Moonlit Landscape by Washington Allston (1819).

Sarkhan, Fireblood by Grzegorz Rutkowski.

As you may know, I don't just play and write about Commander, I also run a Commander league at a local game store every Saturday. That has given me the chance to play hundreds of games over the past few years against an incredible variety of decks and players.

Some players are like me, and rotate through decks at a fast pace, never staying with one for very long. Others settle upon a favorite Commander and spend years honing and perfecting a deck until it is just a real force to be reckoned with. Today's column is a look at one of our league's best players, Jared DeSousa and his favorite deck, Bruna, Light of Alabaster. Jared falls into the latter category. He was lucky to find "his deck" fairly early on, and he plays it for the vast majority of the games he plays in.

I've played against Jared for several years both in our league games and in the occasional casual game as well. On a recent Saturday before our Commander League games started I sat down with Jared to talk with him about his deck.

Some of today's column is from that chat and some has been gleaned from his Bruna primer, found alongside his tappedout.net Bruna decklist.

Meet Bruna, Light of Alabaster

Jared didn't meet Bruna right away. He got into Magic right before Battle For Zendikar and played Standard until Shadows of Innistrad, when he discovered Commander. His first foray into the format was with a Boros () Gisela, Blade of Goldnight deck. It was slow and clunky, had an average converted mana cost (CMC) around 6 and wasn't particularly competitive.

Then one day he ran into the following image on Reddit.

"This is why we can't have nice things."

Created by Winona Nelson

His meta had a mill deck that he had been struggling against, and since Bruna is happy to have auras in the graveyard, she was an easy choice to lead his next deck. If opponents wanted to put his cards into the graveyard, it made perfect sense to play a commander that would make him want them to do just that.

That fake Bruna card might seem a little insane, but if you build Bruna right, you can make her pretty insane. The "best case scenario" doesn't happen very often so let's take a look at what Bruna actually looks like.

For 6 mana () this 5/5 Angel has Flying and Vigilance. That's all well and good, but the next part is where she can get a little crazy. When Bruna attacks or blocks, you can attach any number of Auras on the battlefield, in your hand or in your graveyard onto her. That means you can steal any auras you want to steal and you get to cheat the casting costs for each and every aura in your hand and in your graveyard.

If you fill up your graveyard just right, you can live the dream and make your Bruna into the insane powerhouse shown in the Reddit meme that first caught Jared's attention.

Meet Jared DeSousa

I am fond of many of the players in the Commander League I run, but there are few players I enjoy playing with more than Jared. That doesn't mean I have an easy time against him. Over the past few years he probably has a winning record against me, but he brings a calm, friendly demeanor to every game. My favorite games are with people who are good players but are also great tablemates and Jared is both.

The best way to introduce you to Jared is by way of a few anecdotes.

In January of 2018 I decided I wanted to start off the year with a strong deck so I played my old Narset deck for the entire month of League games. The second week we had to skip league because of a prerelease, so for three weeks Jared and I went toe to toe in four or five man pods, me on Narset and he playing his Bruna deck. It felt like nearly every game found us in the same pod and we each won our share of games. Neither of us won the month. Jared wound up in second place with 90 of our league points and I was in fourth with 77 points.

I distinctly remember one game in which I was able to get Narset out around the same time Jared had gotten Bruna out. We both ran Eldrazi Conscription, an aura that gives the enchanted creature +10/+10 and Annihilator 2. I was able to convince him to let Narset resolve by luring him with the tantalizing possibility of being able to swing Bruna with both of them attached to her.

I told Jared that if he let Narset hit the field and attack, I wouldn't go after him. My list was chock full of extra turns and combat steps, but I genuinely figured I'd get in a few swings, eventually flop into nothing helpful and he'd kill me with a giant, unblockable Bruna.

I actually thought it'd be pretty hilarious if I was able to get Eldrazi Conscription attached to Narset and then he killed me with a +20/+20 Bruna by using BOTH of our Eldrazi Conscriptions. He must have thought so too, and he let me cast and resolve my commander.

I think he killed the player opposite him. Then I had to swing into a Fog Bank with nothing more helpful than Prowler's Helm attached. I had no choice - I had promised I wouldn't go after him and my only other opponent was one I couldn't even do damage to.

I hit a series of extra combat steps and extra turns and just swung into the Fog Bank, which took no damage, until I finally hit Trailblazers' Boots and was able to get Narset past that blocker. Luck was with me that game, and I was eventually able to kill the player opposite me. With no other targets and yet another extra turn in hand, I was able to swing and kill Jared in one hit. Narset had picked up enough fun stuff in all those swings at the Fog Bank to make her lethal with double-strike.

