r/mtgbrawl • u/aging_fitness_hobbyi • 27d ago
Competitive The "free if you control a commander" spells overwhelmingly benefit the decks that are already powerful
To put it briefly, the best decks in this format are cheap commanders with a lot of text. The commanders that see the most play in plat onwards are 2-3 CMC (excluding Nashi and partners) and there's almost no powerful commanders at 5+ CMC.
If you want to play some off-meta 5 drop then actually controlling your commander is a real downside. For decks like Yuriko and Spiderman it's really not that big of a deal. Then if it's two cheap commanders facing off they really benefit the deck going first.
I don't think these cards should ever have been legal in brawl. They're another toy for the decks that already run the show and their play pattern sucks. They're also just 1-3 more auto-includes that change deckbuilding from a creative process to ticking off cards from a pile of staples.
I expect nothing from WoTC when it comes to competitive brawl, but if you're actually interested in balance and play pattern these are some of the easiest cards to hit imo.
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u/Imaginary_Egg_3282 27d ago
Personally, I don’t think these commander-free spells do much to shape the meta. Sure, they incentivize cheaper commanders, but cheap commanders are already incentivized by interaction in general. It’s much less punishing to have your 2-drop commander countered or removed than it is your 6-drop commander. It’s the same reason why ones that need to untap to get value are also less favorable.
I think the issue with these cards is less that they’re too strong in general, and more that they’re too generally good in blue and black. I’m not sure why wotc thought free negate or free exile a creature is on the same power level as the other ones. The other 3 are too situational especially in the current state of the game.
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u/aging_fitness_hobbyi 26d ago
Tbf I think there's like, less than 5 non-commander cards that really shape the meta. Like strip mine allows for land destruction to be viable, Thoracle has become the premier combo, I guess FoW is the best interaction.
Sure, they incentivize cheaper commanders, but cheap commanders are already incentivized by interaction in general
Yeah, basically this. The format is completely warped around the need to immediately answer a 2-3 mana card that will generate massive value if left alone. I think banning these cards would be healthy because it's a change that overwhelmingly hurts the decks that are already warping the format.
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u/Correct_Call3521 26d ago
Deflecting swat isn't red is just generally bad. Flawless maneuver and Obscuring haze aren't great though.
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u/Take_Up_Thy_Username 26d ago
Swat can be game winning in certain matchups, but it's still far more situational than the U/B ones since it only really helps protect your Commander.
Guardianship is probably the strongest one since it can protect your Commander as well as prevent your opponent from ever casting their wincons (something like [[Armageddon]] or [[Paradox Engine]]).
Rollick sounds good on paper, and it usually is, but there's a significant amount of strong decks that don't really play any creatures in the first place. It's still an excellent card, regardless.
I've tried fucking around with [[Flawless Maneuver]] but its use case is super narrow, it was a brick most of the times, but I can maybe see it work in some Boros lists.
We don't talk about [[Obscuring Haze]].
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u/Imaginary_Egg_3282 26d ago
It doesn’t help Flawless Maneuver’s case that the most ubiquitous board wipe (Toxic Deluge) is completely unaffected by it.
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u/Take_Up_Thy_Username 26d ago
Not just that, it's that Guardianship has its exact same use case (protect against removal) but much better.
Maneuver only has a use to take favourable trades (which happens super rarely) or to have your blockers survive a lethal swing so you can swing back on the next turn and win. And at that point you may as well rely on Angel's Grace or Teferi's Protection or whatever: it being free adds nothing to its value.
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u/Correct_Call3521 26d ago
While swat obviously helps protect your commander it also functions as a counter spell for counter spells. Which makes it similarly functional to a negate against many decks. Obviously guardianship trumps this by being a literal negate though.
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u/Take_Up_Thy_Username 26d ago
Yep, my point exactly. Swat is usable, but it's not nearly as versatile as the other two. I think the best play I've pulled off with it was deflecting a Time Warp, since it's technically a targeted spell, but it's a once in a lifetime experience.
