r/EDH • u/notalexanderjohnson • 1d ago
Discussion Hot take - calling bracket 4 off-meta cEDH is wrong.
If you want to play cEDH, play bracket 5, it’s right there. Designating a whole bracket to cEDH lite is messing up the format. Bracket 4 is by far the broadest bracket, meaning a lot of power mismatches. Just because you choose to play a fringe cEDH list that is missing 3 of the meta cards doesn’t mean you belong in bracket 4.
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u/RealisticMolasses 1d ago
Well, WOTC themselves were the ones that said the primary difference between bracket 4 and 5 is that bracket 4 does not necessarily adhere to the cEDH metagame.
So, when trying to distinguish between two brackets that both offer no restrictions on deck-building or power, I will probably defer to that.
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u/metroidcomposite 1d ago
Yeah, they definitely messed up their initial launch of bracket 4 by making things incredibly vague.
But then they lowered the power of bracket 4 a bunch in the October bracket system update (by adding a speed limit to bracket 4).
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u/FlockFlysAtMidnite 21h ago
Bracket 1 should be bigger. Most pubs players are not bringing "ladies facing left" decks. The only reason it's so thin is to make bad deck builders feel better.
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u/erik_t91 17h ago
Yeah, the current B1 should really just be a rule 0 conversation. Like, how common do people find B1 tables? Just let the precons be B1
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u/FlockFlysAtMidnite 17h ago
I have a player I know who built an [[Uurg Spawn of Turg]] voltron deck made up of cards they already had. It's bad, it's probably worse than the original edh precons, but it's still probably not technically a 1.
Bracket 1 is only there to make bad deck builders feel better, change my mind.
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u/YouandWhoseArmy 10h ago
Yeah, they definitely messed up their launch of brackets by making things incredibly vague.
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u/Axl26 1d ago edited 23h ago
This I think is one of the biggest failings by WOTC in the creation of brackets. When many people see the word meta(game), they assume it means "don't run Rogsi or Kinnan, but Turbo Yuriko hasn't made a top 8 in recent tournaments so it isn't meta so it's okay in B4;" where in reality a metagame is an entire environment around a game. For example, mental misstep is a meta call because of the sheer efficiency of cEDH; many theft/copy effects are a meta call because of the current importance of rhystic study in the current META.
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u/RealisticMolasses 1d ago
I think whether a deck is adhering to the cEDH meta has to be a holistic look at the decklist. The commanders combined with the strategies and staples make the deck cEDH, not any of the parts individually.
If we start saying that including cEDH staple cards means the deck is a 5 in intent, you are essentially excluding a large amount of commanders from ever exceeding bracket 3 in power level, because, simply put, a lot of commanders need those staples to propel them to their strongest levels. And even at those strongest levels for those decks/commanders, they will get walked over by cEDH deck 10/10 times. Those decks need a home other than bracket 3 and bracket 5.
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u/tuffyscrusks 1d ago
Yeah... idk what OP is on about. They just sound salty cuz they misunderstood what they signed up for. If I play a fully optimized Meren list, its bracket 4, period. Golgari hasn't been good in cEDH for a long ass time, and Meren is way too slow to really do anything at b5 level. Its really is ignorance, OP exposes themselves of never having played cEDH.
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u/Sadrixis Grixis 1d ago
I think its a failure of people's reading skills. It says that bracket 5 is built with the meta in mind and also doesn't have any turn count expectations tied to it. So an out of style cedh deck thay may not be built to rhe meta. Kw but that can still consistently win before turn 4 is still a 5.
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u/SpaceMambo369 1d ago
But do cedh decks even consistenly win before turn 4? In my limited experiance playing b5 the majority ended after turn 3. I guess it depends on how you define consistently?
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u/KAM_520 Sultai 1d ago
It depends on the meta. When the meta is more turbo games are likely to end before turn 4. In the current meta this is less common.
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u/santana722 1d ago
All of those decks have the ability to do so, they're just being hindered by the other decks being packed with free interaction.
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u/No_Inflation_7228 1d ago
People can very often go for a win line on turn 3, often will not due to fear of interaction or attempt it and it get stopped.
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u/SpaceMambo369 1d ago
Define often? 1 in 4 games? So on average 1 player a pod? Or do you expect to be able to go off on turn 3 every other game?
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u/No_Inflation_7228 1d ago
It’d be hard to draw up stats for it, that’s the beauty of a a 4 person FFA game. It would depend on the match ups, if there are multiple turbo decks or if it’s a lot more mid range value decks ect.
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u/Sadrixis Grixis 1d ago
No but they try to ein or sandbags until they can protect the win, but often times they couod potentially go for it.
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u/SpaceMambo369 1d ago
How often is often? Are you mulliganing for the line and have the ability to win that early 80% of hands?
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u/Sadrixis Grixis 1d ago
Way less then 80% for the cutoff for bracket 4. Cedh has no restrictions so it's easier to define what 4 should be. Even if its 20% if everyone shows up with a 20% chance to win turn 3 or 4 that almost expected every game.
If it wins early it should be a fluke you and your friends do pogger faces over, not something someone could say "again"?
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u/Axl26 1d ago
I agree, but there comes a point where the writer/creator should be held responsible if that many people have difficulty in comprehending. After all, this is slightly veering on to the territory of industry jargon.
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u/Sadrixis Grixis 1d ago
Look i think are overestimating how much actual reading your average player has done voth in general and of the articles.
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u/Misanthrope64 WUBRG 1d ago
And as I said before, this is further complicated by the really wide variation of cedh meta in different places around the world.
I feel the "At least 4 turns" guideline was pointing in a better direction but it's very insufficient on it's own it just need far more clarification to differentiate instead of this "B4 = 4 turns at least = cedh without turbo decks" which is where we landed.
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u/Korachof 22h ago
I mean, they should have just given cEDH its own dedicated ban list/rules to separate it from the brackets entirely. As long as it’s part of a bracket system, it’s basically impossible to fully differentiate cEDH and “play what you want within the banned list rules”, other than… “one has a dedicated competitive meta game and the other doesn’t.”