It was a lesson to Jared that he still hasn't forgotten.

Never let Narset resolve.

He didn't even jokingly suggest that I should have passed turn because of our "deal". We both understood that the deal was good for as long as we both had targets other than each other, though in retrospect it must have been a pretty miserable game for everyone but the two of us.

The most impressive thing about that game was Jared's reaction. He wasn't upset in the slightest. Sure, he wanted to win the game, and he could have countered Narset and not even given me a chance to swing her. If he had, he surely would have won the game, but he wasn't mad. I think he might have been amused by how it all turned out and to be honest, it was an amusing game that made for a good story.

I've had a few games recently in which I've shared a table with Jared and have managed to get the better of him. In these games it wasn't through trickery but through table politics. Sometimes it takes an entire table working together to manage a threat like Bruna. It isn't easy, but once players understand how hard Bruna can be to deal with you can usually get folks to work together until the Bruna player is out of the game.

In at least two games in recent weeks I was able to help turn a table against Jared and his Bruna deck. In both cases, he didn't seem that upset about it. There was no whining about having to play archenemy. He didn't even get that gloomy, woe-is-me demeanor that many players (myself included) sometimes exhibit when it's clear the table is not going to give you any room to play the game you want to play.

When I asked him how he's able to play through games where he winds up playing archenemy or has to try to play through a torrent of counterspells, his answer was simple.

We're playing a kids' game.

It just doesn't seem to him like there's anything worth getting upset about, no matter badly one particular game might go. I think he knows that he often has the best deck at the table and if you're going to bring a powerful deck you've got to be ready for a little resistance. That must help, but I still find his approach to the game inspiring.

Jared has taken his Bruna deck to the next level, and for a few years now he has also gone out of his way to help other players interested in building her. His list, "Bruna Control-Tron" is the top scoring Bruna deck on TappedOut.net, with 83 upvotes and 17,889 views. I don't entirely understand how their scoring system works, but he has spent a lot of time advising players who are starting out on the Bruna path and I'm sure that has helped. Jared has worked hard to earn his place as an Bruna expert in the Commander community.

Top Bruna Auras

Jared's first attempt at Bruna was pretty much a big pile of janky enchantments with counterspells as backup, but it has evolved a lot since its first few drafts. I think he has found that less is more. If you play carefully and use just the right auras you can clear tables pretty easily. You don't need to run several dozen auras and only running what you need leaves room for more counterspells, boardwipes and other key pieces that make up a strong, resilient deck.

The top card for Jared's Bruna list has to be the biggest, baddest aura of them all, Eldrazi Conscription. This 8-drop gives the enchanted creature +10/+10, trample and annihilator 2. On its own this doesn't make her swing for lethal, but if you add Battle Mastery she'll get double strike and that will definitely make her a lethal threat. Since she has flying, you'll usually be able to find an opponent without a flyer or a reach blocker that you can kill right away.

While you might think the third most important aura would be one that makes her unblockable, like Aqueous Form (not in Jared's list) or Steel of the Godhead (which IS in his list), you'd be wrong. Diplomatic Immunity not only gives Bruna shroud, it also has shroud, making it exceedingly difficult to remove. Jared told me that Diplomatic Immunity is probably the single most important protective enchantment for his Bruna deck and has won him more games than he can count.

In any normal meta, one might easily include Corrupted Conscience on this list. With Battle Mastery it again makes her a one-shot kill. In the Commander League Jared and I play in, we happen to run with 13 infect as the number of poison counters to kill a player. I've tried to have it voted down to the official count of 10, but the group wanted to keep it at 13. In most metas Corrupted Conscience makes for a fine replacement for Eldrazi Conscription and you can use it on an opponent's creature as well. Since you can't counter every boardwipe, it's well worth including Indestructibility in this section as well. Shielded by Faith is also in Jared's list, as any effect that is essential to your game plan is worth having a backup for.

Other Key Bruna Cards

Winning for Jared isn't about slamming a ton of enchantments into the graveyard and taking Bruna on the train to crazytown. Sure, that can be fun but it isn't particularly efficient and you leave yourself very open to graveyard hate.

Jared's more competitive approach is to play with a balance of tutors, control, resource denial and protection.

