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Legality
| Format | Legality |
| 1v1 Commander | Legal |
| Archenemy | Legal |
| Block Constructed | Legal |
| Canadian Highlander | Legal |
| Casual | Legal |
| Commander / EDH | Legal |
| Commander: Rule 0 | Legal |
| Custom | Legal |
| Duel Commander | Legal |
| Highlander | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Leviathan | Legal |
| Limited | Legal |
| Modern | Legal |
| Modern Beyond Horizons | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Planar Constructed | Legal |
| Planechase | Legal |
| Quest Magic | Legal |
| Vanguard | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
Rules Q&A
Wanderwine Prophets
Creature — Merfolk Wizard
Champion a Merfolk (When this enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you remove another Merfolk you control from the game. When this leaves the battlefield, that card returns to play.)
Whenever Wanderwine Prophets deals combat damage to a player, you may sacrifice a Merfolk. If you do, take an extra turn after this one.
legendofa on The New Commander Brackets Beta
4 days ago
I've been struggling with this for a couple of my decklists recently, and I'm trying to summarize my thoughts here without starting a new thread. So this is semi-stream-of-thought, and I apologize if it gets a little rambly.
There are several criteria being tracked by the current bracket system, including resource generation, speed, reliability, and oppression, and possibly others.
Game changers: A combo like Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact + Thassa's Oracle gets a key card on the game changers list, because it's fast and reliable, ending a match on turn 3-4. These are speed game changers. Other game changers generate resources just by playing the game, like Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe. This group often also includes oppression, since a lot of them tax the opponent. Another group is cheap (1-2 mana) tutors, like Vampiric Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, or Survival of the Fittest, that increase a deck's reliability for very little opportunity cost. Most game changers can be sorted into one of these four categories. Ancient Tomb and Gaea's Cradle are speed and resource generation, Drannith Magistrate and Force of Will are oppression, and so on.
Bracket Guidelines: From Gavin Verhey's announcement article, here's what each of the brackets mean and expect. Important to note that the system is still in beta testing, so this is probably going to be different in the future.
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Bracket 1: Decks with more focus on a gimmick than on winning. "Winning is not the primary goal here, as it's more about showing off something unusual you've made. Villains yelling in the art? Everything has the number four? Oops, all Horses? Those are all fair game!" This bracket doesn't allow extra turns, two-card infinite combos, mass land denial, or game changers, and restricts tutors.
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Bracket 2: Decks that can win, but are not tightly focused, or slow to develop. "While Bracket 2 decks may not have every perfect card, they have the potential for big, splashy turns, strong engines, and are built in a way that works toward winning the game. While the game is unlikely to end out of nowhere and generally goes nine or more turns, you can expect big swings." This bracket doesn't allow any game changers, mass land denial, two-card infinite combos, or multiple extra turns in a row, and restricts tutors.
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Bracket 3: Decks that are focused on winning efficiently, but are not optimized. "They are full of carefully selected cards, with work having gone into figuring out the best card for each slot. The games tend to be a little faster as well, ending a turn or two sooner than your Core (Bracket 2) decks." This bracket does not allow mass land denial or multiple extra turns in a row, and restricts game changers and two-card infinite combos, and allows tutors freely.
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Bracket 4: Decks that are optimized for their strategy. "Bring out your strongest decks and cards... This is high-powered Commander, and games have the potential to end quickly. The focus here is on bringing the best version of the deck you want to play, but not one built around a tournament metagame." This bracket has no restrictions.
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Bracket 5: Decks that expect to win at the most competitive levels. "There is care paid into following and paying attention to a metagame and tournament structure, and no sacrifices are made in deck building as you try to be the one to win the pod." This brackets has no restrictions.
Deck Analysis 1: The deck I've been struggling most with is Clear Waters. As I listed in another thread, it has an infinite turns combo (Wanderwine Prophets + Deeproot Pilgrimage + Merfolk Sovereign) and mass land denial (Opposition + Seedborn Muse, Quicksilver Fountain), and a selection of tutors to pull these together (Forerunner of the Heralds, Idyllic Tutor, Merrow Harbinger, Seahunter, and Sterling Grove). This should put it squarely into Bracket 4.