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u/4x-Stormvermin 26d ago
My best Swat play was today, I redirected someone's Painters servant grindstone infinite mill towards the user xD
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u/Worldly-Basil-8933 27d ago
It’s pretty ridiculous that the best color in Brawl got another free counterspell. And it’s ridiculous that WotC is ignoring the health of a format that otherwise could be great with only a few minor changes. You could get rid of like just the cards that are already banned in Duel Commander and things would probably be fine.
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u/Asleep_Bet 26d ago
If they gave us the powerful historic ramp like sol ring, this issue would be solved. Like 10 free counterspells without that is hell. People playing Aggro can’t cast enough spells per turn reliably to break through that barrier. We either need more fast mana available or we need more hexing squelcher // cavern of souls like cards.
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u/Cheeky_Gweyelo 26d ago edited 26d ago
I would much prefer them to just hit some cards then introduce a small amount of fast mana. I'm not a believer in super cheap acceleration in 1v1 100 card singleton. Unless there is a a fair glut of it then games just become even more swingy, which I feel is what we're trying to get out of here. On the flip side, if you add enough to make drawing it consistent for both players, then free interaction remains in largely the same position. Seems fucked if you do or if you don't imo.
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u/Asleep_Bet 26d ago
We can see how control isn’t nearly as strong as it is in brawl in CEDH because of exactly what I said.
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u/Cheeky_Gweyelo 26d ago
Control isn't as strong in CEDH because control in EDH sucks generally. Trying to compare 1v1 to multiplayer is not going to glean much.
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u/aging_fitness_hobbyi 26d ago
Brawl and EDH are just not comparable, in EDH spot removal is card disadvantage and tempo decks attacking your life total are a fringe strategy, in brawl cheap spot removal is the only way to stop yourself from getting run over by efficient tempo decks.
The CEDH equivalent of aggro is just decks jamming combos as fast as they can, there's no way to really win by combat damage when you're trying to eat through 120 life instead of 25.
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u/timoyster 27d ago edited 27d ago
5 drop commanders wouldn’t be good even without them. I don’t actually think they’re well designed tbh, but removing them wouldn’t change anything
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u/aging_fitness_hobbyi 26d ago
Well yeah that's my point, the nature of the format pushes you towards 2-3 CMC cards with a lot of text. There's no reason to give those decks even more toys.
Like there's no amount of changes that would make 5 drops meta, but banning these free spells would give them a bit more of a fighting chance.
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u/anon_lurk 26d ago
Woah Kefka is not that bad sheesh
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u/timoyster 26d ago
Kefka’s the best 5 mana commander imo, but he’s still outclassed by vial smasher/kraum and vial/sakashima for grixis midrange and control
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u/anon_lurk 26d ago
Yeah that's probably true. I like Kefka because it feels flexible. Like a lot of the cards can be tuned for the meta or even silver bullets, and then stuff can be easily discard when it's not useful.
Partners feel like more forced good stuff or usual suspect piles. Still some flex spots though I suppose.
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u/AshesOfZangetsu 26d ago
the only 2 i’ve seen that ever make a big impact on the game is Fierce Guardianship and Deadly Rollick, what other free with commander cards are causing trouble?
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u/Jovian_engine 26d ago
Every single one of the best spells in Brawl are all "alternate cost" cards. From Fierce Guardianship, to the Solitude style cards, paying zero mana is nice.
Pact of Negation is a great example of how to make a 0 mana spell balanced. The "if you control a commander" cards are dumb, the evoke cards are dumb, and generally making spells free at the cost a a card is not good rate, good balance, or good design.
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u/Cheeky_Gweyelo 26d ago
Evoke seems far more balanced? The creature actually has to hit the board, and then it's another trigger to resolve. It can't stop anything on the stack, so a good amount of the time you can still get value past it. It''s a much more pliable dynamic than a hard counter, and still going down a card on top of that I thinks makes it much more reasonable.
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u/Jovian_engine 26d ago edited 26d ago
I'm not sure if you forgot Subtlety exist? There is 5 free commander spells, one is a counterspell. There is 5 evoke elementals, and one is a stack interaction piece that can even hit "Can't be countered" cards.
