Are partners a problem?

[DirkGently]

We're coming closer to the release of commander legends, and with it a huge influx of partner commanders. How do you feel about this? Question up top.

Oh, do you want to have your answers tainted by my opinions? Excellent, I love telling people how to think.

"Are commanders overpowered in casual/competitive?"

One way to look at magic is that you're trying to maximize the effect of your cards, while minimizing the costs. This is why cards like Lightning Bolt are so powerful in traditional magic, where something like Explosive Impact is terrible even though it has a greater effect. It's also why a card like Sonic Burst is bad, except you're paying with cards instead of mana. A good card is an efficient card.

We've seen this recently with cards like Once Upon a Time, which looks pretty innocuous to the untrained, but was a big problem because it was often completely free card selection. It was so bad it was banned in four formats. The effect wasn't too strong, but the cost was too low, and this made it too efficient, and efficiency is everything.

Now consider a card that's commonly considered problematic in casual commander - Golos, Tireless Pilgrim. He's super annoying to deal with, because he generates advantage immediately upon hitting the board even if he's immediately removed, AND his ability is incredibly strong if he's left alone. 8 mana for not just 3 cards, but potentially dozens of mana to cast them! Talk about efficient! But he's never really been a problem in other formats. Why is that? In other formats, investing 5 mana into one spell is a lot, and 8 into an ability - especially one of each color - is a TON. It better win you the game on the spot to be worth it, because you're going to have to fight through counterspells and removal, all of it aimed at your plan, and all of it much more cheaper than golos. If he gets countered, you just massively lost the efficiency way. Within the context of a format where your spells are much more likely to be countered or removed, it stops mattering how efficient his ability is because he won't be able to activate it often enough to justify the risk.

I don't play cEDH, but I think I have a reasonable understanding of the format, and why Thrasios and Tymna have dominated there. To my understanding, the cEDH environment operates much closer to legacy or vintage than casual EDH. Games are won off smaller advantages, and a commander that can be a real pain in casual EDH, like Golos, is just too expensive, and too easy to answer efficiently, to be top-tier in cEDH. In that sphere, having a 2-drop and 3-drop commander, even though their abilities are way lower power than Golos, is far stronger because they're fall less susceptible to losing the tempo race if they're countered or removed. On top of which, having an extra commander is effectively having another card in your hand, which is a huge advantage in low-to-the-ground format, as companions demonstrated when they dominated standard.

But those small advantages don't dominate casual commander. What usually wins a casual game of commander is some powerful synergy, or an overwhelmingly powerful spell like expropriate or craterhoof. Commander has big swings, huge gains and huge losses - getting one extra card at the start is likely a miniscule advantage by the midgame. And none of the partners are particularly efficient or powerful from their abilities alone - Thrasios, the most popular, is essentially an Azure Mage with a small upside. What makes some partner decks scary is that, because they're a staple of cEDH tables, they're more likely to be helming a cEDH deck than your average casual-commander like Golos. But I'd argue that it's the deck, and the builders intentions in creating it, that are what makes the deck dangerous, not the commanders themselves.

"Is parter or partner with more of a problem?"

Personally I don't think either are, based on my assessment above. None of the partners bother me whatsoever, none of them are nearly as scary and must-keep-off-the-field as commanders like Golos, Chulane, Zur, Arcum, Azami, Jhoira (1 or 2), Teferi (1 or 2), Estrid, Saheeli, Kess, Yarok, Niv (1 or especially 3), Breya, Jodah, Sisay (1 or 2), Urza...I mean, do I need to go on?

The partner withs have all been fine except for Pir and Toothy (although I don't love shabraz and brallin either). But while partner with is obviously more self-limiting, I don't think it's actually much safer in implementation. Partners thus far have been pretty safe and not prone to excessively strong synergy, which I think is great. Partner-withs are designed intentionally to synergize together, which becomes a real annoyance with P&T where each individual creature is a big problem, and both together are a huge problem. Just pir or just toothy, as a UG commander, would have been strong already. Putting both together is pretty close to over the line, imo. But then there are plenty of fun and interesting partner-withs, so I don't think it's a fault of the mechanic, just the implementation in that one case.

