Synergistic Partners with Commander Legends

[UnfulfilledDesires]

Hi folks! This thread is about the new partner possibilities Commander Legends opens up. I don't plan on building many (if any) of these, but plenty of exciting pairings exist that I want to note.

Krark the Thumbless & Sakashima of a Thousand Faces: This gets you double Krarks & thus Krark triggers as well as the colors for classic spellslinger goodness. You can even copy Krark some more with Rite of Replication or whatever if desired. If nobody stops you, you'll probably win or gain overwhelming advantage quickly with this duo. I started assembling the cards for this but have decided I don't much care for the aesthetics of Krark & Krark's Thumb. I'm sticking with Will Kenrith & Rowan Kenrith for the moment.

Keskit, the Flesh Sculptor & Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith: Play lands, make Rocks, & sac them for value.

Dargo, the Shipwrecker & Jeska, Thrice Reborn: Combo out with Phyrexian Altar to cast Dargo a million times & then cast Jeska for the win. As a backup plan, you can one-shot opponents with Dargo plus a Jeska 0 activation.

Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa & Tormod, the Desecrator: Assemble an army of evasive Zombies. This one tempts me, mainly because of how much I like Sidar Kondo's art & flavor.

Rebbec, Architect of Ascension & Silas Renn, Seeker Adept: Rebbec makes Silas harder to block or remove, facilitating value from Silas's trigger ability.

Armix, Filigree Thrasher & Keskit, the Flesh Sculptor: Artifact shenanigans. Sacrificing Spine of Ish Sah to Keskit over & over sounds like a blast & addresses monoblack's difficulty with removing artifacts & enchantments.

Ich-Tekik, Salvage Splicer & Reyhan, Last of the Abzan: Modular nonsense.

Ich-Tekik, Salvage Splicer & Silas Renn, Seeker Adept: Similar to the above, but with less emphasis on modular specifically. Sac & recast artifacts to buff your Golems.

Akroma, Vision of Ixidor & Kamahl, Heart of Krosa: Go big or go home. Ramp into your commanders & overwhelm opponents with 7/7 lands.

Kodama of the East Tree & Sakashima of a Thousand Faces: Build your Eureka (almost). Draw a bunch of cards & vomit them onto the field.

Tymna the Weaver & Sakashima of a Thousand Faces: What's better than Tymna? Two Tymnas.

Keleth, Sunmane Familiar & Reyhan, Last of the Abzan: Counters everywhere. I considered this, but I believe I'm going to stick with Ravos, Soultender for the card advantage.

Prava of the Steel Legion & Alena, Kessig Trapper: This pairing allows Zirda, the Dawnwaker as companion.

Livio, Oathsworn Sentinel & Alena, Kessig Trapper: As above.

Akiri, Line-Slinger & Miara, Thorn of the Glade: Here you can run Lurrus of the Dream-Den as companion.

Livio, Oathsworn Sentinel & Miara, Thorn of the Glade: As above, but with only two colors.

Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix & Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools: I'm seriously contemplating this one, though I'm unsure exactly how to build it as the pairing offers flexibility. Kydele produces more mana if you use Tevesh Szat's +1 to draw cards.

Krark, the Thumbless & Thrasios, Triton Hero: Temur spellslinger. Having green for ramp is nice if you're going all in on instant sorceries (especially with the Three Visits reprint).

Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh & Thrasios, Triton Hero: Polymorph or Divergent Transformations tricks as well as combos with Cloudstone Curio.

[Sinis]

I'm going to sound like a bad person, but my preorders involve me being able to play Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools and Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh so I can play Szat, play Rograkh, and then sacrifice the Kobold for 3 cards.

Keleth, Sunmane Familiar + Reyhan, Last of the Abzan: Abzan counters, and I think this one has legs. It's a nice alternative to Anafenza, the Foremost or (barf) Daghatar the Adamant. (Edit: I missed this in your post, so many!)

Esior, Wardwing Familiar with almost anything: maybe Akroma, Vision of Ixidor to give Akroma a bit more resilience.

Halana, Kessig Ranger and Sengir, the Dark Baron: I think the good Baron can get pretty big, pretty fast if your creatures have built-in Rabid Bites. Green ramp also helps defray Sengir's cost.

Alena, Kessig Trapper + Halana, Kessig Ranger: The classic duo, these two are clearly meant to work together. You play a big creature, and with Halana's trigger on the stack, you tap Alena for a bucket of mana and get your rabid bite. They both like big creatures, is the point.

[UnfulfilledDesires]

One I learned about from a Reddit post is Kodama of the East Tree & Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith. Together they produce infinite landfall & Rocks with Gruul Turf or Guildless Commons. You can use the Kodama trigger from the Rock entering to put the bounceland back down.

[Zero_Origin]

Since it hasn't been mentioned here yet, the draft archetypes for each two color combination are spelled out by the uncommon legendaries, and there are partner combinations tailor made for each of those archetypes:

U/R Pirates:
Malcolm Keen-Eyed Navigator+Breeches, Brazen Plunderer

B/G Elves:
Miara, Thorn of the Glade+Numa, Joraga Chieftain

U/G CMC 6+:
Brinelin, the Moon Kraken+Gilanra, Caller of Wirewood

B/W Tokens:
Nadier, Agent of the Duskenel+Prava of the Steel Legion

R/W Equipment/Auras:
Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist+Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh

U/B Graveyard:
Ghost of Ramirez DePietro+Tormod, the Desecrator

U/W Flying:
Radiant, Serra Archangel+Siani, Eye of the Storm

W/G +1/+1 Counters:
Alharu, Solemn Ritualist+Slurrk, All-Ingesting

G/R Power Matters:
Halana, Kessig Ranger+Alena, Kessig Trapper

R/B Sacrifice:
Dargo, the Shipwrecker+Keskit, the Flesh Sculptor

There some good secondary combinations within each of those color identities as well, and some good mono color partner combos too, but I've listed enough for now.

