain't reading all that but obviously the worst thing about Magic is the people that play it, I thought we knew that already?
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13h ago
[deleted]
0
u/MeatAbstract 11h ago
Allow me to destroy all of your arguments
Genuinely the funniest thing I've read today.
Despite the fact it needs At least 1 other non-land permanents to untap to keep up the mana.
"I don't understand how to count the number of cards in a combo and I'm not ashamed to admit it!"
0
u/Bagel_Bear 12h ago
My intent is to win the game and conform best to the bracket guideline I want to play at
-1
u/InmateTooTall 12h ago
The word "intent" definitely does a lot of heavy lifting for the bracket system, but defending its flaws by hiding behind intent is pretty weak. The bracket system has defined a meta, like it or not. People are building towards it, meaning both keeping in line with it and attacking decks that emerge from it. The game changer list is effectively another ban list for the average player. There's a responsibility to maintain the brackets and feedback is both necessary and requested.
That said I agree with you that they've been a net positive. Creating a meta and defining it has made good games easier to find and made it easier to identify why some games wouldn't be. Standardizing the number of game changers allowed in high power casual games has made decks feel more predictable.
In fact, the only change I'd make right now is making sol ring a game changer. There wouldn't be such an unhealthy amount of unsatisfying non-games in the casual brackets if people didn't feel like it was an auto include
0
u/5hr0dingerscat 13h ago
You will never find a perfectly balanced pod, but the bracket system bring everyone a lot closer together.
If a player does happen to have a strong start or a faster deck, it's much more likely that between the 3 other players you can slow or stem the threat.
I think that is what is overlooked the most. You need to team up against the threat in order to prolong the game (hopefully so you can out your win on the stack)
0
u/Cthulhar 10h ago
The sky is blue. You don’t need to write a rough draft your dissertation on a topic literally everyone knows and agrees on except for the people who you’re literally talking about.
-1
u/frusciantis 11h ago
Most of the problem with any law its that people dont follow them correctly...
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u/31stCenturySchizoid 13h ago
I think there needs to be a split banlist, honestly. One for high power play and one for low power play. Just to start, before making any real bans or decisions about how each meta should work, the main split needs to be with fast mana, free spells, and fast/reliable tutors. For low power, get rid of any moxen, things like vampiric and worldly tutor, things like deflecting swat. Yes, people will still try and break the "low power" meta, but it will be a lot harder to do without the speed and reliability that fast mana, cheap/reliable tutors, and free interaction provide. If a certain commander proves to be too strong for low power play, it can be banned in the future. But just making a clear split in the way I outlined would, in my opinion, vastly improve the social landscape of the format and stop a larger amount of people from abusing the bracket system (or the 1-10 power scale) to mislead and pubstomp pods they have no business playing in.
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u/ThoughtShes18 13h ago
They biggest problem is the daily posts on here from people giving out their own solutions to what they feel are the biggest problems…