The Ultimate Guide to Brawl on Arena and Best Decks

Last updated on November 12, 2025

Rusko, Clockmaker | Illustration by Samuel Perin

When I first heard about Brawl, I wrote it off as a Commander knock off meant to entice Commander players to join MTG Arena. But my opinion changed as I played this MTGA format. These days, I play at least as much Brawl as I do Limited or Commander, perhaps more.

Though both formats use 100-card singleton decks with commanders, they have vividly different life totals; additionally, Historical Brawl matches are typically 1v1. These changes make Brawl feel closer to Cube and give it a unique play style that distinguishes it from Magic's most popular format.

If that appeals to you, let's take a deeper dive into Brawl!

What Is Brawl? What About Historic Brawl?

Wick, the Whorled Mind | Illustration by Andrea Piparo

Brawl is a 100-card singleton format with commanders that's only available on MTG Arena. Brawl allows players to build decks with cards from all MTG sets released on MTG Arena, including Alchemy sets and their digital-only mechanics.

Note that Wizards changed the format's name from “Historic Brawl” to simply “Brawl” in late 2023. The name change didn't affect the format rules in any way, and many communities still refer to the format as Historic Brawl. The names can be used interchangeably, though they are distinct from Standard Brawl, which is its own sub-format.

The format lets players pick a legendary creature, spacecraft (must have a power/toughness), vehicle, or planeswalker as their commander, with planeswalker commanders being one of the biggest differences between this format and Commander.

Another critical difference between Brawl and Commander comes from how many players you play with and how much life you have. You can only play 1v1; there's no multiplayer option in Brawl. Players start the game at 25 life rather than 40, which makes a big difference for aggressive decks.

The most important difference between Brawl and Standard Brawl is the card pool. As the name suggests, Standard Brawl only allows you to use cards legal in Standard; and the decks have 60 cards rather than 100, which makes sense considering the greatly restricted card pool. You wouldn't want to pad your deck with Draft chaff to reach 100 cards.

Who Is Brawl For?

Brawl is great for players who love the concept of Commander but wish that the gameplay had more similarities to Cube, or who dislike the political aspect that comes from multiplayer games. Because you play 1v1, decks tend to have lower mana curves and the value of 1-for-1 removal goes up sharply.

These are the two biggest changes that make the format feel more like Cube to me. This isn't to say the kind of big, rampy strategies Commander is known for are ineffective in Brawl; in fact, those are among the best Brawl decks. But the ways you can combat them change.

Life totals going from 40 to 25 and the number of players from 4 to 2 affects how aggro functions in Brawl. You can play more traditional, low-to-the-ground aggro strategies with loads of cheap creatures. Aggressive strategies suffer in Commander, where you need to deal 120 damage to take out a pod and get outclassed by the bigger plays the format is known for, but aggro thrives in Brawl.

Brawl can also be an excellent format for players who have deep Arena collections but aren't interested in the gameplay offered by Historic, Pioneer, or Timeless. It gives you a place to play your old Standard cards without worrying much about metas (though there is one) or anything like that.

Brawl-Legal Sets

Brawl has a deep card pool; every format released on Arena, including Alchemy sets, are legal. The format utilizes Alchemy-adjusted versions of cards, so some of them play slightly differently in Brawl than paper formats.

For example, the Alchemy-adjusted version of A-The One Ring costs to activate rather than simply tapping.

Brawl Rules

Brawl decks are 100-card singleton decks; they can't contain more than one copy of the same card except for basic lands. Each Brawl deck has a commander, which can be any legendary creature or planeswalker printed on Arena, including Alchemy cards.

The other 99 cards must share your commander's color identity. Color identity is determined using all mana symbols in the rules text of a card, even ones that aren't part of the mana cost.

For example, Bloomburrow‘s Wick, the Whorled Mind is a Grixis commander because of its activated ability, despite being a mono-black card.

Players start a game of Brawl with their commanders in the command zone. Whenever the commander changes zones after being cast, they can choose to return it to the command zone. They can cast it again, but there's a commander tax: It costs more mana each time it gets cast after the first. So, if Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student is your commander, it costs to cast the first time, then , then , and so on.

Players begin the game at 25 life.