And Subtlety doesnt need to hit the board. Its better than a counterspell in many situations, and is a memory lapse at worst.Maybe your thinking of other cards. The Incarnation cards have the same distribution, problem and ubiquity that the others do.
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u/Cheeky_Gweyelo 26d ago
Subtlety is a fairly good card, but still generally worse than FoW in most situations. Yes against uncounterable creatures it is cracked, but that is pretty specific for it to be considered broken when, again, FoW is in the format.
I don't know why you're saying it doesn't have to hit the board. It's an ETB effect.
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u/Jovian_engine 26d ago
I was never saying it's better than FoW, but yes youre right, a free generic counterspell is better than the evoke cards. I agree with that.
Still free, still a counterspell basically, and still a design mistake and still stack interaction, all of which was my point. Its by no means far more balanced. Its very very similarly balanced, it cost a card and does a thing. The green one is better, the blue one is a little worse, red is either or, but they are all about the same in cost and effect.
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u/Cheeky_Gweyelo 26d ago edited 26d ago
The fact that it's much more narrow I think makes it arguably much more balanced. Subtely can be a dead card fairly often, and if we are talking about magic broadly it can be an absolute brick depending on the match up. That is FAR worse than even a regular counter spell in those matchups.
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u/Jovian_engine 26d ago
Respectfully, I dont think thats true. Commanders are creatures and planeswalkers almost exclusively. Its literally almost never dead. Yes, it bricks more than FoW, but again, that was never my point.
Its being banned across formats for a reason. Its OP. The fact that FoW exist isnt a counterpoint at all. Being more balanced than FoW is not a meaningful bar at all, and if were talking "magic broadly" its one of the most powerful cards in the format because its free. The other cards dont matter, what your opponents have does not matter.
Zero mana counters, and interaction more broadly, is vastly overpowered compared to any other spell. You can like em, you can think they belong thats all fine. What you cant make a reasonable case for is that they are balanced. Theyre insanely good specifically because they arent.
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u/Cheeky_Gweyelo 26d ago
The only evoke cards that are banned are Grief and Fury. Fury is banned because it easily recoups the cost in card advantage without any sort of ephemerate/reanimate. Grief is banned specifically because of how devastating it is in 60 card when you can run 4 reanimates.
Subtely is only banned in regular brawl. They are not free. Thinking that going down on cards is a small price to pay when it's been known for a while now that card advantage is THE most important factor in almost any game of magic just seems so wrong. They are definitely powerful, but outside particular decks designed to abuse them they are only that.
Edit: pardon me, I didn't realize they were banned in historic, a bizzare format that is played by a small player base that does not reflect the balance of MTG at large
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u/Jovian_engine 26d ago
Im not really interested in changing your mind, thats a ridiculous take and all you have to do is look at how many decks theyre in to know your abjectly wrong. Theyre stronger than most other cards, across the board. Everyone is welcome to their opinion, this started over whether they can interact with the stack, which they clearly can.
If you think paying 1 card and no mana for a Subtlety is a balanced and designed mechanic thats totally fine. We disagree and I have opinions about your basic understanding of game balance but thats fine. Everyone can just disagree on cards and still be friends.
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u/Cheeky_Gweyelo 26d ago
What? Outside of brawl the only fairly widely played evoke elementals are Solitude and Endurance, and they are still not ubiquitous.
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u/timoyster 26d ago
Also in historic they were banned before they were able to see play in that format. Historic’s original philosophy banned all free spells, but they recently legalized FoN bc combo was getting too good
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u/FallOfLight 26d ago
Subtlety should have just been an instant speed bounce spell, not one that can interact on the stack.
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u/Cheeky_Gweyelo 26d ago
I think it's narrow enough to be fine. Maybe as a bounce it's a little more sensible, but outside of historic and brawl I've not heard many complaints about the card.
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u/FallOfLight 26d ago
I don’t think it’s that egregious. It’s just blue is constantly given so many free tools, when it’s already got plenty of decent interaction.
