RULE ZERO. read this first.
The rule-zero script, the ten Game Changer readout, and every disclosed loop for a declared Bracket 4 Squirreled Away pod. LIVE is what is sleeved today. COMPLETE is the two-card upgrade. The toggle switches the readout, and the guide and deck list follow.
Bracket 4 readout.
LIVE is the build sleeved today: a 97-card shared core plus Haywire Mite and Honored Dreyleader, ten Game Changers, and two tutorable infinites. COMPLETE swaps those two for Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and Nuka-Cola Vending Machine, adding a third infinite while the Game Changer count holds at ten. The toggle switches the guide, the pod, and the deck list, and either configuration totals 100.
Golgari squirrel aristocrats on Chatterfang, Squirrel General, declared Bracket 4. Ten Game Changers, and I will name all ten on request. Two infinite combos, both tutorable, both disclosed: Chatterfang plus Pitiless Plunderer plus an Altar with any drain, and Squirrel Nest plus Earthcraft on a basic land. Seven tutors find them, so expect a win attempt around turn five. No mass land destruction, no extra turns. If the table would rather play lower, I have lower-bracket decks and I am glad to sleeve one of those instead.
Compliance checklist
Golgari squirrel aristocrats on Chatterfang, Squirrel General, declared Bracket 4. Ten Game Changers, and I will name all ten on request. Three infinite combos, all tutorable, all disclosed: Chatterfang plus Pitiless Plunderer plus an Altar with any drain, Squirrel Nest plus Earthcraft on a basic land, and Yawgmoth plus Pitiless Plunderer plus Chatterfang for infinite draw. Seven tutors find them, so expect a win attempt around turn five. No mass land destruction, no extra turns. If the table would rather play lower, I have lower-bracket decks and I am glad to sleeve one of those instead.
Compliance checklist
Read this before sitting down at a Bracket 4Bracket is a deck-power tier system from Bracket 1 (casual precons) to Bracket 5 (cEDH). Bracket 4 is the high-power tier below cEDH. Squirreled Away pod. The pregame above is the script you read out loud; the compliance table is what to volunteer if asked; the Q&A handles the rest. The whole social contract is one sentence: the deck says what it is before the first shuffle, then attempts exactly that.
Game Changers
Ten, and the same ten in both configurations. The list gets named on request; the two-card COMPLETE swap does not touch it.
How the deck closes
Two disclosed loops in LIVE, three in COMPLETE, plus a fair endgame. The tutors find the pieces; the play guide walks the assembly. What the pod needs to know:
1. Nest plus Earthcraft. Squirrel Nest on a basic land, Earthcraft untaps that basic for every new Squirrel, and the whole line is activated abilities, so it runs at instant speed. Lethal on the spot with a drain out.
2. The Altar loop. Chatterfang plus Pitiless Plunderer plus Ashnod’s Altar or Phyrexian Altar plus any drain. Each sacrifice returns the Squirrel it spent, banks a Treasure, and puts a death trigger on the stack, so it drains the table while the mana piles up. Announced as a shortcut with a named number of iterations, never ground out one Squirrel at a time.
3. The Yawgmoth line. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician plus Pitiless Plunderer plus Chatterfang is infinite draw, the 1 life per activation covered by any lifegain drain, and lethal through the death triggers. This one only exists once the COMPLETE upgrade is sleeved.
The fair closes. Green Sun’s Zenith or Natural Order into Craterhoof Behemoth, then Triumph of the Hordes over the team, or Biorhythm over the widest board. No loop required.
If they ask
MTG terms that show up above.
Open glossary
- Game Changer
- A specific card on Wizards' published Game Changer list. Bracket 3 caps at 3. Bracket 4 has no published cap, but running more than a few flags more attention at the table.
- Bracket
- The published power-tier system for Commander: 1 (precon), 2 (casual), 3 (upgraded/standard), 4 (high-power), 5 (cEDH).
- Voltron
- The strategy of stacking equipment, auras, and counters onto a single creature (usually the commander) to one-shot opponents through commander damage.
- Commander damage
- Damage from a commander tracks per-source. 21 commander damage from one source kills the dealt-to player regardless of life total.
- ETB
- Short for 'enters the battlefield'. Any triggered ability that fires when a permanent enters play is an ETB trigger.
- Equip
- An activated ability on an Equipment card. Pay the equip cost, attach to a creature you control. Sorcery speed only.
- Attach
- The keyword action for putting an Equipment or Aura onto a creature. ETB triggers that attach an equipment for free bypass both the equip cost and the sorcery-speed limit.
