Aesthetically I don't like them, but I didn't aesthetically like command tower, or derevi, or partners, or a million other things which have mostly been fine. In practice, I think they're an interesting way to build a deck, and it's neat that it rewards skilled play because you won't have to play around cards that can't be in their decks - no reason to worry about a counterspell when playing someone with Keruga, if they've only got 2 mana up, for example. In the long term, I suspect they'll all suck and won't be worth it, and they'll be one of those flash in the pan things that comes around occasionally and you think "oh yeah, those things, maybe I should try those again sometime" and then don't.
pokken wrote: ↑4 years ago
The reason not all CEDH decks are partner commanders is that people try to do stuff differently just to be different in CEDH too. They have pet decks, try to attack metas, etc.
Thrasios and Tymna have proven to be the absolute best commander in EDH and it's not even close; a strong card advantage engine combined with a strong card advantage engine that's also an infinite mana outlet.
The only things even nearby are commanders that have one card combos in more combos (e.g. Najeela) and the card advantage of Tymna has proven to be significantly better.
If you're talking about optimal choice for power level T&T are it.
When you choose to play partners, you do get an additional card to your hand, but the cost you pay is that you have to choose from among the partner commanders. If tomorrow they printed a new legendary creature with 5-color identity 1-mana with ETB: win the game, you'd throw thrasios and tymna into the garbage can. Having 2 commanders is an advantage, but it does have a cost.
Lutri has no cost whatsoever. It's not "good in almost every deck", it's "literally every single deck that can play her should play her, every deck that will ever exist until the end of time."
(now, a quick caveat: she does preclude paying relentless rats or whatever, and does preclude playing another companion. I think we all know that relentless rats-esque cards are all trash-tier decks in a competitive sense, though, and all the other companions looks pretty awful thus far. Not getting to play another companion is a cost, kind of, in the very technical sense, but it's nowhere near the same level of cost "not getting to have zur in the CZ" which would obviously be very good, if you could do that and still play T&T).
As someone with an imperial seal, it's not THAT great. Sorcery speed is a real bummer. Sometimes you set yourself up with something, but by your next turn it's not really what you need anymore. Or it gets shuffled by something. Or you're just telegraphing really hard so everyone can respond to you. I mean, it's a good card, but it's not "every single deck" good.
There's always going to be best cards - and while I think sol ring and mana crypt's ubiquity (or at least, ubiquity were crypt less expensive) should get them banned, they DO still have a cost. Sometimes the board is hostile to artifacts and you'd really prefer a land. Or maybe, if you replaced a business spell, you flood out in a game when some gas could have saved you. There's some tradeoff, even if it's worth it. You do actually lose something to play crypt - you lose whatever card you would have drawn otherwise. With Lutri you sacrifice absolutely not a single damn thing. As I said above, 100% of RU decks would be improved by playing it. Not 99%. Not 99.9%. 100%. There is literally no thinking except "do I pay the money to get that card". It's literally pay-to-win, with no extra steps to actually have to do any critical thinking. That's not really a good thing for the format, imo.