Commander Legends- partner/backgrounds and future sets

[5colorsrainbow]

As we all are familiar commander is the most popular and best selling format and commander legends 1 was considered a success even with covid keeping most people from in person drafts. While power level is lower I think CL: Battle for Baldur's Gate will likey sell well due to the formats popularity and the people getting to do a commander draft when they likey didn't get to have before. So I think it's likey we will see a third commander legends at some point (though maybe not so soon as one of the pushes for CL2 was covid keeping people from drafting CL1) as well as few after that.

So my question is what should they do for a helper mechanic (partner and backrounds) to make sure you have legend(s) who you can draft around and have the right colors? Just some of my thought;

More partner- so the first option that works at first glance is partner since how well it was used in CL1. It both works great as a draft mechanic for commander drafting and adds more flexibility with the older partners and gives a range of effects and deck making. The problem is balancing issues as the more partners they make the more it's harder to balance and risk something over powering or a banning. Personally after CL1 having pretty okay powered partners and how a lot of the power issues stem from the two color partners I have a bit of trust that more mono colored partners might be safe for a another set or two.

Reprinting partners- an option is to have most of not all of the future sets to just reprint partners. A very safe option for less risk of making something broken it gets boring and would start the sets feeling very similar.

New partner- as seen with the stranger things secret lair having friends forever they are willing to make new a new version of partner. The big issues with this is the "why can't this be partner" question hanging over the cards, the fact it doesn't add much new design or play styles, not as much value with past cards in the format and has the same repeatability issues partner would have with more sets. The benefit is all the pros of partner, not having as big of a pool to balance right off and a more balanced pool of cards to mix and match with with no two color ones. While boring I do think having a smaller pool they can balance more around might end up the simplest answer to the balancing issues partners presents.

Something new- Backround for this set are similar to partner but are enchantments that gives abilities to commanders which has a different play style and flavor feel from partners that feels like customizing a single creature vs two creatures teaming up. This imo ended up great since it feels like a few thing without the risk of partner balancing. So another thought is they could always try to figure out new ways of making a partner like mechanic. There are other formats they do something similar and it would add something kinda new to commander each time while feeling new with the sets themselves, I personally this idea the best but I'm not sure now much design space there is.

And final thought overall is that CL sets are gonna be tricky to make more of and I'm not sure many set they can make of commander drafting. That said outside of master sets and unsets they haven't made too many side set of the same "brand" so this isn't unusual for side sets. But wanted to see what other people thought as I do have a melvin side and enjoyed the CL sets both from a set design perspective and for getting some fun commander stuff through them.

[Dunharrow]

I think partners and backgrounds are not risky for balancing purposes, as long as they are monocolor. The issue with the original partners were all the 4 color goodstuff decks. And also how aggressively costed they were (the good ones).

I think they can also do the background thing with artifacts (maybe equipment?), and instants/sorceries.

I am sure they will continue making CL products for many years. Maybe in 5 years they will start running into trouble? Maybe. They can always make a generic 5 color legendary creature at common.

And of course they can do reprints eventually too.

The other thing they can consider is something like :

Rock Puppy
Legendary Artifact Creature
Rock Puppy has partner and grants partner to any legal commander
If Rock Puppy your commander, choose a color before the game begins. Rock Puppy is the chosen color.
0/1

just something generic, useless, and that can be partnered to any commander.
Though I guess it lets you add a color to any existing commander, which may be bad. wouldn't mind adding red to Glissa, the Traitor though.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I wish they could figure out a way to make a commander draft without the stupid 2 commander gimmicks. Maybe a better grade of manafixing at uncommon/uncommon would be needed (like ravnica 1 limited with signets, bouncelands, and the odd shockland or like Alara with uncommon trilands and various panoramas) but jesus, I really dislike everything besides 1 Legendary Creature in the CZ. No planewalkers, no partner, nothing

[Dunharrow]

I wish they could figure out a way to make a commander draft without the stupid 2 commander gimmicks. Maybe a better grade of manafixing at uncommon/uncommon would be needed (like ravnica 1 limited with signets, bouncelands, and the odd shockland or like Alara with uncommon trilands and various panoramas) but jesus, I really dislike everything besides 1 Legendary Creature in the CZ. No planewalkers, no partner, nothing

I have done commander drafts like that, and you basically get locked into your colors very early. It is not great for drafting.

