Will Partner be the End of EDH / Commander?

[DirkGently]

It's more that he's never the right choice because he costs 2 and will just come back for 4 (or worst case, 6). It's almost always incorrect to kill him because you should kill the enablers if he goes for a combo. This is *power* because the mana cost of a card is intrinsically connected to its power level. Chulane can be right to kill because no one can soak the tempo of recasting him for 7 or 9.

I don't know that Thrasios vs Chulane is a good comparison. Chulane costs waaaaay more mana and as a result its onboard presence should be noticeably stronger. A two drop that is slightly more powerful then the average two drop can be way more overpowered than a 5 drop that is way more powerful than the average 5 drop. It depends on what your definition of "overpowered" is. If your definition is of overpowered is "if this card survives until upkeep" what is the resulting win% Chulane is way way better than Thrasios. The recent abundance of cards maximizing this metric at lower and lower mana costs are a blight on the format for sure. That doesn't necessarily mean you should be playing them if your goal is to maximize your overall win% though.

I'd imagine if the metric was "did my general draw me at least 1 card this game" Thrasios's % of accomplishing this is way higher than Chulane's. I also imagine that # of total cards draw in an average game is higher for Thrasios than Chulane across most powerlevels excepting those that are extremely removal light while also not allowing infinite combos. Again, this is pure conjecture on my part.

So I'm gonna do an analogy.

I'd argue Mana Crypt is the most powerful card in the format. It costs 0 and generates 2 mana every turn. It goes into nearly every deck. Sol ring is close behind.

These cards are incredibly powerful because they're way, way too efficient. The appropriate cost for their effect is ~4, many times greater than their actual cost.

For a long time, I was on team "ban sol ring/mana crypt". They're the best and most ubiquitous cards, so, ban from the top. After all, any sane format (i.e. legacy) would ban them and never look back.

But the more time goes on, the more I see that I wasn't looking at it correctly. I'm not going to say they definitely SHOULDN'T be banned, but I don't think simply being "the best" is the metric that matters most for commander specifically. If you took the sol ring and mana crypt out of most cEDH decks, it would lower the power level, sure, but it probably wouldn't drastically change what the deck is doing. Most games they don't draw either card anyway. Besides which, most non-cEDH decks are running those cards too, and presumably not ruining the game just by playing them, because they're just enablers for whatever you're doing. If what you're doing is "fair", then enabling that plan a bit probably isn't going to make it unfair.

Compare this to a card like Biorhythm. In a cEDH sense, the card is not particularly good. It's expensive and unreliable. But when it resolves, it's going to slam through that game like a wrecking ball the vast majority of the time. The game is probably going to end immediately for some players, and end for everyone with a couple turns at most.

In other formats, the things that matter about a card, basically, are cost and power. If a card has too much power for its cost - i.e. sol ring - then it gets banned, until the remaining cards are within a certain reasonable limit of efficiency. But commander doesn't work that way. A sol ring alone is not going to ruin a game of commander, like biorhythm. Yes, it's excessively efficient, but the scale on which it's efficient is small enough that they don't throw the balance of multiplayer out of whack. If you build a deck with only the absolute most efficient cards, then the fault lies with your intentions in creating the deck, not with those cards themselves. Biorhythm requires no intentions - if you put it in any deck, it WILL cause problems.

Thrasios alone is not going to ruin a game of commander. But Chulane might. Thrasios is the sol ring of commanders (well, except ofc that he's nowhere even close to that power level). Chulane is the biorhythm. If you build a Thrasios deck with bad (aka cEDH) intentions, it's going to be the most powerful option. But if you build a Chulane deck, it's going to ruin the game - albeit not as much - even if you tried to build it fairly. That's why I consider Chulane a much worse commander.

but partner sucks as a mechanic. Seriously, why not just play two generals? Even the for funsies deck builders will be facing this choice. You don't think they'll eventually print a partner for every archetype?

How many archetypes would you say there are? Multiplied across how many different color combinations? I think it'll take more than a "few more iterations".

Anyway, they've already got a "partner commander for artifacts" with Akiri (1.0) and Silas. TWO options even. Yet they represent a very small percentage of the artifact decks because most people don't find their particular type of synergy to be interesting enough to build around. Unless they make partner commanders not just for every archetype, but with every synergy that exists on non-partner commanders, there will always be plenty of people who choose to build non-partner commanders because they want to use whatever specific thing that non-partner commander does.

Eventually people will be playing more partner decks than non-partner decks. Just give it a few more iterations. After all, it took only a bit before CMDR set generals to outnumber Standard-set generals. But it's here.

From my best estimates, I'd say the number of partner decks on EDHrec is roughly ~10K. Out of 437K decks. That's less than just the top TWO non-partner commanders. And the vast majority of those are 4c, presumably because they're one of only two options for building 4c. Even assuming the 4c thing is irrelevant and all future partners will be equally popular, they'd eclipse non-partner commanders in a mere ~43 releases. Oh, the horror. I'm so scared.

Plus we don't even know if they plan to do partners again. I wouldn't be surprised, but the only reason they did it here is to enable the draft environment to work.

This is some major slippery slope nonsense.

I used to think that only people who build to win would make their decks look all the same. But unfortunately, it works the same way for people who build for fun too. I will continue to only build from Legendaries from regular sets, but I'm in the minority here.

I'd blame this on the increased popularity of the format, tools like EDHrec, and the precons. Not on partners. No partner pair is even close to as popular as the top non-partner commanders, and the most popular partner pairs are the ones that ARE being built by "people who build to win".

If anything partners are the ANTIDOTE to this problem, because the multiplicative nature of their permutations means that each new partner adds many new options, splintering the EDHrec results. Every Muldrotha list is going to have a bunch of the same cards, but every Sidar Kondo list could be wildly different depending who he's partnered with.

Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. Partners will arrive soon.

I can't wait Maybe I'll finally be able to get some decent draft pods for once...

[umtiger]

So I'm gonna do an analogy.

I'd argue Mana Crypt is the most powerful card in the format. It costs 0 and generates 2 mana every turn. It goes into nearly every deck. Sol ring is close behind.
[...]
How many archetypes would you say there are? Multiplied across how many different color combinations? I think it'll take more than a "few more iterations".

I'd argue that Sol Ring is more powerful than Mana Crypt, but that is beside the point. Either way, they're close.
I'd also argue that Cyclonic Rift is the most powerful card in the format but that is beside the point.
I'd also posit that powerful cards are okay in the format but that is beside the point.

Your analogy works for almost every good card in EDH. For instance, if you had to give up Mana Crypt to play Doubling Season in your deck, you wouldn't. That's because Doubling Season is just a more important card and once it's in play is actually more powerful than Sol Ring.