Based upon what you've got in your hand and what you draw into during the early part of the game, you might not have much to have to search for when you draw into a tutor. The beauty of having a streamlined and efficient approach is that you don't need to do that much to kill an opponent. Get Battle Mastery, Eldrazi Conscription and Diplomatic Immunity out of your library and you can kill someone without flying blockers. Three Dreams and Intuition can each tutor up three auras and should set you up quite nicely. Intuition can get any three cards and while it will put two of them into your graveyard, Bruna's more than happy to cheat them back out when she attacks or blocks if they happen to be auras. Idyllic Tutor and the tutor-on-a-stick, Heliod's Pilgrim (not shown) will only get you one aura but that is often enough to solve one problem and start putting the pressure on an opponent.

Control is a key part of Jared's strategy when playing Bruna and that starts with counterspells. Glen Elendra Archmage gives you a counter on a stick and he also runs a variety of cheap and free counters, including Force of Will and Pact of Negation. Control extends beyond just countering spells. Grand Abolisher is also in this list, and will prevent your opponents from even trying to cast a spell on your turn.

Another way to discourage your opponents from casting spells is by making them more expensive. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV does that for you and also ramps you in a way by making your spells cost less. Spells like Armageddon and Cataclysm will hurt your opponents' mana production so severely that they should be unable to stop Bruna if she's enchanted and swinging for lethal. With Cataclysm, you'll keep your Bruna and your Diplomatic Immunity and on your next turn when you swing you'll get back every aura that you had to sacrifice!

Keeping Bruna safe and surviving to be able to kill everyone is a key part of the plan. You're not looping into extra turns like a Narset deck and you're not trying to kill the table all at once like a top-tier competitive (cEDH) deck, so you need a way to keep the pain train rolling along. Greater Auramancy will prevent someone from throwing a wrench into your plans by exiling any of your auras. Teferi's Protection will let you phase out in the face of a threat or a game-ending play. With any luck on your next turn you'll be in a position to kill the upstart opponent who tried to steal your victory. Cyclonic Rift should be familiar to you. This 2 CMC instant is a Commander staple and will return your opponents' nonland permanents to their hands. After an overloaded rift, you should be able to figure out who needs to get a visit from Bruna before they are able to rebuild their board.

It's hard to stop here, but my goal is not to list and discuss every card in the deck. The ramp package is legit. Jared is running Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, and Mana Crypt and his land base has a Tundra and every fetch land he can run.

By now you know this deck has some great cards in it. If you haven't yet skipped to the end to look at the decklist, let's take a moment to discuss how to pilot it.

How To Play Bruna

I've played against Bruna and I've talked at length with Jared so I think I have a pretty good feel for how to play this deck.

An important thing to know is that you need to really understand what your opponents' decks can do to stop you. If you don't know how their specific decks run, you should at least know what to look for in the colors that are at the table.

You need to play politics and order your targets carefully. In the early game as you're trying to ramp up to the point where you can play and swing with Bruna, you'll want to put your key auras into your hand or into the graveyard. You're running lots of tutors, draw and filtering to make it easier to get everything in place.

This deck doesn't run a lot of creatures so you aren't going to be leaning on having a big army to keep you safe. You might have a pillowfort enchantment or two out and that will help. Having the ability to kill opponents out of nowhere is also a big factor. You can sometimes discourage folks from coming at you simply by holding up the threat of going after them first.

When you cast Bruna you're going to want to do it with counterspell backup, or more likely Force of Will backup. If possible, you want to be able give Bruna haste with a land like Hall of the Bandit Lord. Leaving Bruna on the field for a turn before you can attack is asking for trouble, and often that first attack will load her up with enough auras to keep her safe.

Opponents will often forget that Bruna's ability will trigger if she blocks. Bruna has vigilance, so you will always have her ready to block if anyone decides to come at you. Every once in a while you might even be able to talk someone into attacking you.

I mentioned understanding colors well as a part of deciding who to attack first. This might seem obvious to some of you, but my understanding from Jared is that you'd usually want to target opponents in the following order.

Black comes first. A black deck is more likely to have force-sacrifice dorks and effects. You're not running Assault Suit and you don't want to have to burn counterspells on countering stuff like Fleshbag Marauder if you only have Bruna out. Kill them first and they should have a pretty hard time forcing you to sacrifice anything, as they'll be out of the game.

Blue may come next. You should be running a decent number of counterspells yourself, but it's a slog to have to fight through multiple attempts at casting Bruna and you really want to save your counters to stop threats that would end the game or knock you out.

White can be a problem and sometimes it will even come before Blue if you know the decks you're playing against. If you don't have a way to stop Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares or you know you're facing a tribal boardwipes deck, you might want to go after the White player, but a lot of the time those sweepers will just clear the way for you to kill someone a turn or two later.

