Introducing Commander Brackets Beta

Hello, everybody! This is Gavin Verhey on behalf of the Commander Format Panel (CFP). (And if you want to see what that is and who's in it, you can click here!)

Today, we're very excited to share with you the beta test of our new Commander matchmaking system: Commander Brackets.

In our last article in late October, we talked about a system like this that we were working on and refining, and we have been! We've put a lot of time and iteration into it as a group—it really was a big team effort. Today, we'll talk about them and share an updated road map for the future!

Before getting into Commander Brackets, three important things I want to mention to set expectations around what you'll be seeing today.

Number One!

I expect for many people who play Commander … nothing will change. You can continue to play with friends as you always have without digging into this system. And that's totally fine! Tons of regular playgroups have figured out what works well for them, which is great.

However, as Commander has grown and become a fixture at game stores and big events, we want to create a common language to help people find well-paired games.

I'm sure many of you have had that experience of sitting down to play a game and quickly finding out the decks are operating at extremely different levels. I would think of this system as replacing the "power level 1–10" scale with something more useful. It's a tool to help you find Commander games you enjoy.

One thing Commander has lacked is a good way to discuss what kind of game you want to play, and this helps provide additional terminology. And Rule Zero still exists: you're certainly welcome to say, "Hey, I'm in Bracket 2—except for this one thing. Is that okay with everybody?" Having that conversation is great!

Number Two!

This system (nor really any system) cannot stop bad actors. If someone wants to lie to you and play mismatched, we can't prevent that. However, a lot of people just want to play games in earnest with other decks like theirs, and this aims to help in that regard. There are many ways to game the system. Be honest with yourself and others as you play with them.

And Number Three!

We want to stress that this is a beta test. Your feedback is going to be critical. While we are excited about this, we'd also be very surprised if it was perfect. So please, I encourage you to tell us your thoughts—the Commander channel in the official Magic: The Gathering Discord is a great place, as well as other social media outlets.

Another place we'll be watching for feedback is at MagicCon: Chicago! We wanted to be sure to have this out ahead of the event, so we can see it put into action there. A portion of the Command Zone will be designated for testing this, and I expect members of the CFP and Wizards staff will be stopping by. (Of course, plenty of the Command Zone will still just be regular play space.)

Alright, with those three points down—let's get into Commander Brackets!

Commander Brackets Overview

There are five Commander Brackets. Each one is meant to classify a different kind of game experience. Brackets 1, 2, and 3 are different levels of socially focused play. Brackets 4 and 5 are focused on a higher power or even a competitive experience.

In each bracket description, you'll also find guidance around four kinds of effects that can really impact games: two-card infinite combos, extra turns, mass land denial, and tutors (for things other than lands), noting where and how you should expect to see them.

For a little bit of additional definition around "mass land denial," this is a category of card that most Commander players find frustrating. So, to emphasize it up front, you should not expect to see these cards anywhere in Brackets 1–3.

These cards regularly destroy, exile, and bounce other lands, keep lands tapped, or change what mana is produced by four or more lands per player without replacing them. Examples in this category are Armageddon , Ruination , Sunder , Winter Orb , and Blood Moon . Basically, any cards and common game plans that mess with several of people's lands or the mana they produce should not be in your deck if you're seeking to play in Brackets 1–3.

Additionally, you'll also see some references to the Game Changers list. This is a new, small list of cards we'll share at the end that these brackets refer to and are cards targeted at higher-bracket play.

First, let us show you the brackets.

The Five Brackets

Bracket 1: Exhibition

Experience: Throw down with your ultra-casual Commander deck!

Winning is not the primary goal here, as it's more about showing off something unusual you've made. Villains yelling in the art? Everything has the number four? Oops, all Horses? Those are all fair game! The games here are likely to go long and end slowly.

Just focus on having fun and enjoying what the table has brought!

Deck Building: No cards from the Game Changers list. No intentional two-card infinite combos, mass land denial, or extra-turn cards. Tutors should be sparse.

Bracket 2: Core

Experience: The easiest reference point is that the average current preconstructed deck is at a Core (Bracket 2) level.