Onto Partner, my statement about partners is not a slippery slope just because you said so.

It didn't take that many CMDR sets to come out before pre-con generals became the majority BECAUSE:
1.) They started releasing them every single year.
2.) They DID design a legendary for each archetype.

It's not a slippery slope to believe the same wouldn't happen with partner. If you believe the opposite, it's actually rather naive.

Instead of "iteration," you meant to type "years." But if WOTC did indeed do partner every single year like they do the pre-cons, they'd dominate rather soon. By the way, I don't count "partner" and "partner with" as the same thing. For instance, Thrasios is not the same card if it said Partner with Kydele. So until now, they've really just done one iteration of true partner.

[pokken]

I would personally not be super surprised to see Partners cover the majority of the best approaches to archetypes after this commander legends set. They already are the best for most archetypes or very close to it, and it won't take much at all to make Thrasios + whomever or Tymna + Whomever to be the best options for most decks.

[DirkGently]

Onto Partner, my statement about partners is not a slippery slope just because you said so.

True - it's a slippery slope argument because it's very obviously a slippery slope argument. Not just because I said so.

It didn't take that many CMDR sets to come out before pre-con generals became the majority BECAUSE:
1.) They started releasing them every single year.
2.) They DID design a legendary for each archetype.

That is a painfully simplistic understanding of why they're popular that completely ignores crucial factors like:

-They're much easier for new players to start with because they come with a reasonable deck attached.
-They're usually of a high power level, especially since they don't have to go through standard.
-They're designed exclusively to appeal to commander sensibilities.

Simply releasing a product every year or making it across a broad range of archetypes does not popularity create. Especially here, where they're not even attached to decks to make it easy, and the power level of each individual commander is usually relatively low. And they're not coming out every year - we're just now getting our second helping four years later.

So really they have almost nothing in common.

It's not a slippery slope to believe the same wouldn't happen with partner. If you believe the opposite, it's actually rather naive.

You might be able to make this argument...if we hadn't already had partners come out, and we can clearly see they aren't terribly popular. I mean, they're not unpopular either but they're a pretty small % of the meta. Presumably because most of them just aren't exciting enough for most commander players.

Now, if WotC starts printing partners that look like Muldrotha or Golos then maybe it's time to panic, but as of now the trend has been for partner commanders to be relatively bland and low-powered, which is usually less-appealing to most commander players.

If you want to claim that partner (as a mechanic) is going to take over the meta on the basis that commander precons (a product) did a similar thing, you're going to need to explain why you think those two are in any way the same thing. And then you're going to need to explain why partner already happened once and, shockingly, didn't do what your slippery slope argument predicted whatsoever. The first round of commander precons were absurdly popular and had a major splash on the meta immediately - in fact the original 2011 commanders still make up a higher % of the meta than the partners despite being 5 years older. So, Nostradamus, why is it that these "inevitable" partners only make up such a small percentage of the meta - despite having the advantages of being the best choice for everyone playing cEDH, and among the only options for anyone wanting to play 4c?

Oh, but I bet the thing that was missing was the option to play mono-color! Yes, these mono-color partners will surely be the thing that creates a tidal wave of partner commander decks. It's HACtually rather naiiiiive to think otherwise.

Instead of "iteration," you meant to type "years."

No I didn't. Why would I want to type years? They've only done partner, thus far, once every 4 years.

But if WOTC did indeed do partner every single year like they do the pre-cons

Wow is that some wild speculation based on almost zero evidence.

Like in a brand new, never before done supplemental product like commander legends? Or instead of non-partner precons? Are they going to be the face commanders?

they'd dominate rather soon.

If they replaced normal commander-set commanders? All commander decks are partners now? Lol, idk, maybe? Depends on the design I guess.

This speculation is too ridiculous to indulge. Yeah, if wotc wanted to strongarm everyone into playing partners by printing busted, highly-synergistic partners in a neverending stream I'm sure they could make it a 2-commander format. This is surely a productive use of time.

By the way, I don't count "partner" and "partner with" as the same thing. For instance, Thrasios is not the same card if it said Partner with Kydele. So until now, they've really just done one iteration of true partner.

Idk why people draw this distinction tbh, but it saves me a bunch of time adding numbers together on EDHrec so I'm not complaining.

One iteration = 2.2% of the meta. ooooh, scarrrrry!

I would personally not be super surprised to see Partners cover the majority of the best approaches to archetypes after this commander legends set. They already are the best for most archetypes or very close to it, and it won't take much at all to make Thrasios + whomever or Tymna + Whomever to be the best options for most decks.

Being the "best" option in a cEDH sense does not translate to the most popular with the masses, though. Although I think it's very unlikely, if partners did become the most powerful option for most archetypes, I don't see that as a problem unless they're actually taking a disproportionate amount of the meta and/or ruining games.

Also being fewer colors does significantly limit the power level at the top levels of competition to my understanding.

[umtiger]

I made my statement about Partner from clear, observable trends not a slippery slope.

it's a slippery slope argument because it's very obviously a slippery slope argument.

I don't know how much worse it can get than that. Right there, you're literally saying that it's slippery just because you said so.

Dirk has their own personal opinion on what the game should be and isn't bashful about sharing them as if everyone else should share them too. That's fine. But simply calling an argument is slippery shouldn't be enough for anyone.

That is a painfully simplistic understanding of why they're popular that completely ignores crucial factors like:
-They're much easier for new players to start with because they come with a reasonable deck attached.
-They're usually of a high power level, especially since they don't have to go through standard.
-They're designed exclusively to appeal to commander sensibilities.

So you try to diminish my point by directing the phrase "painfully simple" towards me. Yet, you say the same thing but with different words. When it comes to cards (the CMDR-set legends specifically here) being popular, it is indeed simple. They come out yearly so access (you used the word "easier") + WOTC started pushing legendaries for archetypes (you used the word "power-level").

Why would these factors not similarly drive their designs for cards with partner? If WOTC does print partner yearly, then it is their directive. That's not a slippery slope. Designing these cards to be popular are some of the pillars on which the drive to sell new product and the entire secondary market rests upon

the power level of each individual commander is usually relatively low. And they're not coming out every year - we're just now getting our second helping four years later.

Man, I sure do hope they continue to make cards with partner low power and not come out each year. Because that's the opposite of what they did with the CMDR sets. And that's entirely my point. That is the ONLY THING keep cards with partner down.

I mean, sure you can say poison is weak when it's Swamp Mosquito and it's low-power. Get it? "Low-power" as in low P/T? LOL But nowadays b/c you can easily weaponize P/T through much more efficient pump spells (e.g. Triumph of the Hordes), some people complain about poison not being 20 counters in EDH. On the record, poison is a weak mechanic. People should not complain about poison being 10. They can print Blightsteel Colossus and the mechanic is still weak.

