Also, Commander is the most popular played format in tabletop. I believe Standard is still the most popular format played on digital.

That might play into it, but I assume the main reason is the desire for fast, competitive, one-on-one play.

I know it came out last year, but could you high five the designer of the uncommon Frodo Baggins card? It's been by far my favorite Brawl commander since it came out and is a huge flavor homerun. It's very satisfying on many levels to beat a board of huge overbearing creatures with the little halfling.

Will do.

Do you know if there's any public facing member of the Arena team with a blog or something similar like you? It's really nice to have transparency and communication with the paper game, but I know things like asking for a Timeless Brawl queue would be out of your realm.

I am somewhat of a unique entity. Others have started blogs, but everyone other than me seems to peter out over time.

The largest swath of personal data I can pull from is from historic brawl and limited on arena and it feels to me that white's life gain is a clear tier ahead of black. Soul sister effects get the engine going quick. Black drain is a different kind of build altogether and Orzhov tends to lean into the black elements rather than pure life gain.

FYI

Hey Mark just wanted to ask a question since there has been a lot of Commander chat lately. Do you feel like Commander is the only big multiplayer format you guys will design for? I know support for Brawl in paper didn't last but will there ever be another well supported multiplayer format in Magic's future? I feel like having alternate play modes is always a good thing personally, but I wondered what you and R&D's takes on this might be?

We support what players are playing. If another multiplayer format takes a strong hold, we’ll probably design for that as well.

I know I’m a bit late to the party for it but I just wanted to say how fantastically fun the baldurs gate set has been! I mainly play Historic Brawl on Arena and have had an absolute blast trying to build decks around the new commanders of the set! Particularly Minthara of The Absolute, her card design perfectly reflects the character’s personality as seen in BG3! Please pass on some high fives to whoever worked on the set!!

High fives will be passed along.

(In reference to an earlier ask from someone else about Hybrid cards in Commander.) When did Hybrid cost cards come out, and when did Commander's rules get codified? You can certainly design cards with an intention, but if your original intention is not being upheld thats hardly the same thing as making rares when pauper exists.

The Commander format predates hybrid mana coming out.Hybrid works the same in every format but Commander (and by extension Brawl). All of those formats added together are the majority of Magic play.Also, the entire point of hybrid mana is it’s “or” not “and”, so if we want to design “and” we use traditional multicolor.

Just from the play on Arena (Running Kaito Brawl), huge thumbs up for the Ninjas with "only once" Ninjutsu payoffs. While it seems like an unfortunate drawback, it allows for a "level up moment" when you ninjutsu one back to hand, then use it's own Ninjutsu again to get the once-only trigger.

: )

I want to say I was very interested in getting your thoughts on Blizzard Brawl, and Understanding your perspective on it is really cool. We have very different views on power level/Balance and how Meta should impact what we think about cards and how they function, but your perspective was different than what I thought it would be. Could you give yourself a hi five for me? :)

Done.

You yourself said that just because a card could do everything in pie, it doesn't always mean it should be printed. The biggest argument that you've said is the death touch fight spell in green. Many people feel that blizzard brawl is similar in that it is just a kill spell that is just too strong in that it also serves as a protection spell. Sure everything is in pie, but while green can get bite effects, and fighting, blizzard brawl is like the mono green death touch fight spell in that its too close to just a "kill target creature" spell in mono green.

The needing a big enough creature is what makes it different from the fight + deathtouch example.