While Bracket 2 decks may not have every perfect card, they have the potential for big, splashy turns, strong engines, and are built in a way that works toward winning the game. While the game is unlikely to end out of nowhere and generally goes nine or more turns, you can expect big swings. The deck usually has some cards that aren't perfect from a gameplay perspective but are there for flavor reasons, or just because they bring a smile to your face.

Deck Building: No cards from the Game Changers list. No intentional two-card infinite combos or mass land denial. Extra-turn cards should only appear in low quantities and are not intended to be chained in succession or looped. Tutors should be sparse.

Bracket 3: Upgraded

Experience: These decks are souped up and ready to play beyond the strength of an average preconstructed deck.

They are full of carefully selected cards, with work having gone into figuring out the best card for each slot. The games tend to be a little faster as well, ending a turn or two sooner than your Core (Bracket 2) decks. This also is where players can begin playing up to three cards from the Game Changers list, amping up the decks further. Of course, it doesn't have to have any Game Changers to be a Bracket 3 deck: many decks are more powerful than a preconstructed deck, even without them!

These decks should generally not have any two-card infinite combos that can happen cheaply and in about the first six or so turns of the game, but it's possible the long game could end with one being deployed, even out of nowhere.

Deck Building: Up to three cards from the Game Changers list. No intentional early-game two-card infinite combos. Extra-turn cards should only appear in low quantities and are not intended to be chained in succession or looped. No mass land denial.

Bracket 4: Optimized

Experience: It's time to go wild!

Bring out your strongest decks and cards. You can expect to see explosive starts, strong tutors, cheap combos that end games, mass land destruction, or a deck full of cards off the Game Changers list. This is high-powered Commander, and games have the potential to end quickly.

The focus here is on bringing the best version of the deck you want to play, but not one built around a tournament metagame. It's about shuffling up your strong and fully optimized deck, whatever it may be, and seeing how it fares. For most Commander players, these are the highest-power Commander decks you will interact with.

Deck Building: There are no restrictions (other than the banned list).

Bracket 5: cEDH

Experience: This is high power with a very competitive and metagame-focused mindset.

"Mindset" is a key part of that description: Much of it is in how you approach the format and deck building. It's not just no holds barred, where you play your most powerful cards like in Bracket 4. It requires careful planning: There is care paid into following and paying attention to a metagame and tournament structure, and no sacrifices are made in deck building as you try to be the one to win the pod. Additionally, there is special care and attention paid to behavior and tableside negotiation (such as not making spite plays or concessions) that play into the tournament structure.

cEDH, or "competitive Commander" and similar names, is where winning matters more than self-expression. You might not be playing your favorite cards or commanders, as pet cards are usually replaced with cards needed in the meta, but you're playing what you think will be most likely to win.

Deck Building: There are no restrictions (other than the banned list).

The Game Changers List

What is the Game Changers list?

You saw several mentions of this list above. This is something new that we want to introduce. We think it will be a huge help for matchmaking and understanding the format.

Game Changers dramatically warp Commander games, allowing players to run away with resources, shift games in ways that many players dislike, block people from play, efficiently search for their strongest cards, or have commanders that tend to take away from more casual games. And unlike some previous systems that were discussed, it's only a single additional list to track.

In addition to that function, you can imagine this as a sort of watch-list. Any future bans are likely to come from this list, save for maybe something that shows up in a new set and immediately causes problems, like Nadu . Similarly, unbanned cards are likely to end up here. This creates a nice half-step between the banned list and showing up everywhere. It also really helps ensure that you know what cards we have our eyes on so cards won't feel like they're banned out of nowhere in the future.

It also gives us a tool to unban cards to try them or nudge around cards without a ban needed. If a card shows up and is frustrating at casual tables but fine by competitive players, we can add it to the Game Changers list in an update to get it to the right place. And similarly, if times or opinions change and a card on this list looks fine in casual play now, we can take it off. It's not unlike how Canadian Highlander adjusts point values every now and then.

Now, to be clear: most of these cards are unlikely to be banned. You shouldn't go trading away your Gaea's Cradle s in concern. However, it is a clear signal for players to know that these cards indicate a different kind of play and that others might prefer not to play against them.

