How Magic: The Gathering Arena Fixes Brawl

Command Tower by Ryan Yee
Command Tower by Ryan Yee /

Brawl is coming to Magic: The Gathering Arena! Shortly after San Diego Comic Con 2019, it was announced that Brawl will be getting support in Arena.

Brawl is a kind of Commander variant, with similar rules. Your deck is 59 cards, where you can only have one copy of any given card besides basic lands. The 60th card is the Commander, a Planeswalker or Legendary Creature that you always have access to. It also uses a Standard legality list, that is, cards released in the eight most recent expansions.

Aside from that, Brawl is encouraged as a 1-v-1 format as much as it is multiplayer. Brawl was originally intended as a way to use the powerful cards you might only have one copy of and create a stepping stone between Magic's two most popular formats: Commander and Standard.

Brawl was previously introduced for the Dominaria expansion, where it was met with much criticism and had three major problems.

Baral, Chief of Compliance by Wesley Burt
Baral, Chief of Compliance by Wesley Burt /

First, the format in its inception featured cards that were developed before the creation of the Play Design team. After the disastrously imbalanced Kaladesh block, Wizards of the Coast had to implement a dedicated playtesting team of former professional players to ensure quality cards going forward.

Second, the cards legal were also incredibly shallow in usefulness for Brawl, preventing certain deck types from coming together.

Third, as Brawl uses only the Standard legal sets, the oldest cards will rotate out of the format when the newest expansion is released. The rotation of cards is one of the biggest inhibitors keeping players from participating in Standard, and it also served as one of the biggest inhibitors to players approaching Brawl.

The final nail on the coffin was when Baral, Chief of Compliance from Kaladesh proved to be too powerful and oppressive in the format that it had to be banned not only in Brawl, but in 1-v-1 Commander as well. The banning was too late, as players lot a lot of faith in the designers and gave up on Brawl.

The format was pulled shortly after its launch, but will be revived with the intent on fixing its problems for Throne of Eldraine. Being available on Arena alleviates almost all of the problems it had when it was developed for paper Magic.

First, the new legal cards will all have been made under the direction of Play Design, reducing the chance for another Baral. As they will be designing new cards with this in mind, the overall pool of eligible Commanders will be more diverse and less likely to have one card reign over all else.

Second, WotC will be producing dedicated pre-constructed decks for Brawl, with Standard legal cards not available in booster packs and specially designed for multiplayer. For example, the new card Arcane Signet is very powerful for multiplayer, but is actually completely useless in the normal Standard format, as there is no Commander.

Third, the digital format will remove the qualms about card rotation. Arena is already quite generous with how it gives out cards, and focuses on the Standard format anyway. Rotation isn't as biting in the digital game as you never need to spend real money to play.

If you're on Arena, you'll definitely have stuff you can turn into a Brawl deck. You get to be creative with your draft leftovers or bombs that you can't play in Standard events because you only have one copy. You always want to use cards you own, right?

The diversity of formats is part of the reason why Magic has thrived for over 25 years, and Brawl will bolster the digital game even further. Brawl seems perfect for Arena, where it should prove to be more sustainable as a format online than in paper.

Cover Photo: Command Tower by Ryan Yee
Photo courtesy of Wizards of the Coast.