What I love about the professor is that he has the attitude of "I love this game but it could be better" it's a very mature way of looking at things

Historic Brawl should honestly be a thing, it'll be a vastly open casual format that'll synergize the historic format to it.

Thank you for letting us know there's no redemption code. I absolutely thought it was a given that there would be and probably the only reason I buy a pre-con brawl deck.. even as a gift

Honestly as a Commander player, I played more Arena last week with Brawl than I have in the last 6 months.

Ask any commander player why it's their favorite format, I'd guess somewhere between 60-80% would include "because it doesn't rotate" in their answer.

Brawl would absolutely be better if it were Historic.

I'm surprised you didn't talk about brawl on arena being 1v1 only...it's supposed to be a multiplayer format

The first minute and thirty seconds of this video was so amazing to hear. I haven't listened to the rest yet, because I paused the video to tell you how much I appreciate your approach to this.

I would love to see Brawl on Arena to be Historic. I vividly remember my first Brawl deck that was an Admiral Beckett Brass deck. I’d love nothing more than to play it again on Arena, but two of the cards are from Kaladesh...Also...Baral was on Kaladesh, so, I wouldn’t mind if they left out Kaladesh.

Historic Brawl would also be a nice meta. Keep it 1 on 1, and then it would swing for faster games. Cheap CMC commanders (Plus all of Dominaria's legends) with a bigger card pool. If Arena can't ever have full commander, this would work. And if Wizards seems to change their minds on things, Brawl is young enough to change to historic over a rotating format. They already have a name for it and MTGA needs to let me use my older cards... (Still salty about Amonkhet and all that rotating, Temmet would be good 1 on 1)

I agree with this video whole-heartedly. I was actually saving up to get a Brawl deck and and attend a prerelease with the assumption that it would have a redeemable code, but after learning that there won't be a code I have no plans of buying the deck whatsoever.

Many Magic: The Gathering players ask the question: 'Is Arena better than online?' Yes, but no.

I really do want to buy into Brawl this coming standard. Ravnica - Eldraine Brawl sounds like it could be a lot of fun, and if I'm able to get some Guilds of Ravnica to build with, I'm certain I could have lots of fun with it. I'm a commander player at heart, but standard so intrigues me, and this seems like the perfect bridge, a fun format I like mixed with the most recent sets. Being set up against decks that are more on my level, whereas I have to get so legacy to play Commander at a reasonable level.

Long time commander play with no interest in playing brawl because I'm not a fan of limiting myself to standard cards. BUT WOW I had fun. A lot of fun with this. The issue with commander is insuring everyone had similarly powerful decks. This casual easy-to-enter play was lovely. Commander can take time to play but just wanting to kill a bit of time, this was really refreshing. Great jobs Wizards.

I fully agree they should have the code in the box and a reverse for those who buy only the digital version for paper, but Wizard needs to decide. Either precons that their cards will be available on Arena have codes in the physical box or not. Not planeswalker decks do but brawl decks won’t.

The Magic the Gathering Channel had a stream where they addressed the mis-step of not including the arena codes for the brawl decks inside their physical boxes. The excuse was something along the lines of they weren't sure that the arena client would be ready and tested with the brawl mechanics by the time the brawl decks would release. I linked the vid here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/o5ZidsRitNm4gI0.html. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure which time during the stream where they mentioned it.

I legitimately thought that the Brawl precons would include a redemption code for arena so that people could buy a deck and just jump into trying brawl on arena. The fact they do not is honestly one of the dumbest things I can possibly imagine. Especially because they include codes in planeswalker decks, so I'm honestly not sure why they decided not to do this. I mega wish there was a Historic Brawl on arena so I could use some of my favorite cards from Dominaria (like muldrotha). I'm fine with a standard brawl, but I'd absolutely love to have both. The variety you'd see in historic brawl would make it so much more fun.

