Tymna the Weaver & Karlach, Fury of Avernus | Winona Nelson & Billy Christian

Are you on the search for that special someone? Many people come to Commander for the social dimension of the format. Whether that’s table talking your way out of a lethal burn spell or meeting new friends on a certain data analysis site, Commander offers a magical way to meet new friends. If you’re already buddies with someone, such as a partner or close friend, Commander can be a great bonding activity! If we’re having all this fun with our friends, why not bring that excitement to the command zone? Call the U-Haul and break out the cardboard boxes, because we’re making space for two commanders.

Welcome to Mechanical Memories, the series where we explore Magic design through the lens of Commander! With so many options for who to helm your deck, players are always looking for ways to add more elements of self-expression to their deck. In an effort to add a modular style of deck design, Wizards of the Coast released the Partner mechanic. The initial iterations of this were a bit problematic in application, leading to years of tweaking and adjusting. So saddle up, partner! Let’s find out if two is company or a crowd.

2 Commanders, 4 Colors

Our story begins with Commander 2016, back in the halcyon days where we get one set of Commander decks and “Heathens” by Twenty One Pilots ruled the charts. Inspired by the Nephilim of original Ravnica block, the theme for these decks was four-color. We’d gotten five-color commanders at this point, but never four colors. Designing these decks was going to be tricky since R&D had never made a four-color legendary creature before. The Commander 2016 design team was composed of some big names in Magic development, such as Ethan Fleisher, Alli Medwin, and even artist Sam Burley (Rosewater 2016). 

They threw out a couple options to help introduce the idea to players. These included three-color creatures with an activated ability of the fourth color, artifact creatures using Phyrexian mana, or even a two-color creature with another two-color activation cost. Similar ideas had been seen in Fate Reforged’s Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and company, though these were much less color-heavy. All of these solutions, while workable, lacked the simplicity that the design team wanted.

Eventually, the team went with a dual approach. The decks would be primarily helmed by a four-color legendary creature. Additionally, they’d include two enemy pair legendary creatures from the same plane and an ally pair legendary creature, all of which would have partner. For example, Open Hostility included Saskia the Unyielding as the face commander, Tana, the Bloodsower as the ally partner, and Tymna/Ravos as the enemy partners. Not only would this let players swap the face commander out for a partner pair, but they could also mix and match commanders!

However, there was a bit of a problem. These commanders were all a bit too good. The access to a wide range of colors, card advantage from having two options in the command zone, and must-answer abilities made these a powerhouse at competitive tables. cEDH players still espouse the busted potential of decks like Tymna/Thrasios, Four-Color Rashmi, and Blue Farm.

While the heart was certainly there, the high power levels of these partner commanders chaffed against designs more casual intentions. Some, like Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix were successful. But the majority fell into the ballpark of Kraum, Ludevic's Opus: Very, very powerful. When it came time to design Commander Legends, Magic’s first Commander draft environment, their first instinct was to use partners. Draft decks needed to be flexible, adjusting to the kinds of splashes and on-the-fly changes that experienced drafters would likely employ. However, creating another cycle of pushed partner commands could easily disrupt the format. That meant trying a new tactic in the form of mono-color partner commanders.

These partner commanders were meant to fill niche archetypes while also only providing access to one color per creature. Even when paired with one of the Commander 2016 legends, these creatures could only give access to three colors at most. This isn’t to say these are weak cards. Far from it. Commander’s Herald writer Lliam McGuiness gave a breakdown of all the cEDH partners for Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator. Even the meme-worthy Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh sees heavy competitive play by turning on cards like Deflecting Swat. However, the design team’s steady hand kept them from breaking the game. But that can only do so much. They realized that if they kept adding more commanders with partner, even with a keen eye for detail, something would eventually give. That meant needing to restrict the pool of options for future partner commanders.

Old Ideas, New Names

The next time we saw a partner-alike was with the aptly named “partner with.” Battlebond let you pair two creatures together, though these had predefined partners. A cycle of enemy color partners was meant to play into the draft environment of Battlebond. One member of the draft could play Regna, the Redeemer, allowing their teammate to tutor up Krav, the Unredeemed. 

Once you were done drafting these cards, you could run a Commander deck with the two of them at the helm. This mechanic has continued to crop up in other products, such as Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit and Sam, Loyal Attendant, the sixty-eighth most popular commander. Now that’s a powerful pair!

This didn’t have the same mix-and-match style as the OG partner, so design kept searching for new ways to implement this. Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate needed its own draft-enabling mechanic, but adding to the ever-increasing pool of partners would only result in disaster. Therefore, design took a page out of the Players’ Handbook and created Choose a Background! 