"Is there a problem with the concept, or with the execution, of partners?"

Since I don't think there's a problem with partners, my answer is probably pretty obvious - neither. But I do think partners as a concept is problematic for a 1v1 or cEDH environment, where getting an extra card can indeed be a huge edge, even if the card isn't super scary on its own. For players playing that kind of game, I can see where the frustration with the mechanic comes from. For everyone else, while it could in theory be a problem - and since partners do come baked-in with a 1-card advantage, the margin for error is indeed smaller - I don't think it's likely to become one unless wotc takes some much bigger risks in their designs. Which I certainly hope they don't, I think partners are just fine the way they are.

"Do you prefer to play with or against partners?"

I don't mind either, although owing to the aforementioned tendency for partners to helm cEDH decks, I can be more wary of them than I might be of other commanders, especially known powerful pairs like tymna/thrasios or thrasios/vial smasher. But I don't see that as a problem with partners - if they didn't exist, then the next most powerful cEDH commanders would take their places and still be just as much of a problem for a casual table.

I do enjoy building partner decks on occasion, and some of my favourite decks have been on partners. I think in particular their fair and relatively open-ended abilities prevents the decks from spiraling into "ok, time to pull off the exact same plan as last time", which is much more likely with powerful non-partner commanders that can generate stronger synergies. It can also be fun to find synergies between them, or find cards which synergize with multiple partners. It adds new levels of customization which I think contribute positively to the format.

[Mimicvat]

Voted "idea is fine, execution is a problem" but for me problem is too strong a word.

I'm not the biggest fan of the two color partners because of the ease of four color. The mono color partners coming up would surprise me immensely if they were a problem in any way other than a particular commander amongst them just being too strong of a commander.

I'm fine with Partner With, and generally see it as a way to have more rules text on essentially one commander. Two bodies is not the problem (or 'problem').

Generally it's way more about the player than the deck. I often play against a Thrasios / Vial Smasher deck that I absolutely hate on, because it just ramps and then drops big spells. But I hate on every deck that does that, not just this one and not because it's helmed by two generals.

All the cEDH stuff, thats a different format as far as I'm concerned. From what I've seen every deck is just a shell for some variation on the empty library win condition, and the general just determines what colors are easily accessible alongside U, G or B. So I'm sure adding UG to whatever colors via partner is a problem. Yeah it's obviously more complicated than that but thats all I care to learn of it.

[Mookie]

Honestly, I don't think that partner is that bad in theory. The basic premise is that instead of playing with a traditional commander, you will instead be playing with two powered-down partner commanders. I do believe that for the majority of partners, playing that creature without a partner would be a significant handicap when compared to a typical traditional commander in its colors.

When you add in a second partner, things become more complicated. As we've seen from Companion taking over every format in its original form, starting with an extra card in hand is extremely powerful when there is minimal opportunity cost. However, in EDH, there is a significant opportunity cost for that extra commander - namely, that you lose access to an even stronger, non-partner commander in the command zone. Pairing Tymna the Weaver and Vial Smasher the Fierce at the helm of your aggro deck may be strong... but is it stronger than Edgar Markov? Hard to say, but I would wager that for almost every two or three color pair, there exists a non-partner commander that is stronger than any of the possible partner combinations. It may be the case that the partners are above-average when compared to all possible non-partner commanders in those combinations, but when you account for the gradual power creep of creatures in general, that isn't that surprising.

The one bit of having two commanders that I would consider to be degenerate is their interaction with 'commanders matter' cards like Fierce Guardianship and Fury Storm - having twice as much access to those cards or having them be twice as powerful is pretty dumb.

