To the MTG Arena team,

I’m writing because I have a problem with the current Brawl matchmaking system that I don't think can really be explained away as simply getting unlucky with a few matchups.

I want to clarify something right away because I think it is important to the context of this feedback.

I have personally played over 4,000 Brawl games on Arena. I realize that the "Seasoned" title is associated with reaching 5,000 total games on Arena, rather than specifically 5,000 Brawl games, so I am not using that title as a measurement of Brawl experience. I simply want to give an accurate picture of where my observations are coming from. My Brawl experience alone amounts to more than 4,000 games.

I'm not saying that makes my experience more important than anyone else's, and I'm not presenting it as a controlled statistical study. I am saying that I have spent a substantial amount of time playing Brawl and have had a very large number of opportunities to observe the matchmaking system firsthand.

Over that time, I've noticed the same thing happening again and again. I keep getting matched against the same relatively small group of commanders, often several games in a row.

It isn't unusual for me to see the same commander three, four, or even five games consecutively before finally getting something different. And it isn't just one commander.

There is a recurring group that seems to show up far more often than I would expect, including Krenko, Mob Boss, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, Esika, God of the Tree, certain mono-green Fangbearer decks, and mono-white Heliod decks.

What really bothers me is that this doesn't seem to be limited to one deck that I'm playing.

I've experienced the same thing while changing decks entirely, including while playing a mono-blue Urza, Lord High Artificer artifact deck, Go-Shintai of Life's Origin, Hei Bai, Forest Guardian, and Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon. I can change what I'm playing and still end up seeing many of the same commanders.

I'm aware that Wizards has explained how Brawl matchmaking works. I understand that Arena considers the power of the commander and deck when finding opponents, and that the goal is to prevent players from constantly getting completely mismatched games.

I actually think that is reasonable.

What I don't understand is why achieving reasonable power matching has to mean that players repeatedly encounter such a small portion of the available commander pool.

Those are two different things.

Matching me against a deck of roughly comparable strength makes sense. Matching me against roughly the same handful of commanders over and over again does not necessarily follow from that.

Brawl has an enormous number of legal commanders. One of the things that makes the format interesting is the fact that you can sit down for a game and have absolutely no idea what you're going to face.

The current matchmaking system can make that experience feel much smaller than the actual format.

That's my biggest complaint.

I'm not asking to be matched against weaker players. I'm not asking for easier games. I'm not asking to avoid powerful commanders. If I sit down and get destroyed by a powerful deck I've never seen before, that's part of playing Brawl.

What I want is variety.

I also think there is a larger problem here that Wizards should consider when evaluating the system.

If matchmaking deliberately filters which commanders are allowed to encounter each other, then the games an individual player experiences aren't a random sample of the Brawl population.

That means a player can come away from thousands of games believing that certain commanders are everywhere when, in the overall Brawl population, that may not actually be the case. The matchmaking system itself is influencing what that player sees.

I'm not saying Wizards' internal statistics are wrong. You obviously have access to vastly more data than individual players do.

But I do think opponent diversity and repetition should be measured alongside win rates and commander power.

For example, I'd like to know whether Wizards tracks how many unique commanders the average player encounters over 50, 100, or 200 games.

I'd also like to know whether you track repeated encounters with the same commander and how often players experience long streaks against the same commander or small group of commanders.

If those numbers are being tracked, I think they're extremely relevant to determining whether the current matchmaking system is actually providing the experience Brawl players want.

And if they're not being tracked, I think they should be.

I also understand the argument that Brawl players have different expectations. Some people want highly competitive games, while others want to play unusual or lower-powered commanders without being immediately crushed by something far stronger.

That's exactly why I think the solution should be giving players more choice rather than forcing everyone into one matchmaking philosophy.

Keep the current Brawl matchmaking system for players who want power-based matchmaking.

But give us another option.

Call it Open Brawl, Random Brawl, or whatever makes sense.

The basic idea would be simple: legal Brawl decks can be matched against other legal Brawl decks without the same commander/deck-power filtering that currently determines the opponent pool.

If the queue takes longer, that's a choice the player is making.

If someone wants carefully matched games, they use the existing queue.

If someone wants to experience a much broader portion of the Brawl population, they use the open queue.

I don't think that is an unreasonable request.

If a completely open queue is something Wizards isn't willing to implement, there are other possibilities. Even something as simple as reducing the chance of immediately being matched against the same commander repeatedly would help. A diversity preference or some kind of temporary repetition protection could accomplish part of the same goal without completely removing power-based matchmaking.

The important thing is that the current system should recognize that matchmaking quality isn't only about whether two decks are approximately equal in power.

It's also about whether the games feel varied.

I don't want Brawl to become a format where I know I'm likely to see the same few commanders simply because the matchmaking system has decided those are the commanders I'm supposed to play against.

I also want to emphasize that I'm not claiming the game is secretly rigging individual games, manipulating draws, or intentionally trying to make me lose. I don't have evidence for that, and that's not what this complaint is about.

My complaint is much simpler: the opponent pool I experience feels far too narrow for a format with this many commanders, and I've seen that pattern consistently over more than 4,000 Brawl games, despite playing multiple different decks and commanders.

At this point, I would really like this feedback to reach the people who actually work on Brawl matchmaking rather than being treated as a normal complaint about a bad matchup.

I'd specifically like to know:

Does Wizards track opponent-commanders-per-player and commander repetition?
Is there currently any mechanism intended to prevent excessive repetition?
How much does commander choice restrict the pool of possible opponents?
Does changing decks significantly change the commanders a player can be matched against?
Has Wizards considered an open or less-restricted Brawl queue?
If not, is that something the team would consider?

I enjoy Brawl. That's why I've played over 4,000 games.

I'm not asking Wizards to make the game easier for me. I'm asking for the opportunity to actually experience more of the format I'm playing.

The current matchmaking system may be accomplishing its goal of finding similarly powered opponents, but I think it's worth asking whether it's accomplishing that goal at the expense of something equally important: variety.

Please pass this feedback along to the Brawl matchmaking/product team and consider looking at opponent diversity and repeated commander encounters as part of the evaluation of the current system.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Sincerely,
A long-time MTG Arena Brawl player