Dies To Removal 15 - Why Magic: The Gathering Formats Fail! Tiny Leaders, Frontier, and Brawl 

Vince: “I’m so tired, I need to go to bed.” Prof, cracking whip: “NO…. OATHBREAKER.”

To be fair, as an EDH player I actually kinda enjoy the idea behind Oathbreaker. Of all the formats mentioned here, I really would like to see Oathbreaker take off.

in the skit, I expected you to appear from the fridge haha

Now I want to play Moderately sized leaders.

i will be buying the brawl precons i will never play a game of brawl i just want more commander tools

Bookmarks: 5:00 - 1) Format has rules that result in fewer possibilities. 9:15 - 2) Fallibility in formats results in players being hesitant to adopt new ones. 10:40 - 3) New formats can be criticized for having ulterior motives. 17:44 - 4) Brawl. 23:35 - 5) Inaccessibility. 26:15 - 6) Why Oathbreaker has a chance. 30:30 - 7) Legacy. 35:40 - 8) Vintage. 37:12 - 9) Commander. 43:40 - 10) Too many formats.

I will play Brawl at Arena, because is a Commander-Like game, and is on Arena...one paper I will just play Commander instead

As a Yugioh Player I find it fun to see Magic Players talk about No Interaction Games

The thing that makes me unafraid to invest in Oathbreaker is that it is Insanely easy to convert an Oathbreaker deck into a commander deck. If the format fails, and I doubt it will (Personally, I think it will never be as popular as commander, but will keep going as a smaller format), then I just add 39 cards and swap out the planeswalker for a legendary creature that fits the strategy. Boom. Commander deck.

Just watch Vincent's hands the whole episode. The man is a massive hand-talker, lol. My main problem with Historic is (a) it's not gonna get played in paper, and (b) its name overlaps with a mechanic that's played within that format, which is really annoying.

Brawl: *is dying* WotC: Let's put it into Arena

When he opened the fridge, I was half expecting to see the Professor's face in there.

The card frame change is M15. If frontier was from origins that would unironically be pretty great, as long as standard bans were carried forward, but alas, hareruya wanted to sell their spare goblin rabblemasters and other m15/khans standard staples. This was a mistake, and this is coming from a card carrying member of r/SiegeRhino

I think Brawl's home will be on MTG Arena. It just doesn't make sense to buy cards for a rotating Commander format.

Frontier should have started at Origins! And then it could be called ‘Origins’

The biggest problem a lot of these formats seem to have is twofold - 1. They have commanders 2. They don't know their competitive identity. Tiny Leaders? Was it a competitive 1v1 format or a 4v4 Commander competitor? Woops, we broke the format because commanders inherently restrict the pool of viable decks. Brawl? A fun casual 1v1+ format, or a 4v4 commander competitor? Woops, we broke the format because commanders inherently restrict the pool of viable decks. Canadian Highlander? Oh, it's definitely a 1v1 competitive format? There's no commanders and a council that tweaks a point list so no archetype can dominate? Sweet. It works. Oathbreaker? Oh, it's definitely a ~4v4 casual format? Also has oversight and history of dealing with degeneracy? Sweet. It works. Commander? Oh, it's definitely a ~4v4 casual format? Sweet. It works. My thesis from this then is as follows: Commanders are incompatible with diverse and fun /competitive/ formats, but since in casual formats multiple players will band together against degeneracy, and people will often choose sub-optimal decks in these formats because the find them fun, this is not a problem for multiplayer non-competitive scenarios.

"What happens to my Standard cards when they rotate out?" Block. Constructed. They don't even have to be from the same block. My Tarkir Block Deck vs. your Ravnica: City of Guilds Block Deck. Let's go.

Here's an idea. Commander is 100 card singleton format with a color rule and a leader card. Oathbreaker is a 60 card singleton format with a color rule, a leader card, and a signature spell. I have an Oathbreaker deck that I added 40 cards to create a Commander deck and keep the list with me to know which 40 cards to pull to form the oathbreaker deck.

Oathbreaker for me is no where near dead. My fnm has oathbreaker every other Friday. I really enjoy it. But sometimes, I wish it was regular commander....

Just call "Standard Plus" Extended lol. Extended isn't a dirty word. It's okay to bring names back, and refresh the format.

14:48 Pleasant Kenobi is trying to tell us something in his non-verbal language. If you need help man, touch you nose three time in the next video.

I think another part of the problem with things like Tiny Leaders, Brawl, and Oathbreaker is that they are just derivative of Commander. You sort of touched on it a bit with the whole "Well, why aren't we just playing Commander?" But I think it's a big thing about the lack of success of those formats. When my friends and I want to play Magic but are a bit burned out on Commander, we aren't going to turn around and play a Commander variant. We'll play 2-headed Giant. We'll play Emperor. If someone has a bunch of boosters we'll draft or do Wizard's Tower.