Anyway, my personal belief is that the actual problem with partners isn't necessarily the cards themselves - rather, I believe the bigger access is just granting access to more colors. It is extremely easy to conflate the two concepts (extra commander = extra colors), but I do feel it is an important distinction. It's really hard to justify running a mono- or two-color commander when it's trivially easy to build the same shell into a three- or four-color deck using an appropriate partner pair. The difference in power level between 'a Gruul deck' and 'a Gruul deck splashing blue and black for Cyclonic Rift and Demonic Tutor' is pretty massive. To say nothing of the proliferation of five-color commanders like Golos and Kenrith that can pretty much just do whatever the deck builder feels like.

....the other thing that bugs me is that it feels like most 4-color partner decks tend to really same-y, since they play so many of the same staples. When you have access to that many colors, you don't need to compromise or dig deep for cards to fill deck functions - you just run the best ramp / card draw / interaction available.

[BounceBurnBuff]

I had mentioned the "man falls of bike" meme before in relation to how daft the blame thrown at Thrasios, Triton Hero looks to me when the vast majority of the decks built with him are intentionally made with known power cards and combos. You slot in Kenrith, the Returned King or Tasigur, the Golden Fang with the relevant colour cuts/additions and you have the same deck with a slightly harder time in the early game. Your infinite mana sinks still have an outlet in the command zone, you still have access to the most efficient cards in your colours (although Tasigur would lack W/R, but he could be played early with the right setup).

Tymna the Weaver I could see a greater issue with. She's proactive, rewards more aggressive and low to the ground wins, and can essentially be up to a 4c Edric, Spymaster of Trest for higher powered games. Where she falls off however, is in 90% of casual games. She's a 2/2, that needs evasive creatures to thrive. You could pair her with Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa, build an Abzan hatebears list, then draw off of your Oakhame Adversary, Mindblade Render and Ohran Frostfang effects too! Have you spotted the actual problem here? Its the deck. I could easily have made this infect instead, still hold up in casual tables, and avoided the part where I built a staxy mess that drew into more ways to stagnate the game before winning. Do either partners have hate effects on them? Do either of them promote abusable combos?

I have a Vial Smasher the Fierce / Kraum, Ludevic's Opus list that is effectively "big Grixis spells" with the typical suite of Guttersnipe effects for my more casual games. Its splashy plays are using permanent based copy effects like Double Vision (no instants like Twincast to avoid infinite combos for this meta) to double up on spells such as Aminatou's Augury or Cruel Ultimatum. Hardly cEDH or even 8/10 power level. Yet each game I join with randoms, someone will bleat out "why are you using partners in a casual game?!" as if I'd just slapped Urza down and told them to deal with it. This honestly baffles me. Kess or Nekusar would easily make that deck more powerful than a random bonk on the head for 3-8 damage and an engine that fuels me when an opponent is already at the stage of casting multiple spells a turn. I love the randomness her Smashiness brings, I have very fond memories of far stronger decks Vial Smasher led with someone like Thrasios or Ikra. The instant ruffling of the feathers the original partners generate is, frankly, absurd.

So why am I defending them so much? Put simply, they're a brewers dream come true. I've had more fun with varying combinations of partners than any single commander I've built. Over the years I've done the following:

• 1 - Sidar/Tymna: Yes I built the hatebear thing, no I'm not sorry.

• 2 - Akiri/Tymna: Artifact aggro inspired by DJ's list. One of my favourites until I needed the cards elsewhere.

• 3 - Kydele/Bruse: Despite taking it apart when Paradox Engine was banned, this Wheels deck is still the most fun I've had playing magic.

• 4 - Vial Smasher/Thrasios(non-comp): Big mana, big spells, lots of fun.

• 5 - Vial Smasher/Thasios(Curiosity Control): The stock cEDH list I used before the Flash ban.

• 6 - Thrasios/Bruse: The cEDH deck I use now that leverages Seedborn Muse/Basalt Monolith combos.

• 7 - Tana/Sidar(previously Bruse): A weird Exalted style brew that leveraged tokens to make more tokens, swapped Bruse for Sidar when Tana dying would result in a bunch of 1/1s doing nothing.

• 8 - Vial Smasher/Ikra: Jund spellslinger, initially a step to power down my 4c brew with Thrasios for my LGS at the time.