Players would run a legendary creature with the ability “Choose a Background” alongside a legendary Background enchantment. These enchantments granted a special ability to all commander creatures their controller owned. In one draft, Karlach, Fury of Avernus might be a Master Chef. In another, she could be a Sword Coast Sailor.

These all abided by the mono-color rule that Commander Legends utilized. By keeping the color pairs of these commanders restricted, this kept these combos squarely in the realm of casual tables. While initially seen as unexciting and underpowered, the recent success of Baldur’s Gate 3 has players looking back at this set with a more open mind. With the Commander reexamining these designs, who knows what secrets could be unearthed?

Another stab at partner designs showed up briefly in Secret Lair x Stranger Things, a crossover product that utilized “Friends Forever.” You can run two creatures with the aforementioned ability as your commander, creating what is essentially a partner-lite experience Since design didn’t have to worry about the massive cardpool of partner, they went much wilder with the array of colors represented. The combination of Eleven, the Mage and Mike, the Dungeon Master gave you a five-color partner deck. However, I’m more partial to the four-color Wernog and Cecily for personal reasons. 

Our latest version of partner came in the Doctor Who commander decks. Gavin Verhey, lead designer of the decks and devout Whovian, discussed wanting to represent the Doctor and their companions in the command zone. Similar to Commander 2016, these decks were designed with mixing and matching legendary creatures in mind. Players can run one Time Lord Doctor and one creature with Doctor’s Companion in their command zone. That means you can do pairings that never appeared in the TV series or the numerous audio dramas! Rose Tyler can team up with The Fugitive Doctor or The Sixth Doctor can encounter Ian Chesterton! There’s infinite possibilities throughout time and space.

Wow! That’s a lot of team-ups. With all of the possibilities offered through partner designs, there’s so many ideas for decks with two commanders. Maybe you could pair Keskit, the Flesh Sculptor with another artifact partner? Or perhaps Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar wants to dabble in Rakdos? My mind is abuzz with possibilities. I simply can’t decide. So, let’s do them all! Three partner pairs, one Commander deck!

Simic Triple Date Night

The wide variety of options from these mechanics lets us tackle a ton of possible archetypes. However, we’re going to want to find some overlap between the various legendary creatures to keep this coherent across partner combinations. Artifacts are one of the most common archetypes in Commander, so we’ll lean into those. We’ll use Simic as the primary color pair, keeping the deck the same across commanders. To run one of the pairs, just swap them in and put the old commanders in the 98!

Our partner pair will be Glacian, Powerstone Engineer and Ich-Tekik, Salvage Splicer. Glacian’s ability to exploit tapping tiny artifacts works nicely with the ability to sacrifice Treasures, Clues, and Foods to power Ich-Tekik’s Golems. Early on, we want to amass a wide board of artifact tokens with cards like Genesis Chamber and Lonis, Cryptozoologist. These tokens can then help us dig for haymakers like Rootwire Amalgam or Oko, Thief of Crowns. Whenever any player sends an artifact to the graveyard, we’ll pump our Golems like Solemn Simulacrum and Tough Cookie. Glacian’s ability also dumps cards into the graveyard. Once you’ve stocked it full of junk, drop a Mirrodin Besieged naming Phyrexian to win the game on your next upkeep!

Next up, we’re going to Faerun with Jaheira, Friend of the Forest and Clan Crafter. Jaheria turns any tokens into mana rocks. With all our tiny artifacts, that gets out of hand super fast. Food tokens become Mox Emeralds, Myr tokens become Llanowar Elves. What’s especially powerful is the variety of Clue tokens in the deck. Since Clue tokens don’t need to be tapped to draw a card, these build-your-own mana rocks can pay for their own ability. Add in a Forensic Gadgeteer and draw cards for free with each Clue. Shoutout to the Harpers’ Guild!

Finally, we’re boarding the TARDIS and putting The Third Doctor and Ace, Fearless Rebel at the helm. Our deck has shown it wants artifacts in the graveyard, so Ace gives us a sacrifice outlet in the command zone. Powering her up with cards like Hardened Scales lets her fight blockers and smash in for tons of damage. Her ability can also sacrifice artifacts like Ichor Wellspring for card draw. If our Fearless Rebel isn’t getting enough combat damage in, perhaps the stylish panache of the Third Doctor can do the trick? Create a swath of artifact tokens with The Goose Mother, then trample in with the Time Lord. And people say the Pertwee seasons were cheap!

I hope at least one of the pairs of commanders caught your eye. The modular ability of this deck really intrigues me. I definitely want to try this next time I build a deck with two commanders. That’s my challenge to you: Do you have a partner deck, a background deck, or another combo commander deck? Try swapping out its leaders for other ones! You might find a new love or find out why you love the original iteration. Either way, its an exciting brewing exercise. Let me know what your favorite underrated partner pairs are! Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next time!