Winota, Joiner of ForcesWinota, Joiner of Forces | Art by Magali Villeneuve

We've all had the unsavory experience of sitting down for a game of a certain Bracket and realizing someone or all of them aren't playing the agreed upon Bracket. My knee jerk reaction had been to think that someone wanted to win so badly that they misled us to gain an advantage on the game.

At least that's what everyone online is saying - what the common talking points are.

I wondered if this is the whole story, so today I'm sharing what I've noticed.

The Bracket System and Power Scaling

I know most of us know this, but we have to cover the old system of balancing Commander games: power scaling. It functioned on a scale from 1-9. The higher the number the more powerful the deck.

How were these numbers decided upon? Mostly through the understanding of the height of what is perceived to be possible in a Commander deck and ranking your "capabilities" somewhere. It was a horrible system. Most player's perception of how exceptional a deck could be was heavily limited to their player ecosystem. Some pods play weaker stuff, and vice versa.

This system didn't even have a real, official distinction between cEDH and casual.

It was with the invention of the Bracket System in February in 2025 that there was an official system with more than just vibes. Vibes are still involved, but there are some concrete things. It was a helpful guide for conversation attempting to balance decks. It discusses deck structure, speed, staples, extra turns, mass land denial, tutors, and combos.

It says at the top of the most recent iteration of the guide that, "This is a communication tool to guide pregame conversations about game expectations and player intent." It is a guide for the vibes. The vibes are still there.

I hear a lot of dissenting opinions about this system because it doesn't actually just solve the problem of balancing. The thought here is that synergy is far more important than the checklist of items on the Commander Bracket beta lists. I think this is a misunderstanding of the guide. The guide depicts the floor of certain strategies that are can be more powerful - for one reason or the other - and there are decks that will meet a higher criteria in other ways.

The guide helps you decide the lowest you can assert your deck is in power, not its highest capabilities. You still have to factor in the vibes.

But, I'll be honest, I follow the Brackets to a tee. I am honest about the power of my decks. I'm factoring the fact that decks like my Bracket 4 Dihada, Binder of WillsDihada, Binder of Wills has fewer than three Game Changers, no mass land denial, no chaining extra turns, and no two card infinites. It still is fairly grindy and slow, but is exceptional at winning later in the game. It's resilient and powerful.

I've been honest and upfront but still find myself matching up some of my weaker decks with opponents and overshooting the power.

The Problem With Vibes

I have a Kiora, Sovereign of the DeepKiora, Sovereign of the Deep deck that I built for a total of maybe 50 dollars and whatever was left over from previous decks. I made the deck list once, and ran it. It has won nine of the ten games I've played with it.

I thought with how slow and grindy the deck could be, that other players could easily get there before me. I thought I'd gotten lucky, pulled the nuts, had a few good games, but time and time again I was inching out a win late game. The longer the game, the better this deck stabilized.

I have a belief that if you can consistently win more than 33% of games in a certain Bracket, you are in the wrong Bracket. It should be balanced. If you go to any pod and consistently dominate, your deck is too strong. Kiora, by this logic was too strong.

So is she Bracket 4? I see what is possible in Bracket 4 and she could never meet that expectation. Like so many other decks I've build before, this deck was a 3.5. I always win in Bracket 3 but always lose in Bracket 4. Where does this deck belong? Either way, I only play Kiora at Bracket 4 tables.

This brought up a new perspective to me about how we analyze our decks. What if players aren't assessing the win rate of their decks? It's not required. I just happen to do it. Were these players misleading us with their deck? The Bracket System is about intent, but all of our intentions are to win. Shouldn't our Bracket 3 deck win often?

It's also about expectations. What are the expectations of balancing a deck? I got to thinking.

The Problem With Expectations

My expectations in a game of Commander are pretty straightforward. I expect if the game is balanced there will be more than one player in the lead of the game. Each player should do something powerful and threatening through the course of the game, and through interaction, threat assessment, and strategy one player inches through to the finish line.

I like to think that in a balanced game, everyone is close to winning at some point.

Decisive, uncontested wins seem like the result of poor balancing, but that's the finicky bit of logic. I'm sure not everyone reading this article agrees with that. Some players feel a good game is decisive. This creates an imbalance in expectations. It's how we reason whether our decks have broken the core tenets of The Bracket System.