I really hope they do Historic from a Frontier approach and backtrack their desire to just drop cards in quarterly. Then, instead of Brawl be Standard-Commander, make Brawl Frontier-Commander, which is unique from EDH by restricting the card pool and drawing in the power level of decks to a degree that many casual tables already emulate in a way. There'd still be power, but the efficiency of infinite combos and the number of them would decrease and, hopefully, lead to a thriving casual format of non-rotating cards that I would actually feel safe investing into.

My first experience with brawl was 1x1, exactly like it is in Arena, some months ago, and it I loved it. I think you underestimate how many reasons there is to play paper brawl. In my city (a capital in Brazil with about 2 million people) it's a big thing and many (magic the gathering) players find it to be their favorite format. Being an eternal formal has serious downsides to people who do not have any cards. I stopped playing a long time ago when my car was stolen with all cards in it, which I think would make anyone get away for some years. As I came back this year I had nothing nor did I have much money. To be competitive in commander I would take sometime and money to find the cads I wanted and I didn't want to play with many players because it's too time consuming. But I got to one of the local game stores, the owner explained what brawl was, I asked him for a box full of singles, made a Brawl deck out of mostly commons, uncommons, with the few commanders at hand, and got 2 out of 4 wins the first time I was ever playing with a command zone. I spent what would be about 8 dollars. 1x1 Brawl can be cheaper than many other formats (especially in a competitive environment, where people have all those legacy cards or expensive mythics), it's not much lengthier than a regular standard game, doesn't require legacy cards that may be quite difficult to find, which often puts you at a disadvantage (which happens even in pauper), and lets you find a use for cards that even in commander would not see play. Although commander allows some modern/legacy cards that were useless to start seeing play, seeking and acquiring these cards is a pain - which is especially true in small cities that have smaller player bases, in which you end up having to pay more for the card in online dealers. A brawl deck, on the other hand, I can improve with pretty much anything I open in a draft of a standard legal set. The problems you point out for paper brawl are, imo, problems that are much more true for people with money, more experience, and a much bigger card collection than many players I know, especially the new ones.

There is no redemption code???? What the heck, I could swear there was!! Dang...

2:1wildcards already killed any chance for commander or historic.

I don't even play Magic but I still watch all your videos to find out the best way to store my Yu-Gi-Oh! cards with class in regards to sleeves, deck boxes, deck cases etc. Keep up the good work!

I always love how I can generally tell how happy Prof is with a product or thing by just listening for the tone of the background music

After the umpteenth time of wholeheartedly agreeing with Prof for his simple, yet absolutely sensible proposition (which often takes an entire WotC of talent to figure out + execute only several years later) , there’s only 1 thing left to say: Prof for President of WotC! (place a pic of Uncle Sam’s “We want U!” here)

Brawl on Arena definitely HAS to be Historic to be worth a damn minute of my time. It is an excruciatingly stupid decision not to make it Historic. A singleton format with only the Standard cardpool is going to go stale in a week.

Honestly, Brawl will bring me back to play on Magic Arena. I agree that historic Brawl could bring so much more to the format. In term of deck building potential and just being able to enjoy the cards you've earned by playing the game since it's beta launch. They're so many commanders that we won't be able to enjoy (Muldrotha, Gishath or Kumena for example) or even cards that synergize perfectly with Eldraine commanders, that's frustating. Thanks for your content Prof. A day with one of your videos is always a good one !

My thoughts exactly Prof! I had more fun playing brawl on arena than I have had on arena for quite some time, in fact I see myself playing brawl as my primary format for a while. I really hope wizards build on it. Historic Brawl should be a thing, in one of the recent MTG weekly's they mentioned 'Historic Singleton' so I think it could happen. I know a lot of people hate the rotation aspect of brawl, but it does help in quite a few way, mainly for new players (by limiting the pool of card they need to learn about) and for keeping things fresh. Historic Brawl would (like commander, modern etc.) be a the next step for new players to explore when they are ready (usually when they approach their first rotation I find). Like wise, not having redemption codes in the paper decks is a bad call. Buying the same thing twice never feels good.

