Did Partners change how you view/play the format? If so, how?

[Toshi]

Ever since the spoilers and ultimately the release of Commander Legends, my playgroup and i keep discussing the above two questions and i would like to hear your thoughts on them as well.
I decided against a poll since i'd prefer to hear in detail and didn't feel like reducing the whole matter to a bunch of black/white questions.
If anyone's interested in those metrics though, they can add polls themselves.

So, when C16 and its initial 15 Partners came out, they didn't change the face of our meta at all. We saw a very short-lived Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa/Tana, the Bloodsower deck and a solo Vial Smasher the Fierce list does see play until today. As a 0-2 color player myself, i quickly get bored by card pools that don't have any downsides, which made the OG Partners about as bland as they could've been, with only so many Partners overlapping all their colors.
Of the non-partner ones, all of them existed in our playgroup somewhen over the years, with only Breya, Etherium Shaper control and Atraxa, Praetors' Voice PWs making lasting appearances.
Bottom line, C16 had about the same influence most other commander specific sets have had.

"Partner with" legends from BBD and C20 were close to being fully ignored, with Okaun, Eye of Chaos/Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom and Pir, Imaginative Rascal/Toothy, Imaginary Friend getting dismantled after mere weeks of play.

Then again, once Partners were offcially announced for Commander Legends and the first Spoilers and Leaks poured in, it got us all thinking. Getting closer and closer to its release, it became apparent that again, none of us felt excited building a Partner deck.
I began to wonder why our preferences aligned in such a clear way, since whenever we played in our LGS (before Covid) instead of one of our houses, we faced partner builds regularily - roughly estimated 1 in 5 to 7 decks.
Our recent discussion concluded that we're favoring build around commanders and prefering to start out with a commander instead of deciding for an archetype/play style first, then researching the most fitting face card(s). Secondly, several of us are usually more intrigued by commanders that might not have the perfect color combination to support a build that they lean towards in every other aspect - think enchantress builds without among others.

All things considered, 1050 solo commanders (incl. Partners themselves) are likely enough to keep me from ever building one of the 1551 possible partner combinations. (Numbers as of 22.11.20)
As someone who started EDH when there were less than 250 commander options overall, it's crazy to see how big the pool of possible partner combinations actually is.

Anyhow, let me know what you think and how it all influenced your meta.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I always appreciate more options, personally. Partners are not the most elegant way to expand the cardpool in terms of leadership IMHO, but I like giving people more opportunities for self-expression in general. I've been playing EDH since 2010, and I have no fond memories of seeing the same sharuum/rafiq/mayael decks everywhere because there was nearly no other viable options for popular strategies.

[ISBPathfinder]

It has affected my meta in absolutely no way in that we haven't met to play in over 6 months. I have had a few games here and there with two of the guys who live close to me but so far they haven't built any partner decks. That said, I expect that to probably change by the next time I play with them.

In all reality, I think its the same as any new legends. We have a higher number of legends added here and the mixing and matching of partners opens up more ways to play making it perhaps more interesting as a deckbuilding challenge than usual. That said, I expect to see a whole bunch of it for a while then people move to whatever else is new. I expect to see some partners around but I don't expect to see any real lasting change or shift in metas as a whole over time when looking back later. Its honestly been a very long time since I have seen one of the original partner commanders piloted outside of the cEDH talk I really haven't seen anyone playing them in quite some time.

I have built one partner deck already and have a few other lists I have been considering as well. When partner originally came out I think I built like two or three partners so it really doesn't feel that different than the original set of partners we got to me. I will probably play them for a while and at some point get bored and dismantle them.

[Dunharrow]

The only thing that has changed is that if I like a particular partner, such as Reyhan, Last of the Abzan, I can add more colors that complement the deck. My four-color Reyhan is a powerful deck!

I really want to build around Eligeth, Crossroads Augur. I can look at all colors to see what synergies I want to include and narrow it down to one or two colors to add. If the partner synergizes with the deck, great. If not, doesn't matter.

[JWK]

Back when there was a local meta, the typical suspect partners pushed some players who were already leaning that way a bit more in the cEDH direction. Most other people ignored them. I didn't find any of the original partner parings interesting and never built a partner deck, though I included lots of those cards in the 99 of other decks.

