Commander: First Impressions from Brackets & Game Changers Update

Last Tuesday, the Commander Format Panel announced an update to the Brackets system and the Game Changers list.

The changes made were, in short, aimed at providing more clarity on where each deck functions and what game expectations can be anticipated at each table based on the number of turns played — while these don't serve as a general rule, as there can be situations where a player starts with a perfect hand and ends the game very early, it helps to dictate some of the more complex social contracts of the game.

A few months ago, we published an article where we discussed how Commander, despite being a social format, separates players. In it, I made an analogy that if the Beatles played Commander, they would never have formed a band because their distinct visions would create different game expectations where they would never cross paths, or they would hate each other if they did.

Commander is still a format of communicating social contracts, the changes the Panel offered at the end of October don't change this but offer a path to a more coherent conversation, with game expectations that meet among players without so much disagreement and/or without opening so much space for childish discourses about who you want to play against or not.

Furthermore, the update to the Game Changers corrects one of the biggest problems the list had: just because a legendary creature is powerful doesn't mean the deck it's in will be broken. In the same way that a player can build a Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow in Bracket 4 or cEDH with all the mana rocks, tutors, and extra turns, another can build it in Bracket 2 or 3 using only Delve spells, or even in Bracket 1 with Turtle and Ninja themes.

The problem is not — and never has been — the legend, but rather the player's mentality. The Magic community has this historical problem, rooted in an audience that focused on 1v1 games for two decades, of trying to optimize their deck choices as much as possible, while Commander is the format designed to exercise your imagination and creativity — it's just a matter of communicating that to the public.

The changes to the Brackets primarily focus on clarifying the differences between them, especially between the Core, Upgraded, and Optimized levels, addressing recurring questions about the differences in mentality between them.

Core now differentiates itself from the concept of "power level of a Precon deck" to have its own identity as a "relaxed gaming experience that considers the enjoyment of all players," with telegraphed winconditions and probably combat-oriented victories.

In essence, Core has become a better casual experience with this reinterpretation of the focus, and I believe that players less accustomed to copied lists and/or with more creative freedom, such as, for example, a deck built around a specific theme like a Universes Beyond IP, should find a better home in this category than trying to force something beyond in Bracket 3.

Bracket 3, moreover, has received "upgrades" with a greater focus on high-power cards instead of the high synergy and/or theme of Bracket 2, as well as a clearer rule on how a victory condition should behave in this category compared to Optimized and Core.

On the other hand, it now seems that the discrepancy between Brackets 2 and 3 is a little too high, and there are inherent advantages in both cases. Although laborious, perhaps the creation of a "middle ground" between the two would create the ideal focused casual environment in which most of the public could fit without much discussion and misunderstandings regarding intentions in a game.

The metric of game longevity in turn-based play also deserves attention. While something like "turn nine" seems absurd even for Bracket 1 — a casual table where players are consistently distracted would take two hours for each player to play an average of nine turns — the balance starting from six with Bracket 3 seems like the ideal number for Bracket 2 as well, since many decks, even themed, will already have a favorable board position if there isn't enough interaction from the other players, including board wipes and other effects commonly undesirable in more casual games.

Ten cards have been removed from the Game Changers, including some controversial choices from the original list.

The complete updated list of Game Changers can be found below.

When breaking down each choice, some have already been mentioned before: legends are only as strong as the player wants them to be, and most of those on the list seemed to deserve those slots only because they were very strong in terms of game mechanics and/or have a relevant presence in more optimized or competitive tables.

The biggest problem with the selection of Game Changer legends was that there didn't seem to be any other criteria. Cards like Edgar Markov, for example, have a much greater potential to polarize tables around a deck than most of the cards presented above, given how his Eminence ability transforms any list into a ticking time bomb, and the same could be said of less competitive commanders if built appropriately, such as The Gitrog Monster.

Now, only Legends that, in some way, severely punish the development of other players by taxing their actions in the game or consistently denying them resources are game changers, which, in addition to making sense, also creates a "rule" and expectation of which legendary creatures or vehicles released in the future may eventually fall into the list.

Another assertive change was the release of spells whose mana value is considerably high. According to the committee, if you are paying eight or more mana to do something in the game, it is expected that this something is powerful and that, due to the length of the game, there will be sufficient opportunities for answers from other players.

Finally, the less "logical" and perhaps more controversial choices were Deflecting Swat and Food Chain — the first is a free spell for protection whose scope of targets is limited compared to Force of Will or Fierce Guardianship, placing it closer to Force of Negation, which is not a game-changer today.

Food Chain, on the other hand, has infinite mana combos with Misthollow Griffin, Eternal Scourge, and a dozen other cards, but the committee believes that the combo restriction clauses imposed in lower brackets make its inclusion redundant.

The last novelty that the Panel announced was the possibility of changing the hybrid mana rules to make them count as only one of the colors instead of both, given that a Mono Green deck could, for example, cast Vexing Shusher and a colorless deck could play with Beseech the Queen.

Since community feedback was requested regarding this possible change, here are my two cents: Don't further complicate something that, by nature, is already convoluted to explain. If I can counter a Sygg, River Cutthroat with a Pyroblast, it doesn't make sense that a K’rrik, Son of Yawgmoth player can use it.

There is a lot of fun and potential in that change? Sure! Should it happen for the sake of fun? No!

Thank you for reading!