I think the biggest roadblock is simply the implementation of multiplayer in the Arena client. I had a lot of fun playing the Brawl precons on Arena when they were available but the "zany" quality of Brawl multiplayer was sorely missed. You also have the problem of politics and communication, which are in both cases, totally neutered in the client. How can I negotiate with my opponents and their decisions when all I can do is "Oops, Nice!" them?

Why?? WHY??? why Wizards of the Coast doesn't hire you to tell them how to make MTG better than it already is? :(

Really digging the increased production value of these latest videos

Brawl event was my favorite Arena gaming experience: showcased the format, play tested new cards, and showed me my new favorite Brawl deck to buy (Fae-Cursed!). Thanks for your excellent insights on redemption codes!

I can understand delaying historic brawl for a bit. With the history of minimal players with the paper format, they may not want to split the player base. They just recently tweaked the ranked draft queues to allow for two congruent queues at once. If brawl takes off on arena they can open it up a bit more and offer historic and standard brawl.

Brawl should be a 4 player game. I look forward to seeing that play mode included.

excelent video, Professor. Your argumentation for redemption codes in the pre-constructed deck was spot on. I have been asking for codes in booster packs since the lauch of Arena, but seing the sucess of arena without them i guess they will save that measure for when the game is suffering. Brawl isnt quite commander but it is nice to have the next closest thing available on Arena. Historic brawl is a most and we must ask wizards to answer why that is not a thing as of yet

Agree with making Brawl history and definitely the inclusion of arena codes for the paper decks in order to build that bridge between digital and paper. Great video.

Well said professor! Once sets started rotating in Arena I started getting pretty jaded and discouraged by having to regrind my collection that I just dropped it.

I sure hope that Wizards of TC/ Hasbro watches and pays attention to your analysis. You really know what your talking about in both the paper and digital health of the game we love.

Hey Professor, this is a hot take but please hear me out: Brawl using a rotating card pool is THE upside and whole point of the format. Ok, so here me out: Do enfranchised Magic players, who have been enjoying the game for years and own various Commander decks need Brawl? No, absolutely not, at least not in paper. They are not the target audience. And that is perfectly fine. So who ist the target audience? I started the game with Origins/BFZ, which was probably the absolute worst time to get into standard. Fetch lands were legal, baby jace was in every deck and the prices for standard decks were comparable to modern decks. I sat there with my Boros Ally deck built around the Rally Mechanic, because thats what I played at BFZ prerelease and I enjoyed it a lot. Needles to say, I got my butt kicked every week at FNM. My girlfriends was trying the same with her orzhov ally lifeleech deck and the same thing happened. She stopped playing at the store alltogether safe for prerelease and I only got into standard well over year and two standard rotations later during kaladesh block. Entering standard is a huge obstacle for brand new playeys. But there was nothing else to play. And again, the whole point was that we enjoyed the cards we opened and wanted to keep playing with them after the sealed event. There just wasn't any format where that was possible without constantly losing to established meta decks. Brawl bridges that exact gap! You can sit down and draft Guilds of Ravnica for example, build a sweet Convoke deck and then you can easily transform your limited deck in a brawl deck (Emmara, Soul of Accord) and keep playing in a balanced environment! It's hard for a Brawl deck to be "overpowered" if the card pool stays limited. It's a brewers paradise for new and also experienced players. All you need is to maybe attend a PreRelease and one or two drafts and you're good to go! There's no need to "buy into" the format - which absolutely would be were it non-rotating. When Brawl was first introduced all I did was open my trade binder, which was full of "worthless limited cards" and I could just start building decks. Withing mere hours I had various decks ready to play that I never would have dreamed of building for standard based on the established power level. However, most of these cards were also "too weak" for commander or would have needed significant upgrades from older and potentially expensive cards. There simply was no place for them outside of limited. Until Brawl. Are those Brawl decks meant to be kept around for years? No, they are a stepping stone. The most accesible constructed format there ever was and a year or two later most of these players will have "graduated" to standard, commander or maybe even modern. And that's the point of Brawl and the reason it being a rotating format is so important. Remember your Video on "The Complete Casual"? - For me, that's the point of the Brawl format. Maybe on a simplified level, brawl is to constructed formats what the free 30 card decks are to learning magic. (Would I enjoy a historic brawl format on arena on top of it, though? Absolutely!)

