Metri Says Things

Nobody likes what I have to say so I’ll just talk to myself

[danielcalmdown]

It's tru

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Snakeskin Veil

Artist: Maxilla TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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Forgotten Ancient

“Find your peace on the Farplane. Leave Spira to the living.” —Auron

Artist: Esuthio TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

Artist: Magali Villeneuve TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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Tornado Elemental

Artist: Richard Wright TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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Treetop Village

Artist: Rob Alexander TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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Elsha, Threefold Master

Artist: Irina Nordsol TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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Cemetery Prowler

Artist: Daarken TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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Thalia, Heretic Cathar

“Salvation will not be granted by the Lunarch Council. It must be earned—at the edge of a sword, if necessary.”

Artist: Rosemary Valero-O'Connell TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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Dauthi Voidwalker

Artist: Sidharth Chaturvedi TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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LFG!

Now get rid of Ragavan, Ugin, and Dark Ritual and we’re cooking!

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Mystic Confluence

Artist: Kieran Yanner TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate

Artist: Dmitry Burmak TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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grandma <3

My first Brawl deck. My best Brawl deck. Severely underrated.

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Rebreather - “Pets”

The Line, It’s Width, and the War Drone

[whymtgcardsmith]

Good thing this card explains the value of X, it’d be impossible to figure out.

[metrisays]

MTG Cardsmith is never wrong, just early.

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What’s with “I win” cards in Brawl?

I’d love to know who, if anyone, is paying attention to balance in the Brawl format on Magic Arena.

Most games of Brawl I’d say are pretty fun. It’s my favorite format and I’d argue the best format. But there are some issues. Most are probably already aware of outliers in the command zone like Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, which I’d argue is quite strong even among “hell queue” commanders. There’s also the issue of base green land-based decks which don’t really have to interact all that much due to the redundancy of having a key piece always available and the command tax not really mattering when you can vomit land onto the battlefield.

But what really grinds my gears is cards that make for complete non-games and really have no business being legal. Defense of the Heart, Dark Ritual, Mana Drain, Ragavan. Arguably Chrome Mox and Reanimate as well. And while this post is definitely salty I want to be clear that I make just as many non-games that are made against me: if I have a monkey, I’m gonna monkey. If I can turn one Dark Ritual into Liliana of the Veil or Black Market Connections I’m gonna.

But I don’t think it’s worth it. There are a lot of powerful things you can do in Brawl and the power level is still going up with Arena Powered Cube finishing off a wave of Vintage Cube staples and Avatar: The Last Airbender bringing Force of Negation. But while these cards are powerful they don’t do everything themselves. Defense of the Heart is the example that aggravates me the most because its requirement of three creatures might as well not exist in 2025. The vast majority of Brawl games are going to be creture-centric. Even the combo decks of the format, your Vivis and Laelias, tend to still be creature-centric. The card is basically a four mana Tooth and Nail.

There are a lot of ways Wizards of the Coast could make Brawl better. Maybe we’ll see some changes if they put up a real ranked ladder they can pull data from. But I think it’s pretty obvious that the format will just be better without Dark Ritual, Ragavan, Mana Drain, and Defense of the Heart at the very least. These cards don’t make for fun and interesting games. They’re cheat codes. They’re shortcuts. And more often than not one side has theirs and the other doesn’t. We just don’t need those games.