With commander, I and other people I’ve seen, have bragged about matching flavor with deckbuilding. Having pieces of the story, or having all or most of the spells and lands from just one plane, or other Vorthos elements mixed in.

Reminds me of the first Brawl tournament. The guy won by default because he was the only one to enter, it was really sad and telling.

I remember how Extended failed, it's just Standard but the last 4 years worth of cards. Anything that is a variant of Standard (a rotating format) that isn't normal Standard is doomed to fail as it competes with Standard, it get solved to quickly, shallow card pool. And in the case of Extended the format Modern was introduce making Extended obsolete.

I like thinking of Oathbreaker as a variant of EDH. I think that's how it'll survive.

Nice chat, guys. And i caved into oathbrker, still waiting for the first game. Also wizards has been creating oathbraker decks for several years now, the commander precons they pull out every set lend beautifully to be transformed to oathbrker, they even come its a special signature spell.

brawl died because commander is just a better format, so if it is in mtga it wont fail and it comes to mtga

The new Arena format definitely needs to be called Post Modern. Then we can discuss deconstructionism and death of the author (death of the brewer?) as it applies to old standard decks.

Brawl didn’t die. Corpses don’t die, they decompose.

Our MTG club used to play a lot of emperor, two headed giant, and Royal flush

This is an interesting episode to watch now with Brawl being one of the most popular format on Arena (however would be better with multiplayer) and Oathbreaker being kinda dead

Hi guys! First time long time. I love Brawl! Some reasons why: i have another reason to play with my draft cards. I DON'T have to have 3 or 4 of a card to be competitive. I feel there is some creativity in playing standard singleton. (I actually dislike Commander decks at 100) cards. Therefore Brawl at 60 card is a plus for me. Really Looking forward to playing Brawl on ARENA. My Humble Opinion...

I love brawl because I can use the cards I got from pre-release, draft or sealed. Since I dont want to play standart, becasue is too expensive, I feel this formant is perfect for me.

The beginning explains it really well. I'm just watching for some nice commentary, and finding out about other formats I didn't know about.

I really like you guys' chemistry - the discussion is so organic and develops really well! I feel like I'm having a enthusiastic late night conversation.

I think Oathbreaker will survive if WotC releases planeswalkers for the missing combination of colors: Rainbow, Sultai, Jeskai... Also having a "restriction list" might be nice: cards that can not be played as signature spell with specific commanders(I'm looking at you, narset + windfall). However, this "restricted signature spell" should be allowed to be part of the other 58 cards. Restriction list: Narset, Parteir of Veils + Windfall Ral, Storm Conduit + Fury Storm Nicolas Bolas Dragon-God + Elder Spell

Bringing Brawl to MTGA WON'T save Brawl in paper, but it'll get play on Arena.

All this talk about successful formats I'm sad neither of you mentioned Pauper, possibly my favourite format

Personally I love oathbreaker (I built 3 decks in the last month or so), and my group loves it as well. We’re playing more magic now than ever. I personally don’t think oathbreaker is dying but hey who knows.

My play group has embraced Oathbreaker. I myself have 4 OB decks assembled, and I've loved playing what we have. Games move faster than Commander, and easier/cheaper to build. I built like 2 decks with just cards I had on hand in a couple hours.

15:20 Actually, the border change was at M15 where frontier started. I still would have preferred that Frontier started at Origins.

The card frame change was in M15 I think, not Origins.

How my LGS was doing "Goldrush Frontier" was Tarkir w/o fetch lands. With the fetches banned, we had a similar landpool as standard now, and no specific decks really took off. My deck at the time was a Boros aggro deck with Brave the Sands to combo on Ancrop Crashers and Glorybringer. It was a fun format for me, but everyone now loves the new standard and cut it off the schedule.

Calling this formats failed is strict. Tiny Leaders and Brawl were fun while they lasted, and Brawl did managed to make more people interested into Commander. Oathbreaker seems to be going the same way. As for Frontier, I don't have the info, but if it achieved to promote a game in a country were it wasn't that popular in the first place, then I call it a sucess. And they didn't even mentioned Emperor.

The Professor's Socks needs their own Podcast. They're lively.

Vince! slow down a little please. Some words simple are devoured in you crazy elegant quick speech! 😆

“Asparagus IPA?” My sides

BRAWL IS DEAD! _brawl announced for arena_ LONG LIVE BRAWL!

"Ajani, Hero of Mentors" - you know, that name makes some sense too.