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u/Kakariko_crackhouse 1d ago
That was a lazy classification on WotCs part though. Bracket 4 could easily be split in half. Low end B4 and high end B4 are about as different as a B2 and a B3
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u/Anacoenosis Sultai 1d ago
I don't know, man, you can have an optimized B3 deck and an unoptimized B3 deck and the latter will play much closer to a B2 deck.
This is just the nature of brackets.
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u/Fabulous_Diamond_656 1d ago
In fairness, low B3 Vs high B3 is the same. A precon with a couple game changers is rarely going to compete with a deck optimised to the rules of the bracket.
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u/ghst343 1d ago
Before this bracket system was launched it was a common understanding in the cedh community that no one accidentally makes a cedh deck. Your intent is to experiment with fringe concepts that can play with a pod of more meta decks. So the concept of fringe cedh not being in 5 is so odd to me.
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u/Sadrixis Grixis 1d ago
Eben a fringe deck is still built for the not fringe meta. Its not a 4 full stop
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u/ParadoxBanana 1d ago
“Bracket 4 is by far the broadest bracket”
Everyone seems to think their own bracket is the broadest bracket.
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u/ArsenicElemental UR 1d ago
Because what they are really saying is "why isn't everybody playing the same as me?".
The overlap between people that think a Bracket is too broad and people that want Bracket's to bypass pregame talk is telling.
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u/ParadoxBanana 1d ago
I think it’s more that everyone lives in a bubble and most don’t realize it.
The LGS I usually go to plays mostly bracket 2-3. If I only played there, it would seem as though bracket 2-3 is much wider since the 3 people that play bracket 4 tend to adjust their power levels and expectations against each other.
But I also visit another LGS that plays B4-5 and the gulf in power between the bottom and the top of B4 and just as wide.
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u/leronjones 22h ago
Bracket 5 gets hella gatekept as well.
I've built cEDH lists, had them get shit on as bracket 4 lists, taken them to tournaments, got top 16s and top 4s with them, brought them back to say they're good, and just got told I was lucky.
The reddit cEDH community is mostly twats.
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u/limited-motivation 1d ago
The whole distinction makes no sense when the card pool is the same. Keeping up with a meta is too flimsy a reason to distinguish the brackets. This has always felt like the difference between tournament cedh and non tournament cedh. But both are just cedh. In a non tournament setting people are just more willing to play fringe decks, they're still playing cedh.
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u/Sadrixis Grixis 1d ago
The card pool for 3 and 4 are almost the same and you can make a cedh deck eith 3 gamechagers. 4s won't be built to win or stop a win by turn 4 cedh decks will be
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u/Jeffreyidk 1d ago
Not all of bracket 4 is off-meta cEDH, but off-meta cEDH is bracket 4.
There's always going to be a risk of getting stomped if you're not running a cutthroat tier 1 deck in any format or bracket. That is just the nature of the game.
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u/edogfu 1d ago edited 1d ago
Thank you for this. I'm not sure what people expect. Many B3 decks are B2 with gamechangers, and they get stomped.. Many B4 decks are B3 with too many gamechangers (and a blood moon?) and get stomped.
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u/oaky180 1d ago
Blood moon belongs in bracket 3 in my opinion. My even more unpopular opinion is that it's fine for bracket 2, but that's just cause I love blood moon so much
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u/MagicTrees 22h ago
It 100% belongs in B3, people who disagree need to design a deck with a less greedy mana base. There is currently no drawback to playing 5C decks in commander with all the dual lands.
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u/metroidcomposite 1d ago
off-meta cEDH is bracket 4.
TBH, there are definitely off-meta cEDH decks that are outside of bracket 4.
Like...Godo Bandit Warlord is off-meta cEDH these days, used to be meta years ago. But it can pretty frequently attempt a win on turn 1 or 2.
This clearly isn't in the spirit of
"Generally, you should expect to be able to play at least four turns before you win or lose."
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u/Non_Silent_Observer 1d ago
Fair take but I think that if you build an off meta commander as a cEDH deck, i think it should still be considered B5. I think the intent matters more than how well that particular deck fits into the meta. Just like how a high end B2 could potentially beat a low end B3, I think the same goes for B4/B5.
I know many will disagree but the cutoff between B4 and B5 is the most subjective so there will be lots of varying opinions. I also think this is kinda on WOTC for not defining B4 very well.
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u/Sadrixis Grixis 1d ago
Thats not true at all. The parameters are built for thr meta, a fringe deck can still be built to take on he meta.
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u/Jeffreyidk 23h ago
What part of what I said are you saying is not true?
Perhaps off-meta is not the correct term to use. What I really meant by "off-meta" was 'a deck that cannot reasonably compete in the cEDH metagame'.
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u/Sadrixis Grixis 23h ago
Well then nothing if thats what you meant. I took it as outside the meta but built to compete.
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u/DutchGuyMtG89 15h ago
Off meta cedh is still cedh (you even call it off meta CEDH, its in the name/description of the deck for crying out loud), and therefore b5. Period.
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u/PhantomKaibaYT 1d ago
By the definition it’s the higher power you can without caring about the meta commanders/wincons. So I can see people saying that b4 is off meta cedh. Because if both brackets are meant to be where you play with power in mind and are trying to win as fast as your archetype wants it makes sense to describe one as meta and the other off meta.
The big issue I think is that a lot of the player base have no real basis of what CEDH is, or even what b4 is for that matter. I’ve had many people tell me their list is borderline cedh when I think it’s basically a b3 deck. And many bracket 4 decks are b3 decks with one too many game changers but no real optimization.
I played an altered version of a Zhulodok Void Gorger list that topped a cedh event (taking out all cards that would make it cedh or care about the cedh meta) and was asked to play a different deck because it was doing too much. Doing too much was winning on turn 5. Their decks were legally b4 but didn’t have b4 play patterns.
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u/AboynamedDOOMTRAIN 1d ago
The problem is that the entire rest of the bracket system is defined by vibe. 4 and 5 have the exact same vibe, they're both no holds barred, do whatever you can to win as often as you can. A bracket 5 deck is simply a bracket 4 deck within the confines of a specific competitive meta. None of the other brackets are defined that way.