But the partner mechanic is inherently strong and if they did it yearly more people would have more partner cards to build with. And maybe the whole entire group of partner cards wouldn't be as weak/bland as they currently are.

You might be able to make this argument...if we hadn't already had partners come out, and we can clearly see they aren't terribly popular. I mean, they're not unpopular either but they're a pretty small % of the meta. Presumably because most of them just aren't exciting enough for most commander players.

If your point is that the trend will persist, that's fine. That doesn't make my point a slippery slope argument. When the original CMDR set came out, it wasn't gangbusters either. But you do realize that it took just one iteration for Derevi and Proosh.

Now, if WotC starts printing partners that look like Muldrotha or Golos then maybe it's time to panic, but as of now the trend has been for partner commanders to be relatively bland and low-powered, which is usually less-appealing to most commander players.

Here, you point out the only reason why partners are not as popular. The are watered down. If the only card with storm was Ground Rift, sure storm wouldn't be played. Which one is more likely, they inevitably juice enough cards with partner or they continue to water-down partner cards forever?

Why is my argument a slippery slope when the best general to have is Thrasios and it was already printed in the first go-around with partner?

So, Nostradamus, why is it that these "inevitable" partners only make up such a small percentage of the meta - despite having the advantages of being the best choice for everyone playing cEDH, and among the only options for anyone wanting to play 4c?

Once more, with the belittling. I don't think only having one year of releases presents as much choice as you are presuming here. Here, I think this logical fallacy is called begging the question. Your argument here is easily defeated by comparing Breya to Silas+Akri when you consider an artifact build. And most people would hardly even consider Akri an artifact commander.

Idk why people draw this distinction tbh, 2.2% of the meta. ooooh, scarrrrry!

Perhaps people make the distinction because there is a clear difference you refuse to acknowledge. Generic Partner is different from "partner with." This is another example of you saying something is so just because you believe it to be.

I'm not scared. Just like how I don't mind playing vs. MLD or STAX. I'll play against it anytime and probably beat it to be honest. I don't play with MLD or STAX, but I'm confident that I can still have fun if others do. Personally, I just feel that I would have even more fun if metas were less centered around non-CMDR set generals (other than Golos).

That's the reason why I express my thoughts that partner generals will outnumber non-partner generals. If WOTC treats them the same way they have done with the CMDR sets, there is no reason why partner is exempt from power-creep.

WOTC does not hold themselves accountable for the format despite designing specifically for EDH (i.e. CMDR pre-cons and now entire sets) and even planting standard-legal sets with EDH cards to sell standard packs to EDH players. Of course players have to hold themselves responsible. But as I have seen from CMDR pre-cons, that means most non-CMDR precons generals have been pushed out of the format.

[DirkGently]

I made my statement about Partner from clear, observable trends not a slippery slope.

You have one data point for partner thus far, and it doesn't show what you claim it does.

I don't know how much worse it can get than that. Right there, you're literally saying that it's slippery just because you said so.

That is very much not what I said.

Dirk has their own personal opinion on what the game should be and isn't bashful about sharing them as if everyone else should share them too.

That's true - I'm openly disdainful of cEDH, for example.

Not sure how that's relevant to labeling arguments as slippery slopes because they're slippery slopes though.

That's fine. But simply calling an argument is slippery shouldn't be enough for anyone.

You've got one data point on partners, a mechanic. And you've got a reasonable number of data points for something entirely different - the yearly commander precons.

You're (for some reason) assuming that partners will catch on in the same way, you're (for some reason) assuming wotc will do them on the same schedule as the yearly precons, you're (for some reason) assuming they'll increase in power level, you're (for some reason) assuming they'll become way more popular than they currently are.

How is that not a slippery slope?

That is a painfully simplistic understanding of why they're popular that completely ignores crucial factors like:
-They're much easier for new players to start with because they come with a reasonable deck attached.
-They're usually of a high power level, especially since they don't have to go through standard.
-They're designed exclusively to appeal to commander sensibilities.

So you try to diminish my point by directing the phrase "painfully simple" towards me. Yet, you say the same thing but with different words. When it comes to cards (the CMDR-set legends specifically here) being popular, it is indeed simple. They come out yearly so access (you used the word "easier") + WOTC started pushing legendaries for archetypes (you used the word "power-level").

Wat?

"Coming with a pre-built deck" is a totally different quality than "being released yearly".
"Being of a high power level" is a totally different quality than "having many archetype options".

I don't know why you think I'm saying the same thing when I'm clearly not?

All these things (yours and mine) are true, and probably contribute (to greater and lesser degrees) to the popularity of the product and it's meta-share. But many of them, I would say, do not apply to partners.

-they aren't released yearly
-they don't come with a precon deck (at least, not this new batch - the old batch ofc did have a deck attached, but was designed primarily for the face commanders usually)
-they aren't of a high power level (at least not individually, and not in a splashy way).
-this latest batch is presumably designed at least partially for the limited environment and not just commander, so they're not strictly for commander sensibilities.

Even your own criteria don't match between the precon commanders and partners. So why do you think they'll perform the same way in the meta?

Why would these factors not similarly drive their designs for cards with partner? If WOTC does print partner yearly,

I'm still not sure how you think they'd do this. Or why they'd do this.

then it is their directive. That's not a slippery slope.

It's a pretty random assumption. Add to that the other random assumptions you're making, and I'd call it pretty damn slippery.

And also a slope.

Designing these cards to be popular are some of the pillars on which the drive to sell new product and the entire secondary market rests upon

Most people seem to be uninspired by the designs for commander legends so far. Personally I think they're cool enough, but I seem to be in the minority. This seems to be because the designs follow roughly the same philosophy as the 2016 partners. I think it's fair to say that, unless the other partners are a wild unexpected departure from what we've seen so far, that they're not trying to bust commander wide open to make a quick buck. They probably (call me crazy) realize that commander is a long-term cash cow and that there's more money to be made bleeding it slowly instead of spiking the power level all at once and scaring people off.

Is it possible they'll print busted insane ones later? Yeah, maybe? I guess? Every new mechanic people assume wotc is going to break it to absurdity and it doesn't really happen. PW commanders, eminence commanders, same deal. Stop rushing off down the slippery slope. It's probably not going to happen, and if it does, maybe just wait for that to happen before panicking. Besides, WotC's probably just going to print some dumb crap like Golos that doesn't use any fancy mechanics but is stupid anyway. They don't need partner to make the format suck.