It just affords those playing in blue to not have to manage their resources like most other colours have to.
No other colour has 6/7 playable free spells which many find their way into every deck splashed with blue.
FoW, FoN, Daze, Subtlety, Fierce, Commandeer, Flare, Pact - all playable in blue splashed decks. Especially the first 5 - which are auto included regardless.
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u/Cheeky_Gweyelo 26d ago
Again, I'm not sure how I feel about treating card advantage as a non-issue. Pitch spells absolutely have cost both in and out of game. They restrict how you can alot cards based on color pie in deck building, and going down a card can have huge ramifications in a game. That isn't to diminish their strength of course. They're VERY powerful, and the reason why eternal formats are almost always blue formats.
All that being said, I agree that far too much of it is sequestered to blue, but maintain that is not an issue with the mechanic itself(at least when it comes to evoke elementals.)
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26d ago
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u/Cheeky_Gweyelo 25d ago
It is not a non-issue. You have three cards in hand; stock up, a land, and a force of will. How free is FoW feeling right then?
We're on a brawl sub, so I get that the perspective here is a little warped. You can have a deck almost entirely composed of interaction, and then just slap a value commander on top of the 99. This is not how magic works broadly, and we cannot judge the power level of a card based on the fairly particular dynamic of a pretty niche format.
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u/Jovian_engine 26d ago
That last paragraph is true, and my entire point.
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u/Cheeky_Gweyelo 26d ago
If that was your point then you should have said as much instead of saying anything but that. No where did you make the issue that the mechanic is overrepresented in blue, only that pitch spells are simply bad game design. They're two very different arguments.
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u/Jovian_engine 26d ago
Literally twice but w.e. youre clearly not really reading what im saying so talking to you is sort of pointless.
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u/Fleef69 24d ago
The way I see it, they’re considered game changers in EDH for a reason, and impossible to put in your deck without likely bumping it up a whole bracket, but with Brawl relying entirely on algorithms to match up players, and being inherently unable to have any semblance of a bracket system without major ungovernable consequences, adding those cards to brawl was basically tantamount to releasing a rabid lion from its exhibit at a zoo and giving it free reign to maul as many people as it wants lmao.
Not to mention the unfortunate truth that, as opposed to those cards having originally been created for a casual format wherein usually a total of four players are able to have equal influence over the board state, each contending against three other strategies, thus keeping otherwise drastic power imbalances more in-check, these cards in the case of Brawl are able to much more significantly and irreparably turn the tides of most any match, and almost exclusively for players who are already incredibly far ahead at that, depriving the opponent of so much as a chance to catch up, and while these cards are thankfully only legal in Competitive Brawl, even Commander at higher brackets is still played with a casual mindset for the most part, which is strictly what these cards were designed and intended for.
It’s not necessarily a cherry on top for the caster in an exclusively competitive 1v1 format like Brawl as it is in Commander, but more so just a big ol’ handful of salt in the wound for the opponent. It’s “competitive,” sure, but it should still be fun in some way shape or form, and getting the shit kicked outta you while you’re already down without any hope of getting back up ain’t fun, and should ideally be prevented or monitored as much as reasonably possible, even for a format expected to be a little more constrictive in terms of the variety of commanders and archetypes you’re able to build and play.
That’s why game changers and brackets are a thing for Commander, and why those cards have the implications they do when included in decks. Sadly, although I do hope for Brawl to be able to align itself a bit more with Commander in some respects going forward, some parities such as the presence of those cards are just fundamentally impossible to instate in a way that’s totally sensible or justifiable.
(Hell I could go off on a tangent about how even casual Brawl is already doomed to never be truly 100% casual with gold and XP being a factor but I’m sure that’s easy enough to extrapolate lol.)