- Free equip
- Attaching an equipment without paying its printed equip cost. Common enablers include ETB-attach clauses on the equipment itself, Sigarda's Aid (instant-speed attach), Puresteel Paladin under metalcraft, and 'whenever this enters' triggers on equipment-themed commanders.
- Treasure
- Sacrificial colorless artifact token. Tap, sacrifice it, add one mana of any color. Counts as an artifact for triggers and metalcraft.
- Phase Out
- Phased-out permanents are treated as though they don't exist until their controller's next untap step. They aren't destroyed, exiled, returned, or stolen. A common protection effect.
- Cascade
- When you cast a card with cascade, exile from the top of your library until you exile a non-land with a lesser mana value, then cast it for free.
- Affinity
- A cost-reduction keyword. 'Affinity for artifacts' means the spell costs 1 less to cast for each artifact you control.
- Modified
- A creature is modified if it has counters on it, or has an equipment or aura you control attached to it. Some payoffs scale off the modified condition.
- Vigilance
- A creature with vigilance doesn't tap when it attacks. Common in white. Often granted by static effects (Brave the Sands) or equipment (Shadowspear).
- Lifelink
- Damage dealt by a creature with lifelink also causes its controller to gain that much life. Common in white and black. Often granted by Shadowspear, Vampiric Link, and similar.
- Mindslaver
- A 'Mindslaver effect' lets you control an opponent's next turn: their draws, plays, and attacks. Named for the Mindslaver artifact; some commander-specific triggers replicate the effect.
- Metalcraft
- A Mirrodin-block keyword that activates when you control three or more artifacts. Metalcraft cards typically grow stronger or gain abilities while the condition is on.
- Impulse draw
- Exile cards from the top of your library, then you may play them this turn (sometimes longer). At higher power levels, mass impulse effects double as burst card advantage and mana.
- Mulligan
- Shuffle your hand back, draw 7 again. Standard EDH mulligan: each successive mull, put one card on the bottom at the end of the process (the 'London' mulligan).
- Mana Vault
- One-mana artifact that taps for three colorless. Does not untap on your untap step. You may pay {4} during your upkeep to untap it; if you skip the payment, it deals 1 damage to you at the beginning of your draw step. The cost-vs-damage math: take 1 to keep mana, pay 4 to keep the artifact live next turn. A legacy fast-mana classic and a Game Changer.
Sections 00 to 08: thesis, wincons, opening hand, turn-by-turn, kill math, mistakes, protection, tokens.
Naya equipment-aggro on Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER. Free attach on ETB makes him a built-in voltron. Three brackets: B2 swords-and-Skullclamp, B3 with Smothering Tithe and Jeska's Will, B4 leans on Mana Vault for T2 Cloud.
How Civil of You, an Esper group-draw drain deck led by The Second Doctor and Clara Oswald. Bracket 4. Everyone draws, everyone bleeds, closing with infinite drain, Peer plus Wound Reflection, or a Thassa's Oracle deck-out.
Orzhov lifegain that turns into drain. Heliod-Ballista and Sanguine-Exquisite as the disclosed infinites, Aetherflux as the storm backup, thirteen Game Changers in the 99. Bracket 4 only.
Selesnya go-wide tokens on Zuko, Redeemed, the Avatar: The Last Airbender print of Rhys the Redeemed, running the full 20 Hare Apparent with token doublers and anthems for one wide, lethal swing. Bracket 4: four Game Changers (Mana Vault, Teferi's Protection, The One Ring, and Mayor Tong of Chin Village, the Avatar print of Drannith Magistrate) plus a disclosed backup Karmic Guide loop. A reversible two-card swap drops it to a high Bracket 3.
Fallout precon dialed up. Dogmeat fetches a Junk token off every creature ETB, then the Junk pile feeds Dogmeat back into voltron commander damage. Bracket 3.
Mono-black sacrifice-denial theft. Cheap symmetrical discard taxes the table while the deck ramps, Tergrid turns every sacrifice and discard into permanent theft, and Cabal Coffers plus Urborg funds a lethal Torment of Hailfire. Bracket 4 on two counts: mass land denial in the 99, and nine Game Changers including the commander.
Golgari aristocrats with a counters subtheme and a lifegain-drain core. Yawgmoth plus Mikaeus turns the sacrifice grind into an infinite drain, with The One Ring for cover. Bracket 4 on consistency rather than count: three Game Changers, exactly the Bracket 3 cap, but two tutorable infinite combos with Mikaeus in both.
All 100 cards with the sideboard and the bracket toggle.