Wild PairWild Pair | Art by Lars Grant-West

Welcome to the fourth and final installment of Bracketology, where I take existing Commander decks and see how they can fit into the different Commander Brackets. Be sure to check out the previous articles in the series where I looked at adapting decks for the Upgraded Bracket (3), Core Bracket (2), and Optimized Bracket (4).

This week, we'll again be looking at two of my personal decklists and proposing some tweaks and substitutions to turn them into Exhibition Bracket (1) decks as described by Wizards. As someone who's never built a deck quite like this before, this should be an interesting challenge!

For those of you who missed the announcement, the Commander Format Panel announced a beta trial of a new system to "create a common language to help people find well-paired games" consisting of five brackets. Personally, I've had far too many "my deck is a seven" or "it's a lightly upgraded precon" Rule Zero conversations at my local game store, so these Commander Brackets offer a breath of fresh air.

While I don't think they're perfect by any means (I think it's really hard to quantify the power level of highly synergistic decks), it's good to see that the Commander Format Panel is giving us a new tool to aid in pregame conversations.

The Exhibition Bracket (1)

Like I mentioned above, the Exhibition Bracket is completely new territory for me. While I don't know how often I'll play games that fall into this space, I was surprised to learn from a recent episode of the EDHRECast that about 5% of the decks where users are selecting the Bracket of their deck fall into the Exhibition Bracket. That's slightly larger than the number of cEDH decks registered in the same sample of 64,000 decks.

Intent is the key to building a Bracket 1 deck. These decks "prioritize theme over function and showcase a unique idea or experience over valuing winning." On a more technical level, Bracket 1 decks feature no Game Changers, mass land denial, extra turns, or two-card infinite combos, and have few tutors.

I can imagine most Exhibition Bracket games ending with everyone having had a good time and having "done the thing" their deck wants to do so that it almost doesn't matter who won at the end of it. That isn't to say that Bracket 1 decks shouldn't be able to win the game or should be piles of non-synergistic cards, but rather that choices in deckbuilding are made to prioritize the theme or function first and foremost.

Now that we've wrapped our heads around the Exhibition Bracket, let's dive into this week's decklists.

Deck #1: Wild Pair Secret Commander

For any of you who've read my Plot Twist series, you know about my personal favorite deck of all time, my Secret Commander: Wild Pair deck. It's a toolbox-style deck built around the card Wild PairWild Pair and using it to tutor up the right creature onto the battlefield for a given situation since every creature in the deck has either six or ten total power and toughness. I always have a blast playing it - win, lose, or draw.

The deck runs high stat, low cost creatures like Shakedown HeavyShakedown Heavy and Sheltering AncientSheltering Ancient that aren't particularly good on their own, but put in a lot of work with Wild PairWild Pair when they can fetch up a friend like Gisela, Blade of GoldnightGisela, Blade of Goldnight or Zopandrel, Hunger DominusZopandrel, Hunger Dominus. I've removed a few of the tutors from the deck to make it better fit into the Upgraded Bracket (3), but the deck still plays out well anyways.

I'll fully admit that repeatedly tutoring cards up doesn't feel like it matches the intent of the Exhibition Bracket, so I thought I'd take this deck down to the studs and see if I can keep the concept alive while making it showcase the theme in an interesting way. Then it hit me: what if the deck still revolved around Wild PairWild Pair, but I'd be functionally getting the same vanilla creature every time?

This revised decklist does exactly that. Wild PairWild Pair is still the heart of the deck, but I've replaced the commander with Eladamri, KorvecdalEladamri, Korvecdal and filled out almost all of the deck with three-mana 3/3s. In fact, every card in the deck is either A) Wild PairWild Pair, B) a basic Forest, or C) a three-mana 3/3. This definitely feels like a step in the right direction.

Is it powerful? Absolutely not. Will it be entertaining and funny to play? Definitely. Because for every vanilla Centaur CourserCentaur Courser or Harrier NagaHarrier Naga, you have cards that have more text but probably no extra effect, like Armored KincallerArmored Kincaller and Gladewalker RitualistGladewalker Ritualist. Heck, there are even some genuinely playable cards like Enduring VitalityEnduring Vitality and Kodama of the West TreeKodama of the West Tree.

The beauty of this deck is that whatever situation you run into, you're always going to be functionally casting the same spell. Now, if you happen to find Wild PairWild Pair (much more difficult given the lack of mono-green enchantment tutors that are also 3/3s for three mana), you can really pop off. But that doesn't mean you won't be making important decisions.

Activating Eladamri, KorvecdalEladamri, Korvecdal has a 61% chance of succeeding and netting you another 3/3. WitchstalkerWitchstalker could prove to be the huge threat we always knew it could be. Trickster's ElkTrickster's Elk can turn our opponent's creatures into 3/3s! And Tranquil FrillbackTranquil Frillback even gives us a way to interact with artifacts, enchantments, and the graveyard. We've got all our bases covered.

