If there was a format identical to Brawl but with cards legal for 5 years instead of two, would it be good?

I'm more of a proponent of Modern brawl than anything else.

I might go with "Alara forward"; it would include all PWs (since the Lorwyn 5 were reprinted) which are notable as Brawl allowed all PWs to be commanders. Since Alara introduced Mythics, that makes a decent signifies for if a set is legal. It might be interesting to question whether Booster Pack Supplements (Conspiracy, Battlebond) should also be included, or even fixed Supplements (Commander precons) could also be included, as it would legalize both some really fun Timmy/Johnny cards printed primarily for commander, and some of the larger format's staples.

I'm not interested in rotating formats in general, and nobody in my playgroup plays Brawl anyway, but I had this idea for a (purely casual) Brawl variant that I call Retro Brawl. The idea is that each player gets to pick any point in time from the history of Standard* (or the current Standard environment, for all I care) to determine what cards are legal in their respective deck. I'm pretty sure this would go horribly wrong as a competitive format, but it sounds like it could be fun at the kitchen table with a small handful of players who like to experiment with different sets and aren't trying to break the format.

I suggested the concept to my playgroup and they thought it sounded cool, but they didn't really know what to do with the idea because they felt they didn't have enough older cards from the same Standard environment to give them any interesting options. I kinda started building decks around Rith, the Awakener and Darigaaz, the Igniter (both for the Invasion block/7th Edition/Odyssey block era) to play against each other just for fun, but I didn't finish them due to a lack of time and motivation and because I ended up needing some of the cards for other decks... Maybe I'll give it another shot some time.


*A good overview can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_ ... d_(Type_II)

Retro Brawl is what I do. We don't play very often so once I make a deck I'm not taking it apart until I'm done with it.

just play edh

Retro Brawl (maybe we should call that Historic Brawl or Choose-Your-Standard Brawl) sounds like an awesome idea.

EDH is amazing, but it's power level is pretty arbitrary, ranging from winning on turn 30 to winning on turn 3. Which means that players have to have the same idea about it, or it will likely devolve to Archenemy or just uncontested victory.
I think regulating this is the main advantage of Brawl, but Brawl's card pool is very small, and it's made expensive by standard.

That said, most problems of Brawl are brilliantly fixed by the 'Historic' brawl.

I feel Brawl’s start should’ve been pinned down. By which I mean, Everything in standard at the time the format started should always be allowed. Set a new beginning to limit the pool and power levels but dear god don’t make it actually sync with Standard and just have an already limited format be more limited. Let it be the Modern to EDH’s vintage.