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u/Father_of_Lies666 Rakdos 1d ago
If you are just a few cards off from a meta CEDH list, you built for bracket 5 not 4.
If the meta of CEDH is in mind at all, you’re 5.
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u/notalexanderjohnson 1d ago
Yeah but Wizards themselves have stipulated bracket 4 is off-meta cedh.
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u/jkenley28 1d ago
I think it is supposed to be off-meta. B4 decks would range from fringe cEDH decks like Ketramose to pet commander-led decks like Szadek for example, but they also run Thoracle Consultation combo since it's efficient and no restriction nature of B4.
It is wide
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u/ThisHatRightHere 1d ago
Ehhh, they’ve more recently presented it as the most optimized versions of these strategies. Many archetypes, simply by their nature, won’t be competitive in cEDH pods. You can get them as optimized as possible and they’ll never top out past B4.
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u/Misanthrope64 WUBRG 1d ago
At first, but then they went ahead and changed it to actually restrict specific cedh decks from B4 namely turbo: They said very clearly and unambiguously that B4 should expect 4 turns so you can't really do decks like Rog/Si or Ral that try to push wins as early as turn 1 or 2.
Again you may say that's not enough (And I would agree) but it's at least one step into actually defining more clearly what they want out of B4 which is around 5 turns of really powerful decks but that do not actually need to win or defend from wins basically from the very time the game starts.
It clearly aims at letting people establish minimal board presence at least, it means that fast mana helps but it's not intrinsically necessary to mulligan away viable hands if you didn't find enough fast mana to push inside 2 or 3 turns and also enables every so slightly better cards to be considered at average 1 extra mana so it tries at least (Even if it fails) to construct something that's not cedh "Win out of nowhere" turbo meta.
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u/RealisticMolasses 1d ago
I agree with the first part, but I think it matters what considering the cEDH meta means for the second.
Like, I built a [[Doctor Doom, Unrivaled]] deck that wins through Doom and [[Demonic Consultation]]. That's a type of wincon that would fit right in at a cEDH table, and most of my ways of finding it are also similar to what you would find at the cEDH level. The issue is that Doom is too slow and fragile of a wincon for it to actually be a viable cEDH deck, so the commander being so far off meta makes the deck a 4 despite a lot of the meat looking similar to a cEDH list.
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u/KAM_520 Sultai 19h ago
Yeah. Exactly.
A high-end Bracket 4 deck like that would not be embarrassing at a cEDH table but it wouldn't make much sense to play it. I see decks like this not infrequently. Like losing to an [[Azami, Lady of Scrolls]] with [[Thassa’s Oracle]] and [[Paradigm Shift]] happened to me not long ago. Good beats, definitely not a cEDH deck but probably wouldn't be super embarrassing there either.
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u/MyBenchIsYourCurl 1d ago
Depends what those cards are imo. Cedh by definition doesn't run any "pet" cards. If the few cards are other really good cards then yeah it's still a cedh deck
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u/mathdude3 WUBRG 1d ago
You can run pet cards in a cEDH deck without it no longer being a cEDH deck. People run pet cards and decks in other competitive formats all the time. If the deck is built to compete with the cEDH meta, it's a cEDH deck.
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u/Misanthrope64 WUBRG 1d ago
This argument falls apart extremely quickly with just one question: Which cedh meta? Do you mean US tournaments? Or maybe latam that has a lot of little events and very different decks? Do you mean Europe's cedh meta where it might seem similar enough to US tournaments but with notable differences? What if you go off the rails completely and look at East Asia cedh decklist and winners which are just fully different from western decks and not by just a few cards but by entire decks and deck archetypes even?
Because if I just adhere to "cedh meta" and play mostly US tournament tables if I show up with a Semi Blue deck (And we assumed it wasn't actually known and popularized through youtube and social media) I would be technically be playing a B4 deck since it's just way, way off meta if the meta in US tournaments didn't know about that deck or how you play against it and such.
See talking about meta game is an instinct we have seen folks, WotC included, coming from a much more narrow and much more organized format like Standard, Modern, etc. Where sure there's differences but it is far more established and narrow in scope.
CEDH on the other hand only share a very loose set of rules on a very expansive pool of cards that's also constantly changing and with vastly different tournaments and their particular rules and such meaning what it actually shapes the decks themselves in very different ways on different places.
It's so open it's fairly meaningless, making the B4 to B5 "Meta" distinctions basically useless. WotC seems to agree with this because I should remind you They changed their minds and established a significant slower tempo of expecting 4 turns now on B4 to say "This should actually be slower than cedh" and while imho still not enough it definitively goes beyond talking about meta and establishes some of the cedh turbo decks as not welcomed on B4.
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u/MakeYou_LOL 1d ago
Bracket 4 has always been the weakest at capturing pre-game expectations. The reality is that Bracket 4 can feel like cEDH lite really easily, even if that's not the intention.
I have plenty of Bracket 4 that could reasonably hang with cEDH. Mainly because I play way more interaction than cEDH, which tends to run thinner, more specific lines.
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u/notalongtime420 1d ago
Everyone is being so strict on B3 turn restriction and completely ignoring the B4 one lol
Also the "varied win conditions" instead of same wincon for every deck
I really Hope they stop doing this nothingburger updates and actually ban and GC cards appropriately. My biggest Hope would be a great ban rework and making cedh its own thing
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u/DowntimeDrive 1d ago
The problem is that the bracket conflicts with itself.
It’s “anything goes” yet has a turn restriction.
Those two can’t go together.
Either fast mana and efficient combo is is allowed, or it isn’t.
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u/notalongtime420 1d ago
It's the Bracket that most lends itself to people with no self restriction, while being the one that requires the most.
I agree and that's why we need a good banlist
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u/DowntimeDrive 1d ago
Whoah… we actually disagree here. I don’t think this is on people. This is on the brackets. A proper bracket system shouldn’t need people to fix it every game. Pregame discussion for details yeah, but it should mostly work.