• 9 - Kydele/Kraum: A short lived Temur "draw matters" list that would eventually become Xyris when that got spoiled a month later.

• 10 - Kraum/Vial Smasher: A Grixis spellslinger deck that cares about big and X cost instants and sorceries.

Apart from Xyris for 9 and arguably Kess for 10, none of those decks have a commander in those colour identities that would have served the brew better without significant alterations and concessions. These partners don't have "staples" that would otherwise sit in a box unused because swapping Kess for Kraum/Smasher made Secrets of the Dead useless, for example. There is currently no commander in Mardu that serves an artifact theme, let alone an aggro based one. Rith is just too slow in modern EDH for a Naya tokens deck that cares about many bodies to Exalt instead of a few 4/4 Rhinos. For those 4c brews like Kydele/Bruse wheels, sure, I could just make it 5c with Kenrith or Golos, but thats where I see a real problem in modern EDH which surpasses whatever issues Partners generate. I would be far more concerned about seeing a "5c Goodstuff Singularity" being in reach than the pairings of what are relatively below-rate commanders by comparison. I say bring on Commander Legends and 40+ new toys to brew with!

[Sinis]

Partners and Partner with are fine.

The only reason why someone would think otherwise is that they play cEDH or consume a lot of cEDH media. I mean, let's be super clear, here: Approximately zero people have any issue with any partners except Thrasios and Tymna. Maybe Vial Smasher. No one is out there looking at Bruse Tarl and thinking "Jfc I get to play this and another commander? SICK!"

Is Thrasios/Tymna a problem? No. There's always going to be some best shell for eternal formats, and this happens to be it. If the cEDH crowd comes back after that whole Flash thing and says "this is also a problem", I might just have an aneurysm.

[BounceBurnBuff]

Is Thrasios/Tymna a problem? No. There's always going to be some best shell for eternal formats, and this happens to be it. If the cEDH crowd comes back after that whole Flash thing and says "this is also a problem", I might just have an aneurysm.

As one of those cEDH'ers at the time who was adamant that "no, Flash is enough", I apologise, because there is very much a rising rumble of "ban T&T or partners in general" coming up. I'm playing less than I did pre-flash ban tbh, the decks just became way too focused on Ad Naus strategies, already a tedious enough thing to sit through.

[Sinis]

Is Thrasios/Tymna a problem? No. There's always going to be some best shell for eternal formats, and this happens to be it. If the cEDH crowd comes back after that whole Flash thing and says "this is also a problem", I might just have an aneurysm.

As one of those cEDH'ers at the time who was adamant that "no, Flash is enough", I apologise, because there is very much a rising rumble of "ban T&T or partners in general" coming up. I'm playing less than I did pre-flash ban tbh, the decks just became way too focused on Ad Naus strategies, already a tedious enough thing to sit through.

I don't mean to rub salt in it, but, I think it would have been the utmost arrogance to say "Yes, banning one card will fix our version of the format." Which I said over and over before the RC decided to make that change.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I don't and have never liked partners in any form. The idea of giving certain players extra card advantage by virtue of nothing beyond pregame general selection is dumb in the same vein as eminence is dumb, and the partners themselves are (usually) god-awfully boring secondary characters, the new baron sengir being the only notable exception.

In all, partners are dull, generically useful garbage. They are a tastless store-brand soylent green on the great flavorful banquet table of EDH, and I consider them a pestilence. If they all disappeared tomorrow, I'd shed not a single tear for all the cedh decks ruined and all the casual decks rendered leaderless alike.

[pokken]

For the most part I think it's primarily that too many of the partners (and partner with sometimes, looking at you Toothy, Imaginary Friend) are overly pushed, and I guess ultimately I'd lump them in with the overly pushed commanders like Yarok, the Desecrated and Golos, Tireless Pilgrim and what not.

Without Thrasios, Triton Hero in the best color combination in EDH, and Tymna the Weaver - the most efficient creature card advantage engine in the format, on par with having a Sylvan Library in the command zone - I doubt anyone would care about partners.