We all discussed a lot what we felt should be on this list to make it useful but manageable and ended up at exactly 40 cards. (That number being round is just coincidence; this list doesn't always have to be 40 cards.) Here is our initial Game Changers list for the Commander Brackets beta test:

 

The exact cards on the Game Changers list is something we'll be carefully looking for feedback on during the beta period.

Quick Recap

There's a lot about philosophy and goals above. But I know many people will just want the quick rundown! So, here is a quick recap:

Bracket 1: Exhibition. Incredibly casual, with a focus on decks built around a theme (like "the Weatherlight Crew") as opposed to focused on winning. No Game Changers, two-card combos, mass land denial, or extra-turn cards. Tutors should be sparse.

Bracket 2: Core. The power level of the average modern-day preconstructed deck sits here. No Game Changers, two-card combos, or mass land denial. You shouldn't expect to be chaining extra turns together. Tutors should be sparse.

Bracket 3: Upgraded. Decks are stronger than modern-day preconstructed decks but not fully optimized and include a small number of Game Changers. Up to three Game Changers, no mass land denial, no early two-card combos. You shouldn't expect to be chaining extra turns together.

Bracket 4: Optimized. Go wild with your highest-power cards! No restrictions other than the banned list.

Bracket 5: cEDH. This bracket is powerful with an eye toward a metagame and tournament structure. No restrictions other than banned list.

The list of Game Changers includes 40 cards that have a huge impact both in Commander and the kind of game you're playing. It's like a half-step to be able to notch cards up but not ban them, and future unbans will likely go on the list to ease them in. It also informs players about cards that are at the upper end of Commander power, and any future bans would likely come off this list.

Have questions? At the end of this article, there's a long list of answers to expected questions, so be sure to check that out!

But before we get there: what's ahead?

The Upcoming Road Map

We want to leave you all with a better understanding of what we're doing next and about when it will happen. That way, you can better anticipate updates. So, we're going to give you a transparent look behind the curtain here!

The first step is … for you to try it and for us to hear your thoughts! I'm sure we'll start hearing feedback quickly, and we're excited to see a bunch of people trying this in person at MagicCon: Chicago. Depending on how that goes will inform much of the future.

Provided the system generally works and is heading in the right direction, we'll begin making revisions soon after MagicCon for any structural changes we want to include. Then, with the information of how that all went in mind, we'll begin discussing any potential unbans—with the Game Changers list as a tool, we can potentially unban cards and add them to the list to keep them available at the higher brackets while keeping them out of the lower ones.

The goal here, provided the system works, will be to come back with one big article in late April that both rolls out the full system and any unbans all together. And, as we said back in October, no bans will be happening at that time—just potentially some unbans. So, if you're eager to hear about unbans, late April is the date to circle on your calendar—and if anything changes in the timeline, we'll let you all know. This schedule is, of course, contingent on this system directionally working.

Once we're through that, we'll work on getting a regular cadence for updates when you know you can hear from us.

Hopefully that clues you in a bit on what to expect soon.

Welcome to the Beta!

Thanks for taking the time to check this all out—and thank you for your patience as we've put it all together.

I, speaking as Gavin here, want to thank the rest of the CFP for all their work. They took the initial structure of an idea we at Wizards mentioned last October and really evolved it into something that is much more workable and understandable while covering a wider array of Commander players. There was plenty of great debate and discussion, and while not every person necessarily aligns on every single element, I can see pieces from each and every person nestled somewhere in the DNA of this system. It's been really incredible to watch the team bring it together.

We've had a lot of great discussions talking about it, and I'm excited for you try it out. A fun exercise to run for yourself as you're packing for your next in-person Commander session is to try and bring decks of a few different brackets.

I'm sure no shortage of pieces will be written, filmed, told in person, posted on our official Discord, or otherwise—and we look forward to reading them.

Many of us will see you in Chicago! Until then, on behalf of the Commander Format Panel, this is Gavin signing off.

