Opposition
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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
Oathbreaker Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Opposition

Enchantment

Tap an untapped creature you control: Tap target artifact, creature or land.

legendofa on The New Commander Brackets Beta

2 months 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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:

legendofa on Testing brackets with Merfolk combos

2 months ago

I just finished detailing this deck.

deck chart

Clear Waters

Commander / EDH legendofa

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?

Craeter on Can't Catch Me, I'm the GingerBant Man! [Primer]

4 months ago

This is sweet (lol) ~ Bant is prolly my fav Tri color combo. It looks like you've got it pretty well dialed in for the particular game plan you've got going on.

Maybe consider is some targeted protection for your commander. Staples like Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots. Lesser known DFC Sejiri Shelter  Flip.

There are lots of options for messing with the opponents game plan too, but maybe not enough room in this deck for those. Things like more Counterspells, Control (Opposition is a fav of mine, especially with tokens), commander disabling Darksteel Mutation.

You've also got lots of ETB effects. Those could be abused with Brago, King Eternal, Teleportation Circle. I know the game plan is to just sac them off, but Blink is also an option for added value.

Board wipes could also be good in here. Being able to remove an untargetable enemy Voltron commander for instance, but also your own board, however you still have the Gingerbread men surviving the wipe. It could turn the tables in a clutch moment.

Just some stuff to think about. Honestly as it is the deck looks fantastic. Bant has a ridiculous amount of directions it can be taken.

Craeter on Standing Stones | Archelos, Lagoon Mystic

6 months ago

Wow great job with the story, the imagery is absolutely stellar. And the characters seem unique and described vividly, very impressive for such a short story. Kudos for that and this deck construction.

It's cool to see you've included Calming Verse, I remember you mentioning that on my Arcades deck.

I see that Landfall / Ramp is the main premise to the deck, curious how does that tie into the Commander? I'm probably just not seeing the interaction, but wouldn't you want to include some cards like Opposition to manipulate Archelos and the battlefield? Does Verity Circle work with this Commander? I'm guessing not since it says "become tapped" and the Commander makes them ETB already tapped, but it would be cool if it worked.

Also do you know about Conduit of Worlds? It's very similar to Crucible of Worlds, but it allows for recursion and redundancy with Crucible. Druid Class is also super good for decks like this. Maybe Lifegift as well

Craeter on Mercadian Staques

9 months ago

Love the theme and all the old school cards. One question: is the commander the only means of triggering ETBs? Seems like there are tons of ETBs and just wondering what the general plan is of triggering them as often as possible with blinks and bounces. I really like Opposition as a Tapping permanent, looks like it came our in 1999 so maybe it could find a home here.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Card creation challenge

9 months ago

I'd love me some redundancy for Opposition in Hylda of the Icy Crown. Skaab Wrangler is already in there, and I just found out there is Sandsower. But both of those are pretty expensive to activate. Sooo...

Blizzard Dome

Enchantment

At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice ~ unless you pay .

Tap two untapped creatures you control: Tap target creature you don't control and put a stun counter on it.

Create a permanent card with a cost to keep around.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Why Have There Been So …

1 year ago

That's obviously objectively correct. She's not an enabler, she's a payoff. But what she does by this is she basically unlocks a truckload of defensive effects that mostly couldn't be used at all without her helming the deck. The closest comparison for the strategy could be Rhoda, Geist Avenger and Timin, Youthful Geist. Timin taps down things and Rhoda benefits from it, but the pair is rather weak compared to Hylda. Timin is the enabler, but he needs to be expensive manawise to not be restrictive.

Let's imagine Hylda had an Opposition effect on herself. Her triggered ability had to be a lot weaker so she couldn't go "pseudo infinite" with herself, and then the deck would be very different. You'd propably play a go-wide strategy relying on Hylda to make room for big attacks. That's not a defensive play style.

This is quite a long comment already. The most important part is this:

What she does is she unlocks a truckload of defensive effects that mostly couldn't be used at all without her payoff ability. That way, while her ability is a payoff, her effect on the cards she plays is she enables them to be played. As such, she enables defensive play and thus definitely can be called a defensive card.

Azoth2099 on Kykar kicks ass (Suggestions needed!) (Budget)

1 year ago

Hey man! As someone who's brewed this one alot, I'm telling you right now you need waaay more mana rocks. Literally like 10+ rocks, plus a few rituals. The fact that they also generate a token is incredible in practice. Here's a list of the ones I'd include on top of what you already have: Fellwar Stone, Talisman of Progress, Izzet Signet, Boros Signet, Azorius Signet, Springleaf Drum, Jeweled Amulet, Lotus Petal, Pyretic Ritual, Desperate Ritual, Seething Song & Battle Hymn.

Also just so you know, Mystical Tutor, Personal Tutor, Enlightened Tutor & Gamble are all super cheap right now due to recent reprints! Gotta get it while the getting is good, ya know?

A great combo here is Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal, it generates infinite Spirit tokens on top of just being great individual utility pieces for the build outside of the combo!

Lots of great, cheap synergy pieces like Wild Research, Kindred Discovery, Opposition, Vicious Shadows, etc...

I'll stop rambling now, great Commander choice dude! Let me know how you feel about my mediocre suggestions lol.

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