Streets of New Capenna has been released for a while now, and I have had a lot of time to plan out a Brawl deck based on the set. Since the release of the set I have known that I was going to build a brawl deck around one of the family leaders, since they are a focal point of the set. Plus they are all three colours, which provides a lot of room for deckbuilding. The only difficulty was trying to decide which of the five mythic legendaries to build around.

Most of the family heads use mechanics that relate to the theme of their respective families. Raffine exemplifies the Obscura’s Connive mechanic. Ziatora plays into both the sacrifice and treasure themes of the Riveteers. Jetmir provides some excellent rewards for building a wide board, which is the main theme of the Cabaretti. Falco Spara has a very interesting ability that allows you to exchange counters on your creatures for spells from the top of your deck, which takes advantage of the Broker’s counter theme. Meanwhile, Lord Xander makes opponent’s discard cards, mill cards, and sacrifice permanents, which doesn’t actually relate to the Maestro’s main theme, which is Casualty.

At first I was tempted to build a Lord Xander brawl deck, since Grixis control can be a powerful archetype and I don’t have any full control decks in Brawl at the moment. However, it quickly became clear Xander wasn’t actually a very impressive general for this kind of shell. At least not compared to other options like Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh. There are a few combos for Lord Xander, such as Bruvac the Grandiloquent and Fraying Sanity, but there aren’t really enough to build a consistently powerful 100-card deck. For a mill deck, Bruvac would be a better commander himself in most situations.

After looking at building a Lord Xander deck I also considered making a Jetmir, Nexus of Revels deck. His abilities seem very powerful, and unlike Lord Xander they are also very focused on one particular synergy. The Cabaretti colours also have a great capability for going very wide in Historic Brawl. However, I decided against building a Jetmir deck since I already have so many aggressive red, green, and white brawl decks. I needed something refreshing!

The other commander that most interested me was Falco Spara, Pactweaver. The Brokers are my favourite family, and I actually have a long history of building Bant Counters decks on Arena. Back in the days of Ravnica Allegiance I had a Standard deck that featured Incubation Druid and Hadana’s Climb as a method of generating lots of mana in order to ramp into March of the Multitudes and Hydroid Krasis. +1/+1 Counters is one of my favourite archetypes but I have never tried it out in Brawl before, and I realized that Falco Spara would be the perfect commander to try it out with. Although Falco doesn’t provide your creatures with counters, he does provide an outlet to use those counters for card advantage. This can be a huge benefit in games that drag out and turn into topdeck battles.

I started building my Falco Spara deck by just rounding up all of the best counters cards on Arena. Hardened Scales, Conclave Mentor, Luminarch Aspirant, The Ozolith. From there I started to look at ways that I can specifically synergize with Falco. In order to take full advantage of his abilities I realized I would ideally want to be able to cast multiple spells off the top of my library per turn. In order to do that I decided to include a healthy amount of mana ramp in the deck. Normally a semi-aggressive deck like this wouldn’t need much mana acceleration, but Falco Spara can utilize so much mana that I wanted to try and get as much as I could! This led me to include Incubation Druid which is an amazing mana dork for counters decks, as I mentioned earlier. Incubation Druid can lead to amazing starts, such as dropping it on turn two, then casting Snakeskin Veil or a similar spell on it and playing a Verdurous Gearhulk or Elspeth Resplendent on turn three!

Beyond the base of amazing counter-based cards and ramp, I started to include as many creatures that provided counters as possible. Rishkar, Peema Renegade was an obvious inclusion that works really well with Falco Spara. Scavenging Ooze is a good midrange card that can continually provide counters to fuel Falco as well as provide lifegain. Cards like Hopeful Initiate and Knight of Autumn can provide +1/+1 counters but can also provide removal for pesky artifacts and enchantments. Pelt Collector and Ascendant Packleader are both cheap threats that get very scary when you have a card like Hardened Scales or Branching Evolution in play.

Without further ado, here is the complete list:

MTG Arena decklist

Commander
1 Falco Spara, Pactweaver

Deck
1 Intrepid Adversary
4 Forest
4 Island
5 Plains
1 Brokers Ascendancy
1 Disciplined Duelist
1 Brokers Charm
1 Endless Detour
1 Spara’s Bodyguard
1 Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants
1 The Wandering Emperor
1 Elspeth Resplendent
1 Spectral Adversary
1 Jugan Defends the Temple
1 Kodama of the West Tree
1 Verdurous Gearhulk
1 Avabruck Caretaker
1 Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider
1 Spara’s Headquarters
1 Hopeful Initiate
1 Luminarch Aspirant
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Skyclave Apparition
1 Basri’s Lieutenant
1 Felidar Retreat
1 Benthic Biomancer
1 Fblthp, the Lost
1 Nadir Kraken
1 Herald of Secret Streams
1 Karn’s Temporal Sundering
1 Ascendant Packleader
1 Hardened Scales
1 Pelt Collector
1 Swarm Shambler
1 Gala Greeters
1 Incubation Druid
1 Inscription of Abundance
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Branching Evolution
1 Fight Rigging
1 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
1 Irrigated Farmland
1 Voracious Hydra
1 Deserted Beach
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Hengegate Pathway
1 Branchloft Pathway
1 Scattered Groves
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Temple Garden
1 Oath of Ajani
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Ajani, the Greathearted
1 Barkchannel Pathway
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
1 Dreamroot Cascade
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Quandrix Command
1 Hadana’s Climb
1 Simic Ascendancy
1 Gird for Battle
1 Monk of the Open Hand
1 Snakeskin Veil
1 Vastwood Fortification
1 Pollenbright Druid
1 Conclave Mentor
1 Good-Fortune Unicorn
1 Sharktocrab
1 The Ozolith
1 Stonecoil Serpent
1 Fabled Passage
1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
1 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Lair of the Hydra
1 Arcane Signet
1 Coldsteel Heart
1 Mind Stone
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Ilysian Caryatid
1 Leafkin Druid
1 Orochi Merge-Keeper
1 Temple of Enlightenment
1 Temple of Plenty
1 Botanical Plaza
1 Temple of Mystery
1 Vineglimmer Snarl

There are a number of other card choices in here that are both very fun and very powerful. Simic Ascendancy has never had much of a chance to shine but in this deck it offers an excellent alternative win condition that actually isn’t too hard to reach, especially if it’s played early in the game. Fblthp, the Lost isn’t a card that comes up a lot, but I had to include it in this deck which plays a lot of cards off the top of the library. I still haven’t had him come up, but I know that when he does show up at the top of my library it’s going to be so satisfying! Herald of Secret Streams can work wonders on a stalled board. Since all of the creatures in this deck will usually have a +1/+1 counter on them, the Herald can usually let you swing in for lethal completely unblocked. Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider can also work wonders for your board state. Nothing closes the door for this deck quite like Vorinclex and all the extra counters he provides.

Overall, this deck is super fun to play. All the different combos make each new game a unique puzzle, and trying to sequence the plays correctly is a big part of maximizing the number of counters you can put on your creatures. Even when opponents get in the way this deck can still usually be pretty resilient. Just like with any other synergy-based deck, disruption is annoying. But, Falco Spara helps out a lot with that by providing extra cards and just by being a resilient creature himself.

If you’re looking for an explosive and powerful new deck for Historic Brawl, look now further than Falco Spara and this Brokers counters deck!

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