I am tempted by several of the pairings possible with the new partners. I may finally make a pirates deck, or I may not, since it's even more obvious what to include than most tribal decks. Armix + Rebbec appeals to me quite a bit, though I am having some trouble deciding between various potential paths to take. Alena + Halana looks potentially quite interesting as well, I can think of a couple different approaches one might take with that pairing. Several of the commanders are intriguing, and while some are probably going just end up int the 99 of my decks, as I think about what to do with them, I think it likely some of them will spawn decks of their own, perhaps even partnered with one of the original 2-color partners.

[toctheyounger]

It hasn't affected me or mine at all. Most of the people I play with are after a certain thing in the command zone, be it theme, tribe, or weird ability that can't be got anywhere else. So in that respect, most of the partners old and new don't really push the envelope in major ways (except for Thrasios in terms of power at the helm ofc).

To me it seems like they're mostly for folk that want do to particular things with a wider mix of colours than ordinarily available, although there are exceptions to that. Some of the new batch are great from lore perspectives, so that's nice. At any rate, has not changed things a jot for me. All of the commanders I was/am brewing from the set are non-partner.

[JWK]

...most of the partners old and new don't really push the envelope in major ways (except for Thrasios in terms of power at the helm ofc).

I think some of the partners actually do push the envelope in some ways. Many of them encourage or open up niche strategies. Some of them enhance existing strategies. I think Kediss makes aggro decks much more viable, essentially turning a partnered commander into Hydra Omnivore. We have new ones that turn scry into draw. I can't think of anything quite like Rebbec, Architect of Ascension. Monoblack artifact aggro? Meet Armix, Filigree Thrasher.

What they don't do, for the most part, is push the envelope in ways that are entirely busted and just too good, especially when paired with another partner. I assume there will be some combinations that are crazy busted, but that is almost inevitable when you think of all the possible pairings. Certainly some are really good. Akroma + Rogragh and Toggo + Armix are both amazing. Toggo actually pairs amazingly well with an astounding number of partners, probably because he is deceptively great on his own. But there will be lots more crazy "whoda thunk that?" combos, and unlike Thrasios + whatever pairings, I kind of look forward to some of what people come up with. Like, what craziness will Ich-Tekik enable?

The one glaring exception is Kodama of the East Tree. He pushes the envelope in an atypically powerful manner - far beyond even most of the original partners - and I predict people will be unhappy at tables for years to come facing off against him paired with some U or UX partner. I have already played against Kodama + Thrassios, and yeah, that kinda sucked.

[kraus911]

My playgroup regularly plays an EDH cube and the partners mechanic inspired the cube owner to house rule that all 2 color legends in his cube have partner. That required a few broken legends to be removed, but since then it's made the cube a lot more flexible and fun to play.

[materpillar]

I'm trying to slim down on commander decks not build more. I imagine that one of my friends will build a partner deck or two. I personally find the partner mechanic to be distasteful from a flavor perspective. The only one that interests me in any way is Sakashima of a Thousand Faces since I've been wanting to build a Mirror Gallery deck for ages. I tried with Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer but I find that card's play pattern to be incredibly boring. I opened a sakashima so I might give him a whirl sometime.

[ISBPathfinder]

I think a lot of people over state the partner pairing options. Sure, there is like hundreds of possible pairings but I think if you actually look at the pairing compatibility of most of them I would be surprised if there is more than like 100 reasonable choices of pairings. Most of the partners only have like three or so good pairing options (Sakashima of a Thousand Faces being an outlier) and beyond that you are probably picking something less optimal. I get that you could pair them with anything but there are a lot of commanders that just don't make sense to pair together.

After things settle down I would be surprised if you don't see a bit more consistency of the partner pair combos even with all of those options out there. To be honest with myself, I didn't actually feel like most of the partners really stood out given the number of uncommon partners and how in my mind most of them seemed not that spectacular.

[BounceBurnBuff]

In terms of warping our meta, I would say I'm the only one who has spammed partner pairings in any large capacity (I don't count Partner-With tbh).

