This past weekend I played a lot of bracket 3 games with a variety of groups. It feels like the average power is a lot higher than prior years where the average casual deck was on the weaker side before.
Anecdotally I’d say at least a third or more of the players in this bracket were trying to push it to its absolute limit, where all their decks have exactly 3 game changers, game winning combos that that more than two cards or cost enough mana to fall outside of bracket 4. One guy even had Sage of Hours in his counters deck but I didn’t mind because despite the technicality of looping turns meaning it’s a 4 he probably had the weakest deck in the pod.
The power creep of cards, particularly around +1 counter synergies was a big factor. Even players who were seemingly inexperienced and had made few upgrades to their precons were still able to sweep with counters decks.
I also spoke to a player after game who had just won that his deck was actually bracket 2 because it didn’t have game changers or fast infinite combos. I’m not really sure how common this mentality still is, so I am curious about peoples experiences playing in bracket 2.
For bracket 3 it feels like it could easily be split into two groups, one that’s ok with game changers and fast combos, and one that’s isn’t. That‘s not a new take by any means, but I just think the bracket 3.5 players are a mismatch for the bracket 2.5 in terms of what kind of game they want and I’d rather avoid going to bracket 2 where it would likely feel like pubstomping.