The three best Brawl decks in MTG Arena

Brawl is a format unique that is only found in Magic: The Gathering: Arena. It’s a spin on EDH, where players choose a commander they always have access to (either a legendary creature or a planeswalker) and that commander determines what colours they can play in their deck. Although Brawl tends to be a more casual format to many, there are still decks that stand above the rest when it comes to power level. The best commanders are generally put into their own tier so they’re only facing other strongly tuned decks. These are the three best Brawl decks in Magic: The Gathering: Arena.

3. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is one of the best one drops ever printed in Magic, so having access to it in your commander zone at the start of the game is what makes Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer one of the best decks for Brawl. Ragavan’s main game plan is to snowball early by getting in for damage, ramping with Treasure tokens while casting your opponent’s best spells. 

As for the rest of the cards in your deck, it consists of various ways to handle whatever creature your opponent puts on their battlefield. This is done with the plethora of burn spells red has access to, which can also help close out the game if your opponent sets up too many creatures to make it impossible for Ragavan to connect for damage. 

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer Brawl decks play other creatures, all of which are low-cost and aggressive in nature. The creatures in a Ragavan deck want to get in for damage early, making it impossible for slower decks to even stand a chance at coming back because of how much damage it dishes out. Ragavan is the glue that holds the deck together, often able to avoid removal spells thanks to how easy it is to just re-cast it. The deck is explosive and can win games in just a few turns because of how much advantage it can creature thanks to its Treasure token creation.

✓ Johnny’s Annotation:

Ragavan’s Trade-Off:

Ragavan’s strength comes from its ability to easily defeat other Brawl decks that take longer to set-up since you can start making an impact on turn one. However, if the opponent fully stabilizes, Ragavan can struggle to catch back up to them due to the lower power the creature it plays tends to have. 

2. Atraxa, Grand Unifer

Atraxa, Grand Unifer is a menace across almost every format it is legal in and Brawl is no exception as its one of the best commanders in the format. Atraxa decks can consist about almost any kind of deck theme, its four colours opening the door for just about every archetype you could ask for. 

Often, Atraxa decks include a lot of ramp and mana dorks to be able to cast Atraxa, Grand Unifier as early as possible to fill up your hand with cards to answer whatever it is the opponent can do while getting you your key cards as well. Since Atraxa decks tend to ramp so much, they often don’t have to worry about the commander tax as you’ll likely have the mana to re-cast it if it ever gets removed anyway. 

As a creature, Atraxa, Grand Unifier can win the game on its own, letting you set up your deck in about any way you want it to. In Brawl, each player only starts with 25 life, so a 7/7 that’s hard to block safely can close the gap very quickly once it hits the battlefield. 

While Atraxa, Grand Unifier decks don’t have access to red, the colour isn’t missed since anything you could use in red is available in other colours. With the rest of the colours, you get access to removal, counterspells, ramp, and more. There’s very little that Atraxa Brawl decks can’t do, which is what makes it such a strong contender into the metagame of the format. 

1. Etali, Primal Conqueror

There is one thing that Etali, Primal Conqueror Brawl decks are doing and that is ramp, ramp, and more ramp. Since the backside of Etali is green, its commander identity is Gruul (red/green) letting you play both colours in your deck. 

Etali decks want to ramp to seven mana as quickly as possible to cast Etali, which in turn gives you two free spells to cast, one from your library and one from your opponent’s. Since you’re able to cast spells for free, the creatures in the deck have high casting costs, made easy to play thanks to Etali’s effect and all the ramping you do so you always have an excess of mana. 

Since you want to be triggering Etali’s effect as much as possible, ways to copy it and bounce it back to the hand are played in the deck. Helm Of The Host is the best equipment for it, as it creates nonlegendary token copies of itself each combat to trigger it multiple times over the course of the game. Although Gruul doesn’t have many ways to bounce it, some colourless artifacts such as Decotion Module can do just that. What Gruul can do, however, is sacrifice a creature for effects with cards like Fling and Kazuul’s Fury. These kind of cards not only gets Etali back into the command zone to re-cast, but deal damage equal to its power to any target to close out games quicker.

What makes Etali, Primal Conqueror decks so strong is that you don’t care if it ever gets removed because that just means you can re-cast it. Since you ramp so much in the deck, you have a plethora of mana to always be able to cast Etali. Even if you’re not playing Etali, you have a ton of other strong creatures in the deck to cast instead if Etali is just a bit too out of reach. 

Unless your opponent can take away all of your life total before Etali comes down, odds are you are winning the game once it hits the battlefield and you start looping its effects. Etali is built to be a card that snowballs you to victory, so having constant access to it in the commander zone makes the threat imminent. All of this makes Etali, Primal Conqueror the best deck in Magic: The Gathering: Arena’s Brawl format. 

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That’s as much as we have on the best Brawl decks in MTG Arena. You might also be interested in reading about our comparisons of the two online formats of MTG – MTG Arena vs Online. On top of that, you’re probably going to want to take a look at the best precon Commander decks in MTG, as this is effectively the real life equivalent to Brawl.