Similarly the only problem i have with partner with commanders is Toothy, Imaginary Friend who is unutterably tedious to play against. Oh, and Pako, Arcane Retriever - that card is a frigging travesty.

They've just go to stop pushing legendary creatures so hard.

My votes were :
They're overpowered in both casual and competitive commander

I think the idea of partner is fine, but the execution is a problem

I don't like playing with or against partners


But if they banned Thrasios, Tymna and Toothy and Pako, Arcane Retriever I'd probably not care very much. The problem is the only the few absurdly pushed ones, and that is all I ever see. I don't recall the last partner deck I ran into that wasn't one of those four.

[ISBPathfinder]

My thoughts are a bit complex when it comes to partners. I think that Tymna and Thrasios are overpowered. Looking outside of these two commanders (more talking about the concept), I think that many of the other partners are fine. Most of the other partners feel a little under powered to me so even though you get access to two of them, there is a little bit of a tempo loss in casting most of the others in my mind in that many of the others are not worth the mana it costs to cast them. They aren't that efficient and if you try getting both of them into play it takes time and sweepers will hit you harder.

I say this from the standpoint of looking at other powerful commanders. I don't think the fact that you get two under performing commanders is a problem when you compare them against some of the more annoying commanders like Prossh, Derevi, Atraxa, Alela, Chulane to name a number of busted ass commanders.

I play a lot of mono color commander and I would say that outside of Tymna and Thrasios, I don't actually believe any of the partners are any more powerful than many of my mono colored decks. I actually would generally speaking view them as being weaker than a number of my mono colored decks.

I guess my stance is that I think Tymna and Thrasios are both a problem but I think the mechanic as a whole is fine. As long as they continue to exist, partner might get a bad wrap but I think the other partners I have seen both spoiled and originally are all fine. Adding new partners will just be a problem in my book when it comes to new partners paired with these two or if they make new busted partners like them. The mechanic as a whole I view as being acceptable so long as the commanders with it aren't super powerful and pushed. Most of the time I view what we have seen so far as like 75% powered in that they feel a bit weaker than standalone commanders for the mana. I think that this is an acceptable place to be for this mechanic.

[onering]

They are OP in competitive but generally fine in casual. The meta in competitive speaks for itself, as does casual.

Partner with is fine, partner has issues. In theory, both are neat, but Partner With is a much easier mechanic to balance, since you only have to look at the two cards being designed and how they work together, and have much more control over how powerful they are and what colors they have access to. Partner, otoh, leads to tons of combinations, access to every color, and any new commander with basic partner gets to partner with all that came before creating a snowballing problem. Generic Partner also has the issue of being able to replace any single commander in a color combination by allowing for more colors, which pushes out most general good stuff commanders and even pushes out some commanders for more focused strategies, which reduces deck diversity. The situation is too complex to effectively balance, and leads to some pairings being ridiculously OP and other hilariously bad, when any iteration of partner should generally be as good on average as running a single commander. Which leads into...

The mechanic is fine, the execution can be a problem. Partners should be designed as weaker than the typical commander because partner itself is such a powerful mechanic as it gives CA and card selection on its own, in addition to synergy. Every legend designed with a partner ability should be underwhelming on its own. If a legend with partner could reasonably helm its own deck, its been pushed too far. Toothy, Thrasios, Tymna, Vial Smasher, Pako were all too pushed. They'd all be fine as commanders on their own, so adding synergy and CA with partner is too much. Pako is especially disgusting with its partner in terms of being immensely unfun to play against and typically forcing arch enemy situations in casual. The best partners are ones that only become worth a look when partnered with something, and can lead to interesting combos. Partner With lends itself to this much better as the designers can control the combined power level and design cards that specifically work together to create cool effects, rather than having to be generically useful, but even that can go awry when they overly push a card like Pako or Toothy (and you can tell they do it for cards they are attached to).