My own hot take as far as Legends partners are concerned is that they were honestly a bit too safe with the uncommon 2 colour options, which could have had partner themselves and done zero to nothing more to break the format. Thalisse would be great, if I could pair her with Red or Green for more consistent mass-tokens. Vargas could have been an excellent alternative for Grixis pirates paired with one of the mono black options (maybe Keskit to sac treasures?). Kangee could give Jeskai or Bant birds/flyers an option that doesn't include running a KOS commander like Kykar or Derevi. The more I've tried to brew with the few of these that interest me, the more I notice their huge limitations in the wild. The only 2 I feel might have erred on the side of combo heavy are Juri and Hamza, one of which is only an infinite outlet in the command zone (which Rakdos has other WGD options for in Anje and Kroxa) and the other requires a consistent boardstate with counters in a much slower fashion than Animar. Put it this way, there's no way you're convincing me Lanowar Abomination or Imoti are any better picks for colour identity than Ikra/Reyhan or Thrasios/Kydele.

[RxPhantom]

Partner itself just doesn't speak to me as a deckbuilder. I don't have any criteria for commanders, just a gut feeling; I know it when I see it, basically. The only one that gets my wheels turning in CL is Ghen, Arcanum Weaver. He just seems so cool and I'm currently (and slowly) brewing a pile for him.

Anyway, when it comes to my meta, it's been overrun with Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh. That effin' guy. He does make aggro viable, but man is it efficient. There are already three decks at my shop using Rograkh. It may get to where I main deck Aether Flash as a meta call.

tl;dr: I don't have a problem with partners, but they don't really interest me all that much. Others in my meta sure like them, though.

[Lifeless]

My regular playgroup hasn't played since March so I expect that a few people might pick up partners when we get back together, but I don't really anticipate a significant meta change. I say that based on the fact that the original partners didn't make a splash at all. The only partner deck anyone made was my Zndrsplt and Okaun (fun and can steal games but hardly an issue).

By the time we get back together regularly the newness will wear off and we might not see any of the new partners played at all.

[Ginuqu]

I don't have any kind of meta lately and feel simultaneously forced and disincentivized to buy new cards, since I either need to bite the bullet and get into Commander or else give up on playing or even talking about M:TG with anyone ever again. The influx of new Commander-only cards is overwhelming, like I'm coming down a waterslide into a pool that's being filled all the way to the ceiling. I worry what inflating a format already awash with staple cards with an entire year's worth of sets will do to Commander accessibility? I find your format impenetrable and strangely unpleasant and yet it's crushed all other forms of casual play \o/

[Lifeless]

I don't have any kind of meta lately and feel simultaneously forced and disincentivized to buy new cards, since I either need to bite the bullet and get into Commander or else give up on playing or even talking about M:TG with anyone ever again. The influx of new Commander-only cards is overwhelming, like I'm coming down a waterslide into a pool that's being filled all the way to the ceiling. I worry what inflating a format already awash with staple cards with an entire year's worth of sets will do to Commander accessibility? I find your format impenetrable and strangely unpleasant and yet it's crushed all other forms of casual play \o/

You're not alone. Everyone I play MTG with finds the amount of Commander product this year oppressive.

[toctheyounger]

I don't have any kind of meta lately and feel simultaneously forced and disincentivized to buy new cards, since I either need to bite the bullet and get into Commander or else give up on playing or even talking about M:TG with anyone ever again. The influx of new Commander-only cards is overwhelming, like I'm coming down a waterslide into a pool that's being filled all the way to the ceiling. I worry what inflating a format already awash with staple cards with an entire year's worth of sets will do to Commander accessibility? I find your format impenetrable and strangely unpleasant and yet it's crushed all other forms of casual play \o/

You're not alone. Everyone I play MTG with finds the amount of Commander product this year oppressive.

Just MtG in general, not just commander product. It's been really inundating this year. I hope the pace slows somewhat tbh, I certainly can't keep up. Not just with expenditure, but curating deck lists and primers too. It's a blistering pace that I think a lot of players will struggle with long term.

[Nimbaway]

I haven't built a deck using Partner Commanders prior to the release of Commander Legends, but ended up deciding to go for it since I was looking to add a hard hitting Gruul deck to my collection. So, while I initially looked to use Tana, the Bloodsower in combination with either Jeska, Thrice Reborn or Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar, but ironically in putting a list together I switched to a C16 combination with Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder instead since I ended up wanting to use a minor white splash.

