MTG Salvation

What does everyone think of the new commanders with Partner as one of the ways that WotC "solved" the 4-color commander problem? Does this seem like a good way to go about solving what was bound to be a difficult problem to solve no matter what? Or does this feel a bit like a 'cop out'? And if you didn't know that this was created as a way to do "4-color" commanders specifically, would you have enjoyed the mechanic more? or less?

The reason I ask is that my initial reaction was "Seriously? THAT is your solution to making 4-color commanders?!?" But after thinking about it for a minute, I began to think just how cool it could be to actually have two commander options. To be able to play "off-color" splash cards with one primary commander with Partner paired up with another partner for the sake of color identity is one way to go (especially if the thought of a full 4-color mana base scares people), but I think that it will be really interesting to see what kinds of effects we get on Partner commanders as the ability to team them up goes beyond just color identity. If certain pairs of commanders end up being highly synergistic, this would enable all sorts of cool shenanigans.

So I guess that as a solution to "4-color", I found the mechanic severely lacking, but overall as a stand-alone mechanic I think that it has a lot of promise (especially seeing that we are going to have 3 per deck or 15 total to choose from).

Anyway, I'm sure that these cards are bound to stir up quite the emotional response, so I'm curious as to what the reaction is from other players.

I think it's great and way, way, way too early to complain.

I like it. I was wary of 4C options losing their identities, and the lone one that's been spoiled so far looks like that's the case to me. Partner seems like a way to give us cards that still feel individually coherent as well as 4C decks. I also appreciate how many options we're getting across 15 different partner commanders. A color combo like UWR that was previously pretty restricted is getting 4 new options with this set through different partner combos. The people who don't care about 4C are still getting a fair amount of love here.

I think people have a strangely skewed perspective on what constitutes an "Easy way out".

Someone was saying in a rumor mill thread that they thought Partner was a cop out when there's plenty of design space for activated abilities and such and that they should have tried harder, basically. They went on to describe a design which was just slapping a color on a guildmage. I don't understand how partner, which requires a complicated mesh of synergies between cards and creates lots of design space to work with is lazier than stapling activated abilities on cards. They didn't do partner because it was easier, they did partner because it was what worked. They put blood and sweat into trying to make traditional 4 color legends and weren't satisfied so they found something else; that's not lazy, that's perfectionist and the opposite of lazy. [/rant]

Anyway, I think it's a fantastic mechanic that has a massive amount of design space to work with, which is why I was playing around with it after guessing that it could be the "Solution" MaRo mentioned. (Particularly once it was revealed there would be 4 foil commanders per deck) It creates new general options for 4 color, tri color, and even dual color to a limited extent. Lazy is often a misnomer for elegant in my experience, and this is a very elegant and simple design. To quote Futurama "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.”

The thing I like so much about what we've seen so far is that many partner designs wants to be a color that it isn't.
- Vial Smasher wants to be blue because of things like Delve and other blue cards that play around expensive costs, as well as big splashy instants.
- Kydele wants to be red because that's where the most efficient wheel effects are, and black because she wants to play things like Leovold and Nekusar.
- Sidar Kondo wants to be blue for access to cheap low-power fliers, especially low power creatures that do things upon dealing combat damage.
- Silas Renn wants to be red or white to compliment his artifact theme and give him access to double strike.

In my mind, it solves the problem that 4 color creatures are hard to have an identity. If you instead branch it into two legends in your command zone you can customize your colors and each of your pair of legends has a colorful on color setup to them.

I almost wish we didn't have anything that was actually 4 colors and instead just did another 5 pair legends. My assumption when I heard about this product was that I was going to hate every legend because they would turn out how Atraxa, Praetors' Voice turned out. I have found however that I am very open to the Partner idea and I am looking forward to seeing the rest of them.

I'm very happy for the amount of creative space opened up by being able to mix-and-match different partner commanders to get exactly the right combination of colors and synergies for a deck you want to build but don't have an existing commander for.