0:01 - 1:10 This was so me trying to get my friends to play a game of oath breaker! And what got me, was that the dude that got me into the format didn't wanna play! Professor is on point! I wonder what would've happened if it would've gotten as popular as commander?

I really loved the legacy talk! Do more of it! Ben is right that it is highly interactive with all of the best cards/answers ever made (a side from power 9). I've made my own little boutique legacy format that is more budget friendly that I play with my friends. Legacy lite I call it lol

Actually, as I recall, Frontier did start with the border changes - the problem is the borders changed before Khans, in M15.

I tried Baral in Brawl, not sure how people win with it lol. I love Brawl btw. Oathbreaker is not dead in my LGS tho. Every FNM there's an event and sometimes random people plays Oathbreaker from time to time.

Thank you guys! I definitely enjoy the accuracy of your facts with these formats. I’m finding factual accuracy being more of an issue the more I delve into MTG content creators.

My playgroup just started playing Oathbreaker a few months ago and it's quickly become our favorite to play together. We'll even do 2HG or Emperor with the decks.

If I may present some constructive criticism; I feel this discussion could have benefited and improved by being less informal. I appreciated the prof. attempting to first address the perimeters of what constitutes a dying format before listing examples of formats that have died/ dying. Arguably, there were too many asides and too many moments where a person *cough* Kenobi *cough* talked over the other person only to distract from the contention being made. Regardless, some good points were made. Keep up the good work.

I once traded a guy speculating on frontier about 100 "Rotatoes" for a savannah. Good times.

What an awesome discussion. I think you both are bang-on when it comes to your hallmarks of formats that succeed and fail. This topic has been coming up quite a bit lately in the Commander community, where quite a few people seem to want the more competitive-minded players to split off and form their own format. Do you think a competitive-only version of Commander: a) Has enough of the success characteristics you talked about to survive as its own format; AND b) Solves any of the problems expressed by the people on either side of the debate?

Great episode as always guys!! I heard a remarkably similar thing over on Commander Cookout a few weeks ago! It's cool to get more views on the topic.

I recently got back into Magic after not playing it for nearly 10 years. EDH has always been my favorite format, and Arena was the reason that I came back to Magic, so hearing that Brawl is coming to Arena HOPEFULLY will be a good thing for everyone. With that being said....I'm working on building my Ninja Commander deck (Yuriko =

I much prefer oath breaker over commander. Oath breaker has only 60 cards (easier upkeep and less money, easy shuffling), 20 HP (means faster games), and the signature spell combo is interesting. Oath breaker is my go to multiplayer format so it will keep living on my kitchen table. I think it's an excellent casual format.

My problem with oathbreaker is that it feels like you could just add signature spells to commander, like maybe if you have a planeswalker commander you also have a signature spell.

I loved that Legacy veedeo that you two did a while back. I'm still waiting on the Professor to showcase that budget delver deck he was talking about!

We want EXTENDED (T1.X) back! It's the perfect format now that could be used very well back!

During lunch at at TCG we've started playing oathbreaker more because we can usually get more than one game in instead of maybe finishing one game of commander

Tiny Leaders' 'tiny card pool' is a mere 11,000+ cards. As a 1v1 format it leaves a lot to be desired, but as casual format for people don't have 60-120 minutes to play a commander game, it's fun.

Commander allows for such weird and wonderful theming I feel. I have a deck that started as being based around the Nicol Bolas cards (with the commander being the transforming one from M19), but expanded as I built it into something that somehow encompasses all sorts of villainous traits. The black cards focus on everything graveyards (necromancy), all the blue stuff is about counters and looking at my deck (foiling "the heroes" plans and "cheating" by looking ahead), and the red is all creatures that are beefy or hasty or both and land removal (big bumbling mooks wrecking everything). I LOVE the challenge of finding cards that gel with one another, building win-cons, and I like to go the extra mile of buying those little boxes you assemble yourself - it lets me personalize the deck further by writing and drawing on the boxes whatever the colors and commander are. I'm newer to the game, so the only format I'm familiar with as far as the dying ones is brawl. I thought in theory it sounded neat, but if I really want to play essentially a rapid-fire commander game, I'll play Force of Will. Oathbreaker sounds really promising though, especially because I think making a deck centered around the newer Ashiok and their milling ability would be SO much fun. I have never been more delighted by people hating me than when I use Ashiok in standard games.

So I think you guys recorded this before they announced that Brawl was coming to Arena, but yea, Brawl is dead. Dead dead. BUT Arena can bring it back, but only on Arena. But I really think they need to make it like Standard Plus, no rotation, just play your Arena cards for a bigger card pool and if something comes up thats problematic, ban it

I think brawl would have been a good format if they were actually ready to support it in arena and paper and ban baral early.

