Well, last week’s announcement from Wizards of the Coast was a doozy. Not only did we get a look at the new Throne of Eldraine trailer (which was awesome), details on the set (which is looking great), and a look at the sets coming in 2021, but we also found out that Brawl is coming to Arena. I say ‘coming,’ it’s been playable via the special Eldraine Courtside Brawl event for the last week or so.
In this limited-time event, we got to try out the new Brawl pre-con decks and give the format a try on the new client. Sadly, as of the publishing of this article, the event will have come to an end, but it has done what it intended to do. Brawl is back in the Magic community’s mind, and this time it might just be here to stay.
Personally, I really liked Brawl when it came out last year, and I had a blast playing against fellow content creators like Pleasant Kenobi and Dijital Llama in a handful of games. Brawl, being a smaller-scale version of Commander, allowed old and new players alike to have a go at building singleton decks from a limited card pool. This forced some of us out of our comfort zones in terms of deck construction, making us look at new commanders and combos to find interesting brews for our games.
Unfortunately, Brawl as a format seemed to disappear from much of the community’s minds shortly after its debut. Many players thought that instead of trying a new singleton format, like Brawl, they could just keep playing Commander. After all, why play Brawl in paper or on MTGO when you can just as easily play its bigger and (arguably) better brother instead?
But you know where you can’t play Commander? Arena.
Arena, for the most part, is a great way to play Magic: the Gathering. It’s free to play, lets you match your wits against thousands of players, and has brought the game to life like never before. All in all, it has been a great success and has brought many new players into the hobby. It’s not hard to see why, as it seems to appeal to everyone. Well, almost everyone.
If you are hyper-competitive and want to test your skills in competitive play, rising up the ladder to possible fame and glory, then you can jump into Ranked. If you just love to play limited and draft the latest sets and are looking for that bomb rare that will get you that 7-0 record, then you can do that too. But what if you want to brew and build decks that are not for top-tier play, and would rather create fun and themed decks around your favourite Legends?
That is where Brawl comes in.
Brawl allows you to take that idea you wanted to try out based on a particular mechanic or Legendary and turn it into a fun and unique deck that is all your own. Maybe you want to show off your Guild colours with pride, or just want to see how far a proliferate superfriends deck can go. Brawl allows you to do this and so much more. It’s where you can let your creative juices flow and go wild with brews and builds that just would not survive the harshness of ranked play.
I’ve already been tinkering with decks and making a shortlist of possible opponents for when Brawl becomes widely available on Arena. Below you will find a deck I like to call ‘Party Brawl,’ that allows you to enjoy the best parts of the Cult of Rakdos helmed by the one and only Judith, the Scourge Diva. However! This will not be the last Brawl deck tech we will have on the site, so keep your eyes peeled for more in the near future.
What do you think of Brawl coming to Arena? Are you excited to try something new on the client? Why not let us know about it in the comments below. While you’re there you could also like and subscribe to keep up to date with all we do here at Master of Magics.
We also have a Patreon, so if you want to support future content on the site, please consider becoming one of our Patrons. Just $1 a month would do so much to help us create more of the content you enjoy. If you have any ideas for new and exciting Brawl decks you want me to look, at you can contact me directly @MTGTengu over on Twitter. But until next time, remember: no matter the game you play or where you play it, good luck and have fun.
