The bracket system for Magic…
….well, tere is a lot of discussion about it and it clearly polarizes. The opinions differ a lot, some would say it works good, other may disagree. Here is a link to the official bracket announcement in case you missed it:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/introducing-commander-brackets-beta
What is our take on the Brackets ?
1. Purpose
2. What is / was the Rule 0 ?
The commander Rules Committe put up „hard rules numbered from 1+ ongoing. They also put a rule 0 before and proclaimed „We encourage groups to use the rules and the ban list as a baseline to optimize their own experience. This is not license for an individual toforce their vision onto a play group, but encouragement for players to discuss their goals beforehand and how the rules might be adjusted to suit those goals.“
So, the RC Team knew that the „powerlevel“ or approach on Commander games could vary a lot, and that could flaw the game experience for some players. Rule 0 was also considered as „house rules“ or „gentlemen’s agreements“, players should verbalize beforehand what they see as no-goes, what the expect games to be, how they rate their deck, in what turn they expect their deck to win, how they would a „infinite combo“, or what they would forbid as a win condition (poison, 2 card combos, fast mana, etc.).
The list or points are not standardized, and even long discussions could not prevent quarrels or frustrations sometimes, even not at your LGS or conventions but between friends and within your playgroup.
The community came up with an inofficial „powerlevel“ charts ranging from 1 to 10, but although the approach had a good intention, in reality everyone rated their deck as a „7“, leading to a meme.
The RC soon changed thier website, removed the MUST of a rule 0 conversation and simply stated that „simply following the rules is not sufficient to ensure a good play experience.“ and „Help players communicate their preferences and arrive at a shared set of expectations“.
3. Why is another approach of a matchmaking system intended ?
Commander became very very popular, but also wide spread. The Commander rules just present a baseline of 4 rules for Deck Construction, and 1 rule about enhanced starting life and 4 about the Commander mechanism and Commander Damage and 1 rule that outside the game cards do not work/exist.
When you take the commander rules by itself, the rules don’t include plaayer amount, free for all or 2HG playstyle, head-to-head or anything else. So, the rules are mostly focused on the deck building restrictions itself and the ONE Commander card which was added certain characteristics (playable from the Commandzone, Replayability etc.).
Commander soon spread to a more competetive scene (actually, MtG is a competetive game with the goal to win the game.), called cEDH, another competetive scene which focuwed more on the duel conception of using the commander rules in a head-to-head-game and well, more „socially“ playing players. And among those, there are beginners, who just encountered the game, and more experienced players who know the game and its cards since over 30 years.
As the „quality / Playstyle / powerlevel / approach towards the game“ is so widespread, players could face situations, were games were decided before shuffling, like a game between an amatur basketballplayer against a professional NBA Champion in a tournament. This could lead to frustration. Therefore, at least an appoximate breakldown in classes / brackets was intended to be created.
4. Comparisons to other sports
Other sports also have thier brackets / classes, and their rules. When engaging into a tournamental play, you should be aware that the game is focussed on winning. Each competitor will follow the rules, know the rules, act according to the rules but also will try to use the maximum what is allowed. e.g. boxing when the lightweight class allows 135lb, you can start with below that, but you should expect everyone else to come as close as possible to 135lb and you shouldn’t blame others to do so.
In Commander, when you are going for a tournamental play like cEDH (bracket 5) or duel-Commander, you expect everyone to play as competetive as possible, use the best cards and combinations and mechanics allowed and the players are aiming for a win. There is no other word needed to be said, so this class needs the least discussions.
5. Limitations
b) If someone wants to exploit the matchmaking system or be ranked wrongly this system can’t prevent this. (And we might add, the system just gives rough outlines, and some decks might fall through this system).
c) It is a beta system and might be adepted and changed.
Bracket 1 PLUS 2:
a) 98 plains, 1 Smothering Tithe, and Romana II as your commander and
b) a tuned Grand Arbiter Augustin IV deck including a Smothering Tithe.
If you would argue, noone builds a) then you might be wrong, we had other examples where game changer cards were included in precons, and the discussion therefore is: are they running at precon-level or are they upgreded precons including game changers ? We are not trying to ridicule the bracket system, but point out its limitations. Cards and banlists are hard to put up. If you put up a card on a list, you will always start from the point that you know the power of the card, it’s interactions and what this card „normally“ intends to do and can archieve, „the worst case“. This approach is ok, but would contradict the „bracket 1“, which could be seen as „expression“ decks without the intention to abuse cards or their synnergies to win.
