Adding brackets to commander decks
TappedOut forum
Posted on Feb. 11, 2025, 7:56 p.m. by Dadbod81
Just wondering if there are plans to flag the bracket of a deck for commander players as we adapt to the new structuring of deck?
Crow_Umbra says... #3
Linking the Bracket article for reference to anyone who hadn't read up on it yet. Given that today's announcement is for the Beta version of this system, with a proposed revisit in late April to account for feedback, I'm fine with Tapped Out rolling a flag/feature closer to then.
From some discussions I've seen across social media today, I'm seeing a sentiment that the "Game Chargers" lists are still kinda incomplete. I don't expect these lists to be exhaustive out the gate, but having a general sense of the Bracket parameters is helpful.
I think a more complicated future wrinkle for the Brackets will be taking mana base consistency into consideration beyond fast mana or powerful utility lands like Gaea's Cradle or Glacial Chasm, etc.
February 11, 2025 9:26 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #4
I've messaged Gavin wondering why tappedout wasn't contacted but I have a hunch it's because of the site's lack of social media presence making it hard for other businesses to contact this one.
February 11, 2025 10:35 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #5
As for the actual features we have to wait on yeago. There's nothing I can really do about this right now beyond doing some simple systems design about how it can be implemented here.
February 11, 2025 10:47 p.m.
This is added. We will get into the particulars and validation later but feel free to tag them using hubs
February 13, 2025 7:44 p.m.
I see we can now select a bracket when editing the deck. Is there any thought to using the guidelines to automatically recommend a bracket for the decks we've already built?
February 14, 2025 12:30 p.m.
Thanks for doing this, once it's out of alpha/beta and we have a final version, will decks be auto-assigned to a bracket based on whats in them?
February 16, 2025 4:13 a.m.
Dadbod81 I hope it doesn't auto-assign. My most powerful deck would qualify as bracket 2 based on an official reading of the bracket rules (which are pretty hand-wavy in lots of places). I'd want to assign that deck as a bracket 4. But it would be nice if there could be some kind of suggestion (or at least something to call out illegal bracket settings).
February 16, 2025 9:09 a.m.
Crow_Umbra says... #12
Dadbod81 & Abaques, the way Brackets are working on other deckbuilder sites is that decks are auto-assigned a minimum possible Bracket, based on meeting criteria. For example, decks with at least 2 Game Changers are assigned a minimum of a Br3. Users then have the option to adjust their Bracket to their own deck building intentions.
February 16, 2025 9:24 a.m.
Crow_Umbra says... #13
I should have a bit more info in my last response regarding Bracket assignment changes. Where the Brackets are listed on deck pages, users can hover over the category to open up a hover pop-up window with explanation of the classification. The listing also highlights which Game Changers or other Bracket criteria are currently being met.
If a user changes their classification to better suit their intentions, the hover pop up will state that the creator of the deck manually changed the deck classification.
February 16, 2025 2:42 p.m.
I think the auto minimum bracket is the right way to go.
February 21, 2025 3:53 a.m.
I can see not counting stax like Meekstone atm, but 'mass land denial' is probably supposed to include fun stuff like Stasis and Static Orb (also Winter Orb and Rising Waters, maybe Mana Web, but I don't know about stuff like Choke atm, or Omen of Fire). I've heard 'affects 4 or more lands' as the gold standard, hence me not being certain if 'targeted' land hate (vs a single colour's Basics) should count.
Apologies (and thanks) if you're already working on it!
February 21, 2025 10:32 a.m.
DreadKhan I think one of the problems that the current iteration of the bracket system has is the lack of explicit definition of "mass land destruction" and "combos". Without a clearer description of what those things are there remains a lot of grey areas. I've found that Magic tends to attract people who often enjoy understanding the details of rules, which is honestly one of the strong points of the game in a lot of ways, and ambiguity will just create problems there. Hopefully that's something they can fix.
February 21, 2025 11:36 a.m.
I think they will try being more clear on things as it goes out of beta... as for mass land denial, my approach has been if I'm not sure if it is or isn't, then i err on the side of caution and count it as mass land denial.
February 25, 2025 5:53 a.m.
Crow_Umbra says... #18
I was talking last night with a couple of friends regarding how we list our Brackets for our decks. Although the majority of our decks are B3 due to Game Changer inclusion and other criteria, we feel that a growing sentiment for our decks is "B3 is the floor based on the baseline criteria being met, but B4 is a more accurate ceiling based on optimization in the deck that the Beta doesn't take into account yet".
We also speculated a bit on cards that aren't on Game Changers list, but could feasibly end up on there: Teferi's Protection, probably Deflecting Swat, free counterspells, mass edict effects like Dictate of Erebos, and stax like others have mentioned.
All that being said, I'm going to start retroactively adding a "Bracket Intentions" section to the primers of decks I currently have in irl rotation & outline my view on the floor vs ceiling.
Moraff says... #2
I second this. It seems that other deck building locations have already rolled out the system. =/ Possibly unfair competition?
February 11, 2025 8:47 p.m.