The Commander Format Panel

Attack on Cardboard
Bandit
Benjamin Wheeler
Charlotte Sable
DeQuan Watson
Deco
Greg Sablan
Ittetu
Josh Lee Kwai
Kristen Gregory
Lua Stardust
Olivia Gobert-Hicks
Rachel Weeks
Rebell Lily
Scott Larabee
Tim Willoughby
Toby Elliott

Commander Bracket Q&A

As you can imagine in this design process, there's a lot we talked about. You may have some questions! Something we wanted to do was answer some questions we thought might be common. This is long and gets into detail on topics for anybody out there who wants to dig in. We hope it helps!

I don't like this! Do I have to use it?

No, not at all. As we mentioned up top, if your group is having success playing games you love without this, awesome. Go forth. This is just one tool you can use.

We would ask, though, if you are looking for a way to matchmake, to try it out and give it a shake.

Why is [Card X] on the Game Changers list?

Let me break down the reasons and categories for all the cards on there, as of this iteration.

Enlightened Tutor , Mystical Tutor , Demonic Tutor , Vampiric Tutor , Imperial Seal , Survival of the Fittest : These are best-in-class tutors and tend to find combo pieces or just homogenize the game to play out similarly. While tutors are already mentioned in the bracket structure, these six are ones we wanted to call out specifically.

Drannith Magistrate , Opposition Agent , Trinisphere , Glacial Chasm , The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale : These efficiently lock out your opponents' ability to use their cards, often in frustrating ways.

Chrome Mox , Grim Monolith , Mox Diamond , Mana Vault , Ancient Tomb : These are extremely powerful fast-mana pieces that accelerate the game.

Smothering Tithe , Trouble in Pairs , Rhystic Study , The One Ring , Jeska's Will , Bolas's Citadel : These provide overwhelming resource advantage for their mana value and tend to cause a player to snowball with the game.

Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger : This is an extension of the mana-denial restriction. It doesn't fully fit our description given and is a little nicer than other mass land denial cards, but we still wanted to keep this card clear from the lower brackets.

Lion's Eye Diamond , Underworld Breach , Ad Nauseam : These are combo and storm cards usually up to no good and can create power and goal mismatches at a more casual table.

Gaea's Cradle and Serra's Sanctum : These lands provide a huge mana boost and can rapidly accelerate the game.

Thassa's Oracle : This is a best-in-class way to win the game on the spot and is used as a two-card combo.

Cyclonic Rift : This is the best-in-class way to reset everybody else in Commander, and often in not a very fun way.

Expropriate : While it is expensive, the combination of take a turn alongside taking three permanents (provided none of them give you extra turns) is strong enough to end some games on the spot.

Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur : A prime card to cheat out or reanimate, this Jin removes others' resources while ensuring you have endless in a quite unfun way.

Fierce Guardianship and Force of Will : Free counterspells were much debated. They are powerful and often protect your engine. Guardianship doesn't put you down a card to cast it, and Force of Will can counter anything, including commanders, and works on your turn, which often is used to protect your combos. Force of Negation was left alone, however, since it only counters noncreatures and only works on opponents' turns.

Kinnan , Yuriko , Winota , Grand Arbiter Augustin IV , Tergrid , and Urza : We wanted to be very careful with the legendary creatures we hit, as it essentially knocks them out of Brackets 1 and 2. Additionally, your commander is the one thing you know before playing the game, so it gives you an easy way to say, "Hey, I don't want to play against that commander." However, after a lot of discussion, we felt like these six were almost never used fairly when played as commanders. I've never seen the fun, enjoyable-for-everybody Grand Arbiter deck out there in the wild. There might be one person out there who has it, and to that person, feel free to try and convince the table—as mentioned earlier, Rule Zero still very much applies. But generally, these are commanders that have a certain pedigree of appearance and that most players don't want to play against at, say, Bracket 2. This does apply to the rest of your deck as well—while these cards can be a lot better within your 99, we didn't want an additional list distinguishing cards that are only Game Changers when used as commanders. But if you have any feedback on that, you can let us know!

Why isn't Sol Ring on the Game Changers list?

You are correct that it qualifies as fast mana and would otherwise be there next to cards like Mana Vault .