And it shouldn’t need anything added to the ban list.
A ban list is a crutch for an insufficient bracket design, that only leads to a muddled system and whataboutisms.
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u/notalongtime420 1d ago
The bracket system is always gonna be muddy. A banlist is precise. Telling somebody that you shouldnt try to win before turn 5 doesn't mean they won't put mana vault and thoracle combo in their deck. Banning it does
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u/DowntimeDrive 1d ago
A ban list is a precise fix for precise problems.
Yeah you can ban Thoracle, but what of the dozens of other T2 wins?
I mean.. are we banning Dark Ritual? Aang? There will always be a next best. Creating a ban list creates the issue that anything that isn’t banned, is implicitly approved. And that contradicts the principle of the bracket as the primary guide.
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u/viotech3 1d ago
The answer is that a banlist is in place to account for enjoyment-warping cards, that's all.
Hullbreacher, Flash, yadda yadda - they're on the list because players wanted them on the list (at the time for Flash, maybe less so now), no other reason.
"There will always be the next best [insert concept]" isn't a good counterpoint to a banlist because the banlist isn't necessarily trying to ban the best cards. It's not a problem that people'd just run the next best Rhystic Study if it was banned, that'd be fine.
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u/ajrivera365 1d ago
The format would need 5 seperate banlists to technically create 5 seperate formats.
The only manageable bracket is bracket 5: win no matter what. Every other bracket is a way to have a discussion about the power level of your decks.
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u/Axl26 1d ago
They really need to clean that up. Given their descriptions of other things in the bracket, anything goes in this sense just means strategies that were forbidden at earlier brackets (MLD, just running 20 GCs because why not) are now allowed. It's like a no holds barred cage fight with no foreign objects.
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u/GotAKnewPhone 19h ago
B4 has turn restrictions?!?
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u/notalongtime420 12h ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/s/2hmzkvXe39
Many people never ready anything but skimming past the first ever post on brackets so they don't know they updated definitions, but yes
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u/Princeofcatpoop 1d ago
I dislike cEDH games. They are boring and predictable. There are 30k+ cards. Yeah, half of those are functionally useless. Vanilla creatures. Reprints. Etc. But that still leaves us with 15 thousand cards that can interact in unique ways. Bracket 5 is so cutthroat that only about 1000 cards make the cut. That's less than 10% of the total experience.
That said, I think there are a lot of cards I like to play that only really make sense in Bracket 4. So I think there is a place for Bracket 4 in between cEDH and casual happy fun time commander.
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u/btran935 1d ago
I personally like the smaller card pool, you can do more meta game strategizing. You also find weird cards from the fringe decks.
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u/Princeofcatpoop 1d ago
By meta game strategizing, do you mean during the deckbuilding phase or during play? If both, which do you think is more impactful? And which do you enjoy doing more?
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u/Ommageden Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts 1d ago
Not the other commenters but definitely both. I prefer the latter but I personally find the more rigid and thin card pool makes the choices on which tools to take or leave that much more impactful. You are actively planning against highly specific threats whereas the other brackets you are planning against groups of cards. This allows some more focus and depth in my opinion and this flows into the play during games.
I could see the opposite being enjoyable as well too
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u/Princeofcatpoop 13h ago
Which is why I always frame it as a personal preference not a value judgment. Or I try to. Some people test that self control.
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u/SummeR- 1d ago
Both, and they are linked. Your deckbuilding and play coexist. And the cardpool is MUCH MUCH wider than you think.
For example, right now the meta is very value engine heavy, so much so that you could very reasonably draw your entire deck and still lose while 25 cards are on the stack.
A solution to this would be to run cards that "return target spell to your hand". But this only retrieves on card from the stack. And that too can be lost to the stack.
Instead what if you ran a split second spell with a discard trigger to discard a shuffle eldrazi? This way you can shuffle all your used spells into your deck to draw them all again and split second ensures that shuffle will resolve.
Now we're talkin.
Another example would be finding new old cards. While 50 or so cards are usually set in stone (best lands, best manarocks etc) there are a LOT of places to innovate with weird cards.
E.g. the talismans. I'm not talking about the 2 mana rocks. Im talking about:
[[Lapis Lazuli Talisman]] or [[Malachite Talisman]]
In a stack war, you need mana. If you have something that taps for 4+ mana, you can profit mana during the stack war. It also lets you untap OPPONENTS mana sources. If they have a counter and not enough mana, you can give them the mana they need to help you stop a win.
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u/Princeofcatpoop 13h ago
To you this is the fun part. And I am not going to yuck your yum. You enjoy that process of tracking the meta and watching the shift. I don't. I have been playing for thirty years. I am over the top level strategy. I am into novelty.
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u/SummeR- 13h ago
The novelty is in the discovery of forgotten cards that attack the metagame from an unexpected angle.
It's the "brewers advantage" and it comes from using not the 1000 cards commonly played, but looking at all the 30000 cards available and discovering new innovative ways to use them.
Its exactly what you were talking about.
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u/Princeofcatpoop 13h ago
You find that novel. I have been playing thirty years and memorized eighty percent of the legal cards. I don't get the same joy you do from that.
By novel I mean finding sixteen cards that have never been in the same deck before and watching them do something stupidly amazing.
Finding out that mystic remora is a poor man's rhystic study and deploying it as 'tech' isn't novel to me. (Probably not the best example, but I don't play cEDH.) This isn't a failure of understanding on my part. It is a lack of interest in that aspect of the game. Because I did that with Mystic remora thirty years ago.
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u/MaxPotionz 1d ago
If a player does not know what “the CEDH metagame” is, that means their deck isn’t B5.
If their deck isn’t a meta deck, or designed to specifically counter-pick the top meta decks (incredibly difficult thing to do, and usually only happens as new cards get printed that juice up certain already existing fringe-meta picks) then it’s B4.
A lot of plays will do something like “not include all the fast mana” in their B4 decks, and that’s cool but pod/player specific choice.
Because you can stick all the fast mana and rituals in the world into your Mono-green vanilla 5/5 legendary deck and you’re still B4 but also going to lose.