They draw a hand of seven cards and may choose to mulligan. If they do, they get one free mulligan that lets them draw a fresh seven and keep with no penalty. For each time they mulligan after the first, they have to put a card from their hand on the bottom of their library.

Last but not least… this is not really a rule, but rather how the Brawl matchmaking works on Arena: Brawl decks are assigned a “weight”, based on their cards and commander, to gauge the deck's power level and find suitable opponents.

Brawl Ban List

The Brawl ban list is relatively small and focused. Two types of cards are banned: generically powerful cards that would warp the format, like Oko, Thief of Crowns, and cards that prevent an opponent from leveraging their commander. These include cards like Drannith Magistrate, which locks all commanders down, and cards like Pithing Needle that punish planeswalkers in the command zone.

Notice that the ban list for Historic isn’t the same as for Brawl. For example, in Historic you can't play fetch lands, or the Flare cycle from Modern Horizons 3 – but you can play them in Brawl.

• Agent of Treachery
• Ancient Tomb
• Chalice of the Void
• Channel
• Chrome Mox
• Demonic Tutor
• Disruptor Flute
• Drannith Magistrate
• Field of the Dead
• Gideon's Intervention
• Lutri, the Spellchaser
• Mana Drain
• Meddling Mage
• Natural Order
• Nexus of Fate
• Oko, Thief of Crowns
• Phyrexian Revoker
• Pithing Needle
• Runed Halo
• Sorcerous Spyglass
• Strip Mine
• Tainted Pact
• Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Where to Play Brawl

The biggest place to play Brawl is MTG Arena, largely because the format includes online-only cards from Alchemy sets. You can find workarounds to play with them in paper, though it takes some work and they can't work exactly the same, or you can just ban the Alchemy cards for paper gameplay. Because it's so localized to the Arena client, you're unlikely to find many players jamming Brawl at your LGS (though I'm sure you could get the ball rolling!).

The Best Brawl Decks

Before looking at the best decks in Brawl, let’s talk about the weighting system. MTG Arena assigns each Brawl deck a “weight” based on the quality of the commander and the cards in the deck. Arena's matchmaker utilizes this weight to try and pair decks of similar power level against each other, keeping the best decks against the best decks and more casual brews at a different power level.

The system isn't perfect and it occasionally pairs you up or down to ensure you find a match, but it generally keeps things balanced and helps prevent new players with a small collection from playing against completely maxed-out decks.

Etali, Primal Conqueror

Etali, Primal Conqueror | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast

Etali, Primal Conqueror decks are ramp-centric, and very direct. You'll spend the first few turns of the game jamming ramp spells to land an early Etali. These decks consistently play Etali on turn 5, even turn 4.

The 99 of the deck is almost entirely ramp; these are commander-centric builds that lean on Etali being a busted card and their hefty ramp package to cast it over and over, even if it gets removed. If you want a really good, simple deck to get started in Brawl, this is an excellent choice.

Rusko, Clockmaker

Rusko, Clockmaker | Illustration by Samuel Perin

That's enough about ramp decks; what about something more controlling?

Rusko, Clockmaker is one of the strongest Alchemy-exclusive commanders in the format, largely because creating Midnight Clocks on ETB covers half the commander tax, making it almost impossible to keep this clockmaker from its workbench.

The deck takes this further with flicker effects like Essence Flux and Blur to flicker Rusko and make more Midnight Clocks and… this is just another ramp deck, isn't it?

Well, it still plays out pretty differently than the others. This Rusko deck uses the mana advantage to deploy a ton of spot removal with Rusko, Clockmaker slowly pinging your opponents to death while Midnight Clock periodically refills your hand.

Grenzo, Crooked Jailer

Grenzo, Crooked Jailer | Illustration by Darren Tan

Grenzo, Crooked Jailer receives a fair bit of hate from players who think it's too busted, and they're not wrong. The heist mechanic lets you pick one of three spells from your opponent's deck, which tends to be very good in a value-oriented format like Brawl. That would be fine on its own, but you also get to cast that spell for free! As you might have seen with Grenzo and Rusko, the best Alchemy commanders either create things for free or cast spells for free.