[Mookie]

I haven't built any partner decks, nor am I interested in doing so at this point in time. I did briefly try out Regna, the Redeemer + Krav, the Unredeemed at the helm of my Teysa deck, but ultimately reverted that change. That said, this may be a result of my deckbuilding style. I usually start with a deck concept, then identify a commander to support that deck concept. In contrast, I feel like a lot of the partner commanders are pretty narrow - unless I'm specifically building around that partner, it is unlikely for me to identify them as the best possible commander.

I'll contrast Sengir, the Dark Baron with The Haunt of Hightower as an example. Both are six mana black fliers that get bigger when things die and gain life. However, Haunt feels significantly more interesting due to it triggering off other zones and naturally having a way to trigger itself. As a result, I'm not sure what deck concept would ever make me want to build Sengir over Haunt unless I were starting from the point of 'I want my mono-black voltron deck to have access to more colors'. And if I were to want to build a Rakdos voltron deck, for example, I don't know that I would necessarily want something like Sengir + Jeska, Thrice Reborn over an actual Rakdos legend like Greven, Predator Captain.

That said, I've been brewing and playing significantly less this past year due to lockdown, so meh.

[Myllior]

I stated playing Commander after C16 was released, but before Battlebond, and the C16 and "Partner with" legends have been all but non-existent. There was an Akiri, Line-Slinger // Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder artifact voltron deck, which was brought out only once by its owner, and a Brallin, Skyshark Rider // Shabraz, the Skyshark I played against with some new people about a month ago, but that's it; two appearances in three years.

That being said, I expect the new set of mono-coloured commanders to have a bigger impact, at least on my own decks. I've put Kodama of the East Tree // Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker as the new heads of my Bant clones deck, previously headed by Roon of the Hidden Realm, and I'm currently building Sakashima of a Thousand Faces // Vial Smasher the Fierce control. Roon was actually my first ever commander, so replacing him is pretty significant from a sentimental viewpoint.

[3drinks]

So, right, I had briefly broke my non-Mardu cycle to play Vial/Kraum back when that was hot. What, I like me some Cruel Ultimatum, sue me. it was alright. actually, no, it was quite strong and i wound up going back to Alesha because it felt more natural to me. That was a few years ago. I still see partners all the time, pre 'rona at least though. I still maintain Trynn/Silvar.

I don't have any kind of meta lately and feel simultaneously forced and disincentivized to buy new cards, since I either need to bite the bullet and get into Commander or else give up on playing or even talking about M:TG with anyone ever again. The influx of new Commander-only cards is overwhelming, like I'm coming down a waterslide into a pool that's being filled all the way to the ceiling. I worry what inflating a format already awash with staple cards with an entire year's worth of sets will do to Commander accessibility? I find your format impenetrable and strangely unpleasant and yet it's crushed all other forms of casual play \o/

You're not alone. Everyone I play MTG with finds the amount of Commander product this year oppressive.

Just MtG in general, not just commander product. It's been really inundating this year. I hope the pace slows somewhat tbh, I certainly can't keep up. Not just with expenditure, but curating deck lists and primers too. It's a blistering pace that I think a lot of players will struggle with long term.

That's why I went to pre-modern and white border only. It's strong enough and actually immune to new set fatigue. Plus I get to beat people down with old favourites like Stalking Vengeance|psal and Throat Slitter|psal, and I still get to use Living Death|BRB, Sacred Mesa|ATH, Breeding Pit|5ED, and Grave Pact|8ED. Gosh I'm such a hipster lmaooo...but nostalgia looks cool.

[Rumpy5897]

A problem that a lot of partners, new and old, share is that if you want to build around both of their abilities, you've got a nontrivial mana investment on your hands more often than not and twice the commander tax to handle further down the line. It didn't help that the C16 batch were not that interesting, there's literally one deck in the group running a pairing from that generation. And it's not for the legends, it's for the colours. I've got a weak spot for Tymna, I just think she's a super cool card and it's funny that Edric before her did something similar in two completely different colours. I tried to build her twice, both times ended up group-inappropriate and died.

The whole "partners with" cohort suffers quite heavily from the casting/tax overhead as they're designed to explicitly synergise and more often than not you want them both around. There's a Haldan/Pako spellslinger in my group, but that's it.