Thanks for the heads up, you just saved me from ending up with a useless brawl paper deck that I would have only bought for the code I'd assumed would be inside it.

One of the reasons i have an account on pokemon TCG is the codes in the physical product. I cannot use the brawl decks to bridge me into magic arena and i cannot use them to bridge into modern or commander. Looks like i'm stuck playing cube at my friend's house.

Everything you said about the rationale for redemption codes is spot on.

That Battle Royale box on the table really gets me nostalgic, back in the days we played these decks all the time, the balance just felt great.

Well I’m 21 hours late to the show, but after seeing the Prof on Game Knights a few times and watching this video on reddit, I’ve hit that sub button. Anyhow, I’m fairly confident that somewhere down the line, a historic brawl format is introduced, which will eventually lead to a historic commander. Of course, the 2-for-1 wildcard issue will have to be resolved in order for either of those formats to have any viability on MTGA

Totally agree on the redemption code point. I want a Chulainn commander deck, but I also want to play Brawl on Arena.

Oh, hey, Battle Royale. I remember playing with that. It started my love of playing counter and creature combo decks.

Thank you for another awrsome content Professor! your content always pull me out of depression. Thank you!

I thoroughly enjoyed your thoughts in this discussion. It's important for a company like WOTC to recognize the free feedback and engagement that it's user base gives on a regular basis, most companies pay to solicit this information from its consumers. Additionally, what you are best describing is the "culture" of a brand, and it's identity. To understand that the MTG is an evolving game that needs to constantly be put in check by it's fans, speaks to how successful this game is, and hopefully how it will continue to do so. Adding in redemption codes or the like are great ideas to continue this feedback loop, which is an invaluable tool at WOTC's disposal, and should be given the proper credence as a brand strategy to make the best decisions for the culture of MTG.

You are giving them such a bounty of free insights on how to bridge their interests with the community's many interests. If only they were as motivated by the pleasure and depth of the game as they seem to be motivated by (misguided) efforts towards profits.

Brawl has become my favorite format. After a ten year break and playing only standard I picked up a couple of brawl decks and my wife and I play together. Having digital codes would have been great

I just want to thank you because of you I got the awesome m2 ultra pro deck box

Love you Tolarian scholar! Great thoughts once again. Can you post a video on an update on the state of MTG: Arena? Update us on what is available, I don't know about historic on arena yet. Woo!

I completely agree with the views articulated in this video. I bought all the Core 2020 Planeswalkers decks because they came with codes. Deckbuild and practice on arena, then play IRL. Will reconsider buying Brawl decks without codes..bummer!

Why on earth are the brawl decks $40 each?? Like, no one who doesnt play brawl is gonna start because of that price point

Commander 2019 pre orders were 125.99 for 4 100 card decks, they eventually went to 159.99 ish. Brawl, 4 60 card decks that include cards from current sets are 159.99!? Am I missing something?

I LOVED the Faerie Schemes brawl deck. Pre ordered it in paper

I know that is people that prefer go outside and plat in a local store but arena is excelent when you don have time to go outside and you want a fast game or if you just dont want to go outside or you dont have enought money to buy a expensive deck or more than one deck, and have the posibility of turn on your computer and play magic from your room without paying is awesome

I agree on basically all of these points. I am very excited for Brawl, but I do wish that there was more connection between digital and paper. Additionally, I hope that Historic gets the support it deserves and Historic Brawl would be lovely.