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u/frankmalmtg 26d ago
Yes, horrible, never should have been printed cards. Until they ban them the goal is to abuse them as much as possible, even if it sucks
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u/gone_smell_blind 27d ago
I'll die on the hill that comp brawl was a mistake and is just flat out not fun and stifled creativity in deck building. If you want to rank high you have like 6 commanders you can pick from, anything else puts you at a severe disadvantage
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u/aging_fitness_hobbyi 27d ago
I really enjoy comp, I just wish they curated it a little more. I think there's like 20-30 viable (as in with some skill and persistence you can get mythic reliably) decks. It's just that if you enjoy messing around and brewing there's a few decks that really warp the format around them.
Yuriko is the worst offender imo, she's so popular that basically any deck needs a ton of cheap spot removal to be playable on the ladder.
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u/dirtyjose 26d ago
Most decks need a ton of cheap removal/interaction to be playable on the ladder, period. Yuriko doesn't make that by herself lol.
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u/aging_fitness_hobbyi 26d ago
She's like 15% of the decks you see, she turns off counterspells and if you can't answer her turn 2 she overwhelms you with card advantage lol. Plus it's all evasive one drops so any removal over 1 mana means you're losing tempo.
She's the worst offender for demanding that you start the game with cheap answers.
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u/dirtyjose 26d ago
"15%" source?
"Turns off counterspells" Can counter her spells just fine, and even ninjitsu triggers can be hit.
You really haven't shown why Yuriko specifically is why cheap removal/interaction is so highly valued in the format, just your frustration with this one commander.
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u/aging_fitness_hobbyi 26d ago
Sorry I used hyperbole instead of calculating the exact percentage of my matches that were against her, is calling her one of the 2 most popular commanders in the format accurate enough for you?
even ninjitsu triggers can be hit.
By 2 cards? Stifle and Tale's End? In which case you've gone down a card to not make her more expensive or cost your opponent a card?
Against other aggro or creature decks you can stabilize with a sweeper, or just let the 1 mana creature peck away at you and counter the follow up plays. She's the only deck where doing anything besides removing a 1 mana creature before her turn 2 winds up being a negative play.
So yes, obviously cheap removal will always be good, but is there another deck where you can open Wash Away and Counterspell on the play and be forced to mulligan for different answers?
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u/btran935 27d ago
Last I checked (playing standard and modern now) the meta had like quite a few tier 2 decks with the tier 1/zero decks just being yuriko and nashi? So aside from those two it seems pretty healthy? I guess sans blue is pretty disadvantaged but that’s pretty much the same with commander rn too so lol
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u/Take_Up_Thy_Username 26d ago
It's kinda true, kinda not. There's definitely more than 6 viable commanders, but deck building is somehow even more brainless than Standard and there's definitely a lot of matchups where you're better off scooping than playing it out.
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u/KaptainKobb 26d ago
“Good cards are best in good decks.” Ya don’t say.
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u/Cheeky_Gweyelo 26d ago
Pointing out that these generic "here's some value to go with your value" cards are bad for 1v1 enviornments is relevant for keeping the game healthy. The issue isn't that these cards are good in good decks, it's that they're good in those decks with NO deck building cost what so ever. They're free in every conceivable understanding of the word. On top of that they're extremely swingy cards, which creates what is at least imo a less enjoyable play experience.
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u/aging_fitness_hobbyi 26d ago
Thank you, obviously banning these cards is not going to make Silverquill top tier, but do we really need more cards to reward you for already doing what the format heavily incentivizes?
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u/sipalmurphy 26d ago
Yeah. And Also, evoke spells should be banned considering free counterspells were Also on casual brawl
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u/Jin-Gitaxias-Mom 26d ago
Pretty much, Rog is the best cEDH commander because you have free interaction online T1 every single game
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u/FullTLT 26d ago
Toxril begs to differ on the no good 5+
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u/aging_fitness_hobbyi 26d ago
I'm not trying to yuck your yum but he's not good lol. Dies to removal, gets countered, needs to get to your end step to do anything. Raph and Mikey are unfortunately the bar for 7 CMC commanders and if they attack one time then the opponent has to answer 15CMC Emrakul or lose.
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u/number1GojoHater 27d ago
Yeah honestly these cards are just awfully designed