Man, I sure do hope they continue to make cards with partner low power and not come out each year. Because that's the opposite of what they did with the CMDR sets. And that's entirely my point. That is the ONLY THING keep cards with partner down.

Were you playing in 2011?

They knew they wanted to make more commander precons almost right away. It was damn hard to find the things in LGSs, they flew off the shelves. It was obvious they had a winner. They did the commander gift box or whatever it was called in 2012 so they'd have something commander-related to keep people sated (it didn't work). In 2013 they massively increased the print run. It was very obvious where it was going very quickly.

Partners came out four years ago and haven't returned in a commander release. I think it's safe to say they haven't exploded in the way the commander precons have. While they were reasonably popular, wotc is smart enough to know that familiarity breeds contempt, that's why every other mechanic more complicated than flying only comes around occasionally. I expect they'll return to partners every now and then, but a yearly release? Not impossible, but highly unlikely. And again, not sure how they'd do it anyway.

As far as power level, I'd say animar is more powerful/obnoxious than anything from this years commander precons. I don't think it's particularly escalated, at least no more than the rest of the game.

I mean, sure you can say poison is weak when it's Swamp Mosquito and it's low-power. Get it? "Low-power" as in low P/T? lol But nowadays b/c you can easily weaponize P/T through much more efficient pump spells (e.g. Triumph of the Hordes), some people complain about poison not being 20 counters in EDH. The partner mechanic is inherently strong and if they did it yearly more people would have more partner cards to build with.

Sure, if they did it more it'd become more popular. That's science baby.

Unless you've got some insider information I don't see any reason to think that'll happen, though.

And I'm still not sure what you think this product would look like. Another set of precons? A secret lair that's just new parters? What are we speculating about wildly here?

If your point is that the trend will persist, that's fine. That doesn't make my point a slippery slope argument. When the original CMDR set came out, it wasn't gangbusters either.

Yes it was.

But you do realize that it took just one iteration for Derevi and Proosh.

Both of whom are less popular than animar and kaalia on EDHrec.

Here, you point out the only reason why partners are not as popular. The are watered down. If the only card with storm was Ground Rift, sure storm wouldn't be played. Which one is more likely, they inevitably juice enough cards with partner or they continue to water-down partner cards forever?

What's more likely, that slippery will slippery or that slope will slope?

Power creep has happened for decades and probably won't stop. No reason to think partner is going to wildly outpace the rest of the game.

Why is my argument a slippery slope when the best general to have is Thrasios and it was already printed in the first go-around with partner?

Because Thrasios is the most powerful commander in the format, cEDH-wise, and he's still not even close to the popularity of the top non-partners.

Why do you think other partners will take over the meta when he hasn't?

Once more, with the belittling.

Hey, don't throw down some "actually rather naive" if you don't want any shade thrown back your direction.

I don't think only having one year of releases presents as much choice as you are presuming here. Here, I think this logical fallacy is called begging the question. Your argument here is easily defeated by comparing Breya to Silas+Akri when you consider an artifact build. And most people would hardly even consider Akri an artifact commander.

I'd love to hear how precisely my argument is begging the question. Genuinely not sure how you'd draw that conclusion.

I'm not really sure what you're saying as regards breya vs silas+akiri. That Breya is way more powerful? Um, yes, agreed, that's because they've made the partners generally pretty underpowered and not as strongly synergistic as non-partners. Working as intended.

Akiri literally is an artifact synergy commander. She happens to be a pretty weak one - because she's a partner, designed with the intention of keeping partners relatively weak. But what else would you do with her, vigilance tribal? As long as we're throwing around fallacies, that's very "no true Scotsman" of you.

Perhaps people make the distinction because there is a clear difference you refuse to acknowledge. Generic Partner is different from "partner with." This is another example of you saying something is so just because you believe it to be.

I mean, you can draw the distinction if you want, they literally are different mechanics. It's just that you seem to mostly be arguing "2 commanders > 1 commander" and both mechanics do that.

But seriously I could not care less how you want to define the argument so long as you're clear on the parameters, which you have been. So long as that's how you want to do it, you'll find no complaint from me.

I'm not scared. Just like how I don't mind playing vs. MLD or STAX. I'll play against it anytime and probably beat it to be honest. I don't play with MLD or STAX, but I'm confident that I can still have fun if others do. Personally, I just feel that I would have even more fun if metas were less centered around non-CMDR set generals (other than Golos).

Sure, they definitely get overplayed. But so do non-commander set commanders like golos and muldrotha (and chulane and korvold if we're counting those).

I think at the end of the day, the problem is the people playing the game.

That's the reason why I express my thoughts that partner generals will outnumber non-partner generals. If WOTC treats them the same way they have done with the CMDR sets, there is no reason why partner is exempt from power-creep.

I mean, if you want to worry that partner might get pushed and become obnoxiously dominant, then be my guest. I mean, it COULD happen.

Where things start to annoy me is when you say things like:

"Eventually people will be playing more partner decks than non-partner decks. Just give it a few more iterations."

because you're clearly talking out of your butt.

WOTC does not hold themselves accountable for the format despite designing specifically for EDH (i.e. CMDR pre-cons and now entire sets) and even planting standard-legal sets with EDH cards to sell standard packs to EDH players. Of course players have to hold themselves responsible. But as I have seen from CMDR pre-cons, that means most non-CMDR precons generals have been pushed out of the format.

While commander precon commanders have definitely become something of a scourge, there are still plenty of obnoxious non-precon commanders with the same design sensibilities in normal sets too.

Sure, wotc is to blame for printing obnoxious cards and seemingly not caring too much about power creeping commander. But fault also lies with the players. If people didn't like pushed designs, they wouldn't sell.

FWIW, I think this years precons were a step in the right direction. Relatively low power level, and they felt closer to being part of the actual set. Just my opinion, ofc.

[ISBPathfinder]

I don't know much about cEDH beyond what I hear on these forums so I won't break into that talk as I don't really have anything to contribute to it.

Most people seem to be uninspired by the designs for commander legends so far. Personally I think they're cool enough, but I seem to be in the minority. This seems to be because the designs follow roughly the same philosophy as the 2016 partners. I think it's fair to say that, unless the other partners are a wild unexpected departure from what we've seen so far, that they're not trying to bust commander wide open to make a quick buck. They probably (call me crazy) realize that commander is a long-term cash cow and that there's more money to be made bleeding it slowly instead of spiking the power level all at once and scaring people off.