The deck built around this Rakdos commander is a classic midrange shell. You have efficient threats like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, and Chandra, Torch of Defiance. Some of the best interactive spells in MTG Arena are represented, like Lightning Bolt, Thoughtseize, and Grief.

A bit of card advantage from spells like Laughing Jasper Flint and Laelia, the Blade Reforged rounds the list out. It's that classic jack-of-all-trades, master of none that midrange decks are known for.

Atraxa, Grand Unifier

Atraxa, Grand Unifier | Illustration by Marta Nael

Brawl decks have access to excellent mana bases. Post-Modern Horizons 3, we have access to all 10 triomes, fetch lands, and shock lands, plus the surveil lands from Murders at Karlov Manor. While there are plenty of powerful 5-color commanders like Jodah, the Unifier and Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, I think Atraxa, Grand Unifier takes the cake for multicolored good-stuff soup.

You use all of green's excellent ramp like Growth Spiral, Into the North, and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath to generate a massive mana advantage and get you towards casting Atraxa.

You also get to dip your toes in all the best interaction in format, including but not limited to Wash Away, Swords to Plowshares, Farewell, and Memory Lapse. It's effectively an Esper () control deck utilizing green for ramp! This deck reminds me of some Legacy 4-color control decks I used to play, so it's also kind of nostalgic.

Ajani, Nacatl Pariah

Ajani, Nacatl Pariah | Illustration by Ilse Gort

I promised you lean aggro decks, so let me introduce you to a Boros commander: Ajani, Nacatl Pariah and its fearsome transformation Ajani, Nacatl Avenger.

This is a token deck looking to generate a massive board state with every Krenko's Command variant on Arena, plus token-making powerhouses like Wedding Announcement and Adeline, Resplendent Cathar.

Once you have a massive board state, cards like Warleader's Call and Imodane's Recruiter help push a bunch of damage to finish the game. If that finish line takes some time to reach, the deck has cards like Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury and Tajic, Legion's Valor to generate value in the mid to late game.

Sythis, Harvest's Hand

Sythis, Harvest's Hand | Illustration by Ryan Yee

I don't want you walking away with the impression that Brawl only has a place for good stuff soup; there's plenty of room for synergy, as demonstrated by Sythis, Harvest's Hand.

Most of this deck works with enchantments, from archetype-specific ramp like Sanctum Weaver and Jukai Naturalist to its finisher package, which includes token production through Sigil of the Empty Throne and Hallowed Haunting plus surprise buffs from All That Glitters and Ancestral Mask.

The deck still runs some format staples like Swords to Plowshares and Esper Sentinel that don't care about enchantments, but that's true of any format. Sythis, Harvest's Hand is one of the best synergy-based commanders in the format; a few other juicy options include Sami, Wildcat Captain, Giada, Font of Hope and Breya, Etherium Shaper.

Getting Started with Brawl

When you play Brawl, I recommend you check out what you have in your MTG collection. If you have a deep collection from the Standards of yesteryear, you probably got a great start.

Even if your collection is small, you want to install one of the best collection trackers: our Arena Tutor. It functions as a standalone app, and allows you to manage its placement without using up resources by keeping web pages open.

What if you want to start from scratch, with a brand-new Arena account? In that case, consider a jump back to 60-card Standard Brawl with a smaller card pool.

Budget decks look a little different on Arena since, for the most part, you don't buy individual cards but instead craft them using wildcards. Budget Arena decks use as few rare or mythic wildcards as they can, rather than focus on monetary value.

Focusing on mono-colored commanders helps conserve wildcards because you don't need to craft any dual lands like Arid Mesa and Steam Vents. You should also focus on spending your rare and mythic wildcards on format staples that you'll put in every deck. For example, Hostile Negotiations works great in a narrow section of discard decks, but Sheoldred, the Apocalypse can go in pretty much any black Brawl deck you build.

