5 Excellent Bracket 2 Decks to Try out Next

Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor | Illustration by Anna Steinbauer

Despite its power restrictions, Bracket 2 has incredible variety. You’ll find many unedited preconstructed decks here and some lightly modified ones. You’ll find under-supported typal decks that use good staples to shore up the deficiencies, or depowered decks built around Magic’s most iconic creature types. And you’ll find many commanders that are perhaps the only one to support their archetypes explicitly. Ever try to run curses or vanilla creatures?

I’ve got five Bracket 2 decks lined up to introduce you to some of these deckbuilding tropes. Hopefully some of these will inspire you to go out there and find some new fun yet functional builds!

Bracket 2 Commanders

Two-Headed Hellkite | Illustration by Fajareka Setiawan

Almost any commander can make a decent Bracket 2 commander. The difference lies in your deckbuilding approach and intent. It’s not enough to just look at the strict requirements; try to capture the spirit of the thing!

At its base, Bracket 2 is supposed to equate roughly to how a sealed Commander precon plays out of the box. If you’ve read a few Commander upgrade guides and deck reviews, you might know some typical weaknesses of preconstructed decks: The mana base is sub-optimal, multiple themes hinder each other, and there’re inferior cards that just shouldn’t make the cut in your Commander deck. At least, not if you want to play at a high level.

Some guiding principles of Bracket 2 deckbuilding include:

• Don’t include cards on the Commander Game Changers list
• Limit the number of tutors
• Don’t chain extra turns
• Don’t completely shut off your opponents’ mana base
• Don’t include early infinite combos that are too easy to pull off

Now, a lot of that is up to interpretation. Deckbuilding and deck analysis sites have established their own benchmarks, but these are grey areas that are good to clear up during a Rule 0 conversation.

Here’s some informal rules I’ve come across or set for myself that can help you to keep your deck in Bracket 2:

• Three (3) tutors seems to be the sweet spot for fairness. Apologies to equipment decks; y’all just keep getting new toys, especially in Universes Beyond sets.
• A good definition for an “early” combo is one that you can pull off with 7 mana or less. For example: Ivy Lane Denizen + Scurry Oak; Chatterfang, Squirrel General + Pitiless Plunderer; many Baylen, the Haymaker combos.
• This is the perfect Bracket to mash up concepts like you’re a budding entrepreneur in 2006. “It’s a coin laundromat but it’s a martini bar. It’s a race car but it’s a bed.” Or in Magic terms: “It’s a shark deck but it’s a discard deck. It goes wide but it’s an auras deck.”
• When in doubt, fill out the final slots of your deck with something thematic or that’s already sitting in your collection. Or more lands. If you’re like me, you should always run more lands.

#1. The Upgraded Precon – Draconic Destruction

Atarka, World Render | Illustration by Karl Kopinski

This was the first precon I bought when I returned to Magic. Fate Reforged was my first prerelease, and Gruul () were my primary colors way back then, so it felt like a good starting point to get back into things.

This deck has the trademarks of a precon you may have upgraded a while back and then never touched again; I made a few swaps after Tarkir: Dragonstorm, but I haven’t revised the list further until now.

The Commander: Atarka, World Render

Atarka, World Render gives your attacking dragons double strike, but it’s a whopping 7 mana. Especially in Gruul, you need to access your ramp just to play your commander, and you’re vulnerable to a control player’s counterspells. But at lower brackets, you shouldn’t expect as many pure control players that’ll counter your commander six times in the same match… right?

The Deck

This version of the deck removes the less synergistic cards and adds a mish mash of fun stuff from the last few years of Magic, like an omen dragon that ramps you. I’ve also made adjustments to the mana base to take out tapped duals and add the Gruul representatives of some of the better cycles we’ve had lately: Verge lands and surveil lands. Terror of the Peaks is my most costly addition, but dang does it go off in dragon decks (I cut a budget Ur-Dragon deck that had a combo with this, Bladewing the Arisen, and Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm).

Combos and Interactions

There’s no combo in the deck as built, but you can instantly upgrade it to Bracket 3 if you add Aggravated Assault, which combos with Savage Ventmaw as long as it can keep attacking without dying. That’s the perfect time for a Heroic Intervention, if you ask me.

Bracket 3 Upgrades

The first card to consider here is Aggravated Assault since it has an infinite combat combo with Savage Ventmaw. It’s just a little too quick to assemble for Bracket 2; you could easily cast them each on curve along with a haste enabler to go off on turn 6.

Format staples like Heroic Intervention and Three Visits improve your protection and ramp packages, respectively. Even a Ruby Medallion could go a long way given the number of red creatures you have to cast.

You can add tutors like Worldly Tutor into the mix, and Deflecting Swat is another strong protective spell to consider. Anything that makes your lands tap for more mana helps you to get Atarka out more quickly and more often, too.

#2. The Under-Supported Creature Type – Zoraline Bats

Zoraline, Cosmos Caller | Illustration by Justin Gerard

Not every creature type is supported equally; I say this as someone who owns minotaur, phoenix, and satyr decks. Bracket 2 is the perfect place to run these commanders because you can surround them and your possibly questionable creature base with generically good cards and staples.

