I just don’t get 1v1 Brawl.

But then again I’m not a big fan of 1v1 Commander.

This afternoon I got to play with the first ever officially released WotC Brawl precons.

Yeah I know I’m late to the party, they came out when Throne of Eldraine dropped a couple of weeks ago. But I wasn’t able to pick mine up until last week. And luckily Diego was gracious enough to play some MtG using them.

As always when it comes to using precons with friends I let them choose the deck they want to play first, and I choose from what’s left.

Our first match up was Knight’s Charge (Diego) versus’ Faerie Schemes (me).

There was some nice synergy in this deck with playing artifacts and enchantments. Stuff happening when you played them, or creatures getting buffs based on the number I controlled. It seemed more cohesive than the other deck. Which I assumed wanted to get get lots of equipment out and equipping those knights with them and swinging in for damage.

I won this match up.

Our second match up was Savage Hunter (Diego) verses Wild Bounty (me).

Ok I was 4 cards away from milling myself. I had all but one land out. Once again this seemed like an uneven match up. Chulane was definitely a Commander I liked the look of, and would like to build a Commander deck round him. Probably my favourite Commander of the four Brawl decks. The Korvold deck just didn’t seem to be generating enough tokens to get the value engine going. Although Diego did get me down to 12 health before I won.

Firstly let’s look at the product itself. These decks are missing the necessary tokens for the decks. Why they weren’t included I have no idea. Maybe they weren’t expecting people to play them, but break the decks up to build Commander decks with.

The Life Wheel is just horrid and cheap. It’s a cardboard wheel. Awful. I’d have preferred the tokens instead.

The cardboard deck box to hold the deck with is a cardboard deck box. I’ll repurpose it’s for something else.

The decks now will be broken up and the land cards used in other decks, and Arcane Signet going into every deck. Heraldic Banner has a couple of mono colour decks I want to add it to.

And that’s the thing I’ve heard stories on the Internet that’s these Brawl decks are going for silly money (mainly in the US I think) and that some of the individual cards are worth more than the original retail price!

I think in a multiplayer game the decks might not seem so one sided. The whole political thing kicks in, alliances forged, everyone coming together to knock down who ever has managed to claw their way to the top of the pile.

And that’s what I don’t get about 1v1 Brawl and Commander. That political element of the game is such a big factor of what makes the formats enjoyable. Although I still don’t see much point for Brawl apart from as a marketing exercise to try and sell more booster packs.

I know why they have 1v1 Brawl online. The multiplayer version is a bit challenging for them to implement. But seriously 1v1 is an ok experience at best. I don’t know why you would choose it over Standard in this scenario. They are going to have to keep a separate ban list for 1v1 Brawl. Which they have done in the past after the failed launch of the format. Just play Standard.

Nah Brawl isn’t for me. But thanks for the Commander cards WotC.