Great review! Disappointed Prof didn't make a Bridge from Below joke ;)

Dudes, I LOVE BRAWL. It's the TRUE CASUAL format. There are also several Legendary creatures currently in Standard that are super fun in brawl, but not viable in commander. The best example of this is Farideh, Devil's Chosen, because there are a limited about of cards in Red + Blue with the d20 mechanic. 🤙

Couldn't agree more. Props to the professor! Nice video!👏

Glad you brought up the fact that there are no redeemable codes within the physical brawl decks. I think that is the largest oversight wizards has had with this particular product.

I took a long break from arena a few months ago because I prefer EDH. I had no idea edh lite (brawl) was coming to arena. I am SO FREAKING EXCITED. To be able to play, in my opinion, the best version of magic (even if it's the smaller version) more than once every couple weeks due to difficulty in getting everyone together, is amazing.

Great video, thanks for being the voice of the people.

Great video, Prof! As a vivid commander player I am super excited to play Brawl on Arena. However I totally agree that not including codes to get the brawl deck that I will probably buy in paper in Arena stops my excitement. I don't want to play hours of Arena to finally collect all the cards I already bought in the store. I don't care about standard and only draft every once in a while, so it would take a casual player like me very long to collect all the brawl deck . I also don't want to pay for the digital copy again that i will not be able to play anymore in a couple of months.. Adding digital copy codes to the brawl decks would give me personally the boost to start off my brawl career in arena and would give me an incentive to either get the other brawl decks as well or even buy digital boosters to find the cards to improve my decks. In my opinion it is a wastes opportunity, wizards of the coast...

I've always just sort of assumed they'd implement historic brawl once both of those formats got up and running

Took the day off work to see you in Michigan Prof! :)

What I learn playing brawl on arena, it was my first time playing the format and learn the rules. I also learn that even with precon, I am not good at magic. The fairie commander was my favorite.

Grime enjoys your take on this event.

I think if Brawl was.... 4x A commander 60 cards And a limited but not rotating card pool.... I would then and only then play brawl

You threw me for a loop w/o the classic outro, but I liked it nonetheless. I dig you baiting us by putting the image of the selesneya eldrazi and fog tron videos behind the actual link to the videos haha As a format, I like the niche that Brawl fills out with a standard legal commander. As a paper format for now, I'm not sure it will work out being solely standard legal, but in Arena, I think it has some hope. I want to believe that it will work in the sense that the online client will ease the transition of players between paper and online and vice versa, BUT I do not have much faith in the format since I am content with commander

I like the shifting environment of standard, and I like the Singleton variance of Commander, so Brawl is my ideal rotating format. If I were given the choice of Brawl or standard, I'd play Brawl.

Prof it’s like you read my mind! Especially with the question of Historic Brawl. I will never play Brawl in paper unless someone in my play group has more than one deck. But on arena I’ll play it all day every day especially if it counts towards my 15 wins and daily challenges. But Historic Brawl is more preferable because I’d love to play with non rotating decks!

There are several issues with historic brawl. If, for whatever reason, brawl in paper can't be non-rotating, historic brawl must be arena only. That would mean no connection between paper and digital. And you yourself said how important it was that they were connected. Does this also mean there's brawl on arena to parallel the brawl in paper, but also another brawl format with historic cards? They don't seem distinct enough to warrant having different formats.

I'm always of the mind that, when given a choice of adding one or the other format, we shouldn't have to choose which. I want both Brawl and Historic Brawl on Arena, in both bo1 and bo3 offerings. Wizards is afraid that offering different formats will decrease the amount of players in each queue making wait times bad, but I argue that adding more formats to a client adds more players overall. I would also prefer them to stop offering rotating, short-term formats. Feels like it would be much better to have a list of formats that are always available to us, including but not limited to: Standard, Draft, Brawl, Historic, and the variations they hold. Getting excited about Brawl and then only really playing it one day before it rotates out of the client for another month is really boring and sad.