[Serenade]

Sakashima of a Thousand Faces + Ravos, Soultender
Ravos is the only partner with an upkeep effect, in case you wanted to do Paradox Haze shenanigans (Sakashima/Ravos/PH out return four creatures every turn). WB give you the tutors for enchantments as well.

In the same color scheme, Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist can move around those nasty black curses (for PH doubling) if you pair him with Silas Renn, Seeker Adept.


EDIT: Also will add Tormod, the Desecrator + Ravos for some synergy friends.

[Mimicvat]

I really like some of these pairings. The above Sakashima of a Thousand Faces [/card]+ Ravos, Soultender [/card]seems strong and grindy but also very fair. I love creature decks but dislike how they fold to wraths so easily. The only issue is that I expect Sakashima to be a ton of money as it seems to be amongst the most popular of these partners right now.

Really impressed that the crappy giant has a role if you pair him with Jeska, Thrice Reborn . I have run a combo-focused mono red deck as my flagship deck for most of a decade. It's currently helmed by Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion but having this combo in the command zone is frikken sweet, the deck sacrifices stuff heaps to make the giant cheaper even without phyrexian altar and I adore any commander (or pair) that can one hit voltron. Seriously considering these as the new generals.

But the cake has to go to Krark, the Thumbless and, once again, Sakashima of a Thousand Faces. This is meme territory for red/blue spellslinger and has potential to let players run some of the traditional spellslinger cards (lightning bolt! fact or fiction) without having to go purely in the same direction as many other spellslingers (just copy big spells). Seems really interesting.

High hopes that maybe an interesting UG pair can come out of this set, since UG has always been a hard one to find something neat in IMO. Currently its still just more value stuff and then the weird salamander guy though...

[5colorsrainbow]

Eligeth, Crossroads Augur + Kodama of the East Tree. There is a number of creatures that ebt and scry and often a with an extra mana or two put on for the scry that let you get more from Kodama.

R/W Equipment/Auras:
Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist+Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh

Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith also work well.

[Cyberium]

I'm going to sound like a bad person, but my preorders involve me being able to play Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools and Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh so I can play Szat, play Rograkh, and then sacrifice the Kobold for 3 cards.

I think that's a brilliant idea. Rograkh is strangely versatile in that way. XD

[Zero_Origin]

Some other parings that stand out to me:

Malcolm Keen-Eyed Navigator+Dargo, the Shipwrecker

Numa, Joraga Chieftain+Nadier, Agent of the Duskenel

Ich-Tekik, Salvage Splicer+Keskit, the Flesh Sculptor

Glacian, Powerstone Engineer+Armix, Filligree Thrasher

Keleth, Sunmane Familiar+Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar

Akroma, Vision of Ixidor+Sakashima of a Thousand Faces (they each give each other the +5/+5 bonus, becoming 11/11's)

Eligeth, Crossroads Augur+Siani, Eye of the Storm

[Dragonlover]

Akroma, Vision of Ixidor+Sakashima of a Thousand Faces (they each give each other the +5/+5 bonus, becoming 11/11's)

Well, up until I read this I wasn't planning on building a new deck any time soon. Just spent several hours going through Scryfall culling out everything vaguely interesting that has keywords. Elected to ignore commons and uncommons however, as that would just lead to a load of draft chaff.

W/U beatdown here we come!

Dragonlover

[Gashnaw]

Sakashima is good with almost any partner though. If you have a guy that is good as a 1 of, saki adds Blue to it and gives you a second copy of said card.

I mean i am playing roga and Ardenn, adren really compliment Roga is a voltron deck. But had it not been for ardenn, i would have gone for the U/W bird partner. Just so i had artifact support.

[Mimicvat]

100% this^

I built Krark + Sakashima and its nuts, but then I realized that really anything with Sakashima is nuts especially if it has a scalable triggered ability on it.

Akroma, Vision of Ixidor + Sakashima seems super, duper legit. I have a derevi deck thats just fliers and counterspells with a concerted effort subtheme, it gets hated bad so looking at changing to this to get a concerted effort style effect in the command zone

[Gashnaw]

100% this^

I built Krark + Sakashima and its nuts, but then I realized that really anything with Sakashima is nuts especially if it has a scalable triggered ability on it.

Akroma, Vision of Ixidor + Sakashima seems super, duper legit. I have a derevi deck thats just fliers and counterspells with a concerted effort subtheme, it gets hated bad so looking at changing to this to get a concerted effort style effect in the command zone

I challenge someone to build a non-blue deck, with Sakishima as one of the commanders. I would also restrict akroma since she is the easiest one to go with.

[Sinis]

I challenge someone to build a non-blue deck, with Sakishima as one of the commanders. I would also restrict akroma since she is the easiest one to go with.

Do you mean Sakashima is the only blue card in it?

I don't think that'd be hard. In the other thread, someone mentioned Sakashima with Reyhan, Last of the Abzan, and Sakashima could easily be the only blue card in that deck. I also think you can just copy anything, especially Lieutenants. Loyal Guardian seems like it could be a great copy target, for example.