I learned about some new formats. It was a solid discussion, and yeah the "Dominant Strategy" happens in every game, the other one i can think of is multiplayer and wizards of the coast ran, Dungeons and Dragons, does have that as well. God I do so love that game.

Also on Kenneth and Rowen in oath breaker, The double spell rule is fine because you would need each planes walker to cast both spells out, so to get 1 casting of each you need 2 6 drops first and 2 spells extra in mediocre ramp colors without two of the best ramp cards available in the color (There is no Mana Guyser or High Tide).

I personally like a bit of Brawl, but I use it as an opportunity to get some play from fringe legends. Currently I'm playing Izoni.

Oathbreaker isn't going anywhere, at least not from my area.

One of your best videos. Keep the quality up.

Great chat thanks for posting

I hope when they put brawl on MTGA, they makes it so you can play it in 2 versions, standard brawl and historic brawl.

I think we've all seen Brawl die, now it's been given second life by WotC and we will see... The upside is the new precons (and Brawl designed cards). Can it do what they did for Commander? It's unlikely since EDH had demand before the precons, whereas the current demand for Brawl is nil. Either way I think it's going to be a hit on Arena, because we really do love singleton and it's all we have. I won't feel like I'm wasting my money like on paper cards that rotate.

Note, I know some don't have large collections... For most formats, I build casual decks (brew types) through competitive deck... a good example is my commander deck collection... 8 decks that very from janky fun decks to combo "let's go infinit" ... if I'm sitting down with random people for a pickup game I'll play something more mid range and grab a decks that will match that tables meta... but if I'm going to a tournament, I expect to see competitive decks so I decide weather I want to be competitive or just play for fun ... I don't get bent if my fun deck gets crushed by competitive decks because I chose to play the deck.

I don't keep up with Magic but I love The Professor's vids. That being said, I don't know cards like Burrall(?). So, I was thinking maybe that dead space where the table is (which has a very cool dragon statue) can be utilized to overlay the cards+decklists that come up, so we can follow the conversation a bit better.

As much as I prefer the expansive and diverse options of mainstream commander I think Brawl's Standard cycle limitations will keep the power ceiling (and the price ceiling) lower and prevent the massive disparities commander has. I hate being limited to a narrow selection of cards but being able to play against a random without fear that I crush his precon or he has a foodchain Prossh is a tempting prospect.

I will say it Brawl will be huge on MTG Arena. Don't know about Paper but digital on MTG Arena I am sure.

The new border design came out in m15 and was also the idea for frontier. They stated that in the original blog post introducing it

This was a good discussion of formats. Sucks your recording and release schedule wasn't too kind to you. Would have been interesting to get your opinions with the new information available.

Oathbreaker is great. I do budget deck techs and interest is still growing not shrinking. With ppl like you supporting it oathbreaker can become the next commander. I'm gonna stream games live and people seem to want to see it grow.

Oathbreaker may have a different "definition" for some people since for example my lgs plays oathbreaker as a one v one best of three format with sideboards and such, and it is an enjoyable format

Great watch guys. keep up the good work!

The card border changed with M15, which was also - not coincidentally - the starting point of Frontier. Seeing as it's looking like there won't be any reason to play Arena's nonrotating format in paper, with a much bigger card pool than when it started, maybe it's time for Frontier to make a comeback.

Vince playing Canlander? I'd love to see that on his stream at some point

He said "Ajani, Hero of Mentors" Um what

Given how this vid was recorded shortly before MaRo's Project Booster Fun and Gavin Verhey's A New Era of Brawl, I would love to get Prof and Vince's take on that new information.

Dies to removal has become one of my favorite RU-vid series , thank you guys!

If Oathbreaker received support for online play it would probably flourish.

Not gonna lie. Vince looks greenscreened into the video.

Professor, there was a 'get to know the format' table at GP Denver. It was Oathbreaker.

oh I love that mana sorting box on your shelf, where did you get that?

"Brawl is failing" 1 year later, playing Brawl on Arena daily.. Paper Brawl though, confirmed dead..

Funny to see how this was all done before recent announcements like historic and new brawl blood ha great video though!!

You and PK being together is just the best. I love you guys.

As someone who played MTG in my youth, returned in Core 13 to a small casual draft / cube group, and grew as a player largely through the commander format over the years, I absolutely love Brawl as it keeps me up to date with the current card sets and has recently given me the confidence as a player to join drafts outside of my usual play group (for the first time) by learning the cards through a format familiar to my upbringing in the Commander format. It's changed how seclusive my play was until it came on the scene. I would be sad to see this format disappear, but hell is it hard to find a game.