MTG: WotC Announces Commander Is Coming To Arena – Sort Of!
A new 100-card Historic Brawl queue is coming to Magic: the Gathering Arena, giving fans the closest thing yet to the popular Commander format.
With the arrival of Jumpstart: Historic Horizons just a couple of weeks away–and by the way who said it could be almost August already–Wizards of the Coast have announced that a 100-card Historic Brawl queue is getting added to Magic: the Gathering Arena, which gives players the closest approximation to a good game of Commander yet.
After seeing “pleasing performance” out of the recent Historic Brawl events, WotC has said that their internal data shows that there is a dedicated audience interested in getting to play with the format more–so they’re listening and bringing the closest thing Arena has had to Commander to the forefront with JHH’s launch.
We’ve been pleased with the performance we’ve seen from our recent Historic Brawl events, and it’s clear that there is a small but dedicated audience that’s interested to keep playing in this format. We also saw a good response to our recent experiment with 100-card Historic Brawl events, and Historic Brawl will now default to being 100-card whenever it is offered.
Like we do with Standard Brawl, we will be using a matchmaking system that takes into account the power level of your commander to help ensure that matches are fairer and more fun for both players. Speaking of fair, some perpetual effects (especially toughness reduction) can basically shut down an opponent’s commander. Locking out a commander is why Meddling Mage and Sorcerous Spyglass are banned in Brawl, so we’ll be taking a similar approach with some perpetual cards. We’re starting with banning both Davriel’s Withering and Davriel, Soul Broker in Historic Brawl, and we’ll be keeping an eye on the rest of the effects in Historic Brawl.
This is exciting news if you love playing Commander. And if you do, and want to keep playing Commander, you should know that Wizards has made it very plain that the success of this format now will determine the shape of things to come for MTG Arena:
This queue will be up at least until rotation this September while we monitor how interest and play volume hold up for the format. Our goal is to leave it up if it can remain healthy and provide enough population for rapid, fair pairing. If you want permanent Historic Brawl, play it!
So get out there and play Historic Brawl, and good luck Commanders!
