Why is there no ranked Brawl?

[Red Bishop]

Any ideas? They allow Historic/Timeless, which are... wild rides. So why not just let us play what is arguably the most fun format in ranked form?

[Kurt Angle's Neck]

Making it ranked would require removing one of the main reasons that make Brawl the most fun... commander tiers. To make a competitive mode, you'd have to find matches based on rank and not on which commander is being played, at which point everyone would just play the most sweaty top-tier commanders in order to get the win.

[Sicris]

It's their excuse to not balance cards. No need to balance when it's not ranked.

[Red Bishop]

Originally posted by Kurt Angle's Neck:

Making it ranked would require removing one of the main reasons that make Brawl the most fun... commander tiers. To make a competitive mode, you'd have to find matches based on rank and not on which commander is being played, at which point everyone would just play the most sweaty top-tier commanders in order to get the win.

So many already play those Commanders anyway. People always gravitate to 'dominate strategy' regardless of what mode being played. I don't think it would make much difference if ranked Brawl were allowed. We already see the same sweaty top-tier decks in standard, etc. in order to get a win. There would still be unranked Brawl for variety. So what's the difference?

Whether it's right or wrong, I suppose the reason you gave could probably be the rationale at WotC; but I really don't see how the situation is much different then the state of Standard ranked.

[Red Bishop]

Originally posted by Sicris:

It's their excuse to not balance cards. No need to balance when it's not ranked.

Standard is a cesspool and it's 'balanced' lol

[Sicris]

Originally posted by Red Bishop:

Originally posted by Sicris:

It's their excuse to not balance cards. No need to balance when it's not ranked.

Standard is a cesspool and it's 'balanced' lol

I never said they did a good job at it. But less work is less work.

[Kurt Angle's Neck]

Originally posted by Red Bishop:

So many already play those Commanders anyway.

Uh huh... and those people go into the same matchmaking pool as everyone else that plays those commanders, separating them from everyone else who wants to play less-competitive commanders in a "fair" environment. You're missing the point here... currently, people are put into different pools depending on what tier of commander they're playing. In ranked, that won't be possible.

[Kolarahidumgarabashtelarimdugarn]

Originally posted by Kurt Angle's Neck:

Uh huh... and those people go into the same matchmaking pool as everyone else that plays those commanders, separating them from everyone else who wants to play less-competitive commanders in a "fair" environment. You're missing the point here... currently, people are put into different pools depending on what tier of commander they're playing. In ranked, that won't be possible.

It could be possible. The main downside would be matching players by both rank and deck, which would mean longer queues. Also rank would just mean "how well you're using your deck" rather than "how well you're choosing/build deck and using it".

[Kurt Angle's Neck]

Originally posted by Kolarahidumgarabashtelarimdugarn:

It could be possible. The main downside would be matching players by both rank and deck, which would mean longer queues. Also rank would just mean "how well you're using your deck" rather than "how well you're choosing/build deck and using it".

It's easy to create such a system, sure, but I think you are underestimating how much that would shrink the pools of available players to be matched against. I suspect it would be much more an issue than just longer wait times. Perhaps I'm wrong and there are enough concurrent players to make that work, but I'd bet you end up playing the same 3-5 players most of the time.

[kingjames488]

brawl?

tis a silly place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQCArh_R9dY

[Kolarahidumgarabashtelarimdugarn]

Originally posted by Kurt Angle's Neck:

It's easy to create such a system, sure, but I think you are underestimating how much that would shrink the pools of available players to be matched against. I suspect it would be much more an issue than just longer wait times. Perhaps I'm wrong and there are enough concurrent players to make that work, but I'd bet you end up playing the same 3-5 players most of the time.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/mtg-arena-state-of-the-formats-2024
Looks like Brawl has a decent popularity (~16%), which is 4 times more than Timeless. One could say that it should work as fine as Timeless format, if the decks won't be split into more than 5 categories. But I feel like Timeless is much faster, which means more matches are made and it would be faster to find a match in faster format. Haven't played much Timeless and Brawl though.

[anaris]

Originally posted by Kolarahidumgarabashtelarimdugarn:

if the decks won't be split into more than 5 categories.

there are about 320 different categories in current brawl matchmaking

[kingjames488]

Originally posted by anaris:

Originally posted by Kolarahidumgarabashtelarimdugarn:

if the decks won't be split into more than 5 categories.

there are about 320 different categories in current brawl matchmaking

name 20.

[BEEN]

What’s the point of wanting a rank? What point does having a rank associated with brawl serve?

[Red Bishop]

Originally posted by BEEN:

What’s the point of wanting a rank? What point does having a rank associated with brawl serve?

the same as the other modes? What a strange, negative, odd thing to ask lol. Maybe I want to earn those horrible rewards without playing the grossness that is standard or historic.

[kingjames488]

Originally posted by Red Bishop:

Originally posted by BEEN:

What’s the point of wanting a rank? What point does having a rank associated with brawl serve?

the same as the other modes? What a strange, negative, odd thing to ask lol. Maybe I want to earn those horrible rewards without playing the grossness that is standard or historic.

standard isn't tappin' froto >.>