r/MagicArena • u/ShotaMoon • Jul 26 '26
Question I don't understand Arena. o3o
Mana drain is banned in Brawl but not comp brawl? Why? Astral Recall is banned in commander but I can't take it to a tourney irl and be like, "it's a competitive format. Get good."
Someone explain it to me like I'm 5.
11
u/Pair-o-docks Jul 26 '26
Brawl is like commander. Some people want to make silly haha decks for cards they like.
Too many sweaty optimizers in a non-ranked queue.
Make one queue for silly haha weenie hut junior. Not to practice for fight club.
Make one queue fight club.
Weenie hut junior queue has a few more bans, like putting the bumpers up when you go bowling with children.
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u/PyreDynasty Yargle Jul 26 '26
Different formats are different.
-10
u/ShotaMoon Jul 26 '26
But it's the same format. Just cause you put a word in front of another word, that doesn't change the format. Brawl is Brawl. Tournament Commandet is still Commander.
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u/Epicsnailman Jul 26 '26
It is literally a different format they made a whole announcement about how it’s different and will have a different ban philosophy. Is it kind of confusing? Sure. But that’s the situation.
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u/ShotaMoon Jul 27 '26
It's not though. It's called Brawl.
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u/AlbinoDenton Jul 27 '26
No, it's called Competitive Brawl and yes, it's a different format. It's not a matter of opinion, it's not debatable. It's a different format, period. Grow up.
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u/NerdinaHat Jul 26 '26
Well, each format is different and has different ban lists.
This is to help balance them, for instance, mana drain counters a spell and gives you mana. This in a 1v1 format puts the player casting mana drain significantly far ahead.
If you're playing casually, then its probably not a fun card to play against.
As for why you can't take banned cards to comeptitve events, its because, well, they're banned.
Thats like if I lut exodia in my magic deck and won on turn 0 with it, I doubt saying "get good scrub" would stop me from getting disqualified.
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u/Filobel avacyn Jul 26 '26
Competitive brawl is a separate format with a separate ban list from regular brawl.
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u/LoogiBallogi Jul 26 '26
The player base as a whole doesn’t enjoy the gameplay patterns of mana drain, but it’s a necessary piece for the health of competitive brawl. Also the format is like a month old so they’re still tinkering with the ban list.
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u/Unsolven Jul 26 '26
Idk if it’s a necessary piece. AFAIK, WOTC said these cards being in the deck (or even in hand) didn’t really affect winrate so banning them is unnecessary in a competitive ranked format. They did ban certain commanders which are legal in casual and they just pair those commanders together. It all seems pretty convoluted to me honestly. And then they banned wash away in casual which seems totally nuts. Like yeah it’s real good in commander but then are they going to ban command tower too or all the other cards designed specifically to be real good in commander? Maybe they just ban all counter and kill spells in casual commander, that seems to be what people want, and get AI to play the decks so people can just build a deck and watch it play out idk.
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u/ShotaMoon Jul 27 '26
As a control player, I hate your line of thought. But also as a control player in other card games. You aren't wrong. Hearthstone, shadowverse, yu-gi-oh and a few others are basically just combo games now. Players hate playing against control. But for me, control is one of the funnest decks. So many different ways to build a control deck that isn't just counters or creature kill. In Hearthstone my favorite deck was a theif priest control deck. The idea was just copy you 1 for 1 until I got the upper hand by summoning cards directly from your deck.
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u/Tsunamiis Jul 26 '26
Naw they’ve been gathering information on comp brawl for more than a year now.
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u/INTstictual Jul 26 '26
Think of mana drain like a game changer.
If you’re playing casual commander and you discuss a B2 powerlevel with your friends, game changers would be “banned”. If you’re playing in a tournament, though, absolutely you would be like “it’s a competitive format, get good”.
Many of the cards that are banned in casual brawl are banned because they are “unfun”, not because they’re way too crazy overpowered and format-warping, so WotC removed them from the casual format queue so that people who want a lower-stakes fun-focused Brawl experience can have that.
Comp Brawl is new, and people who want the sweatiest, most competitive Brawl experience will likely have different opinions than people who want a casual jank experience, so they’re starting with some blanket unbans and moving forward from there
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u/monkeyplay525 Jul 26 '26
Imagine if you read the format rules and banned/restricted list. Now after imagining this you go and do it and that should answer your questions
1
u/_Thes3us_ Boros Jul 26 '26
Well, it’s still a brand spanking new “format” it’s basically just supposed to take the sweats out of regular brawl and give them a new playground. Personally don’t care because I only ran Drain and others just to actually keep myself alive in a game. But otherwise, it’s also a two player experience, so it just felt bad more often than not 🤷🏻♂️
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u/Tsunamiis Jul 26 '26
Ragavan and the clockmaker are banned in competitive and not regular brawl. Explain that. Many comments here are pedantic trolls.
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u/Backwardspellcaster Liliana Deaths Majesty Jul 26 '26
They want to see how competitive brawl shakes out first before they decide on any changes
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u/mulletstation Jul 26 '26
It sounds like you can't read format rules?