Brawl
- This page is about the Historic-inspired format. For the original paper format, see Standard Brawl.
| Brawl | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where to Play | |||||||
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| Rules | |||||||
| Type | Constructed | ||||||
| Players | 2 | ||||||
| Life | 25 points | ||||||
| Decks | 100 cards (Singleton) | ||||||
| Add. rules | Commander | ||||||
| Scryfall Statistics | |||||||
Brawl was introduced in December 2020 as Historic Brawl — a Historic variant of Standard Brawl (which, in a confusing turn, itself used to be called simply "Brawl" when it was initially introduced).[1][2] With the exception of its banned cards, all cards available on MTG Arena are legal in Brawl. It is the closest analogue available on MTG Arena to the Commander format.
History
At its introduction the format was just what you would expect; the 60-card Brawl format (which otherwise uses only Standard-legal sets) with the added Historic card pool. It was introduced to MTG Arena in December 2020. It had its own ban list.[2]
As an experiment, 100-card Historic Brawl was introduced in June 2021.[3][4] This larger deck size made the format more similar to the Commander format.
In December 2023, the format was renamed to just "Brawl", as the Historic ban list had diverged from Brawl's ban list even further in the years since its creation and the available card pool now more closely resembled that of the newly-launched Timeless format. Since appending any format's name in front of the word "Brawl" would be an inaccurate description of the format, the decision was reached to rename the format to simply "Brawl".[5]
Popularity
Despite being originally introduced as a spinoff of Standard Brawl, Brawl has grown to be far more popular than Standard Brawl and one of the most widely played formats on Arena. Internal data on Arena play rates showed the number of Brawl games played beginning to surpass Historic games played near the end of 2024. Although this data combines the play rates of Brawl and Standard Brawl, it was confirmed that Brawl games outnumber Standard Brawl games by a ratio of roughly 9:1.[6][7]
Rules
In this format, you'll build a Commander-style deck and play 1v1 games on MTG Arena.[8]
- Deck construction
- 1 commander card (any legendary creature, planeswalker, vehicle, or spacecraft with a power/toughness box)
- 99 other Brawl legal cards (within the color identity of the chosen commander)
- Only one copy of any card except for basic lands
- Brawl decks do not have a sideboard, but you may have a companion if you meet its requirements (it does not count towards the 100 card deck size)
- Additional rules
- Starting life total is 25
- Best-of-one, including a free mulligan
- Major Differences from Commander
- Games are played exclusively 1v1, as Arena does not support more players.
- Planeswalkers are legal as a commander by default; explicit permission via an ability (such as that found on Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes) is not required.
- The starting life total is 25 instead of 40.
- The commander damage rule does not exist.
- The card pool is restricted to cards available on Arena. Cards not craftable on Arena are not legal. Inversely, cards that exist only on Arena (e.g. digital-only cards) are legal in Brawl but not Commander.
- If a paper card has a rebalanced version, only the rebalanced version can be played in Brawl.
- If a card with specialize (all of which are currently monocolor) is chosen as a commander, up to one other color can be chosen during deckbuilding and added to the color identity of the deck, thus making the deck two colors and allowing for one of the two-color specialize options to be built around.
Banned list
The following individual cards are banned in Brawl tournaments:
- Agent of Treachery[9]
- Ancient Tomb[10]
- Chalice of the Void[11]
- Channel[12]
- Chrome Mox[10]
- Demonic Tutor[12]
- Disruptor Flute[13]
- Drannith Magistrate[2]
- Field of the Dead[9]
- Gideon's Intervention[2]
- Iona, Shield of Emeria[14]
- Lutri, the Spellchaser[2]
- Mana Drain[10]
- Meddling Mage[2]
- Natural Order[12]
- Nexus of Fate[2]
- Oko, Thief of Crowns[15][16]
- Phyrexian Revoker[2][17]
- Pithing Needle[18]
- Runed Halo[2]
- Sorcerous Spyglass[2]
- Strip Mine[10]
- Tainted Pact[12]
- Ugin, the Spirit Dragon[9]
Previously banned
References
- ↑ Brett Teran (June 27, 2019). "MTG Arena update: Introducing the Historic format". Magic Esports.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Blake Rasmussen (December 21, 2020). "Historic Brawl". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on November 10, 2022.
- ↑ Wizards of the Coast (June 16, 2021). "MTG Arena Announcements, June 16, 2021". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on June 16, 2021.
- ↑ Jay Parker (July 29, 2021). "MTG Arena: State of the Game — Jumpstart: Historic Horizons". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on July 29, 2021.
- ↑ Patch Notes - 2023.33.00. MTG Arena Support (December 12, 2023).
- ↑ a b Chris Kiritz (April 8, 2025). "MTG Arena State of the Game 2025 – Spring Edition (website)". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved on November 12, 2025.
- ↑ a b Comment by Jay Parker. Reddit.
- ↑ Wizards of the Coast. "Brawl Format". magic.wizards.com.
- ↑ a b c Wizards of the Coast (December 8, 2021). "MTG Arena Announcements, December 8, 2021". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2021-12-08.
- ↑ a b c d Carmen Klomparens, Jadine Klomparens, Eric Engelhard, Gavin Verhey & Daniel Xu (November 10, 2025). "Banned and Restricted Announcement - November 10, 2025". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ MTG Arena (August 4, 2022). "Patch Notes - 2022.18.10". Wizards.com.
- ↑ a b c d Wizards of the Coast (April 14, 2021). "MTG Arena Announcements, April 14, 2021". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2021-04-14.
- ↑ Wizards of the Coast (June 3, 2024). "MTG Arena Announcements – June 3, 2024". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Dave Finseth (September 16, 2025). "Through the Omenpaths Card and Event Updates". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ MTG Arena Admin (November 5, 2019). "Nov 5 – Brawl Ban Ammouncement". MTG Arena. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021.
- ↑ Ian Duke (November 518 2019). "November 18, 2019 Banned and Restricted Announcement". Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Wizards of the Coast (November 9, 2022). "MTG Arena: State of the Game - The Brothers' War". Magicthegathering.com.
- ↑ Wizards Customer Support (October 1, 2021). "With the release of Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, the card Pithing Needle is banned in both Brawl and Historic Brawl.". Twitter.
- ↑ a b Wizards of the Coast (June 16, 2021). "MTG Arena Announcements, June 16, 2021". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2021-06-16.
- ↑ Ian Duke and Jay Parker (January 25, 2022). "January 25, 2022 Banned and Restricted Announcement". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