The Commander: Zoraline, Cosmos Caller

One of the 10 rare legendary creatures that were signposts in Bloomburrow’s Limited format, Zoraline, Cosmos Caller gave bats a thematic commander that lets you run plenty of winged mammals, including various versions of Momo from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Zoraline wants you to attack to gain life and reanimate your permanents; you can even reanimate your artifacts and enchantments in this build.

The Deck

The moment you take the Exquisite Bond combo out of an Orzhov lifegain deck, you’ve defanged the vampire bat. I’ve included Test of Endurance as a possible win condition because every game needs to end sometime.

Of the 30 creatures in this deck that aren’t your commander, over two-thirds are bats. And if you look at the list, you can see how this creature type needs help to get off the ground. There’s some lifegain theming going on, but to make it good, you’re basically building a standard Orzhov lifegain deck with a bat theme.

You also aren’t using each of the bats optimally in this deck; Mirkwood Bats is at its best when surrounded by tokens, especially utility artifact tokens that you plan to sacrifice anyway. There are a few token generators in this deck, but not enough to fully leverage the Lord of the Rings bat.

Combos and Interactions

Exquisite Blood and Bloodthirsty Conqueror aren’t in the deck because they have so many options that you can combo with, most notably Starscape Cleric, Sanguine Bond, Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, and Marauding Blight-Priest. Starscape Cleric is the most egregious since it costs just 2 mana if you don’t pay for its offspring ability.

Bracket 3 Upgrades

Exquisite Blood and Bloodthirsty Conqueror are a good place to start, followed by Beacon of Immortality.

You can make some modest, non-typal additions to the creature base like Enduring Tenacity and Soul Warden to get more of those all-important triggers, plus Bontu's Monument and Authority of the Consuls. Bolas's Citadel is a good outlet for all that life you plan to gain.

#3. A Thematic But Not Busted Equipment Deck – Valduk Impact

Valduk, Keeper of the Flame | Illustration by Victor Adame Minguez

A problem I’ve had with equipment and aura decks lately is that because they have so many tutors, it can be hard to limit myself to just a few.

While I could build a Bracket 2 Boros () equipment deck, I feel like that’s probably just going to turn into Boros legend soup. Which is fine, but I want to do something more fun. So let’s cut a color and build an equipment deck with a twist: Impact Tremors.

The Commander: Valduk, Keeper of the Flame

Valduk, Keeper of the Flame needs equipment and auras to get going, but what turns your ethanol into jet fuel is when you surround it with Impact Tremors and damage doublers, something red has in spades.

The Deck

This deck wins with a combination of burn and combat damage. Pile enough equipment onto Valduk and the combat step trigger plops out enough elemental tokens to be a problem, regardless of whether you have impact triggers to burn everyone to a crisp or the tokens overwhelm them. Even though they’re already hasted, Ogre Battledriver turns each token into a 5/1, an even deadlier berserker that makes the blocking math harder.

The trick is to surround Valduk with cheap equipment and auras; equipment has the advantage of sticking around if Valduk dies, though auras won’t leave if an opponent Vandalblasts the board. You can lean one way or the other, but a mix is good to maintain some resilience.

Combos and Interactions

I didn’t include any obvious combos, but I’ll outline a few that you can use to adjust the deck’s power-level.

The first involves the commander, Valduk, Keeper of the Flame, and Breath of Fury. If there’s an opponent that can’t block your creatures and Valduk has just one equipment or aura on it, you can chain combats by continuously sacrificing tokens.

If you can give Raptor Hatchling indestructible, perhaps with a Darksteel Plate or Hammer of Nazahn, your impact triggers can generate an infinitely wide board state if you point them at the baby dino. Better still, if you have multiple impact triggers, you can use one to fuel the loop and others to burn your opponents or their creatures.

Crackdown Construct can become an infinitely large creature; all you have to do is activate Shuko’s 0-mana equip ability over an over. Firion, Wild Rose Warrior and Bladegraft Aspirant can also get there with the right equipment.

Bracket 3 Upgrades

This deck is on the fine line of Bracket 2 and Bracket 3. If you  add one or more combos or tighten up the curve just a little, Bracket 3 is in sight.

There’s also the mono-red instant win combination of Outpost Siege and Worldfire, but that’s mana intensive and off-theme.

#4. The Curse of the Niche Mechanic – Lynde Curses

Curse of Shaken Faith | Illustration by Campbell White

Bracket 2 is the perfect place to run commanders that aren’t super well supported or explored. Just like you’d do with a niche creature type, you can build around weird themes. Deserts is a deck you can do at multiple power levels because of landfall and other land support. Vanilla creatures has a ceiling that’s only so high, but Jasmine Boreal of the Seven is explicitly made to support them.

For your consideration, I’ve brought this Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor curse deck.