Is it possible they'll print busted insane ones later? Yeah, maybe? I guess? Every new mechanic people assume wotc is going to break it to absurdity and it doesn't really happen. PW commanders, eminence commanders, same deal. Stop rushing off down the slippery slope. It's probably not going to happen, and if it does, maybe just wait for that to happen before panicking. Besides, WotC's probably just going to print some dumb crap like Golos that doesn't use any fancy mechanics but is stupid anyway. They don't need partner to make the format suck.

I don't have a source offhand but I believe the partner year is among the highest selling commander product years. It was well received at the time and most of the criticism of the mechanic seems to have come afterwards. Lots of that criticism also tends to be towards the top two partners which we have named many times.

Its too early to give a verdict for the new partners but if they keep similar power level to what I have seen so far, I think I am fine with it.

I agree that there are far too many crappy OP commanders who just suck the fun out of the game. I would love it if they stopped forcing OP stupid things down our throats. Like what the hell were those brawl commanders? Kenrith? Golos? Urza? Yawgmoth? We have gotten a big stream of %$#% things in the last year.

People will play with the new shiney things. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. We will see a bunch of new partner commanders for a while after this but eventually they will move to whatever else is new. We love new toys. I don't think that having new partners dooms us to forever only partners but I think so long as they are kept at appropriate power levels they are an interesting deck design puzzle.

[Sinis]

I used to think that only people who build to win would make their decks look all the same. But unfortunately, it works the same way for people who build for fun too. I will continue to only build from Legendaries from regular sets, but I'm in the minority here.

Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. Partners will arrive soon.

It's pretty hard to say this assertion is true. Your argument seems to be 'partners exist, therefore partners will eventually be more popular than non-partners'. Just because something exists doesn't mean that it has a positive growth rate. There are plenty of partners that don't see any play. Second, the rate that non-partners are being printed is much higher than partners. For every person who wants to play partners for whatever reason, there will likely be more who want to play a crippled goblin (like Daretti), or Oloro, or whatever. None of what you said makes the popularity of partners inevitable.

Second, this isn't a catastrophe. Even if you were correct, so what? People habitually have two commanders? I don't see the problem.

[Wallycaine]

In regards to "OP commanders", I think it's more productive to look at them as miscalibrations than being forced down your throat. As the past year of tournament bannings have proven, they're not perfect about predicting the power level of stuff even just in Standard, and that's the format they have the most control over. So when they design for commander, there's inevitably going to be things that miss high and things that miss low. That's part of the nature of design. They ended up with more misses in the past year or so because they made more shots in the past year. Overall, their hit rate is still pretty good.

As far as the question in the topic goes, no, no they will not. The absolute worst case scenario, with complete partner saturation, just changes the game, it doesn't destroy it. I doubt even that case is likely, since they produce far more regular legends per year than partner legends, and that means far more chances for a shiny 2 color legend to catch a players eye than a partner. I also think the new mono-colored partners, by being limited to 2-3 color decks at best, are going to be fine. Some of them will probably be interesting additions to other decks, of course, but I'm skeptical many will make massive changes to the format.

[5colorsrainbow]

I don't have a source offhand but I believe the partner year is among the highest selling commander product years. It was well received at the time and most of the criticism of the mechanic seems to have come afterwards. Lots of that criticism also tends to be towards the top two partners which we have named many times.

How much of this was effect by those deck being (and besides an omnath coming out soon, continues to be) the only way to play four color decks?

Honesty only reason I want to play Tymna is the fact I already have an esper artifact deck so Breya and the Boror/Dimir partner combos don't interest me and Tymna and Ludevic or Kraum at least have some synergy together.

[ISBPathfinder]

I don't have a source offhand but I believe the partner year is among the highest selling commander product years. It was well received at the time and most of the criticism of the mechanic seems to have come afterwards. Lots of that criticism also tends to be towards the top two partners which we have named many times.

How much of this was effect by those deck being (and besides an omnath coming out soon, continues to be) the only way to play four color decks?

Honesty only reason I want to play Tymna is the fact I already have an esper artifact deck so Breya and the Boror/Dimir partner combos don't interest me and Tymna and Ludevic or Kraum at least have some synergy together.

I have no idea. But I also am among the individuals who don't see a point in four color. It is hard to give an identity to four color that doesn't just come off as some five color deck lacking a color. I also think they need to work on making five color legends more interesting and less good stuff based which in my mind means they need more tribal focused five color concepts. I was actually really kind of mad that they haven't done a five color cycling commander given how spread out cycling is.

Some of the newer five color commanders like Kenrith can easily be played as four color as well.

[umtiger]

You have one data point for partner thus far, and it doesn't show what you claim it does.

I'm not just basing my opinion of how partner will end up solely on the EDHREC data of the 2016 partners. Past performance is not the sole indicator of future performance. Besides, you will even point out that the cards are otherwise bland besides the novelty of the partner mechanic.

That is very much not what I said.

It was. Before the most recent reply. You didn't go into any detail.

Not sure how that's relevant to labeling arguments as slippery slopes because they're slippery slopes though.

I bring this up because its your style to respond the way that you do. Someone calling labeling a side naive isn't "throwing shade." I'm not Nostradamus. I don't claim to know the future. You can take it as far as the mods allow you. But you seem to take stuff personal on this forum. Like I said, your viewpoints aren't gospel but you post like it.

You're (for some reason) assuming that partners will catch on in the same way, you're (for some reason) assuming wotc will do them on the same schedule as the yearly precons, you're (for some reason) assuming they'll increase in power level, you're (for some reason) assuming they'll become way more popular than they currently are.

You can gloss over my reasons. I'll lay them out again for everyone. I think I made reasonable assumptions.

If WOTC does a similar treatment for partner as they do their usual CDMR lineup, I predict that partners will catch on the same way as other pre-con commanders because:
1.) Partner is inherently a powerful mechanic and pre-con generals are popular because of the same thing
2.) Partner is an open-ended synergy. More partners means more powerful or versatile combinations. Power creep means that they'll increase in power. I somehow doubt partner would escape power-creep. It'd be the only thing that has in the last decade.
3.) They are only limited because not many of them exist yet. I'm sure given enough time, artifact players will have more than Akri+Silas as options and therefore play with them more.

Are you saying partner isn't a powerful mechanic? Are you saying that if WOTC did print them yearly that they wouldn't be more powerful? Are you saying that if people had more options to play partners that they wouldn't be more popular?

All these things (yours and mine) are true, and probably contribute (to greater and lesser degrees) to the popularity of the product and it's meta-share. But many of them, I would say, do not apply to partners.

Even your own criteria don't match between the precon commanders and partners. So why do you think they'll perform the same way in the meta?

My point about partner is not specifically about the partners in the upcoming set like Baron Sengir. My point about partner is that if WOTC continues to re-visit the well, partner pairings would eventually outnumber non-partner decks.