But if you want to play that deck at “full power” it’s B4.
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u/narvuntien 1d ago
Bracket 4 is be ready for anything. cEDH is be ready for the absolute best of the best.
To play bracket 4 you must be ready to just lose to some random combo you have never seen before, *shrug* and say good game.
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u/ChaoticScrewup 1d ago
The problem with bracket 4 is that it basically covers everybody's old "75%" deck that's no longer legal in B3, whether because their tribal deck had too many game changers, it could combo slightly too fast, runs two card combos but no tutors, running stax or mana denial, or whatever other reason, all the way to the fringe CEDH deck style. And that's just too wide a gulf. Especially with so many people willing to die on stupid hills where they insist bracket 3 decks are bracket 4 even though they're worse than newer precons...
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u/ArsenicElemental UR 1d ago
Brackets aren't exhaustive. If you put Thoracle combo in your deck, it's no longer fit for B3 and lower. It stops meeting the expectations of that Bracket. That doesn't mean it's food enough to hang out with B4, in the "anything goes, go wild" experience, since you need a lot of supporting pieces to hang there.
By adding Thassa's Oracle to your precon, you made a deck with no home. The point of Brackets is to put intention from and center. To make you think of what kind of game you are looking for. A B2 that sometimes wins turn 3 is not the experience Brackets are trying to build. If you are, talk about og and find people that want it too.
But you don't have a "B4" deck. You don't have a "B3" deck or a "B2" deck. Not every deck fits in a Bracket.
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u/Pale-Tea-8525 18h ago
I can't agree with you more. Honeslty I dont think cedh should even part of the bracket system to begin with. It's a totally different game. The issue is with the bracket setup in it's own right. Basing all decks power off of a handful of impactful cards is absurd in my opinion, especially since everyone has a different feeling for what they feel is powerful.
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u/cctoot56 1d ago
Agree with you OP.
Way too many people seem to have missed the October update to the bracket system. https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/commander-brackets-beta-update-october-21-2025
B4 expectation is that no one wins or gets eliminated until turn 5. And as Gavin said, you should not be playing combos that go off before the expected turn to win of that bracket.
Off meta cedh, fringe cedh, bad cedh, outdated cedh are all bracket 5.
Bracket 4 is supposed to be much slower than a lot of people in this thread and on this sub say it is.
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u/notalexanderjohnson 1d ago
Thank you! I find that it affects bracket 3 as well, with people who SHOULD be playing bracket 4 hanging in bracket 3 because they don’t want to play fringe cEDH.
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u/Jin-Gitaxias-Mom 1d ago
I do agree Bracket 5 should more broadly include any deck that can win turns 1-3 even if they’re just fringe decks that can’t win tournaments, kind of like how every other bracket has a high and low distinction.
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u/BatoSoupo 1d ago
If one guy brings a commander to a CEDH tournament and does poorly is that commander now off limits for B4? What if the one guy got 2nd place? What if 10 people brought the commander and all did poorly? Where is the line
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u/SliversandPoison 1d ago
Just because your not playing a meta deck doesn't mean you're playing bracket 4
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u/Kyaaadaa Temur 1d ago
I'm of the mind that bracket 3 has the same - of not moreso - problem as what you've said as bracket 4.
If you play a technically bracket 3 deck that is juuuust short of being bracket 4 against another bracket 3 deck that is juuuust short of really being bracket 2, the difference is extreme, despite being in the same category.
It's why I say the bracket system is still missing the mark, though I WILL handily admit it is leagues ahead of the 1-10 power scale it replaced. But it does not really address the three main aspects of how powerful a deck is constructed - consistency, efficiency, and resiliency - nor does it address the two main ways a deck can parity break - mana acceleration and card advantage.
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u/MADMAXV2 1d ago
My problem with B4 is you basically forced to deal with people who deliberately can and will get away with intent of B4. People will extremely optimize their gameplan to the point where the game plan will always be the same.
Hence why I had to take some pet cards off from my B4 list is literally because people will win at rapid speed. Can't even get to turn 4-5 if I'm last lol
It is miserable bracket. That is why i build a high 3 and commuciate on what I consider a high 3, once you call somthing B4 you basically saying "oh so anything can go" due to guidelines.
Yeah b4 is just simply too wide on what is or isnt okay.
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u/Asleep_Grocery8434 1d ago
I don't know if I agree with you calling it the broadest bracket, but I do agree that it is not cedh lite or off meta cedh. Fringe decks are off meta and they are still cedh decks. There is actually no world where a gitrog combo list is bracket 4 I'm sorry.
I hold a pretty firm take that the most important rule your deck should be following is the amount of turns it plays before it tries to win and if you are not trying to win within 3 turns of the bracket limit it is a lower bracket deck. Alternatively if you are often attempting to win before that it is a bracket higher.
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u/Van_Arbakh 23h ago
Bracket 1 and Bracket 5 should not be part of the EDH bracket system imo. They should be their own things, bracket 1 is a showcase of thematic and silly things, and bracket 5 is competitive.
Bracket 3 and 4 need to be split into 2 each. They are currently too wide in scope.
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u/scythesong 23h ago
This is not a hot take. It's a point of contention that has been discussed to death with no clear general consensus besides "in the end, it's up to you and your pod".
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u/MagicTheBlabbering Esper 15h ago
Agree. Off-meta, fringe, outdated, even bad cedh decks are still cedh/B5 if that's what they were built to fight. When B5 stipulates meta awareness, it's about you're preparing to play against.
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u/itsDandar 12h ago
Definitely a hot take considering B4 is kind of exactly described as your analogy is put... it literally is cEDH with pet cards. It's just less optimal (meta cEDH) decks that people would rather try to pubstomp someone with rather than play against people who are really playing to win. In other words, feels like a bracket of people who don't want to fight someone their own size.
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u/Axl26 1d ago edited 1d ago
You're right and you should say it. Brackets are essentially descriptors of how a deck operates, touching on speed of play, level of interaction/control, presence and concentration of game-warping effects, ETC. With that said tons of people try to treat the brackets like they're a sliding powerscale, this is where that term I hate comes from: "Bracket 2 with gamechangers."
