Trouble in Pairs
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander 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
Vintage Legal

Trouble in Pairs

Enchantment

If an opponent would begin an extra turn, that player skips that turn instead.

Whenever an opponent attacks you with two or more creatures, draws their second card each turn, or casts their second spell each turn, you draw a card.

legendofa on The New Commander Brackets Beta

1 month 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:

amarthaler on EDH Geist of Saint Traft

1 month ago

Update!

Out: Thieving Skydiver... Curiosity... Wedding Ring... Commander's Sphere

In: Dorothea, Vengeful Victim  Flip... Combat Research... Trouble in Pairs... Grand Arbiter Augustin IV

DadHumanPraetor on Aurelia, the Warleader

2 months ago

I used to run a similar build. I always ran out of cards. Cards like Jeska's Will Firemane Commando Esper Sentinel Dawn of a New Age Trouble in Pairs The One Ring didn’t exist. Even Smuggler's Share Tocasia's Welcome Welcoming Vampire and Rumor Gatherer weren’t around yet, so I had to depend on Mangara, the Diplomat Sword of Fire and Ice Mask of Memory Mentor of the Meek I also ran Enlightened Tutor and Open the Armory to find the helm. I wonder how this deck would fare against a typical commander deck, which has a lot more ramp draw and removal

lhetrick13 on Gishath Spared No Expense!!!

2 months ago

Mortlocke - "Interesting philosphy regarding your commander getting combat damage - instead of trying to sneak by, you just hit them harder." Yes, that summarizes my play style very well, lol. I am not to much for gimmicks or shenanigans...I just love a good ol' beatdown!

In terms of card draw/tutoring, ya, the Naya colors are not great at it and I could definitely add in things like Trouble in Pairs to get more draw or Smothering Tithe for arguable some of the best ramp out there, but nominally, I am not playing to much from my hand once I get Gishath out as she is tutoring creatures for me. The deck is kinda centered around having 50+ either lands, ramp, or cards I deem an accelerate like Hunting Velociraptor so pretty much every other card in the deck helps get Gishath out fast. From that point on, it is more focused on protection of my boardstate. I am running Forerunner of the Empire, Savage Order, and Congregation at Dawn for creature tutors. So they are in there but jsut not some of the classic ones you would expect. I like the flexability those provide over Worldly Tutor. Finale of Devastation is a beast of a card but since I am not running Ghalta, Primal Hunger, the card kinda loses some of its flair with this decklist. Growing Rites of Itlimoc  Flip I actually dropped for Welcome to ...  Flip! Very similar cards and I just like the Jurassic Park cards soooo much. Hard not to add those in!

I am working on the Gaea's Cradle! Hard to justify dropping pretty much 6 months of my monthly MTG budget on a single card but hoping some of my side hustles this summer will let me pick that up. It is not phenominal in this deck like it would be in something like Chatterfang, but it would still be more effective than some of the other lands/cards I have in the decklist!

Thanks for all the thoughts you are posting, I do greatly appreciate the questions and recommendations! It has been about 5 months since I played this deck so I need to sit down and take a look at it again and ask some of the hard questions about why I included some things and why I dropped others.

Gidgetimer on The New Commander Brackets Beta

3 months ago

The bracket system, like the 1-10 "power level" scale that it is apparently intended to replace, suffers from trying to reduce an incredibly complex format into checklists of criteria. This iteration just has half the numbers, so instead of every deck being "about a 7" they are now "bracket 3".

This also isn't down to just bad actors misclassifying their decks, or people using the rubrics wrong. Someone could easily throw together a deck that is way too powerful and think that they are putting together a "bracket 2" deck. For example, my Ghave, Guru of Spores deck runs no land interaction or extra turns; intentionally doesn't combo; runs no game changers; and only has land tutors. Additionally the description in the article reads like a checklist of that deck.

  • Has the potential for big, splashy turns (check)

  • Strong engines (check)

  • Built in a way that works toward winning the game (check)

  • The game is unlikely to end out of nowhere and generally goes nine or more turns (usually 7-8 actually, without knowledge of the commander and deck it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume 9+)

  • Can expect big swings (Token swarms FTW)

  • Has some cards that aren't perfect from a gameplay perspective but are there for flavor reasons, or just because they bring a smile to your face. (literately just built because my first 60 card deck was Junk Tokens and I wanted it as a commander deck.)

There is also the fact that "bracket 3" spans the entirety of commander between "unedited precon" (bracket 2) and "cEDH without building for a meta" (bracket 4). Hell, Trouble in Pairs is on the Game Changers list, so not even all of the unedited precons actually fall into bracket 2.

I appreciate that they are trying to improve the format and people's ability to find a game they want to play. I don't think that trying to codify power levels is the correct way to go about it. The format is just too nuanced and taking the time to set expectations in a more descriptive way will always be better.

ThassaUpYo@ssa on Kros

11 months ago

Swagner240sx

For your strategy, I'd focus on either infect or +1/+1 counters since the list seems to be a bit "busy" with too much going on. Once you choose which way you'd like to take the deck, we can further tweak - proliferation will still be central to your overall plan.

Here are some suggestions by color that you might want to consider adding to your mainboard:

:

Heroic Intervention, Nature's Lore, The Great Henge, Three Visits.

:

Akroma's Will, Flawless Manuever, Smothering Tithe, Teferi's Protection, Trouble in Pairs.

:

Cyclonic Rift, Fierce Guardianship, Mana Drain, Swan Song.

Permission Denied

I think you can get away with swapping out removing some counter spells as it seems a bit overkill - Cancel, Dispel, Envelop, Negate, and Nullify could probably come out in favor of Fierce Guardianship, Mana Drain, and Swan Song (the others could just be cut).

For your land base, I'd work the following lands in to help with your color wheel:

Fetch Lands: Flooded Strand, Misty Rainforest, Windswept Heath

Filter Lands: Flooded Grove, Mystic Gate, Wooded Bastion

Pathways Lands: Barkchannel Pathway  Flip, Branchloft Pathway  Flip, Hengegate Pathway  Flip

Shock Lands: Breeding Pool, Hallowed Fountain, Temple Garden

Tri-Cycle Land: Spara's Headquarters

True Duals: Savannah, Tropical Island, Tundra

For mana rocks, I prefer the talismans over the signets:

Talisman of Curiosity, Talisman of Progress, Talisman of Unity

I think your Kros, Defense Contractor list is in a good spot, it just needs to be a little more focused.

Last_Laugh on Spanisshin Inquisisshin

11 months ago

Ok, I'm pretty stoked. I got an extended art copy of Trouble in Pairs for $10 from my LGS. I was flipping through a pile of rares they'd just barely bought and asked if TiP was still $25ish. I got the "wait, what?!?" look and he looked up the price and looked a bit sheepish as he admitted "that's not what I paid for it". "Do you mind passing that savings on?" was my immediate reply. When he said "I can go $10", I couldn't pull a $10 bill out of my pocket any fast enough...

kirbysan on [Primer] Helming the Host of Heaven *Update*

1 year ago

I would definitely run Trouble in Pairs over Mangara, the Diplomat. Unfortunately it doesn’t come in foil and I’ve made it a point to foil out my entire Giada deck.

2 non-angel cards I have my eye on are Lost Jitte and Collector’s Cage.

With Jitte I’d probably stack counters and dump them all at once to untap a strong land like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Lotus Field.

For the cage I like the idea of doing hideaway on something big like Avacyn, Angel of Hope or Serra's Emissary for board wipe protection and a big swinger on your turn. You can then reset it with Guardian of Ghirapur or something that blinks it.

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