I didn't realize the new brawl decks didn't have codes. I was very interested in these as My wife was very interested in this new theme/flavor of Eldraine, but now I think we'll just be getting the PW decks, which do have the codes. I have a massive Arena collection, but for her, she only plays casually with me, so there's really no reason for me to invest a lot of money into something I can't translate to online, for her to casually play with... such as the new Brawl decks. Oh well. Maybe next set. I'm glad I watched this, I was actually shopping for the Brawl decks today. Saved me a lot of money.

Brawl is just STANDARD EDH. It isn't a break from standard, just a new standard. EDH, oathbreaker, and historic brawl all need to be formats.

I've been an enthusiastic paper Brawl player since it was first announced. I'm glad to see you approve of Brawl on Arena, even if you've had your problems with it on paper. Perosnally I think it's a mistake to think of it as Commander light. The card pool is so much smaller that Brawl doesn't suffer from some issues I personally have with Commander, like the existence of 'staples' and the prevalence of win-on-the-spot combos, but instead presents a greater deckbuilding challenge, and is a format where overlooked Standard cards have a far greater likelihood of finding a niche. It's as different from Commander as Standard is from Vintage. (It's also cheap as chips to get into if you play either Standard of Limited.) That said, my playgroup agrees that making Brawl nonrotating (in paper as well as Arena) would increase the format's diversity as well as answering the number one complaint I hear about Brawl.

I was fortunate enough to preorder my set of brawl decks through my lgs for a total of 80 bucks plus tax. The pricing I've seen online is ridiculous, these things shouldn't be more than 25 ea. Great review Professor. I too think they missed the mark on not including redemption codes.

The Idea of redeem code is actually great, I hope they listen to you

Thanks Professor, I was waiting to see if there was a code after I saw the prices of these. Seeing as that is not the case, I'll just buy the singles that I want and save my money.

I welcome Brawl to Arena, and it worked very well during the pre-con event. I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked, and I look forward to more. The pre-cons themselves are crap, but that is kind of to be expected. I no longer have any ties to paper Magic, so I don't have first hand knowledge of how Brawl worked, but yes on Arena it's a great step forward.

For me as someone who plays paper brawl, i would argue that the rotation of the format is honestly a plus. Much in the same way that the rotation of standard is a plus for the format. The rotation keeps it interesting and always evolving. It also helps balance the power level and cost of the cards i dont have to worry about infinite combos or what power level my deck is when i sit down at a brawl pod.

I'm waiting for the review on the paper decks themselves but nice video none the less.

Great video as always Prof, thanks for speaking up on behalf of many players who share your views and values, count me among them. Personally I think Brawl should never rotate and should only grow and grow over time and then maybe eventually adapt to become 100 card decks once the card pool can support it. Variance is an important part of casual formats imo and the format would become enriched by this growth and diversity. I also think missing out on Dominaria's glut of Legendary commanders is a huge loss for the format. Also for the most part commanders dont always require powerful cards to choose from but rather weirdly specific cards and I think the Historic pool would support this far better. With a smaller standard only pool I think we'll start to see a lot of decks just become generic stews of the best cards currently in standard with a general that just broadly supports everything and would be less fun than tuned and oddball decks like folks enjoy in EDH. I also think it makes some sense for older cards to cost more than current standard cards (so this could also be a win for wizards bottom lines) but i also think the 2x WC cost is far too high and i hope they correct course on their current plan.

I wouldn't mind Brawl in an eternal format starting with the M20.

As an entirely EDH paper player and a mostly casual Arena player to fill in the MTG void between game nights, some sort of code to make me feel like I'm getting /more/ value from my IRL purchases would be awesome. I never feel compelled right now to dump money into Arena when I can just buy real cards and get theoretical return on investment. Thanks for this.

I think Brawl would be better if it were Historic, Dominaria just has so many legendaries, it's a theme of the set *and* gives us "shard" commanders as well as the "wedge" commanders from M20. At the very least it should be an option. History says that the "splitting the player base" concern *might* be more relevant for Brawl than for Standard (since Brawl has struggled so much as a format), so maybe they could reasonably start with special event Historic Brawl as a way to test those waters, and maybe they are planning that, but really with the player base on Arena as huge as it is I think it would be safe to just jump straight into having both Historic and Standard Brawl, and they should.