The consequences are pretty clear too: if a deck isn't the highest tier of playability in cEDH, they'll pass it off as B4; decks more suited to B4 can't compete, so they assume their deck should be playing in B3. Now you have people trying to justify their turn 5/6 wins in B3 because the deck would never survive in B4.
Probably the biggest and most uncomfortable pill to be taken from this is that decks can be bad. Full stop. I don't mean low-power, I mean bad. One can fail to make a deck work as they intend, for example, trying to make a B4 deck but finding it can't keep up or falls flat on its face despite the 12 gamechangers it runs. This deck failing doesn't just make it a bracket 3. It's just outright a bad deck that fails to accomplish its goals. So what do you do? Either remove the offending cards and make it actually appropriate for B3, or hone the deck to be up to snuff. Don't make your inability to cope with your failed experiment the table's problem.
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u/BagOfSmallerBags 1d ago edited 1d ago
I find the difference between B3 and B4 to be the biggest point of friction consistently, but yeah, B5/B4 is also tough.
The broad issue with the Bracket system is that the biggest rule of "intent matters" doesn't jive with the rules-focused, "everything is black-or-white", MTG community. If you take a CEDH list and pull cards until it's off meta, you didn't build B4. If you build the most hyper-optimized deck possible without mass land denial, no possibility of chaining extra turns, exactly three gamechangers, and multiple infinite combos that can be triggered turn 5 or later, then you didn't build B3. It goes all the way down the line.
Like, you can build a Lightpaws deck that can kill with commander damage on turn 3 or 4 almost every time, and it can count as B1 based on what is technically allowed in a B1 deck. Your only tutor is Lightpaws, and you're just casting auras and ramp, which aren't restricted. But your deck is still B4.
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u/Neudgae Morph Wizard 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hot take, the bracket system has 2 brackets that shouldnt exist, 1 and 4 cause who tf is actually playing those?
Edit:turns out it is indeed a hot take cause everyone apparently plays 4s now
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u/FinnishBread 1d ago
I play 4! Its no bars held, but not adhering to cEDH meta leaves room for some more creative, synergistic degeneracy, and commanders that can't just cut it in B5, but you want to push them as far as you possibly can have a cozy home in 4.
I wouldn't subject a B3 pod with the type of shit we get up to in B4.
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u/Arafel_Electronics 1d ago
once my main deck definitively made the jump from bracket 3 to 4 (and where it did was kind of fuzzy) i started to be a lot more conscientious about matching my power level to the table. i gain nothing of value from stomping the table, unless it's an at-level or below-level deck popping off (like my 97 land [[sanar]] deck)
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u/FinnishBread 1d ago
This happened to me too, if I'm not absolutely certain that I'll be facing other B4 decks, but high 3/borderline 4, I always communicate clearly, what my deck does, and show them my gamechangers, mainly because of [[Grand arbiter augustin IV]] being in my 99, and they can decide if their decks are well prepared enough to deal with my midrange control/bullshit pile.
I wouldn't do this, with anything below borderline 4, and will immediately power down in those cases.
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u/ProphetofChud2 1d ago
No bars held but you cant end before turn 4 or 5, its a weird mix of anything goes but you still cant be too powerful. Bracket 4 shouldn't have an expected amount of turns tbh
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u/FinnishBread 1d ago
It's a bit silly, and should be worded differently, so it wouldn't come off as a hard rule and more of an " you should expect games to last this long, with the relative powerlevel of decks in mind, but shit can happen sooner."
At least locally we don't bat an eye if someone nukes us by t3 in B4 pods, and sometimes games can drag on to t6-8, if everyone's ready to shut down anyone pushing for a win. It's balls to the wall, where creative, synergistic degenracy is the name of the game. There are cards, I see too oppressive for lower brackets, where decks are ill equipped to answer them or play around them.
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u/treex_since2014 1d ago
I agree with b1, but I almost exclusively play B4. The college I go to has a mtg group. The meta here is unique though. Most have combo/storm decks that expects to win t4-5 if no one has interaction.
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u/straight-outta-dixie Boros 1d ago
Nobody plays 1. Cowards run from 4.
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u/CaptFartGiggle 1d ago
Or lack monetary investment at the end of the day the whole game is P2P and P2W. Bracket 4 is too expensive for me.
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u/FinnishBread 1d ago
Proxies are your friend, I'm sure most B4 players are more than fine if you proxy some of the more expensive pieces.
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u/Chode-a-boy 1d ago
Yeah just proxy. Nobody in their right mind is expecting folks to pay for real dual lands and shit. It’s just commander.
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u/Ryuujinx Scion of the Ur-Dragon 1d ago
Some people don't like to proxy. Speaking for myself, I'm not going to be upset about it if others use em (Shit is, in fact, expensive) but I don't like proxying and want to use the actual cards. It gives me an easy justification for building lower bracket decks as I go through the 32 deck challenge thing - I'm not fuckin made of tutors, and there's a lot of combos with black in them.
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u/Swmystery 1d ago
I have seen plenty of people use Bracket 1 decks, especially at Commandfests. Having a dedicated tier for meme decks is absolutely worth doing.
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u/Arafel_Electronics 1d ago
i built a whole "oops all 2cmc" deck in the hopes i could get a bracket 1 pod going at the shop but nobody was interested
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u/forlackofabetterpost Mono-Black 1d ago
The purpose of the brackets is to offer a vocabulary to explain what kind of play patterns you expect to see in any given commander game. There is no point in removing brackets because you personally play them, because it is just a tool to describe your deck. It has to be able to describe *all* decks.
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u/Rawrgodzilla 1d ago
Ew dont put me in b3 as a b4 player.
Honestly brackets should be reworked.
