Standard Brawl

This page is about the original paper format. For the Historic-inspired format, see Brawl.

Standard Brawl
Where to Play
Paper	MTGO	Arena
Constructed
Players	2+
Life	25 points (30 points if multiplayer)
Decks	60 cards (no sideboard, singleton)
Rules	Commander (color identity, no commander damage)
Dedicated Products
Brawl Decks
Scryfall Statistics
legal cards
banned cards

Standard Brawl (or previously just called Brawl) is a Commander variant that uses only Standard-legal cards, in addition to Arcane Signet and Command Tower.

It was designed and introduced by Wizards of the Coast staff Gerritt Turner, and subsequently became a Magic Online and MTG Arena sanctioned format. The format can also be played in paper (unlike the format originally called Historic Brawl, which includes digital-only cards).

Rules

Since its ruleset is derived from Commander, the Comprehensive Rules consider Standard Brawl to be an option of how to play Commander. However, several significant rules differences and the vast difference in the size of the card pool makes them quite different in practice.

Notably, rule 903.12b is an oddity as the format originally known as Historic Brawl is the far more commonly played variant nowadays. Adding to the confusion, Historic Brawl was eventually renamed to just "Brawl", a name that Standard Brawl used to be called. Despite this, rule 903.12 has not been changed to refer to the format as "Standard Brawl" nor has the format been renamed on Magic Online.

From the glossary of the Comprehensive Rules (November 14, 2025—Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Brawl

An option for the Commander casual variant. See rule 903.12, “Brawl Option.”

From the Comprehensive Rules (November 14, 2025—Avatar: The Last Airbender)

• 903.12. Brawl Option
  • 903.12a Brawl is an option for a different style of Commander game. Brawl games use the normal rules for the Commander variant with the following modifications.
  • 903.12b Brawl decks are usually constructed using cards from the Standard format.
  • 903.12c Each deck has a legendary card designated as its commander. That card must be either (a) a creature card, (b) a planeswalker card, (c) a Vehicle card, or (d) a Spacecraft card with one or more power/toughness boxes.
  • 903.12d A player’s deck must contain exactly 60 cards, including its commander. In other words, the minimum deck size and the maximum deck size are both 60.
  • 903.12e If a player’s commander has no colors in its color identity, that player’s deck may contain any number of basic lands of one basic land type of their choice. This is an exception to rule 903.5d.
  • 903.12f In a two-player Brawl game, each player’s starting life total is 25. In a multiplayer Brawl game, each player’s starting life total is 30.
  • 903.12g In any Brawl game, the first mulligan a player takes doesn’t count toward the number of cards that player will put on the bottom of their library or the number of mulligans that player may take. Subsequent mulligans are counted toward these numbers as normal.
  • 903.12h Brawl games do not use the state-based action described in rule 704.6c, which causes a player to lose the game if they’ve been dealt 21 or more combat damage by a commander.

Differences from Commander

Standard Brawl is very similar to Commander, with the following exceptions:

• Players in multiplayer games start at 30 life, not 40.
• Players in one-on-one start at 25 life, not 40.
• Players in one-on-one get one free Mulligan like in Multiplayer games.
• Decks consist of 60 cards, not 100.
• Any Planeswalker can be a commander regardless of whether they have the ability to become a commander or not.
• Only cards from Standard-legal sets can be used; consequently, Standard Brawl uses its own banned and restricted list.
• Commander damage rules (from Commander) do not apply.
• You can use multiple copies of any one basic land in decks with a colorless commander.

Brawl Decks

Four special preconstructed Brawl decks were designed for Throne of Eldraine. These 60-card decks use cards from throughout Standard, from Guilds of Ravnica all the way through Throne of Eldraine. There are 20 unique cards in these decks that aren't found in Draft Boosters (but they can still be found in Collector Boosters.) Each deck has seven of them — four cards unique to that deck, one card shared with one other Brawl deck, and two cards shared among all the Brawl decks. These cards were made legal in Standard, Standard Brawl, and all other formats that allowed the latest sets. A life wheel is included in the packaging.

There were no new Brawl Decks planned for the sets immediately following Throne of Eldraine. Further releases were said to be dependent on the reactions to the initial release.

Reception & Current State

Not long after being introduced, Standard Brawl received criticism for numerous issues surrounding the format. These included the format launching in a heavily unbalanced state (with Oko, Thief of Crowns and Baral, Chief of Compliance being particularly notable as extremely powerful commanders compared to all other options of the time) and the Throne of Eldraine Brawl decks suffering from low supply. Paper play rates of Standard Brawl appeared to remain low, leading to a situation where a single player won two Standard Brawl tournaments four years apart without playing any games (due to being the only person to show up for both tournaments). The Throne of Eldraine Brawl decks were the only preconstructed Standard Brawl decks ever released.

Despite these issues, Standard Brawl is still officially supported in the rules and sees some play on MTG Arena. According to internal data on the play rates of different formats on Arena, by March of 2025 Standard Brawl had been far surpassed by its Historic-inspired counterpart, with roughly one-ninth the play rate. Combined with other Arena data, this suggests that Standard Brawl has a play rate similar to that of Timeless. Advantages of playing Standard Brawl over the (formerly Historic) Brawl on Arena include requiring less cards to build a deck and having a substantially lower power level due to the smaller card pool.

Banned list

Despite sharing the same card pool with Standard, Standard Brawl uses its own banned list instead of the Standard banned list, after the rule revision on May 10, 2018. As of November 11th, 2025, no cards are banned in Standard Brawl.

Previously banned cards

See also: Banned and restricted cards/Timeline

The following is a list of cards that have been banned at one point during their stay in the Standard Brawl environment.

Should a banned card that rotated out of standard be later reintroduced into Standard Brawl, the ban will not carry over to that set.

• Baral, Chief of Compliance
• Drannith Magistrate
• Golos, Tireless Pilgrim
• Lutri, the Spellchaser
• Oko, Thief of Crowns
• Omnath, Locus of Creation
• Pithing Needle
• Runed Halo
• Sorcerous Spyglass
• Teferi, Time Raveler
• Winota, Joiner of Forces

Other variants

Some players choose to play variations on Standard Brawl.

• Brawl (previously known as Historic Brawl) — Uses all cards (excluding banned cards) available on MTG Arena. Exclusive to MTG Arena due to the presence of digital-only cards.
• Commander Brawl — Uses the Commander card pool and ban-list.
• Eternal Brawl — Decks are made from historical Standard formats; currently legal decks become Eternal Brawl decks after Standard rotates.
• Frontier Brawl — Uses cards from Magic 2015 onward. Has no ban list.
• Kerfuffle — Includes silver-bordered cards.
• Origins Brawl — Uses cards from Magic Origins onward.
• Post-Modern Commander Brawl — Uses any card printed in the post-Magic 2015 cardframe.
• Ravnican Guild Blitz — Uses only guild-affiliated cards.