So, personally I find bracket 1 and 2 could be united to „Beginner level decks.“
A Precon would be a beginner level deck for me: you haven’t much experience with Magic, you started the game, you want to get into Commander, and hey, you brought a Precon. That’s bracket 1+2. Maybe you got a big fat creature from your brother, and put it into your deck as a small upgrade, or you reduced the amount of lands by 1 or 2. Now, your big brothers comes along and says, ok, I will show you the game, I don’t take my bracket 5 cEDH Deck, nor my normal bracket 4 Deck I play with my friends, which I tuned over the last 10 Magic editions, but I will take a friendly wolly Spider Deck I just threw together to show you the rules about attacking, blocking, turn order etc. Then this wolly spider Deck would be bracket 1, but could maybe engage to a Beginner Deck at precon level. And even if you argue precons became quite decent over the last decades, and „expression“ Decks might be weaker, then again, these Expression Decks don’t seek out to win, they are more showcase than anything else.
So, I would simplyfy it down to these descriptions:
Bracket Beginner (1+2):
Nice Decks to show new players the rules including upgrading a deck. The Deck could include game changer cards, but they are not build around them on purpose to win the game or to set up combos, but more unintentionally or flavourwise. The Precon-Deck could be altered by some cards, but is neither maxed out in every slot nor does it play a perfect landbase, it includes flavoursome cards or suboptimal card choices (due to monetary reasons or bc the player simply doesn’t know there are better choices out there).
Any Deck that was built with the intention to make up a friendly and fair game with aboout equally chances for the new player to win and participate at the game would be Bracket Beginner. Any expressional Deck or showcase deck that wouldn’t scare away a new player would match this category (so, a all foiled out cards Sliver Deck would be too strong, but a minor tribe deck like unicorns might fit in here, too.)
In our personal vision of Brackets we don’t need a bracket 1 for expression: these decks are not presented much. Their focus is not on winning, so not winning is not a big deal for the persons piloting them. They could or would just take out the game no mattter what the opponent plays just to play and show their vision of art, style or culture. They wouldn’t mind to be „degraded“ that their deck is not optmized for tournamental play or has good and strong winning options in them, so they also don’t mind to play against „weaker“ decks like precons or beginner decks.
If you would imagine yourself some years back and get to know the game, you shouldn’t play anything which scares away the younger you / a new player nor cards, synnergies or combos which are too powerful or confusing for new players (Stax Decks, Timesifter, …).
Bracket 3 and Bracket 4
Lastly, and this might be obvious, and some might not take it as a valid arguement, Magic is also luck based. Sure a good deck building can reduce luck, we know the concepts of mana curve, land amounts and mulligans, and of course a good deck also has some consistency but in the end you might just be unlucky and get bad draws and your opponent just draws the one in 99 countermeasure / anti card against your deck.
Winning makes fun. And being beaten to raw meat and left behind with the feeling you never had a feint of a chance is devestating and should not be the normal average for your plays, but it can happen even with correct matchmaking and balanced brackets and so on. Please keep this in mind.
So, after this long prelude, we pointed out that a) no single game changer list is ever perfect nor takes into account all aspects of a deck or the synnergies it can or cannot create. b) the brackets are quite vague and open for mis-gading, especially when the owner of a deck rates it by himself, and there is no system that avoids exploiting the rules. c) some decks will be more than its parts and numbers and even a deck with no mass-landdestruction or game changer cards can be built as a very strong and competetive deck.
Bracket 3:
Intermediate Play. Upgraded Precons.
Intermediate Play refers to advanced Players, they traded some cards, bought some singles, saw a new commander, liked the card and built their own deck around them. They found scryfall and edhrec and looked up for some suggestions and included them. They have the knowledge about a card’s strength and know a lot of cards. They are familiar with most techniques and can quite assume if a card that hits the table is a threat or even a piece of a combo and can react accordingly. Not every card is maxxed out, and players don’t know every combo or Meta. This might be the normal bracket for everyday play.
If you are unsecure about rules or deck strengths, go and play against precons and with beginners. if you feel that you have mastered the basics, stay here. If you are uop to a challange, or feel that you have a good deck by now, advance to bracket Expert.
Bracket 4:
Expert Play. Strong Decks.
Expert Play refers to Players who know the vast majority of cards. They built a lot of decks, and maxed them out. Some cards still might be there for personal flavour, or as a special unusual surprise. The Commanders itself may not be the top tier to win a tournament, nor does the deck intend to win as soon as possible and the players don’t expect and know the current tournament meta and have adjusted their deck accoding to these metas. The players still make mistakes, they play socially, but they aim to win and play strong decks and combinations. They might even use sometimes very salty tactics and cards. If you are a magicplayer for a long time and have a good stock of cards and experience, bracket Expert might be your normal bracket you are now familiar to.
If your deck wins regularly by tun 2-4, then you should move to Tournamnet Play / cEDH. If you often just win by playing salty cards which are not very liked by the LGS and your playgroup, you should maybe change your attitude or try to have more decks with different playstyles.
The gap between the brackets is still fluent ! We
(Sidenote: masslanddestruction or 2 card combo are also a quite vague, notexactly defined terms, which give room for interpretations.)
Bracket 5 cEDH / Duelcommander
As already said, these players tend to play for the win, everything goes, noone is offended by losing nor takes it serious when certain cards or synnergies or combos hit the table.