Green has enchantment removal, so Green decks can be a problem, but when an aura is destroyed it can just come back out of the graveyard the next time Bruna attacks or blocks, so it's not a huge threat. They're less likely to run flyers, but are more likely to have reach blockers. Usually you can kill them later on in the game, prioritizing bigger threats first.

Red might not be the worst color in magic, but outside of Chaos Warp it has very few ways to deal with Bruna and her enchantment-fueled murder sprees. You can often leave the red player for last.

Multicolored decks make these calculations a little more difficult. You have to think about what each deck probably wants to do, and you need to make educated guesses based on the information you can pick up by watching them play. For Jared, a big part of the enjoyment of playing Bruna is the challenge of navigating his way through a table of opponents, all of whom also want to win the game. He is constantly thinking about what your commander does, what colors you are in, and how to best assess the various threats at the table.

Fundamentally Fair

When I heard Josh Lee Kwai of The Command Zone podcast talk in early 2018 about how he thought commander damage was overrated and rarely mattered in our format, I was stunned, but it's possible my reaction had a lot to do with having a deck like Bruna in my meta.

Bruna wins the old fashioned way, by beating you to death with commander damage.

It does it really, really well and in many ways is ultimately a relatively fair deck. Sure, it cheats costs and runs lots of tutors, but it's going to kill the table one player at a time over multiple turns. Jared does run a number of extra turn spells, but he's going up against very powerful decks that aren't pulling their punches and are doing much nastier things than he's trying to do. I'm pretty sure if Josh was regularly facing a player like Jared and a deck like Bruna, he'd have a very different opinion about the viability of commander damage.

Commander is the format of infinite combos and ridiculously powerful interactions. In a format where nearly every good deck runs some sort of combo and many decks are specifically designed to win by going infinite, it's hard to not look at Bruna as being a powerful, but ultimately a fair deck.

That may not make you feel better if Bruna kills you first before you can find a way to deal with her, but it should. What's more, you should take it as a compliment. Being killed first means that you were the biggest threat at the table, and that's definitely a compliment.

"Cosmic Bruna" alter by JB Alterz

The Decklist

Jared's deck is his pride and joy. It is foiled out and sports a custom alter from JB Alterz, shown above. I would never suggest that anyone bling out a deck until they know for sure that they enjoy playing it. Even the non-foiled list is going to be expensive. This deck will run you over $1,500 as of this writing, and that price tag will only go up over time.

Bruna, Light of Alabaster | Commander | Jared DeSousa

• Commander (1)
• 1 Bruna, Light of Alabaster

• Creatures (7)
• 1 Containment Priest
• 1 Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1 Grand Abolisher
• 1 Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
• 1 Heliod's Pilgrim
• 1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
• 1 Snapcaster Mage

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 1 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
• 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

• Instants (21)
• 1 Brainstorm
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Cryptic Command
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Dispel
• 1 Enlightened Tutor
• 1 Flusterstorm
• 1 Force of Will
• 1 Intuition
• 1 Mana Drain
• 1 Mental Misstep
• 1 Mission Briefing
• 1 Muddle the Mixture
• 1 Mystical Tutor
• 1 Negate
• 1 Pact of Negation
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Render Silent
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Teferi's Protection

• Sorceries (13)
• 1 Armageddon
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Cataclysm
• 1 Day of Judgment
• 1 Idyllic Tutor
• 1 Merchant Scroll
• 1 Open the Armory
• 1 Savor the Moment
• 1 Supreme Verdict
• 1 Temporal Manipulation
• 1 Three Dreams
• 1 Windfall
• 1 Wrath of God

• Enchantments (10)
• 1 Battle Mastery
• 1 Corrupted Conscience
• 1 Diplomatic Immunity
• 1 Eldrazi Conscription
• 1 Ghostly Prison
• 1 Greater Auramancy
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Search for Azcanta
• 1 Shielded by Faith
• 1 Steel of the Godhead

• Artifacts (10)
• 1 Azorius Signet
• 1 Chrome Mox
• 1 Isochron Scepter
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mana Crypt
• 1 Mox Diamond
• 1 Sensei's Divining Top
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Tormod's Crypt

• Lands (35)
• 4 Plains
• 5 Island
• 1 Adarkar Wastes
• 1 Ancient Tomb
• 1 Arid Mesa
• 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Marsh Flats
• 1 Maze of Ith
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Mystic Gate
• 1 Nimbus Maze
• 1 Polluted Delta
• 1 Prairie Stream
• 1 Reflecting Pool
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Scalding Tarn
• 1 Serra's Sanctum
• 1 Skycloud Expanse
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Tolaria West
• 1 Tundra
• 1 Windswept Heath

Buy This Deck Export text format

What you'll get is a finely tuned list that is capable of winning a lot of games. It is resilient and powerful, but it is also somewhat straightforward. If you are able to find enjoyment in the endless variety of challenges that commander tables can present you with, this deck might be for you. If you're like me, and playing the same deck again and again simply won't give you enough variety in your games, you might not want to dive in so deep on just one deck.