That said, I enjoy playing with and against partner, even if I loathe certain combinations. Even all of the problematic generic partners can be fun when not featured in their most broken pairings. I try to avoid just defaulting to them for extra colors and CA, and tend to build around them. Partner with opens up space for fantastic designs, and generic partner can add a bit of a boost to clunkier decks with no natural commander, including certain tribes so you don't have to default to Morpheon. Both have been a net positive for the format, though generic partner less so as it brings some real negatives along and has been outright bad for cEDH, whereas partner with's problems result entirely from individual cards being pushed too much which is no different than cards like Chulane or Korvold.

[ilovesaprolings]

I had mentioned the "man falls of bike" meme before in relation to how daft the blame thrown at Thrasios, Triton Hero looks to me when the vast majority of the decks built with him are intentionally made with known power cards and combos.

By this logic no cards will ever be broken, ever. It's always players' fault. After all, Black Lotus is totally fine if you play it in a craw wurm deck.
Having 2 commanders is inherently better than having only 1, so it's harder to balance the partners.

[pokken]

The general design problem partners represent is it's harder to balance a legendary creature the more colors it has access to. You have to essentially assume any of the 2 color partners are 4 color cards from an access perspective.

There's a pretty obvious relationship between colors and power level most of the time. More colors means fewer filler cards and more likely people just play the best cards in those colors.

It's not like people can't restrain themselves they're just less likely to.

[Dunharrow]

I know I am pretty alone in just not liking Partner With, specifically the tutoring aspect. I don't mind them as commanders. I just don't like the rider that the creatures tutor each other.

I personally find that cEDH can thrive with or without partners. Ban Thrasios and they would just do a different combo. They can play 5 colors or they can play a 4c commander and just find a different combo to tutor for.

And in Casual I do not find any of them problematic.
There is a slight advantage in having an extra card in hand, but I am not sure it has a significant impact on casual games.

[5colorsrainbow]

I voted "idea is fine, execution is a problem" though I do wanna say the problem was a few partners but most where fine. I do think they need to be careful and make a partner that is overwhelming on their own, though coming from a causal player a lot of this issues I think lines more so in cEDH than causal. I do think partner has power issues but the fact we are getting a bunch for a draft set at uncommon in mono-color will lead to safer designs.

I think partner is a fix to a big problem for the format which is giving options to colors. We literally have 1 cycle of 4 color legends and the new omnath and that really limited the deck types you can run without partners and with how hard it can be to make 3 color sets works in normal sets I don't think we will be seeing any four-color creatures without the rare Omnath exceptions. Maybe we will see another round of decks with more four colors but I get the feeling this all we gonna see. Most casual partner decks I've seen even mostly just have two partner tossed together just to get the color combos, kinda like how I've seen a rise of Morpheon for decks without a tribal commander.

Similarly related I think a lot of the color pairs tend to really stick to different versions of one or two deck types such as RW and GB and mono-colored decks have issues being limited to one color. I'm hoping this round of partners can also help makes some cool combos and new deck types and maybe fills in some basic fixes for colors. For example a few uncommon partners that similar to Freyalise and are utility and partner them up with the legend you want to base the deck around. Many people already have noted Alena being great for mono-red and boros ramping and Hal is good generic in color green removal.

That said I do think "partner with" is better than partner due to the fact is help balance the legends and helps them feel much more like 1 full legend with two bodies and lets them slightly push them a bit more. It also has some functionality outside of being the commanders (as they fetch each other) and this also lets the mechanic function outside of strictly commander based sets as seen with battle bond.

[DirkGently]

By this logic no cards will ever be broken, ever. It's always players' fault. After all, Black Lotus is totally fine if you play it in a craw wurm deck.
Having 2 commanders is inherently better than having only 1, so it's harder to balance the partners.

I think you have to look at what the card is doing within the deck. If you're looping black lotus with the bomberman combo, or if you're accelerating out something powerful three turns early to win the game, then lotus is obviously a major part of the problem and isn't replaceable. What is Thrasios doing in the cEDH decks? He's sometimes a not-particularly-efficient card draw engine, and he wins the game if you've already got infinite mana. Obviously that's an important element of the deck, but he could be replaced with a Fireball or whatever and be just as effective, and nobody thinks fireball is OP.