The truth is … it's Sol Ring . It's the most iconic card in all of Commander. It's something that since near the beginning has been the poster child for the format. Playing one Sol Ring is a universal truth, handed down from Sheldon Menery.

Every deck gets exactly one Sol Ring to let it power up and accelerate a bit extra on occasion. That remains true.

[Card X] should be on the list! Why isn't it?

We talked about a ton of cards. Send us your feedback, and we'll take it into account when working on the final version!

What does it mean if my commander is on the Game Changers list?

As described above in the card-by-card explanations, these are commanders that tend to be exclusively frustrating and power outliers at lower brackets. It does mean you cannot play them there. If you believe you have an Exhibition (Bracket 1) or Core (Bracket 2) deck using one of these cards (for example, your deck commanded by Urza falls in the Exhibition bracket because it's about retelling the story of the Brothers' War), Rule Zero is still very much in effect, and you're welcome to talk with your table.

At Upgraded (Bracket 3), it means it counts toward one of your three Game Changers. At the Optimized and cEDH brackets, go wild!

Why are there five brackets? Doesn't it kind of boil down into three?

It's true that there are essentially three "categories": no Game Changers, some Game Changers, and all Game Changers. We looked at three brackets for a while. But a couple things became apparent.

First, there's an audience that would really like to play a Commander game below the level of preconstructed decks. And I personally think it's great that level exists: I've never built a purely goofy deck in my life, but now that I know I have terminology to find those Exhibition matches in Bracket 1, I feel a lot more like building one!

On the other end of the spectrum, in talking with our cEDH experts, like Deco, Lua Stardust, and Rebell, they really felt like there's a difference between high power and cEDH worth quantifying. Additionally, a great point that was brought up was that cEDH already has done exactly what we're trying to do here, with a label that indicates the kind of game you're looking for. They have earned that official labeling by virtue of it proving to have worked!

We do expect a lot of Commander decks to fall into the Core, Upgraded, and Optimized brackets (Brackets 2, 3, and 4), and that's totally okay—but having the room for Exhibition and cEDH is something we felt was important, and if this is successful, those categories (especially Exhibition) may grow over time.

My best deck has no Game Changers and is technically a Bracket 2 deck. Should I play it there?

You should play where you think you belong based on the descriptions. For example, if your deck has no-holds-barred power despite playing zero Game Changers, then you should play in Bracket 4!

Why three cards from the Game Changers list for Bracket 3?

We talked a lot about decks we had, what we expected, and what felt about right so that your deck could have some of these cards show up but not be full of them. We talked about three, four, and five cards—and while five doesn't sound like a lot, when the list is only around 40 cards, that's a lot! Ultimately, we wanted to start lower and see how it feels, but we're very much open to your feedback on this.

We naturally expect people to talk about how many Game Changers are in their decks. So, if someone says, "Hey, I have N Game Changers in my deck. Is that okay?" you can decide if that's something you're happy with.

How worried should I be about labeling my deck correctly and finding my exact bracket to play with?

There's some wiggle room, and while playing against decks that are all inside your bracket is ideal, you can usually wiggle within one bracket away from you safely. Bracket 2s playing against Bracket 3s can work fine—but what this system is really trying to avoid is Bracket 2s playing against Bracket 4s.

How can I use this system practically?

One thing I'm really excited about is being able to put decks from Brackets 1–4 into my bag and having all four ready to play. That way, I can play with different people depending on the kind of game people want to play!

But above all, the Commander Bracket system is meant to provide players with greater terminology. Even being able to say something like, "My deck has five Game Changers. Is that cool?" gives you more agency when finding good games.

Why is chaining extra-turn spells called out specifically?

A single extra-turn spell can be fun and splashy. However, extra-turn spells take a ton of time away from other players and their ability to play the game and tend to be unfun when repeated. In multiples, they begin to function like a combo deck, where your "combo" is taking four turns in a row and getting so far ahead that nobody can catch up.

A single extra-turn spell, sure. But your Edric deck about chaining all of them together? Keep that for the higher brackets, please.

What if my deck accidentally has a combo or finds a way to chain extra-turn spells?

