Pattern Recognition #212 - Brawl-halla

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

23 September 2021

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Hello everyone! This is Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series as written by myself, berryjon. I am something of an Old Fogey who has been around the block quite a few times where Magic is concerned, as as such, I use this series to talk about the various aspects of this game, be it deck design, card construction, mechanics chat, in-universe characters and history. Or whatever happens to cross my mind this week. Please, feel free to dissent in the comments below the article, add suggestions or just plain correct me! I am a Smart Ass, so I can take it.

And welcome back! Did you know that this is the start of my fifth year here on TappedOut? That my first article was published 22 Sept, 2016? Wow, it's been a while. But time waits for no person, and while I seem to be running low on extra turn spells, the show must go on, to mix metaphores.

Today's article is going to highlight a thing that's going to happen tomorrow, and with Rotation, I want to talk about the state of Brawl as a format.

For those of you not in the know, Brawl was a format introduced in mid-ish 2018 by Wizards, as their attempt to supplant - sorry - supplement Commander as a viable Singleton format. Because let's be honest with ourselves here. Wizards doesn't control Commander, and they are stuck riding coattails on the community's own favored format, and they wanted in on that. Badly. Brawl was their solution. Or at least they hoped.

Brawl is a Singleton format - that meaning that you are only allowed one copy of any non-Basic land in the deck, and your deck is led by a Commander whose color identity determines what colour(s) of cards you can put into your deck. However, the card pool is determined not by Legacy as in Commander, but rather by the current Standard Rotation. You would mix up your Brawl decks each rotation to keep them fresh and interesting. That the limited card pool would encourage more creative deckbuilding - and less expensive mana bases - than that rusty old Commander format that no one would want to play now that Brawl was a thing, right?

Look, Gerritt Turner, your name is attached to Brawl as the creator of the format. And for that, you have my sympathies.

Brawl was announced to a resounding sound of silence. It was 2018! Commander was amazing! There were cards being printed for it, cards designed for it, and people loved playing it! Brawl was... a white paper format.

What I mean by that is that Brawl existed. On Paper. There were no sponsored tournaments. No cards for the format. No sponsored content. In fact, the only support for the format at all came from Magic Arena, who would eventually add the format to the program, but not for a bit.

Brawl was announced, and Wizards wondered why no one was playing it.

To which Wizards basically went "But it's new? And awesome?"

And no one cared.

Brawl languished as something Wizards was totally going to support any day now, once people started showing an interest in it. Ever heard of the chicken and the egg paradox? Or the Catch-22? Wizards would support Brawl once they saw players playing it. Players wouldn't play it until Wizards started supporting it.

Do you see the problem here?

Well, we finally got to Throne of Eldraine, that lovely set from 2 years ago that finally, finally rotated out. And in that set, Wizards finally put their money where their foot was - and yes, I mean it that way because if I have to explain the joke, it isn't funny.

Regardless, Wizards provided us with four dedicated Brawl decks with that set, led by four unique Commanders, Alela, Artful Provocateur, Chulane, Teller of Tales, Korvold, Fae-Cursed King, and Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale. Of these, you probably know two of them for the massive headaches they've caused, one for being relatively balanced and useful, and Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale, whom I was the only person in town to buy that precon because I'm a sucker for lost causes.

These four decks were of varying quality, but the Commanders themselves were something else. Immediately, Chulane became a Commander powerhouse, despite having in his casting cost. I mean, my god, free card draws and more lands? What in the name of the ever-loving URZA is wrong with the people who made this card? "Draw a Card, Play a Land" has been the go-to interaction for years now! Oh, and you can bounce a creature back to your hand to do it again!

OK, take a breath here. I'm not here to complain about badly designed cards and the like. I would be here all... checks watch ... decade. I'm here to talk Brawl.

What I got out of these four decks was that Wizards was finally bowing to pressure from inside and outside, and actually supporting Brawl with cards and decks for it. Sure, no tournaments yet, or prize support, or even recognizing its existence outside of digital formats like Arena and Online. But it was a start!

And... my notes have me jumping right back into Card design. OK. Let's take this one step at a time, and talk Arcane Signet.

This was the chase card of the Precons, make no mistake. One of the people who commented on last week's article on a different forum, who goes by the name of Mattman324, argued the point that there is a theory at Wizards that you can replace a non-Basic land with a Artifact that does the same mana production, pointing out that Skycloud Expanse was converted into Azorius Signet, or how Sulfurous Springs was Talisman of Indulgence.