The strict lines are easy to follow, but the wobbly ones leave too much interpretation, personal bias, personal preference.

What one player finds fair and balanced or fast and resilient might be very different from yours. That doesn't mean that the intention is negative, but simply different. The amount of times I've found myself coming up with unspoken rules for balancing games and seeing the intrigued or annoyed response to yet another rule for just playing a game of Commander brings to light another big concern: Will it ever be enough?

The Problem With Balanced Games

Even if I see perfectly balanced games as one with players winning within tight margins of interaction and others vying for a win, how often am I experiencing this? I'll be candid, with decks that are tuned and played in my pod often, it happens all the time.

But all those caveats aren't to be ignored. It's a sort of rinse and repeat method for balancing. We iron out the unspoken lines through experience.

When you sit down at an LGS with some random people, or "randos," you won't have the luxury of rinsing and repeating to balance games. There are these bad feelings for a lot of players sitting in games with randos that they are going to mislead you with the power of their deck. I feel like I've demonstrated some real reasons why it's not intentionally misleading to make a mistake. I've sat against a lot of other Bracket 4 players whose decks would never survive in the Bracket 4 pods I typically play in.

There are a lot of factors into why someone might say their deck is one way and it performs another. Their ecosystem might dictate the power of their deck. It's back to the Power Level systems. Vibes are part of the reason these conversations seem very difficult.

This doesn't mean that the Bracket System hasn't improved the quality and talking points of these conversations, but the flaws in balancing still remain. We have to be understanding of that fact before we write someone off as purposefully trying to pub stomp.

Potential Solutions

Yeah, every player under the sun thinks they can design something better than a panel of experts, but I wanted to include some social elements that I've found a lot of success with. They're tried and fairly successful with most people.

The first one is crucial. Having both a pre- and post-game rule zero conversations. Sometimes a deck performs well. We should be able to talk about that. Is that typical or did you hit the nuts? Mentioning that an opponent's deck outperformed our decks by a huge margin despite them getting lucky, is important to point out.

"I think for the next game, you should play something weaker to meet the power of the table," isn't an outlandish request.

This method definitely weeds out the people purposefully trying to pub stomp. An openness and willingness to tone down, even if you think your deck meets a certain criteria, is a good sign of a person who might have just misunderstood how strong their opponents' decks would be.

It's important to impress on most players that the Bracket System is not about gaming the system or meeting a minimum criteria but balancing the game. If your Bracket 3 is too strong for this pod, play something else weaker, regardless of what bracket you would play it in. Flexibility is key.

Here comes another rule I invented: talking through the strategy and key pieces of your deck helps demonstrate to other fairly seasoned players the expectation of the power of your deck. Thrumming StoneThrumming Stone isn't a Game Changer, but if I run it in a Marrow-GnawerMarrow-Gnawer Rat ColonyRat Colony deck, I might think it'll be a faster game than normal.

I know some players like the mystery of what their deck does, but that mystery lasts once. It seems to me what's more important is making sure everyone has a fun game. I usually lead by explaining what my key pieces in my deck are as a show of good faith. I've had some other players follow along with me.

Lastly, quashing any talk about "The pilot makes the deck perform better." I agree with the understanding that players' abilities drastically change the power of the deck. It makes sense. Not everyone is the same level of creative, but it doesn't exactly matter. Each player should have a balanced experience. If you're a better player, perhaps play a weaker deck to increase the balance of of the game.

Don't like that? I encourage you to think about why. Maybe your goal is to pub stomp people who are still learning to be effective players. Consider why your goal wouldn't be to have a balanced experience for everyone involved and get back to me.

Conclusion

The goal of Commander Brackets is to mitigate how unbalanced a game of Commander feels. The vibes are important, though hard to nail down. I genuinely think we need to be more flexible with our intention. The goal is a game that feels balanced. You should be motivated to take steps to encourage that. If that means you play a weaker deck because you're a more experienced player or it means you move a deck to a higher Bracket because in a lower one it absolutely hoses opponents, then you should do it.

It's a bit of a totalitarian approach, but it's less strict than it sounds. Everyone wants to have fun. We can increase that with a little thoughtfulness on how much we ought to win. A balanced ecosystem of play means you should win about 25-30% of the time. That means everyone has the same level of power and RNG. If you're winning more often than that, consider how you're balancing your games.

Anyway, that's what I think. What do you think? I'm @strixhavendropout on everything.