I learn so many new words watching the Professor

Arena, and MTG in general, has caught my attention after many years of not buying or playing any Magic with bringing Arena to mobile, and I have to say, it's been eye-opening. As someone who was alienated by the investment and effort to play in Paper, I've learned a lot about where mtg is at in the past few weeks. Brawl in Arena has actually been my introduction to Commander, it's kind of a Baby Commander, and I think that is its great strength. Still, I was surprised to not find Historic Brawl in the play modes list even now in April 2021, because at the moment with no way to play in person and no desire to make a huge paper investment, Historic Brawl would seem like my best bet for getting exposed to a bigger and more diverse format. Bit of a shame, because I like Brawl, and suspect I'd like Commander, if I could play it.

I won't be spending money on a game where I have to collect everything yet own nothing.

Playing brawl for just a few days was a lot of fun made me excited for the format. I do agree that a historic format would be so much better though

10:11 - U R DAMN RIGHT!! Can someone plx show this to Mark , Gavin and the whole MTG staff???

Would love brawl to be historic, but would love multiplayer and chat even more. 4 player please :(

I had a blast with the brawl event, the only glaring issue being the lack of deckbuilding so I could try to come up with my own jank. As far as brawl as a format on Arena goes? I think it is even more susceptible to stagnation and boredom than standard is at any point in time, but that is something that can only be fixed with good card design in standard, but for the upcoming Brawl rotation at least there is a fair bit I'm excited to build around.

I, as a commander player, would 100% be willing to give brawl a try if it was historic, and potentially even switch over to it. Looking at the cards in new sets and figuring out how I can slot them into my existing decks is one of my favorite aspects of commander, but with rotation that's only possible for extremely short periods of time. It's also a bummer to put so much time and effort into making a deck you love only to start worrying that it has a built-in expiration date.

I'm watching this video a year late with respect to the introduction of Brawl on Arena, but during the Time of Covid I've become more interested in playing Magic, which renews my interest in Arena. I want to coax fellow commander players I know to take up Brawl as an 'EDH Lite' format so that we can challenge each other on Arena, and maybe to play the format face to face. Brawl decks are potentially much less expensive and easier to construct than EDH decks and probably easier to play in some ways. And the limitation to Historic or Standard sets seems not to be a big deal. Motivated players might build fun IRL decks by projecting the set limitation backwards to their favorite past period of Standard-format MtG to play them against contemporary Brawl decks., or decks from any other period. Maybe that variation would be called Time Warp Brawl. Imagine playing a Lorwyn/Alara Sharuum deck against Alela, or maybe with a deck constructed with your favorite cards of the Kaladesh/Aether Revolt period. There could be lots of fun playing those kinds of match-ups. Arena seems like it could be a great entry point and cross pollinator for fun new styles of play. It seems like lots of EDH players abstain from Arena because of their distaste for Standard, but a barrier to entry for them trying Brawl of either flavor is that it's difficult to obtain cards they like playing. Not everybody wants to invest so much time or money buying into the digital collection scheme on Arena. Something for the folks at WotC to think about if they should read this a year after the fact.

Prof. this was a fire video. Really good work, and I agreed with alot of your points.

They should (re-)activate the historic brawl mode. It was active for fnm for two days, that was nice.

I think that they should do both historic Brawl and Standard Brawl. Standard Brawl with a rotating format will provide a competitive avenue for players to enjoy, while casual and competitive players both can enjoy a non-rotating historic format, as you labeled it, puesdo commander.

My gripe with the free event was that many matches were conceded on the first 3-4 turns due to it having no "punishment" or investment lost, players would just not like their draws or how the board developed and "go to the next game". When playing it with more participants, this happens less as the game balances itself, with the other 2 players focusing on the most developed player.