Rule 0 Is Dead, Long Live Rule 0!
“Close enough. Welcome back, Rule 0…”
I want to preface this article by stating that I’m not a fan of the Bracket system and I’m not a fan of trying to codify literally everything in Commander. I’m just not a fan of it. I see all these posts on social media where people want to know why different cards are Game Changers or why other cards aren’t Game Changers or why different Brackets have different restrictions. I don’t think that this works at all. It’s fun, but futile.
What I do think about the Bracket system is that they have a lot of information available that lets people sit down and try to have a conversation about what they’re trying to do in Commander. If we’re still having Rule 0 discussions, this is a great starting point. Otherwise, saying that your deck is a 3 is basically the same thing as saying that your deck is a 7. It’s pointless if we don’t talk to each other.
Now I’m fully aware that I’m working for PlayEDH and that this article is being published on their website. Their system is a lot like the Brackets, but with more discussion around why things work or don’t work in the power levels. This also comes down to a sort of Rule 0, where you’re playing in a certain power level and get a general idea of what you should expect, but some of the work is done by the Mentors during the deck check process.
I also don’t fully subscribe to this system, but it provides a shared language for the matchmaking that happens on PlayEDH. There’s no perfect answer, but this is more nuanced than most.
Behold, a Bracket 3!
Okay, so my favorite deck is a Kodama of the East Tree // Sakashima of a Thousand Faces deck with Keruga, the Macrosage as companion. This is a Bracket 3 deck by definition. There are tons of restrictions in this deck because of the companion, but it can still try to win the game around turn 5 just because of the way that it works. I can’t even play Sol Ring in this deck and I have to work pretty hard to find ways to do things that other decks take for granted.
People have told me all sorts of things about how this can’t be a casual deck because of the intent behind it or even that it’s a cEDH deck. This deck gatekeeps me from just playing every single staple in Commander while still letting me do the things that I want to do. I have the best experiences playing this deck when I actually talk to people about how it works and what kind of game I want to have.
I love talking about this deck but I don’t always want to explain everything about how it works, so I actually asked Moxfield to make QR codes that let people just send their decks to other people and let them decide if they want to play against it. I’ll explain the basics, but you can look at the entire deck and decide if this is the type of game that you want. Shout-out to Moxfield for always innovating and making the experience better.
My deck is a Bracket 3 deck as written, but is it really a good fit to play against your Bracket 3 deck? There are plenty of reasons why it might not be. Maybe you don’t like playing against a deck like this one or maybe your Bracket 3 deck just isn’t able to hang with this deck. That’s fine. I don’t want anyone to play a game of Commander that they aren’t actually interested in playing.
“But it came in a precon!”
My experience is that most people are probably playing around Bracket 2 or 3, including a lot of the people that design the game. That doesn’t mean that every card that comes out in Commander is going to always be an ideal card for Bracket 3. Wizards of the Coast knows that some people like strong Magic cards and they do like to design them now and then so that everyone can feel included in the game.
Bracket 4 and 5?
“Is your name Ian @#$%ing Flannery?”
I’ve seen a lot of people ask why we need Bracket 4 and 5 when they’re so similar. They’re actually not that similar. Bracket 4 is the Wild West of Commander. You can play whatever you want to play and do all the crazy things that you want to do here. Bracket 4 is the place where you might go to play that crazy Zacama, Primal Hunger or Marrow-Gnawer deck that tries to win the game on turn 3 with a crazy combo, but this doesn’t mean that you’re going to be able to win a cEDH tournament.
Bracket 5 is about playing into a specific meta with tournaments in mind. Even if you’re playing an off-meta deck, you’re still trying to play into that meta and attack the decks that are in the meta in order to beat them and come out on top. Bracket 5 is a meta that relies on self-selection in addition to a lack of restrictions. This is different than what you should expect in Bracket 4. We see this with players such as ComedIan and Priscylla playing these insane, weird decks, but they’re still made to play into the meta.
Self-Selection Is the Key
I spend my time swinging metal around and getting hit with it for fun. This might not sound fun to you, but it’s one of my favorite things to do. I choose to do this, but that doesn’t mean that you also have to do it. That would be called assault and battery. This is why self-selecting and playing the games that you want to play is important. Not everyone wants to play cEDH and not everyone wants to play with precons, but there are people who enjoy both of them.
You might look at the Game Changers list and wonder why certain cards on there. This is also about self-selection. A person who wants to play Bracket 2 probably doesn’t want to see Humility. Even the people designing the game might have opinions about certain cards such as Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy. The Game Changers list is a great tool to help us further select what we want to play against, even if we don’t follow it to the letter.
How Do We Make It Work?
“Scenes from Commander Night.”
If you’re just going to sit down and use the Bracket system and not talk to anyone, you probably won’t be able to make it work as often as you’d like. You’ll get a lot more out of sitting down, talking to people, and having open conversations about what you want to get out of this Commander game. I don’t agree with everything that the old Commander Rules Committee said, but they got this one right.
Use Rule 0 to have the game you want to have. Don’t torture yourself by avoiding discussion. If you don’t want to talk too much, show them your deck and ask if it looks good. It’s so easy. Not everyone has to enjoy the same type of game or find the same cards fun. We have language so that we can talk to each other. Choosing not to do so is often selfish and will just result in you and everyone else not getting to have a good time because there’s so much nuance to this game that we play.
Remember that you can also use a place like PlayEDH to help curate your experience and shortcut some of those Rule 0 discussions for pickup games on SpellTable. Peace!
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“This article is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards.
Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.”