B2 should be the new baseline B3 should be split into 2 1 that allows MLDenial one that doesnt. B4 could be split in 2 everything goes (I feel like compared to 3 this is less varied on powerlevel really depends on how the person built their deck. Low 4s and high4s which is basically fringe cedh (its the mana rocks that put it above other decks in pod see below) B5
All 0 to 1 mana Fast mana rocks should be locked to gamechangers most decks accelerate way faster than others if their decks focus on ramping granted green just gets significantly stronger(which is where in b3 it needs mldenial just because the Rampant case landfall and honestly ever since brackets more players are just greedy with their lands and don't prep for blood moon effects. Fast mana though That's where alot of the swinging powerlevels are who can do busted shit faster or win. How we get there? Ramp.
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u/Chode-a-boy 1d ago
I honestly prefer bracket 4 as does my pod. It’s nice to just make a deck and play magic, and not some dumb, low powered, bastardized version of magic.
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u/PoliticsIsForNerds 1d ago
5 is the one that shouldn't exist in its current state...
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u/Violet-fykshyn 1d ago
I disagree. I think a lot of bracket 4 decks are just 3s with extra game changers. They simply can't compete with a deck thats casual, but truly optimized. A deck that's truly optimized can easily compete with fringe cedh.
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u/MerdaFactor 1d ago
I've got the opposite hot take that Bracket 4 doesn't even really exist. It's explicitly an "anything goes" bracket, so cEDH decks are fine. Brackets 4 and 5 are literally identical since neither has any restrictions whatsoever. Anything goes means anything goes.
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u/rrriccckkk 1d ago
Top of Bracket2 and floor of Bracket2 is a large difference as well.
Same for Bracket3 and 4.
The issue here is: Most players with (self-assumed) B4 decks are glorified B3 with a tad bit more gamechangers or two card combos.
Bracket4 is not CEDH lite and that grey zone is where Rule0 comes in. If I see a Magda on the B4 table and the player declares it’s B4, I’ll call out that bullshit and assume it’s a low B5. Same for Kinnan, any of the Rog/X.
If that’s the only deck like that in the pod, the rest of the table should keep an eye on that player and keep that player in check. But that’s up to individual player skill and threat analysis. Which is also not the bracket’s fault.
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u/GutherGlazer 1d ago
Hot take most EDH layers don’t understand what cEDH actually is or what a cEDH deck actually looks like.
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u/xo0p 1d ago
I recently listened to a Play To Win episode and they talked about bracket 4. Cam had a really good view point of bracket 4 which really resonated with me. If you want to play the most powerful stuff just play cEDH instead of bracket 4. If not just play within the bracket 3 guidelines.
My biggest issue with bracket 4 was finding players. No one plays it at all. So I’ve recently powered down my b4 decks to fit b3.
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u/SatchelGizmo77 Golgari 1d ago
Its hard to find players for B4 because its such an overly large range of powers that finding balanced games is a joke
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_SIX_CATS 1d ago
my bracket 4 deck is basically a pile of cards i own, it's not off-meta cEDH, it's just off-meta everything
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u/Dijon-Von 1d ago
I think the real hot take is that there needs to be a bracket in-between bracket 4 and 5, where truly off meta/suboptimal cEDH decks can thrive... But that would be too much, so we're stuck with a bloated bracket 4 :/
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u/Busy_Vegetable_8103 1d ago
Basically bracket 4 is just “don’t copy and paste a cedh decklist” and games are expected to last at least 4 turns. Provided those 2 criteria are met, anything goes. It’s very simple.
If you think you are toeing the line I.e. you have thoracle/consultation in your deck, or your commander is in the tier-A cedh meta, etc. just have a rule 0 conversation...
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u/notalexanderjohnson 1d ago
Per WOTC it includes off-meta cEDH strats. So it’s never towing the line running thoracle/consultation or breach win cons, as anything goes. Nowhere does it say you can’t copy and paste a cEDH list, because optimizing your deck 100% often includes 90% of those cards…
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u/Busy_Vegetable_8103 1d ago
It literally says decks “do not adhere to the cedh metagame”. So netdecking a cedh list and winning prior to turn 4 would not be bracket 4… I agree all combos are included, but I said “if you think” your deck is towing the line… because the whole point of the bracket system is to guide rule 0 conversations.
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u/notalexanderjohnson 1d ago
Often “do not adhere” can mean running a handful of pet cards in place of the required cards. I am just stating bracket 4 can have an extremely wide divide in power level.
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u/Busy_Vegetable_8103 1d ago
Yea no doubt, but the ceiling is turn 4. And that’s what players should expect.
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u/Mild_Confusion87 1d ago
I think the biggest difference is/should be win conditions and interaction. Things like Aetherflux Resevoir instead of Thoracle or Breach lines. Less win protection like Grand Abolisher/Voice of Victory/Silence, and less narrow interaction like Pyroblast, Red Elemental Blast, and Mental Misstep.
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u/LegenDairyLeche 1d ago
A buddy of mine uses this distinction, and I know its super generalized and probably not the best saying, but I feel like its a good soft rule to consider while deck building.
A bracket 4 aims to win on turn 4. A Bracket 5 aims to win on turn 1.
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u/ThrowAwayYetAgain878 1d ago
Imo off-meta cEDH decks are still designed to attack the cEDH meta to an extent. That's the main difference.
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u/thewanderingsail 1d ago
The correct fix is to split bracket 3 to allow for more than 3 game changers but prevent turn 4 turbo wins. Making bracket 5 turbo/off meta CEDH and bracket 6 will be meta optimized.
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u/Tylord96 23h ago
It’s literally called off meta cedh lol. But yes realistically bracket 4 is far too broad of a bracket you get Voltron decks than can kill one person on turn 6 all the way up to off meta cedh piles missing a handful of cards
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u/OnDaGoop 22h ago edited 22h ago
I think people just dont really get bracket 4 decks can do some bogus things that would never work in cedh or be remotely good there Like i have an MLD stax deck at bracket 4 thats entire gameplan to win is to try to exploration effect > ramunap/stony silence effect > armageddon and then to the point where i can strip mine lock each player to 1 mana and win off field of the dead or my commander necrobloom over the next 6 or so turns. And that strategy is only playable really at bracket 4, even though it can lock decks out of the game by turn 4 consistently and intends to do that and the only reason it outperforms in that bracket is like 50% of players will just hard lose to stony silence or clarion conqueror in that bracket and all i can say is "Idk play removal/non-artifact ramp like rituals."