There's something to be said for intent, which is why we call out no intentional combos and the intent to chain together extra-turn spells. I've built decks before with unintentional combos in them, and if you steal a way to copy spells and cast an extra-turn spell, you can go for it. There's a big difference between deck-building intent and what happens in the game.

For example, it's possible a game could end up with mass land denial if one player makes all lands into creatures and then another sweeps the board. That happens. There are a lot of cards in Magic! But if someone builds their deck to do that intentionally, that's the no-no. So, if you accidentally find an easy two-card combo in your deck, hopefully that's a good laugh for everyone and you now know to take it out for next time.

Is this the same as the "power bracket" system you announced last year?

This system can trace its lineage back to that system, but as you can see, is quite a bit different. When we showed that off last September, we were giving you a behind-the-scenes look at something we were working on in progress—and one of the things about showcasing something before it's done is that it's likely to change.

While directionally being able to bracket decks was useful, as the CFP dug into it, there were all kinds of challenges with that proposed system. For one, that system meant a lot of different lists you have to check against, which made it onerous. It also simultaneously meant you couldn't add a single high-bracket card into your deck without being at the highest level.

After doing a lot of iteration, we landed on this system, which only has a single list of cards, and Bracket 3 lets you play a little bit of the higher-bracket stuff without going fully into it—which is how many people build their decks.

Finally, we wanted to move away from the word "power," which is why these are called "Commander Brackets." Swords to Plowshares and Counterspell are incredibly powerful cards. But they're also totally fine for games of Commander. We really wanted to focus less on power level and more on the game experience you want and the cards that can radically change that game experience.

You didn't really talk about mana bases at all. Is there guidance for that?

While mana is of course critical for playing Magic, it's rare that a mana base is what causes games to be unfun or warping for other players, which is what the focus is on here. The further up the scale you go, the more I would generally expect stronger mana bases to show up because it matters more: cEDH (Bracket 5) decks will want the most efficient mana bases they can have, whereas mana bases for Exhibition (Bracket 1) decks matter less because games are slower and highly thematic. But there are no hard-and-fast rules around them here.

Some Game Changers have shown up in recent preconstructed decks, like Jeska's Will . However, the preconstructed level of Core (Bracket 2) allows for zero Game Changers. How will this influence future preconstructed deck designs?

It's true that Bracket 2 is the average modern-day preconstructed level—but the emphasis is on average. Modern Horizons 3 Commander decks and Secret Lair decks aren't in that mix, for example, and are places these cards can go.

Depending on how the adoption of this system goes, this could go several ways. Just like how some people will use Rule Zero to include a Game Changer, I could imagine an incredibly appropriate Game Changer in a preconstructed deck potentially being acceptable. I could even imagine a future, if this is popular enough, where brackets are included on product packaging and we could occasionally release preconstructed decks at different levels depending on the set: imagine a highly thematic and flavorful set of four Bracket 1 decks or a set of juiced-up Bracket 3 decks!

That's all just speculation at this point, and it's far too early to be working on that kind of thing, but in any case, when it comes to reprints, there will be plenty of places to put these cards. This system doesn't preclude us from making sure there are ways to get the cards out there in the future, including in potential preconstructed decks.

Will you intentionally begin designing cards to go straight to the Game Changers list?

No! At Wizards, we don't see this as a tool to create even more powerful cards for Commander or anything of the sort. It's something to help matchmaking, not one to give us an excuse to push the envelope.

Is there a way for the online tools I use to easily tell me what bracket my deck is?

This is something we wanted to roll out and get adopted into many community tools people use. It's important that a community format involves great community resources, after all!

We've gone ahead and given the popular deck-building websites Archidekt and Moxfield, as well as the popular Magic search engine Scryfall, a heads up on this entire system. You should begin to see them implement it very quickly—even as soon as shortly after this article goes live!

I play on Magic Online. Can this help me there?

Daybreak Games and their Magic Online team are aware and working on a potential implementation of this—stay tuned to them for further announcements!

I didn't see the question I was looking for answered here! Where should I look?

Check out the Commander channel in the official Magic: The Gathering Discord as a place to post questions!