Here's a list of other rares and mythics that are worth crafting because they'll go in most Brawl decks of their color (many of which have uses in other formats like Timeless and Standard!). It's not exhaustive, but this is a good starting point:

• Counterspell
• Craterhoof Behemoth
• Cyclonic Rift
• Delighted Halfling
• Dismember
• Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
• Giver of Runes
• Goldspan Dragon
• Grief
• Lightning Bolt
• Ocelot Pride
• Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
• Reanimate
• Snapcaster Mage
• Swords to Plowshares
• The Wandering Emperor
• Thoughtseize
• Titan of Industry
• Topiary Stomper

I also want to give you some uncommon and common staples, which are largely ramp pieces or interaction. These go in virtually every Brawl deck I build in their colors:

• Abrade
• Acidic Slime
• Bitter Triumph
• Bone Shards
• Bridgeworks Battle
• Cathar Commando
• Duress
• Explore
• Feed the Swarm
• Fell the Profane
• Fight with Fire
• Galvanic Discharge
• Ghostfire Slice
• Into the North
• Journey to Nowhere
• Kami of Bamboo Groves
• Llanowar Elves
• Lórien Revealed
• Make Disappear
• Malakir Rebirth
• Patriar's Humiliation
• Pinnacle Monk
• Selfless Savior
• Sink into Stupor
• Strangle
• Thieving Aven
• Touch the Spirit Realm
• Wash Away
• Witch Enchanter
• Witness Protection

Of course, I can't leave you high and dry without a decklist or two to get you started, can I?

Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel

Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel | Illustration by Fesbra

This mono-blue is a very simple control deck. Virtually every card in the deck can be cast at instant speed, so you get to hold up an endless deluge of countermagic. Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel is a cheap flash commander who digs for answers or land drops while filtering away the excess. You rarely get to four chorus counters, but this deck doesn't rely on that.

It uses a total of five rare and four mythic wildcards, with most of those concentrated towards creatures for cards like Hullbreaker Horror and Pearl Lake Ancient so you can actually win the game. Of course, mono-blue counters is a… less than loved archetype, shall we say? So, I whipped up something else.

Ayara, First of Locthwain

Ayara, First of Locthwain | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast

This deck looks to do something mono-black decks have done since the dawn of Magic: sacrifice creatures for value! Ayara, First of Locthwain makes an excellent black commander as it converts all your sacrifice fodder into life loss for your opponent and lifegain for you, then card draw.

You'll notice an emphasis on cards that make our opponents discard; this kind of disruption is highly effective with a budget deck because it stops your opponents from using their rares and mythics before they can impact the game.

The wildcard split is an even 4/4 across mythic and rare. These cards aren't as specific as they were in the Malcolm deck; they're just good, valuable cards you can use in a couple of other formats (except for Ayara itself).

Brawl Products

Brawl benefits from every Magic set released on Arena, including small releases like Historic Anthologies. These have introduced cards like Cyclonic Rift that became fast staples.

Arena added preconstructed Brawl decks to the Arena Store, and makes them available with an infrequent cadence. These are functional decks that can be purchased with gems, but likely need some upgrading to be highly competitive. You'll notice the price of the deck drops depending on how many cards you already have in your collection from that deck.

Brawl Communities

So, where can you chat about Brawl?

This is largely an online format, so that's where you'll find most of the communities. The MTG Arena subreddit has frequent posts about Brawl and it can be a fine place to keep up with other formats and topics related to the client. The MTGbrawl subreddit is much more focused, as the name would imply. If Discord is more your speed, you should check out the Brawl Hub Discord and the Stronghold Discord. Brawl Hub leans towards the more competitive aspects of the format and even hosts a competitive league, while Stronghold is an ideal spot to discuss deck brewing.

Why Did Wizards Change Historic Brawl to Brawl?

In a Patch Notes release from 2023, Wizards stated that the format formerly known as Historic Brawl was more in line with Timeless than the actual Historic format, but decided that any other format name would be at least partially incorrect. Therefore, they dropped the format association and simply renamed the format “Brawl,” keeping “Standard Brawl” as its own distinct offshoot.

Wrap Up

Torgaar, Famine Incarnate | Illustration by Lius Lasahido

Brawl really surprised me with its interesting play patterns and depth. I expected a Commander knock-off and got a hybrid format with bits of Commander and Cube sprinkled together, and it only gets better with each new set.

What do you think of Brawl? Would you say it is the best way to complete daily quests? Which commander do you want to play? Let me know in the comments or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe and keep brewing!