However, I'm very enthusiastic about CMR partners. The fact they're one colour might be why they have more interesting abilities, and the existence of C16 swill creates the interesting decision point of linking up for colours or trying to get some synergy going. The reception to these in my group has been the most positive of the lot, one of the guys got super enamoured with Tormod and has been trying various permutations of the deck. A lot of the legends got that good gut reaction from me. For the first time in recorded history, I built not one, but two decks from a single set's legend pool. Both of them partners. Would have been three if the Tymna/Esior turned out group-appropriate. I seem to be in the minority in the thread, but I really like this run of buggers.

[DirkGently]

As someone who started EDH when there were less than 250 commander options overall

I'm going to (playfully) call BS on that - 250 options went past somewhere around the middle of kamigawa block in 2005. Were you seriously playing the format that early on? If so, you'd be one of the earliest adopters - afaik the format had only become public information in 2004.

Personally, few of the original partner options really excited me since most weren't very synergistic, even though I liked the idea conceptually. Nevertheless, I have built a decent number of partner decks simply because I wanted to complete my color coverage and some deck concepts worked better with partners than with the single 4-c commander option.

I really like the options in commander legends, though, there's a lot more synergies to be had and lots more interesting combinations, and they stay out of 4-c goodstuff which the original partners kinda wallowed in.

I see people that don't like partners because they think they're OP or something, and I think those people are misguided. None of the partners can realistically hold a candle to any of the top-tier single-commander options in a traditional 75% setting. But what they do offer is the opportunity to create a pretty unique deck despite these commanders all being new and shiny, since there are just so many permutations. My eyes got big when I discovered the falthis+jeska combo, but there's only 3 decks for it on EDHrec. That kind of discovery and personalization is a big part of what drew me to commander in the first place.

[Guardman]

I want to preface this with that I haven't really played with Partner itself and in my meta it was almost exclusively "Partner with" commanders. But I really like these new Partners, much more than the old partners. And what I like is that unlike the original partners, they were designed (for the most part) to play different depending on who you partner with it. Take Armix, Filigree Thrasher for example:

[*]Armix, Filigree Thrasher+Rebbec, Architect of Ascension = Artifact Protection (Beatdown or Control)
[*]Armix, Filigree Thrasher+Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith = Create a lot of Artifacts
[*]Armix, Filigree Thrasher+Ghost of Ramirez DePietro = Self-Discard
[*]Armix, Filigree Thrasher+Glacian, Powerstone Engineer = Artifacts
[*]Armix, Filigree Thrasher+Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator = Pirate Treasure
[*]Armix, Filigree Thrasher+Keskit, the Flesh Sculptor = Artifacts
[*]Armix, Filigree Thrasher+Anara, Wolvid Familiar = Indestructible Commanders
[*]Armix, Filigree Thrasher+Ich-Tekik, Salvage Splicer = Golem Tribal
[*]Armix, Filigree Thrasher+Kraum, Ludevic's Opus = Grixis Self-Discard
[*]Armix, Filigree Thrasher+Ravos, Soultender = Esper Recursion
[*]Armix, Filigree Thrasher+Silas Renn, Seeker Adept = Artifacts

And these are only the obvious ones (there are also all the Familiars as well). But most of the decks will play different from one another despite sharing a commander. That alone I think is neat.

[3drinks]

As someone who started EDH when there were less than 250 commander options overall

I'm going to (playfully) call BS on that - 250 options went past somewhere around the middle of kamigawa block in 2005. Were you seriously playing the format that early on? If so, you'd be one of the earliest adopters - afaik the format had only become public information in 2004.

By "250 options" I'm sure they mean realistic options. No one counts the actual trash cards that technically existed but weren't practical or serving a purpose.

[DirkGently]

I'll contrast Sengir, the Dark Baron with The Haunt of Hightower as an example. Both are six mana black fliers that get bigger when things die and gain life. However, Haunt feels significantly more interesting due to it triggering off other zones and naturally having a way to trigger itself. As a result, I'm not sure what deck concept would ever make me want to build Sengir over Haunt unless I were starting from the point of 'I want my mono-black voltron deck to have access to more colors'.

Well, in fairness, I think you're cherry-picking a bit: sengir is among the more boring options for partners. That said, Here's a decent idea: play him with Anara, Wolvid Familiar with ramp and board wipes aplenty. Once they're both out, one wipe could easily pump sengir to lethal while clearing blockers away. Plus you have green access ofc. Has pluses and minuses vs haunt, but it at least sounds like a potentially interesting strat that would be different.