WOTC has continued to re-visit the EDH well for products, and each time pre-con generals have taken more share in decks that I play against.

It's a pretty random assumption. Add to that the other random assumptions you're making, and I'd call it pretty damn slippery. And also a slope.

Assuming that WOTC uses power printings as a means to sell cards is not a random assumption. Assuming that powerful cards get played more is not a random assumption. Assuming that if they print more partners WOTC will print more appealing, powerful ones is not a random assumption.

Every new mechanic people assume wotc is going to break it to absurdity and it doesn't really happen. PW commanders, eminence commanders, same deal. Stop rushing off down the slippery slope.

It's not a slippery slope. This is clear pattern of how WOTC has printed cards. Sure Garruk, Wildspeaker was fine. But it wasn't long until Jace, TMS....then Oko. They did the same thing with Modern Horizons, it's not a coincidence that some of the most heavily played cards are the newest cards.

Were you playing in 2011? It was damn hard to find the things in LGSs, they flew off the shelves.

Yes, I have been playing EDH since before it was popular.

What you are saying here may be true where you lived. But in 2011, it was not hard to find them on the shelves in the US at supermarkets. EDH was not popular. You had to convince people to try it.

Unless you've got some insider information I don't see any reason to think that'll happen, though.

You seem really fixed on this "speculation" angle. I'm not speculating on what or how many partners will come out. I'm just rather glad that they don't come out yearly. I already don't enjoy the yearly CMDR-sets. Each year just brings another pushed card. Fierce Guardianship? It's not a slippery slope to see what happens annually and extrapolate the trend onto partner.

What's more likely, that slippery will slippery or that slope will slope?

Likely that we'll all get more of the same from you.

Power creep has happened for decades and probably won't stop. No reason to think partner is going to wildly outpace the rest of the game.

I don't think partner will outpace the rest of the game. I still think Doubling Season and Sol Ring will still be good and more important than any commander you can pick. I just think their adoption will start to outpace players choosing only one commander.

I'd love to hear how precisely my argument is begging the question.

Remember, I don't have to. I just have to say it.

I'm not really sure what you're saying as regards breya vs silas+akiri. That Breya is way more powerful? Um, yes, agreed, that's because they've made the partners generally pretty underpowered and not as strongly synergistic as non-partners. Working as intended.

And it only takes a few times of it not working as intended. Which WOTC has demonstrated that it is capable of making happen.

Akiri literally is an artifact synergy commander.She happens to be a pretty weak one

Akiri is not "really" an artifact commander because people don't build artifact decks together just so they can attack with a huge beater. That is why Silas+Akiri aren't popular. People aren't building artifact decks so they can get low value from an Ophidian trigger.

I mean, you can draw the distinction if you want, they literally are different mechanics. It's just that you seem to mostly be arguing "2 commanders > 1 commander" and both mechanics do that.

I disagree with that statement. "Partner with" is more akin to getting 0.5+0.5 than truly getting 1+1.

It's pretty hard to say this assertion is true. Your argument seems to be 'partners exist, therefore partners will eventually be more popular than non-partners'. Just because something exists doesn't mean that it has a positive growth rate. There are plenty of partners that don't see any play. Second, the rate that non-partners are being printed is much higher than partners.

It's not the mere existence. It's also that partner is a powerful mechanic.

The way I see it, being able to play partner generals is similar to being able to play multicolor. Once they're there, it's really tough to play mono-color. Once you have a three-color general that does what your previous two-color general could do, it's really tough to play only two-color. Just like how people have found it hard to not use pre-con generals.

[DirkGently]

I'm not just basing my opinion of how partner will end up solely on the EDHREC data of the 2016 partners. Past performance is not the sole indicator of future performance. Besides, you will even point out that the cards are otherwise bland besides the novelty of the partner mechanic.

Yes, because that seems to be (and correctly, imo) the way wotc wants to design partner commanders. Based on 2016 and those spoiled for 2020 thus far.

Past performance isn't the only indicator...but it's probably the best one, and the most concrete.

If WOTC does a similar treatment for partner as they do their usual CDMR lineup

Here is by far the biggest assumption and you don't even acknowledge it. I've asked it over and over, but what sort of product are you even speculating they'd do? New sets of standalone precons? Replacing the normal commander precons with all partner decks? More supplementary products like legends? I'm not saying there isn't a plausible answer, but you haven't even attempted one.

Partner is a mechanic, not a product. As a general rule, wotc does not repeat mechanics at such a frequent rate - at most every few years we might see cycling, kicker, etc - the only ones that show up constantly are the really basic ones. Making new cards with a specific, complex, format-specific mechanic every single year would be unprecedented to say the least.

Maybe the most plausible version I can imagine is that they're a recurring part of the precons (along with non-partner commanders), but even then I think it's more likely that they'll continue with partner-with instead, because it lowers the constraints on their design without losing any appeal to new players who probably won't mix-and-match anyway. For my money, partner was used here primarily to make the draft environment work and not because they have a desire to print a ton of cards with the mechanic.

1.) Partner is inherently a powerful mechanic and pre-con generals are popular because of the same thing

Ok, but we've got examples of the partners and they're not that popular. I think splashiness is way more important to most commander players than simply being effective, and the results of C16 I think demonstrate that. We'd need a change in wotc's partner designs, and so far CL doesn't seem to demonstrate a change. Of course they could start making splashier commanders, and that could catch on and become more popular, but it's still a long ways down the slippery slope to get from 2.2% to 51%.

I'm not sure why this wouldn't also apply to partner-with (at least conceptually if not in current execution - I mean what if Thrasios had "partners with Tymna"?) but I probably shouldn't open that can of worms.

2.) Partner is an open-ended synergy. More partners means more powerful or versatile combinations. Power creep means that they'll increase in power. I somehow doubt partner would escape power-creep. It'd be the only thing that has in the last decade.

Well sure, if they do print more partners (likely but by no means guaranteed - I think partner-with is their "fixed" version they prefer to use going forward, the hexproof to partner's shroud, if you will) then they will likely follow the trends of power creep. But so will the non-partner commanders of that time, which is what they'd be competing against.

More combinations does mean more risk of powerful combos, but I still don't see wotc pushing the splashiness aspect based on CL, which is the more crucial element to the common man. Partners already represent the highest power in the format and they're not that popular. So clearly power alone is insufficient.

3.) They are only limited because not many of them exist yet. I'm sure given enough time, artifact players will have more than Akri+Silas as options and therefore play with them more.

Back to that core assumption again. Commander legends is an exceptional case that all-but-necessitated the use of open-ended partner. Besides that, they've shown no signs of reusing the mechanic.