The Commander: Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor

Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor has two triggers: A delayed trigger that reanimates your curses, and an upkeep trigger that moves your curses around and gives you cards. Your options aren’t plentiful, but there’s a surprising number of enchantresses in Grixis ().

The Deck

This deck runs some enchantment payoffs like Entity Tracker and Ashiok's Reaper. Silent Arbiter helps to mitigate your lack of creatures and slow down most of your opponents, while Claws of Gix lets you reset your curses to stabilize your life total. Asinine Antics is a mass enchantment producer that’ll trigger your payoffs as the tokens enter both the battlefield and the graveyard.

The real fun here comes from your ability to get extra upkeep triggers. Obeka, Splitter of Seconds, Paradox Haze, and Sphinx of the Second Sun help you move your curses around the battlefield more often.

But at the end of the day, your upside is as high as the quality of the curses that there are in Grixis.

Combos and Interactions

This deck doesn’t really have any combos or noteworthy interactions to shout out, and there aren’t really any to add without getting into “Hullbreaker Horror + Sol Ring” territory.

Bracket 3 Upgrades

The primary way to upgrade this deck for Bracket 3 is to improve the dual and tri-lands in the mana base, then add fitting Game Changers. Tutors, counterspells, Commander free spells, Cyclonic Rift… you know, just start playing the hits.

You can also substitute the more lackluster curses with cards that copy better ones instead. Copy Enchantment and Estrid's Invocation are a good place to start, then you can add in an Extravagant Replication for another upkeep trigger that you’ll want to copy.

After that? Pray that we get another batch of curses sooner rather than later. As I say that, the second finger of a distant monkey’s paw is curling (the first was when I said that we should get Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Magic).

#5. Spread the Word! – Three Dog Aura Composting

Three Dog, Galaxy News DJ | Illustration by Elizabeth Peiró

I included this because I’m just completely fixated on this deck. And you know how blogging goes: My fixations become your reading material.

This deck encapsulates that precon energy you get from Bracket 2. There’s a lot going on here: You’re going wide with tokens, and you’re slinging auras. Your deck is vulnerable to three of Farewell’s four modes: If it blows up your creature and aura tokens, the auras you’ve stacked onto your commander, and the auras in your graveyard, you may as well concede and grab a snack.

The Commander: Three Dog, Galaxy News DJ

Three Dog, Galaxy News DJ has massive appeal to me just because the card does something different. It sticks a quest marker on your H.U.D., and I just gotta follow it to its natural conclusion.

Three Dog’s trigger is worded to go off when you attack. It’s not just a combat step trigger, so you have to swing with something to get its benefits, but Three Dog doesn’t need to step into battle. It also doesn’t specify whether the aura you sacrifice has to be a nontoken aura, in case you can move auras around somehow….

The Deck

To take advantage of Three Dog’s abilities, the deck is packed with cheap auras. There’s plenty of enchantresses and some cost reducers, but I cut the tutors to keep this deck closer to Bracket 2.

The value comes when you have a wide board of attacking tokens; when you sacrifice an aura that’s attached to Three Dog and spread it across 5-10 tokens, that’s a lot of enchantress triggers. Even better is when you use auras that cantrip or make tokens when they enter; Cartouche of Solidarity sets up the next wave of creature reinforcements, while Angelic Gift refills your hand quickly and Chains of Custody clears away problematic blockers.

With a commander like this, Eidolon of Countless Battles and All That Glitters become powerful closers, but your moves are highly telegraphed and easy to disrupt.

Combos and Interactions

This deck doesn’t have any obvious combos as built, but there’s potential to add some.

Word to the wise: Do not add Secret Arcade // Dusty Parlor. Its combos with Ajani's Chosen and Archon of Sun's Grace don’t end and technically draw the game. Unless you’re okay with only playing the combo when you can Swords your Archon or something to end the loop, this feels like a Rule 0 violation waiting to happen.

Bracket 3 Upgrades

Tutors like Kellan, the Fae-Blooded, Steelshaper's Gift, Enlightened Tutor, and Open the Armory grab your win conditions more consistently.

Greater Auramancy provides a massive amount of protection to this deck. Codsworth, Handy Helper is on-theme for a Fallout commander and a perfect mana dork. Its ability to move auras around also lets you reuse something you’ve already sacrificed without using reanimation.

You can improve the mana base with Turbulent Steppe, Sundown Pass, and even better duals.

Commanding Conclusion

Atarka, World Render | Illustration by Camille Alquier

And that’s our 5-deck sampler of Bracket 2 in Commander. While I tend to build closer to Bracket 3 these days, Bracket 2 is a really fun space to explore when you’ve got a commander that has a unique take on a mechanic or archetype. It’s the perfect space to test out an idea before you invest in the expensive cards to upgrade it, or you can just brew it and play it without worrying about keeping it up to date with the most recent tech. Bracket 2 is your oyster, friends.

Which commanders do you build around in Bracket 2? How would you build a spellslinger, blink, or control deck in this bracket? Let me know in the comments below or share your decks over on the Draftsim Discord.

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Until next time, happy brewing!