Wizards of the Coast have launched their first-ever sanctioned competitive format to utilize Commander rules, with the debut of “Competitive Brawl” on MTG Arena last week.
The decision to enforce an official competitive-casual split in Brawl (Arena’s equivalent to Commander) was officially announced on June 1st, but the new format did not become playable until the 26th. Competitive Brawl is not just a ranked queue mode – Wizards have made clear that they will be managing it as a separate format with its own banlist and potential rules changes.
So far the only rules difference is the elimination of the free mulligan players receive in “casual” Brawl. But the initial banlist announcement for Competitive Brawl, followed by updates to Brawl’s banlist in the June 30th Banned and Restricted announcement, make it clear that these two formats will only grow further apart as each evolves to match the needs of its respective playerbase.
As MTG Arena team member Dave Finseth wrote in the official announcement of Competitive Brawl:
“One of our key learnings is that Brawl is not one thing to all players but supports a wider audience than other formats. Some players are drawn to the format to showcase decks and express themselves, while others show up for a competitive, high-intensity game of Magic.
As we kept iterating on matchmaking algorithms and banned lists, we realized we could not support these two audiences well with a single format. The time had come to split competitive and casual play, allowing players to self-select their experience and enabling us to better steward the format for both groups of players.”
As that quote implies, diverging banlists are the main tool by which Wizards intends to sculpt these two versions of Brawl. One very interesting aspect of Competitive Brawl is that for now, it has exclusively banned cards for their potential as commanders.
The announcement explained that while they initially planned other bans, internal testing showed that banning maindeck cards had minimal impact on win rate or play patterns, regardless of how strong those cards appeared.
Meanwhile, the recent Banned and Restricted update reminded everyone that this split has effectively created TWO new formats. No longer constrained by the need to serve two conflicting sets of player interests, “original” or “casual” Brawl is now free to make more decisive changes in pursuit of a fun, relaxed and open metagame.
That’s exactly what the new B&R delivered: a series of bans to cards that are widely considered un-fun, or responsible for oppressing lower-tier commander choices.
Easily-looped extra turn spells and free counter magic were first on the chopping block, along with the S-tier mana ramp of Ugin’s Labyrinth. Dave Finseth’s explanation of these changes made it clear players can expect further bans to follow as Brawl settles into its new identity
The decision to officially sanction Competitive Brawl sets an interesting new precedent for Wizards when it comes to managing other formats.
Brawl is obviously a close cousin of Commander, and there have long been similar calls to officially recognise competitive Commander, or “cEDH”, as its own entity. All the reasons given by Dave Finseth in that announcement are equally applicable to Commander, and players already widely recognise an unofficial, spiritual divide between cEDH and the more typical, relaxed approach to the format.
Does this mean that we might see official cEDH tournaments in the near future? It still feels unlikely: Brawl being a digital-only format eliminates a lot of pain points that would accompany such a change in paper Commander.
Brawl is also still a 1v1 format as opposed to the four-player default configuration in cEDH. Playing free-for-all multiplayer in a high-stakes competitive setting isn’t unheard of in the world of board games, but community-run cEDH events have already shown what a can of worms it can be; one Wizards cannot be that excited to open themselves.
At the very least, players who enjoy building robust and optimized decks around a commander now have a Wizards-recognised format and platform which is unequivocally theirs. And so do the other Brawl players who just want to have fun and enjoy a less-competitive brew in peace.
Tom’s fate was sealed in 7th grade when his friend lent him a pile of commons to play Magic. He quickly picked up Boros and Orzhov decks in Ravnica block and has remained a staunch white magician ever since. A fan of all Constructed formats, he enjoys studying the history of the tournament meta. He specializes in midrange decks, especially Death & Taxes and Martyr Proc. One day, he swears he will win an MCQ with Evershrike. Ask him how at @AWanderingBard, or watch him stream Magic at twitch.tv/TheWanderingBard.