Well, Arcane Signet was created in the exact same mold, being the artifact version of Command Tower, which was also printed in these sets to help mana-fixing. both inside the decks themselves and for any brewing that might be done. Of course, Commander players being Commander players, absolutely wanted the Signet for being all-but BAH-ROKEN.

Seriously, I've seen the "Command Tower, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Go" happen. Once. It's terrifying.

Though to be honest, before that particular fact was slammed into my face like a Mizzium Mortar, I thought that the Signet was derived from Commander's Sphere. And my logic was that if you take out the saccing of the Sphere to draw a card from the card itself, the cost of the card would go down to compensate for the lower power level, leaving us with Arcane Signet.

Or maybe it's both. I don't know.

Regardless, Arcane Signet was here to stay, and it quickly found its way into the follow-up Commander Precons for later sets. It was just that good, and the demand was just that high for it.

Also, perfect mana fixing in a Golos, Tireless Pilgrim deck in Standard rotation with Field of the Dead would never backfire now, could it? Nah!

But after Throne, Wizards... kinda forgot about the format. They immediately jumped into 2019 with the announcement that 2020 would be the Year of Commander, with a Commander Set! And Brawl players (what few there were) went "OK, and?"

And then nothing. Arena and the people behind that paid more attention to the format, and they launched Historic Brawl late in 2020 to go with their expanding card collection and recognizing that getting Commander up and running would be the holy grail of their existence. So creating a format that they could evolve into Commander is something they were more than willing to invest in.

Wizards went right back to ignoring their home-grown format. Probably because it hadn't instantly displaced Commander as the most popular format, ignoring the fact that by this point, Commander had existed for over a decade of serious play from the community, and that Wizards had religiously put out Commander decks each year, and now with each set to ride the gravy train. Brawl?

Got Nothing.

Tomorrow, Brawl rotates again. And I worried. Because I saw this coming, and I realized that Wizards had done nothing to support Brawl, that after three years, well, Throne of Eldraine would rotate out of the format, taking all the Brawl cards in it with it. Including Command Tower and Arcane Signet.

Except not. Apparently, buried in the weekly updates for Arena two months ago was a single sentence addressing this. If you can't find it, that's because it's buried after talking about how Davriel, Soul Broker was preemptively banned in Historic Brawl because he could shut down Commanders similarly to Meddling Mage and Sorcerous Spyglass.

Look, I don't like Historic Horizons, and I only updated by Questing Beast Brawl deck to Historic standards just to see what it was like. Not impressed. More of the same.

Anyway, Arena, or the people behind it, decided to keep those two mana fixers/accelerators in the format without requiring that they be (re)printed in paper first. I applaud this decision, though of course, I am annoyed that it had to happen in the first place.

Wizards... doesn't care about Brawl. They never did. Or rather, they cared just long enough for it to not become the next greatest thing, and dropped it for more Secret Lairs that they could sell for egregious prices, and more high-return, low cost projects.

They were basically arm-twisted into producing the four precons we did see, and the results of those were not pretty in the least.

But why? What can be done to try and reinvigorate Brawl?

Well, there are a few ways. First, they can just bite the bullet and start supporting the damned format. Sponsor a tournament, get some of their paid shills to promote and play the format instead of Commander. That sort of thing. Print precons for them. Not with every set, no. But say Brawl Precons associated with the year's Core Set? That could work.

We know that Wizards has more Legends up their sleeves, ready to print than they care to admit. The slipping of Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor into the Set boosters for Midnight Hunt is a sign of this. I don't know if she was from a Commander deck that got slashed, but the Commander still existed, but she was there. And printing her into a Brawl deck wouldn't kill the format. Sure, she wouldn't be all that great, but hey, Wizards could reprint some Curses from previous Commander sets, or heck, even Amonkhet (hey, Overwhelming Splendor does work, though I suppose Cruel Reality would be more on-theme and on-color)

So why not print even a single Brawl deck with each set? Just keep them coming, keep them rotating, as a sort of 'Commander lite' format.

Or do what I do, and build a Brawl deck, then have an additional 40 cards to make it Commander legal. Get the best of both formats!

I... I just don't know.

I see a format that Wizards tried to throw to the players to do all the heavy lifting of making viable, and only looked back when they couldn't ignore it any longer. Then went right back to ignoring it.

The only people who care are on Arena, where I can Brawl to my heart's content. I've never seen a Brawl game live.

Why bother? Why care?

It's obvious Wizards doesn't. Just sanction the damned thing in the DCI! Do something!

ANYTHING!

Join me next week when I try to do something more upbeat! I don't know what yet, but until then, please discuss your experiences with this format and all the other failures, like Tiny Leaders, Pioneer, Two-Headed Giant, Vanguard....

Until then please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!