My concern is that it's neither high powered nor optimized. On the axes of speed, resource generation, reliability, and oppression, I would score it high on oppression, pretty good on reliability, and low on speed and resources generation. Looking at examples of other Bracket 4 decks around the internet, all four of those criteria need to be high in this bracket. The infinite turns combo is slow and easily removed, and the land denial is optional (Opposition can have other targets) or temporary (Quicksilver Fountain can remove its own effect).
It would be easy to simply add a big pile of game changers to improve all of these facets. Right now, it has one game changer in Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, and that one's not essential to the deck. That's not the direction I want to go with the deck, though--I want to keep it reasonably budget, and even adding the three least expensive of the game changers I'm considering would basically double the deck's cost.
I know that people in brackets under 4 want to be able to play their deck, and the infinite turns and land denial shut that down. These are clearly stated in the announcement article -"A single extra-turn spell can be fun and splashy. However, extra-turn spells take a ton of time away from other players and their ability to play the game and tend to be unfun when repeated."- that's why they're forced into brackets 4 and 5. But if a deck isn't able to compete against high power, optimized Bracket 4 decks, can it be considered Bracket 4?
Deck Analysis 2: Another deck that I've been struggling with is an enchantment deck, Do Not Mistake Peace For Passivity. The point of concern for this deck is land denial. Blood Moon is classic mass land denial, and the deck is designed to play around it with Abundant Growth, Fertile Ground, Prismatic Omen, and similar cards. It also has a combo that doesn't directly deny lands, but punishes their play and use: Manabarbs + Citadel of Pain. Otherwise, the deck fits all the criteria of a Bracket 2 deck--no game changers, no infinite combos, few tutors, and no extra turns.
This deck can be converted into a pure Bracket 2 deck without much effort by replacing Blood Moon and Manabarbs. But as it stands, a single card pushes the deck up two brackets, according to the guidelines. Again, I don't feel the deck is high powered or optimized, and would not be able to compete in a Bracket 4 match. It could probably survive in Bracket 3, since it's highly synergistic, but nothing any higher.
In this case, adding a bunch of game changers and power cards would somewhat dilute how the deck functions. A few, like Smothering Tithe or Trouble in Pairs, could slot in, but most others would be more gratuitous.
Conclusion: To quote the article again, "There's some wiggle room, and while playing against decks that are all inside your bracket is ideal, you can usually wiggle within one bracket away from you safely." "You should play where you think you belong based on the descriptions." All of this can be discussed in a Rule 0 talk. I strongly believe the brackets are intended to help this conversation, not replace it. As an example, for the Clear Waters deck, I would say that the deck is not optimized to Bracket 4, and I think it fits best into Bracket 3, but it's controlling and has a potential three-card infinite turns combo. I'm willing to announce when the combo is assembled and ready to start, to give everyone a turn cycle to react, and reduce the use of Opposition to creatures and artifacts.
I feel like the current setup is a little too restrictive of the kind of combo-control decks I like. I can have fun smashing big creatures into each other and outmaneuvering everyone else, but I will enjoy locking down the board and establishing my inevitability, and I'm having a harder time trying to find ways to do that in lower brackets. Some people have already offered me excellent feedback and suggestions that I'm taking into consideration, but I'd also like to see how people are responding to the bracket system so far.
For comparison, here's a few more of my decklists:
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Bracket 2: But if you smash one helm...
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Bracket 3: Above such mortal concerns
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Bracket 4: Arrogant. Ruthless. Oppressive. Victorious.
legendofa on Testing brackets with Merfolk combos
1 week ago
I just finished detailing this deck.