It's like the classic channel fireball combo. Yes, both cards are necessary to win the game, but one of them is clearly doing the most legwork. It's obvious channel is the broken part of the equation (which in thrasios's case are the other cards in the deck that can fuel him).

I do agree that it's harder to balance, but I think if the partners were all stripped of their partner tags they'd all be very weak compared to most legends printed today. So at least to my eye, wotc is making them with an appropriate level of caution.

Without Thrasios, Triton Hero in the best color combination in EDH, and Tymna the Weaver - the most efficient creature card advantage engine in the format, on par with having a Sylvan Library in the command zone - I doubt anyone would care about partners.

Tymna is a pretty efficient draw engine, but she requires kind of a lot of setup. Unless you've got 3 unblockable creatures, you're going to need to contest with enemy blockers, and either way you have to commit significantly to the board. That's not really on the level of library, which costs less and requires essentially no setup to rake in CA.

As far as "no one would care", there are thousands of partner decks on EDHrec that aren't thrasios or tymna. I've made quite a few myself. Admittedly my favourite was thrasios, but given it was 98 lands I don't think you can accuse me of being a tryhard.

[pokken]

Tymna is a pretty efficient draw engine, but she requires kind of a lot of setup. Unless you've got 3 unblockable creatures, you're going to need to contest with enemy blockers, and either way you have to commit significantly to the board. That's not really on the level of library, which costs less and requires essentially no setup to rake in CA.

In slower games she's often better than library (where 8 life or requiring shuffle effects is non-trivial) but I'll cede the point, I don't care that much about it. She's an absurdly strong CA engine in the command zone, probably the single most powerful commander for drawing cards in the game (when you factor in mana cost and difficulty to set up).

As far as "no one would care", there are thousands of partner decks on EDHrec that aren't thrasios or tymna. I've made quite a few myself. Admittedly my favourite was thrasios, but given it was 98 lands I don't think you can accuse me of being a tryhard.

I meant no one would be upset about them. Outside of Tymna and Thrasios they're not really problematic at all. Well, and whatever busted ones to be spoiled in the upcoming set Feels inevitable there's one.

[onering]

I will say some of the partners can be ran alone, though there are typically better options. Pako is a reasonable Gruul commander that gets big pretty fast, and makes for a goofy casual deck where he's a self contained threat but not OP. Thrasios can helm Simic good stuff just fine, but of course is less effective on his own than the several busted options available. Vial Smasher can lead a group slug deck just fine. Toothy is actually degenerate enough on its own that it doesn't actually lose that much being played alone. Most thankfully would be pathetic if played alone.

[Vessiliana]

I have never found partners to be a problem in my meta. There were a few decks of them for a while. I kind of miss the Ravos and Tymna cleric tribal, but Orah is doing better with that. (They're in his 99.) Will & Rowan were unpopular, but that was due to Will's +2 (and being relatively high-powered Superfriends in the deck). They're gone, too. In fact, the only one that has stuck is the Pir & Toothy "all the oozes and hydras" deck. There are no others in my meta at the moment.

[Gwathnar]

I don't find partners to be an issue.
In cEDH they are more I want these colors, hence why they are so popular.

In all honestly, most stuff doesn't bug me, play answers in your deck and you can deal with these things.

[BaronCappuccino]

Partners aren't a problem in my meta either. I'd describe my meta as highly tuned casual - a handful of players who take casual ideas like slivers and that legendary Naya that deals with eggs - hardly cEDH - but builds them without financial constraint. The only thing holding the decks back is the core concept each is founded on, but never the card selection making it happen. None of them have found any of the partners particularly interesting. The only partners I found interesting were the coin tossing cyclops and homunculus Izzet pairing, but I also like winning, and if not that, I find games of commander are better when I'm casting my commander during them, and I'm never building another deck that doesn't get started till it's ramped to 6-8 mana first ever again.