Cutting Corners

If you want a powerful Bruna deck but don't want to break the bank and don't want to proxy cards, there are definitely ways to take Jared's list and make it much more affordable.

The mana base is best place to start. Cutting Tundra, Mox Diamond and Mana Crypt will save you hundreds of dollars. Running every possible fetch land is a great way to smooth out your mana and thin out your deck, but if you don't already own them and you aren't in a position to buy them, they can also go.

As you pare down a list like this, you'll want to keep the key auras that make Bruna so dangerous. Replacing a Force of Will with a more affordable counter certainly isn't going to make the deck better, but it also isn't going to disrupt the key things your deck wants to try to do. Replacing Eldrazi Conscription with Ethereal Armor doesn't make the deck terrible but it will hamper your ability to clear tables.

I think a risk of removing control elements and adding more auras in an effort to compensate for the loss of key cards like Eldrazi Conscription is that you'll more often get blown out by graveyard hate. You'll load Bruna up, she'll get exiled or destroyed and someone will exile your graveyard and pretty much put you out of the game.

It might seem strange, but a huge graveyard full of janky auras might actually be more likely to attract a Tormod's Crypt or Nihil Spellbomb than just a few cards even if those cards are key parts of your strategy. Seasoned players will properly assess threats but lots of folks will just exile the biggest graveyard. If your deck is lean and mean with only the auras you need, you're more likely to dodge that bullet.

A pared down Bruna list, or a cheaper list with more auras can still be a lot of fun, and can still win games. It won't pile up the victories quite like Jared's list will, but your friends might not appreciate you winning the lion's of your games either.

So, Is Bruna Competitive?

Before I wrap up today's column I feel an obligation to address this question.

Is Jared's Bruna list "competitive"?

I love this deck and I have a lot of respect for it. The list has a win rate well over 50% at four player tables both in our Commander league and in the casual games Jared plays, but that doesn't actually mean that it's "competitive".

The term "competitive" doesn't mean what you might think it means. In the context of discussions about the format of Commander, a "competitive" deck can win or lock the board up to guarantee an eventual victory within the first few turns.

This Bruna list is built to be able to function within a competitive meta.

Jared is running plenty of free and one-drop removal and counterspells and he has answers for pretty much anything that might come his way, but Bruna is never going to win a game by turn three. If nothing else, the deck's strategy is a "fair" one. He kills you one player at a time and the big challenge is to properly assess threats and figure out the right order in which to clear the table. That's a fine approach, but in terms of the highest levels of Commander play, it isn't actually "competitive".

If you think that sounds crazy and this Bruna list looks like it would crush your decks with ease and that makes it sound pretty darn competitive, I'm right there with you. By any normal use of the word, the deck would be VERY competitive in any casual meta, but these words have taken on meanings that aren't always well understood by more casual players.

This list should be able to hold its own against some "cEDH" decks but it won't dominate a truly competitive meta. In a semi-competitive meta it should feel right at home and in a casual meta it will probably dominate if you spend the time to learn the deck and learn how to play it well. Jared has spent years playing this deck more than any other deck, and has learned it well enough that he can play at all sorts of tables. If that sounds like the sort of challenge you might enjoy, maybe you'll find that Bruna is worth giving a try!

Final Thoughts

Upon completing this column I took a moment to go back through the past few years worth of our Commander League's monthly totals. I simply couldn't remember if Jared had ever won a month. As it turns out, he hasn't, and in 2016 and early 2017 his list probably wasn't up to the challenge. His current list definitely is.

Jared plays at a high level, and his Bruna deck is a fine deck, but he's a young man who often has better things to do on a Saturday afternoon than hang out at a LGS and play Commander. I think if he set his mind to it and actually made it every Saturday for a few months, he'd be able to put that notch in his belt, but I don't know if he even wants to win a month. He plays for fun and while he enjoys playing a strong deck and playing it well, his enjoyment of the game comes as much from the social side of the game as from the competitive side of it.

That's all I've got for you today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!