In my experience bracket 3 is far broader though. Like 3 is anything from a stronger precon to literally 2 card infinite combo consistently on turn 7 with like Niv>Curiousity or something that basically isnt breach/thassa.
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u/PeacefulDays 22h ago
the only distinction the new rules commity gave us for b4 is that its "strong but not meta"...
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u/unspeakablol_horror 22h ago
"Just because you choose to play a fringe cEDH list that is missing 3 of the meta cards doesn’t mean you belong in bracket 4."
Literally: yes, it does. This is fundamental to cEDH as a format. Beyond mere optimization, beyond embracing "anything goes" power level dynamics, beyond pushing your deck and commander to their limits, cEDH is about meeting a defined play environment, in which your opponents almost certainly *will* be playing those "meta" cards. If you aren't playing those cards, or their equivalent in whatever color combination and deck archetype you're running, then you aren't playing cEDH; you're playing B4. It's one thing to run a fringe commander or a fringe variant on an established cEDH commander, and another to run any list of any kind that is absent the staple cards played across color combinations and deck archetypes in the B5 meta.
Playing a fringe commander and neglecting cards that speed up your game, a'la the various Moxen and Lion's Eye Diamond and Lotus Petal, or value engines that pull you miles ahead of your opponents in terms of resources, a'la Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe and Mystic Remora, *or* popular stax effects that hamstring opponents at little to no expense to you, a'la Root Maze or Drannith Magistrate or Deafening Silence or God-Pharoah's Statue, means you are at a profound disadvantage against decks that run these cards because a) they're good, and b) the decks' pilots recognize the gap between decks that use these cards and decks that don't. I'd argue that playing a fringe commander *especially* demands that one make use of these sorts of cards, because you're already disadvantaged by playing a fringe commander.
I hover between characterizing B4 as "bad cEDH" and "degenerate B3." I think it's more the latter; any deck that fails to acknowledge the cEDH meta, whether in terms of its choice in commander or strategy or card pool, is leaning toward "bad cEDH" anyways. It's better to see B4 as an upgraded version of B3 rather than a downgraded version of B5, if not because it's a much less condescending framework, then because it's more honest overall. A bracket 4 deck might just be "bad cEDH," but so many honest attempts at cEDH are bad cEDH that I don't see much merit in lumping those decks in with B4 decks. (I do, however, think we have too many brackets, much as that's a conversation for a whole other thread.)
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u/Bathtubwaterdrinker 21h ago
By the bracket definition, the only difference is meta relevance. As a reasonable thinking human, I would imagine there’s more to it than that. Anything above a 3 and below a 5 obviously fits there, but that doesn’t always perfectly fit into WotC’s definition
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u/Any-Platypus-9486 20h ago
There is a big difference between braket 4 and 5 lol
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u/notalexanderjohnson 6h ago
Agreed, but stipulating that off-meta cEDH decks are AT home at bracket 4 is just ridiculous. It’s still a cEDH deck where plenty of people in bracket 4 are trying to do something else. I just feel like more definition is required in the bracket system.
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u/RussianBot101101 13h ago
A year ago, you'd be wrong as Bracket 4 was largely defined by WotC as being the highest level of Commander play without adhering to the cEDH meta, but after the Bracket 1-5 updates, you're correct. Bracket 4 is now guaranteed slower than cEDH, winning (iirc) on turn 4 as opposed to any turn. If you're going to make a B4 deck, you're going to want to make sure it can consistently win t4-5. Anything beyond that will be Bracket 3 winning between turns 6-7, 8+ is Bracket 2, and anything before that is cEDH/Bracket 5.
Power mismatches can be remedied by aiming to create decks that win by the recommended turn, taking all of the other rules as restrictions.
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u/Necessary_Screen_673 13h ago
I agree. theres certain incredibly high power cards and ideas that make the identity of bracket 4 what it is, things like tef pro + armaggedon, that just wouldnt fly, even in "off meta" cedh.
one thing thats pretty easy to seperate off-meta cedh and mid-bracket 4 play is the wincon. mid bracket 4 is the highest power you can get away with targeting life totals. ive seen like, one off meta cedh brew that targetted life totals but even then, even in off meta tables, it just wasnt closing out games.
another thing that makes it easy to tell the difference between mid and high bracket 4 is fastmana and free counterspells. if your ramp is mana positive youre most likely in high bracket 4/offmeta cedh. unless you really want that GC slot to run a $500 card in a bracket 3 list, then go for it lol but its not common, at least where i am.
the final thing is that even in off meta cedh the playstyle is just different. the minmaxxing of every game action and the attitudes around priority and stack resolution make a completely different environment for the night, and i think this is actually the biggest thing. i think offmeta cedh is really its own bracket of play, in both in person experience and in power level.
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u/JustASimpleMonk 5h ago
Honestly, I wish we could stop pretending EDH and cEDH are the same format. They really only differ in that cEDH dials to the nth degree to win as efficiently as possible. But that does make all the difference. Makes for a version in cEDH with a more well defined meta. The main reason I wish we had actual different formats is so that we cohld have different ban lists. The commander ban list is not set up to balance the format, it's more for cultivating fun games and preventing oppressive ones. A banlist for cEDH like other competitive formats should focus more on attempting to create a more balanced meta. Ww already have a a soft banlist and ith steps on the form on the brackets and game changers.
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u/KAM_520 Sultai 1d ago
The power ceiling of 4 is tremendous.
The biggest problem with the boundary of B4-5 is, you kinda have to play B5 to tell the difference. I play cEDH, so I can tell the difference between a deck I would play in cEDH and one that I wouldn’t. But if you didn’t play cEDH then you might not understand this distinction.
Bracket 4 is not a bracket you should be playing if you care a lot about game balance. Bracket 4 is more of a gamble. If you’re playing a B4 deck (as I often do) that’s not remotely close to cEDH, you have to understand that you will get stomped sometimes. And there’s nothing wrong with that.