Also this is basically identical to point #2, so, same response.

Are you saying partner isn't a powerful mechanic?

TBH I don't really believe in powerful mechanics in a vacuum. Is storm powerful? Well, depends what the spell is, what the cost is, etc. Some mechanics need to be treated more carefully than others, sure. Staple trample onto any non-trample creature and it'll probably still be fine. Staple storm onto any non-storm instant, and it could be a catastrophe. But any mechanic can be appropriately powered if used cautiously.

So far I think wotc has done exactly that.

Also I don't really think partner is that scary in an EDH environment. In 1v1 having an extra card is huge, in a format as chaotic as casual commander it's usually not a huge deal. Not that it couldn't become a problem, but as I said, thus far it seems like wotc is being appropriately cautious.

Are you saying that if WOTC did print them yearly that they wouldn't be more powerful?

More powerful than...they currently are? Or than non-partners? Input unclear.

I mean sure, but let me reiterate:
1) I'm not even sure how they would print them yearly, and also that would violate decades of established mechanic usage in design from wotc.
2) They haven't shown an interest in repeating the mechanic, CL is an exceptional case.
3) power alone is not the most important factor for most players.

Are you saying that if people had more options to play partners that they wouldn't be more popular?

I mean sure, but let me reiterate:
1) I'm not even sure how they would print them yearly, and also that would violate decades of established mechanic usage in design from wotc.
2) They haven't shown an interest in repeating the mechanic, CL is an exceptional case.
3) Yes, obviously if they print more, more people will play them. That is true of literally anything.

My point about partner is that if WOTC continues to re-visit the well, partner pairings would eventually outnumber non-partner decks.

I mean sure, but let me reiterate:
1) I'm not even sure how they would print them yearly, and also that would violate decades of established mechanic usage in design from wotc.
2) They haven't shown an interest in repeating the mechanic, CL is an exceptional case.
3) Considering how small the meta-share from 2016 is, it would take decades of partner bombardment to outnumber non-partners.

WOTC has continued to re-visit the EDH well for products, and each time pre-con generals have taken more share in decks that I play against.

I mean sure, but let me reiterate:
1) I'm not even sure how they would print them yearly, and also that would violate decades of established mechanic usage in design from wotc.
2) They haven't shown an interest in repeating the mechanic, CL is an exceptional case.

Assuming that WOTC uses power printings as a means to sell cards is not a random assumption. Assuming that powerful cards get played more is not a random assumption. Assuming that if they print more partners WOTC will print more appealing, powerful ones is not a random assumption.

The kind of power that partners give isn't the kind of power that most players are interested in, though. +1 card? Boring. Golos potentially spewing magic christmas value? Not boring (I mean, I think he's boring, but clearly most people don't).

I think this is most likely the reason wotc has shied away from them since 2016, and towards partner-with. Partner with lets them be splashier without as much risk, and splashiness is what people actually want.

You could use this logic to freak out about any mechanic. Storm is a powerful mechanic, wotc uses power printings so sell cards, people will play those powerful cards, if wotc prints more storm cards it will print more appealing powerful ones...oh god, the storm-pocalypse is upon us!

It's not a slippery slope. This is clear pattern of how WOTC has printed cards. Sure Garruk, Wildspeaker was fine. But it wasn't long until Jace, TMS....then Oko. They did the same thing with Modern Horizons, it's not a coincidence that some of the most heavily played cards are the newest cards.

I'm kinda missing the jump from pws to MH1. One is a mechanic/card type where you could draw a reasonable line of increased power, another is a set that (until MH2) doesn't have any other data points to compare it to.

Ofc, part of it is just that more cards = more opportunities to screw it up. That's true for anything. Sure, Oko was was Broke-O. But is the latest Chandra way above the power curve? No. Pws aren't a problem inherently. The problem is that sometimes wotc's gonna make mistakes.

Could they make a mistake-partner in the future? Sure. Could they make a mistake with literally anything in the future? Yep.

What you are saying here may be true where you lived. But in 2011, it was not hard to find them on the shelves in the US at supermarkets. EDH was not popular. You had to convince people to try it.

I lived in the US from 1988-2018. Where I was living (near tacoma/seattle) they were hard to find and sold like crazy. The format was clearly taking off. That may not have been true elsewhere in the US ofc, I can only speak from my own experience. But given how subsequent commander releases went (wotc scrambling to release something in 2012, repeat product from 2013-today) it's clear that was a popular, successful product. If partners had been so popular, maybe they would have included them in precons again more quickly, not 4 years later and not within the precons.

You seem really fixed on this "speculation" angle. I'm not speculating on what or how many partners will come out. I'm just rather glad that they don't come out yearly. I already don't enjoy the yearly CMDR-sets. Each year just brings another pushed card. Fierce Guardianship? It's not a slippery slope to see what happens annually and extrapolate the trend onto partner.

"Eventually people will be playing more partner decks than non-partner decks. Just give it a few more iterations."

You did the speculation. I'm just calling you out on it.

I'm also glad they don't come out yearly, even though I like the mechanic. Anything gets boring with enough repetition. That's probably why they won't do it.

The problem is that you've only got one data point for partner, and you can't extrapolate a trend from one data point. Unless you count the lack of the partner mechanic in 2017, 2018, and 2019, which only shows that they're pretty unlikely to start dumping partners on us anytime soon.

I don't think partner will outpace the rest of the game. I still think Doubling Season and Sol Ring will still be good and more important than any commander you can pick. I just think their adoption will start to outpace players choosing only one commander.

Based on...................................?


2.2%?

Remember, I don't have to. I just have to say it.

I'm pretty sure you don't even know what it means, and just picked a random fallacy out of a hat. Prove me wrong.

Honestly I thought calling your argument a slippery slope was pretty self-explanatory since it's practically textbook. Since it evidently isn't to you, I've done my best to break it down. Indulge me and do the same?

And it only takes a few times of it not working as intended. Which WOTC has demonstrated that it is capable of making happen.

Yes wotc can make mistakes with literally anything. Given how cautious they've been with partner I think it's probably safer than most mechanics tbh. Also I doubt partner will be a mechanic used frequently enough to give them a ton of opportunities to screw it up, based on current usage.

Akiri is not "really" an artifact commander because people don't build artifact decks together just so they can attack with a huge beater. That is why Silas+Akiri aren't popular. People aren't building artifact decks so they can get low value from an Ophidian trigger.

It's still artifact synergy though. Sorry if it's not what you wanted Akiri's trying her best, OK! (sidebar: why do we never have the emojis I actually want to use? We have the "sweat" emoji but none of the crying emojis? Who picks these?)