This deck definitely sparks joy. I might actually have to build it if I find myself with a regular pod of Exhibition Bracket players. Bonus: the total deck comes in at about $120, nearly half of which is Nissa, Resurgent AnimistNissa, Resurgent Animist and Kodama of the West TreeKodama of the West Tree which you could cut for any of the 3/3s in the maybeboard if you wanted to.

Here's the full decklist for you:

Deck #2: "Colorless" Five-Color with The Reaper King

For our second deck this week, we're not necessarily updating a single deck of mine as much as smashing this colorless combo deck with a five-color deck I play. I'll also admit I was heavily inspired by this Niv-Rizzet list from EDHREC's April Deckbuilding Contest. I know, I know, I have an...eclectic...style of deck that appeals to me.

Anyway, I wanted to take a look at what a colorless deck would look like in the Exhibition Bracket, but with cards like Rings of BrighthearthRings of Brighthearth, Clock of OmensClock of Omens, and Aetherflux ReservoirAetherflux Reservoir at our disposal, a colorless deck can accidentally do a lot of very powerful things. So I wanted to instead pivot as far away from that direction as I possibly could.

That's why we've gone completely in the other direction. Instead, we're running a "colorless" deck that's actually full of colored spells and runs only WastesWastes for mana. In fact, this deck has no way to produce colored mana at all, but it can still cast every spell in the deck somehow.

We're running a bunch of cards from Tarkir: Dragonstorm, like Rakshasa's BargainRakshasa's Bargain and Riverwheel SweepRiverwheel Sweep, that can technically be cast for if you absolutely have to. The deck is also full of cards with the prototype mechanic from Brother's War, like Hulking MetamorphHulking Metamorph and Iron-Craw CrusherIron-Craw Crusher, which we'll unfortunately always have to pay full retail price for.

Now, the controversial part: Phyrexian mana. Including spells like Gitaxian ProbeGitaxian Probe and DismemberDismember wasn't a decision I made lightly, but you'd be surprised how hard it is to find 99 colored spells that you can cast for only colorless mana. I ended up with just over 110 options in the final list, but please let me know some other cards I might've missed in the comments below.

I'll admit I don't love having Phyrexian mana in the list, but the deck itself is all over the place and I feel like having to pay life to cast a Marrow ShardsMarrow Shards or Act of AggressionAct of Aggression to interact with a very mediocre creature on our opponent's board is perfectly fine.

As is, this deck seems right at home in the Exhibition Bracket. We're running some strong cards like Steel SeraphSteel Seraph and Skitterbeam BattalionSkitterbeam Battalion, but given we'll have to get to casting them one WastesWastes at a time, this deck is unlikely to close the game out in any quick fashion.

Overall, I love the simplicity behind this deck's concept. Every land is a WastesWastes and every spell in the deck is colored but can be cast without colored mana. It's whimsical, funny, and will probably play out differently every time. Plus, it's running Synthesis PodSynthesis Pod (though I decided to cut Birthing PodBirthing Pod because that card's just too good). Here's the full list for you to review:

How to Apply My Method to Your Own Decks

I'm not sure there's as clean of a Bracketology method to be applied when it comes to the Exhibition Bracket (1). I don't think it's fair to recommend you run only basic lands like I did in both lists this week, but it certainly helps make it easier to articulate the theme of the deck and why it belongs in Bracket 1. That being said, here are some of my takeaways:

The theme always comes first - I considered adding other colorless lands like Crystal GrottoCrystal Grotto to the "colorless" five-color deck, but realized that they'd be able to generate colored mana and make our spells castable. Instead, I think it's important to make sacrifices that preserve the integrity of your theme in a Exhibition deck.

Make the concept easy to communicate - While this is good advice for Commander decks at basically any bracket, I think it absolutely helps to ensure that your deck fits in with a pod of Exhibition decks. If you're able to relay the idea in a concise way, that's probably a good sign.

Don't worry about covering all your bases - Since winning isn't the primary goal of decks like these, I chose to worry less about having the right amount of card draw, interaction, et cetera. Sure, this might make the decks play out a little clunkier in reality, but what matters first and foremost is if they're able to pull off the core concept.

If you have your own guidelines for building Exhibition Bracket decks, I'd love to hear from you in the comments below.

That's a Wrap!

This is the last article in the series, and I hope you enjoyed reading them. I'll be back to writing Plot Twist with my next article. While I could certainly take a stab at making one of my decks into a cEDH Bracket (5) version, I'd instead encourage you to look up meta decks and play them to start. Once you have a grasp of the overall cEDH metagame and play patterns, then you're free to go wild and brew to your heart's content.

I hope you found this experiment in tweaking my decklists to fit the new Bracket System helpful. I believe it's really important to think through the choices we make in our decklists to help them fall into a particular bracket or power level, and that doing so can help us better describe what our decks due to enable better Rule Zero conversations.

Let me know in the comments below what tweaks you're making to either power up or power down your decks to fit them into the Exhibition Bracket (1). I'm also curious to hear what other changes you'd make to the two decks I featured this week to help it fit into the new bracket system.