Maybe they can do some monocolor legends with hybrid activated abilities that would effectively make them 3 colors and make it easier for you to pivot between two draft archetypes. Cards like Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and Tasigur, the Golden Fang.
And then they could make one where you pick three colors to make sure you always have a general for the deck you draft.

[5colorsrainbow]

I wish they could figure out a way to make a commander draft without the stupid 2 commander gimmicks. Maybe a better grade of manafixing at uncommon/uncommon would be needed (like ravnica 1 limited with signets, bouncelands, and the odd shockland or like Alara with uncommon trilands and various panoramas) but jesus, I really dislike everything besides 1 Legendary Creature in the CZ. No planewalkers, no partner, nothing

The issues isn't mana fixing it's the fact in commander drafting your deck has to follow color identity and the partner/backrounds mix and match nature lets you have some flexibility in what you can draft. A green/white legend locks you into green/white while a green partner card can be the commander of five different color combos and with Prismatic Piper and Faceless One your very likely to at least one other legend for it to pair up with to get the colors for your draft pool. Otherwise as Dunharrow said you get locked in early and it sucks when drafting.

And now you say it planeswalker draft commander sounds fun, I'd love me War of the Spark meets Commander Legends. Wanderer and Yanggu can finally team up with their dogs!

I wish they could figure out a way to make a commander draft without the stupid 2 commander gimmicks. Maybe a better grade of manafixing at uncommon/uncommon would be needed (like ravnica 1 limited with signets, bouncelands, and the odd shockland or like Alara with uncommon trilands and various panoramas) but jesus, I really dislike everything besides 1 Legendary Creature in the CZ. No planewalkers, no partner, nothing

I have done commander drafts like that, and you basically get locked into your colors very early. It is not great for drafting.

Maybe they can do some monocolor legends with hybrid activated abilities that would effectively make them 3 colors and make it easier for you to pivot between two draft archetypes. Cards like Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and Tasigur, the Golden Fang.
And then they could make one where you pick three colors to make sure you always have a general for the deck you draft.

Issue is current color identity rules would lock out being able to use hybrid as effectively like how this was done in Tarkir. Commander wise it be great but if you had a high amount of hybrid you lose being able to use those cards in the 59/58 of other deck and makes drafting a lot harder if you had too many.

[Serenade]

Use the Jorn, God of Winter // Kaldring, the Rimestaff model to get three colors on a legend but not require three colors to cast?

[Cyberium]

Backgrounds can be in your 99 to help modify non-Baldur commanders, while doubling their effects with partner commanders, I'd think it's trickier to design them than partners at times.

[DirkGently]

Another option for draft flexibility without a second commander would be to model it like Thriving Heath, where you get to choose your commanders second color.

I do agree about being locked in making drafting boring. Having tried it once with my own cube.

[Legend]

I posted an idea awhile back.
viewtopic.php?t=38688

[5colorsrainbow]

Another option for draft flexibility without a second commander would be to model it like Thriving Heath, where you get to choose your commanders second color.

I do agree about being locked in making drafting boring. Having tried it once with my own cube.

I feel like then you just get a bunch of mono color designs that would feel weird being in charge of two color decks. Which isn't bad per say but not sure about how exciting it could be to build around.

[3drinks]

In Cube, we just say "all legends have partner" which makes for some absurd combinations...but since it's Cube, you can easily curate the contents to throttle the power level. Can't do that in an official product though for obvious reasons.