I disagree with that statement. "Partner with" is more akin to getting 0.5+0.5 than truly getting 1+1.

So...but seriously, what if Thrasios had partners with Tymna?

Actually, don't answer that. This is a total distraction from the main thrust of the conversation, forget I said anything.

[shermanido37]

I'd like to steer the conversation in a more practical and straightforward tone. I see the subject as interesting and worthy of discussion, and I feel like we aren't making much progress by focusing on the disputer than by focusing on the arguments.
So I'd like to analyze the Partner situation in comparison to a previous commander mechanic.


There's another commander mechanic that was printed at the time, named Eminence. It allows your commander to give you a passive buff as long as it's either in the command zone or on the battlefield.
The mechanic was introduced by Oloro, Ageless Ascetic. While a lot of people loved playing with him and the novel design space he provides, others lamented his unconditional advantage that can't be interacted with and that made killing him nigh impossible.
You could also argue that Derevi, Empyrial Tactician also has Eminence. We all know how that commander turned out. Today, both Oloro and Derevi are banned in at least one commander genre.
Later, Eminence was printed on 4 commanders in C17 (a year after C16, where Partners were introduced), to have somewhat more conditional abilities. There's also Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow that could be argued as an Eminence commander.

Mechanically and in terms of card advantage, I'd say Eminence and Partner can be very similar.
Starting the game with two extra cards that never truly go away, is similar to starting with a passive uninteractable buff that never truly goes away.
Eminence, like Partner, has its niche commanders (Arahbo, Roar of the World), solid commanders (The Ur-Dragon), and dangerous ones (Edgar Markov, Inalla, Archmage Ritualist).

The key difference seems to be flexibility. I think we all agree that if each set's Partners were limited to Partners from that particular set, the concern for Partner dominance would be much less threatening. What's threatening is that a new Partner can team up with with an old Partner and create more decks, more versatility in deckbuilding, and possibly more ways for powerful advantages. Furthermore there seems to be concern for this influx of Partner deckbuilding to cause WotC to print more Partners, causing a sort of Partner snowball that will "overshadow" regular legendary creatures in size.


To continue the comparison, let's first ask - what happened with Eminence? The short answer is almost nothing. WotC, it seems, brought out Eminence as a unique flare to mess with Commanders' design space, and once they checked that on their list we pretty much never saw it again explicitly. I'm not sure whether that decision is exclusively because of R&D priorities, or if it's also motivated by change in sales, but the result stays the same.

I see much of the same situation in the design requirements of Commander Legends. I personally estimated with my friends that it's highly probably we'll see partners in that set, because of how challenging it is to draft both a single commander and a deck with the same color identity and a decent amount of playable cards. I virtually couldn't see a draftable EDH set that limited you to only one card as a commander, even if that card was Golos tier - sure, it's possible mechanically, but is that really fun, creative and worth the drafting experience? In drafts flexibility is an absolute must, and in terms of color identity there is no real alternative in flexibility to Partner.

So ultimately, the question becomes "will draftable EDH sets become a regular thing?", and I believe that the answer to that will be answered in the sales of Commander Legends. If it sells out and reviews well, WotC will do what any company would have done, and create more similar products, in which we are highly likely to see more Partner commanders. If not, I don't see a special reason for them to return, save for perhaps "Partner With" commanders that seem to be growing more popular while still being more easily balanced.

[ISBPathfinder]

@shermanido37 it is tough to compare any of these mechanics as all of them give a slightly different resource. Personally I think Eminence is a far more egregious mechanic in that there is no space to interact with it for opponents being a trigger from an out of play permanent.

Partners are an extra resource but it is also something that requires additional setup to matter. I have often considered it sort of a negative tempo but extra card advantage mechanic. I consider them this way because "most" of the partners are not horribly mana efficient for what you get and that there are probably larger impact single non partner commanders you can play. Tymna might actually be the only good tempo one of the bunch in my opinion given that she actually plays very well with 1-2 mana creatures which creates a strong curve. Thrasios being a two drop probably contributes to Tymna's positive tempo play unfortunately but as a whole I would say that many of the partners are a little weak for their mana and setup but trade off in being card advantage in there being two of them.

I don't know that we can really compare partners to any other mechanic that we have seen. Companion is probably the closest comparison we have as it has a similar result in giving you access to more resources. Its just tricky because the deck building constraints of this format has mostly kept me from seeing anyone play with companions. That could also be due to covid but I think that set was out before this started..... I can't really recall at this point lol.

[pokken]

You usually can't tell if WOTC is going to ruin something until they do it a second time. This set will likely be the make it or break it for Partner. If they somehow manage to just add some more fun options without superseding too many approaches it'll be nice.

I'm not really sure either way but I do think there's some serious room to damage the metagame with partners being too broadly applicable.

[shermanido37]

You usually can't tell if WOTC is going to ruin something until they do it a second time. This set will likely be the make it or break it for Partner. If they somehow manage to just add some more fun options without superseding too many approaches it'll be nice.

I'm not really sure either way but I do think there's some serious room to damage the metagame with partners being too broadly applicable.

I guess this is closer to my point. Eminence wasn't successful enough so it wasn't printed again. PW commanders were popular and had players begging for more PW commanders, and those were printed in relatively larger amounts. Now it's up to see how they print Partner and how people will respond to it.

as a whole I would say that many of the partners are a little weak for their mana and setup but trade off in being card advantage in there being two of them

Yes, I agree that partners are typically weaker tempo plays than non-partner commanders, but as some posters in this thread clearly stated, some people still see them as powerful individual cards, even if they don't sway the board state in your favor.
However my point isn't really in comparing the cards' effect on the game.
What I'm ultimately trying to say is that I believe the design choice to print Partner in this set was made almost entirely because of the set's draft playability, and nearly none because they want to see Partner commanders again.
Again, pure speculation at this point, an attempt at looking at the game from a game designer's perspective.

[Sinis]

It's not the mere existence. It's also that partner is a powerful mechanic.

The way I see it, being able to play partner generals is similar to being able to play multicolor. Once they're there, it's really tough to play mono-color. Once you have a three-color general that does what your previous two-color general could do, it's really tough to play only two-color. Just like how people have found it hard to not use pre-con generals.

Yet, people still choose to play monocolour despite there being trivially available two, three, and five colour generals.

Also, when you say "partner is a powerful mechanic" you're basically blindly asserting that other mechanics won't be powerful also. Eminence. Planeswalkers as commanders. Legendaries with abilities that are casually bonkers (like Urza). It's a tradeoff, you can play two commanders, or you can play another completely different commander.

Nothing you've written precludes people not playing partners. Additionally, even if Partners became overwhelmingly popular... so what? That part never got answered.