Major Changes Announced For Magic: The Gathering's Brawl Format

Image: Wizards of the Coast/Art by Chase Stone

Back in March, Wizards of the Coast introduced a new Magic: The Gathering format called Brawl, and it looks like a lot of players have been enjoying it. However, to keep the format balanced and fun, they have to make certain restrictions and rules change to the format, and today, four big changes to Brawl have been announced.

Today, Wizards of the Coast made some big changes to Brawl, and they're

"With Brawl being a brand-new format, we anticipate needing to make early balance changes at a more frequent pace," Magic designer Gavin Verhey said in the announcement. "Much of this process will be R&D listening to player feedback and coming to understand what aspects of the format are most important to preserve and how players value having a wider card pool (fewer banned cards) against a more curated gameplay experience (fewer unfun cards in the environment and a more balanced one-on-one metagame). Our ultimate goal is a fun environment that serves the players who enjoy it, and we're happy to draw that line differently than we do for formats that support competitive tournament environments."

Here are the four major changes to the new format:

Aetherworks Marvel, Felidar Guardian, Rogue Refiner, Ramunap Ruins, Attune With Aether, Rampaging Ferodicon, and Ramunap Ruins are now unbanned, but Smuggler's Copter didn't make it on the list.

Baral, Chief of Compliance and Sorcerous Spyglass are now banned in the Brawl format.

The starting life total for one-on-one Brawl games is now 20 (However, Multiplayer is still 30).

Now, you can include multiple copies of any one basic land in decks with the colorless commander (such as Karn, Scion of Urza).

These changes are necessary to keep the format exciting, and I'm glad they banned Baral, Chief of Compliance, especially after the Baral decks took over a recent Brawl tournament.

Are you happy with these changes to Brawl? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Dominaria is now available in stores.

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