Clear Waters
Commander / EDH
10 VIEWS
It has an infinite turns combo with redundancies. Wanderwine Prophets + Deeproot Pilgrimage + Merfolk Sovereign
It has land denial. Opposition + Seedborn Muse, Quicksilver Fountain
It has a game changer. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
It has multiple relevant tutors. Forerunner of the Heralds, Idyllic Tutor, Merrow Harbinger, Seahunter, Sterling Grove
By all measures, this deck falls under Bracket 4. But I think it better fits Bracket 3, because Wanderwine Prophets is the most expensive card. It simply can't compete with decks whose individual cards are worth more than this whole thing, or decks with six game changers and "I win" combos that land on turn 3. It just isn't up to that level. The turns combo in particular is slow and highly telegraphed, since Prophets needs to survive a turn cycle before it can go off.
So where does this fall? Bracket 3? Low-end Bracket 4? The fuzzy gray area in the middle? Would you accept a Bracket 3 match with potential infinite turns and land locks?
NiceKrispyTreat on
Inalla's Xerox Machine
2 years ago
Ended up replacing Mirror Gallery with Vela the Night-Clad. Also replaced Passwall Adept and Wanderwine Prophets with Persist and Molten Echoes.
NiceKrispyTreat on
Inalla's Xerox Machine
2 years ago
Plan to cut: - Passwall Adept - Wanderwine Prophets - Probably some other stuff
Might add: - Persist for combo with Dualcaster Mage and Ashnod's Altar OR combo with Dualcaster Mage, Molten Echoes, and Viscera Seer - Molten Echoes for combo with Bloodline Necromancer and Viscera Seer - Phyrexian Altar for combo with Dualcaster Mage and Persist - Disallow - Mystic Remora
Tae_Grixis on
Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro Subsidiary
2 years ago
Wanderwine Prophets is a better card to combo off with and get extra turns than Walk the Aeons. Just get it into place, champion the original under a copy, swing, sac for extra turn, copy and champion the original again, end of clean-up/turn, copy comes back, copy and champion the original (the copy stays around for the next turn), repeat next turn.
You need three free mana available for this so you can copy the original each time it enters. After the first turn of doing this you only need two because it's already championed on the second and following turns.
Gidgetimer on
[Primer] Casting the Mythal
2 years ago
The fact that Ruthless Technomancer doesn't target has the implications that beastmenwarrior thinks it does. However; to someone not intimately familiar with the deck the given explanation was a little vague.
The proposed line of play is:
With a Wanderwine Prophets (or Mistbind Clique) token out championing the card version you cast Ruthless Technomancer.
Panharmonicon doubles the ETB trigger.
Sacrifice the token to make 4 treasures.
Card version comes in, make a copy with Inalla. Champion the original card.
Sacrifice the token to make 4 treasures.
Card version comes in, make a copy with Inalla. Champion the original card.
Use Inalla's ability to make a token copy of Ruthless Technomancer.
Panharmonicon doubles the ETB trigger.
Sacrifice the Champion token to make 4 treasures.
Card version comes in, make a copy with Inalla. Champion the original card.
Sacrifice the Ruthless Technomancer for 2 treasures.
Reanimate Ruthless Technomancer by paying 3 and sacrificing 2 treasures.
Repeat from step 2.
This works because Ruthless Technomancer's ability does not target, and as such you are allowed to sacrifice any creature that you control as the ability resolves.
beastmenwarrior on
[Primer] Casting the Mythal
2 years ago
I am looking to get it confirmed with someone more rules versed, but I believe I found another angle for a combo.
Panharmonicon Effect + Ruthless Technomancer + Mistbind Clique/Wanderwine Prophets
Because of how Ruthless Technomancer is written, it is my belief that the triggers do not need a valid target when put on the stack "You may sacrifice another creature you control". This means that it can be used on valid target that entered the battlefield after the trigger is already on the stack. So when Mistbind Clique/Wanderwine Prophets re-enters play if you use the Inalla trigger to generate a new token of them, you will be able to use that token with the Ruthless Technomancer triggers already on the stack. With a Panharmonicon effect you will produce 5 treasures and one token of Ruthless Technomancer after a full cycle, allowing you to repeat it indefinitely.
Very corner case but thought to share these as I find them.
| Have (1) | metalmagic |
| Want (3) | TechNoble , Jumping_Jordan , Yahtzee55 |