Personally I'm not a fan of what they did here. I was looking forward to having 4 actual 4 color options that would only work in 4 or 5 color decks. What it looks like we are gonna get is 10 legendary creatures that you can use to make 3 color decks or that will fit into 2 or 3 color decks. We already have way too many options for those deck types. I was looking for something creative that still made you play the new commanders in 4 or 5 color decks.

So from that perspective only, yes I feel like its a cop-out.

I have reservations about it, but overall I think it is a fun mechanic. The deckbuilding possibilities look fun already.

I like it a lot; it encourages trading and experimentation, which is a huge plus for me. Also they are making a 4 color 'group-thug' deck, which makes me happy.

I understand that it is a particularly elegant solution to a difficult problem. It solves 4 color cards as well as creating an absurd number of "potential generals" with the mix and match nature. In that way, I'm impressed.

My personal reaction is much more negative. I don't like the idea of two separate commanders that both play by their own rules (general tax and commander damage) but still combine to open up more colors for you to play. I suspect I'm going to get extremely tired of seeing the best handful of stand-alone partners get pair together for color reasons instead of seeing interesting pairings that mechanically work together.

Not to mention Anax and Cymede and Gisa and Geralf got absolutely shafted.

I hope they retroactively make Brothers Yamazaki partners.

I look forward to trying them out. Individually they all look pretty dull but hopefully 2 dull generals can turn into an interesting deck.

I like the "build your own 4 color commander" aspect of it, though I am upset that the red blue one still has nothing to do with artifacts.

I love the new Partner mechanic, I hope WOTC errata's a bunch of old legends to have Partner.

I think it's pretty sweet, but, I'm kind of sad we'll probably only get these 10 and they probably won't make more Partner commanders for a long time.

IMO a very cool mechanic. Mix and match will be a huge amount of fun.

It's both, I say. The partner mechanic ain't exactly brilliant, but it's elegant and gives us a whole heap of new options.

Quote from Sinis »

I think it's pretty sweet, but, I'm kind of sad we'll probably only get these 10 and they probably won't make more Partner commanders for a long time.

IMO a very cool mechanic. Mix and match will be a huge amount of fun.

We're actually getting 15, which is nice.

If it is well received I imagine it might get revisited in a few years.

Quote from Sinis »

I think it's pretty sweet, but, I'm kind of sad we'll probably only get these 10 and they probably won't make more Partner commanders for a long time.

We're getting 15. Five allied pairs and ten enemy pairs. General breakdown in each deck is one mythic 4C, one mythic allied 2C partner, one mythic enemy 2C partner, and one rare enemy 2C partner.

Source

Quote from Deep_Woods »

I hope they retroactively make Brothers Yamazaki partners.

I look forward to trying them out. Individually they all look pretty dull but hopefully 2 dull generals can turn into an interesting deck.

Now you're making me curious what the comp rules look like, because doubling these up would be hilarious.

EDIT: Matt Tabak pointed out I'm a friggin' idiot.

I think the partner keyword is sweet. Unfortunately, I doubt we will see more. I would have made it were they could have partnered with any legendary, but that might have been broken.

Quote from Weebo »

I like it. I was wary of 4C options losing their identities, and the lone one that's been spoiled so far looks like that's the case to me. Partner seems like a way to give us cards that still feel individually coherent as well as 4C decks. I also appreciate how many options we're getting across 15 different partner commanders. A color combo like UWR that was previously pretty restricted is getting 4 new options with this set through different partner combos. The people who don't care about 4C are still getting a fair amount of love here.

UWR actually has a lot more than 4 new options, it has:
ur (x2) + rw (x2) = 4 options
ur (x2) + uw = 2 options
rw (x2) + uw = 2 options
so a total of 8 options. All the wedges have 8 combinations, all the shards have 5.

As far as the mechanic - I thought odds were slim they'd do 2-4 straight-up 4 color commanders for each combination. One cycle is probably plenty (although I am sad they didn't errata the nephilim). The mechanic itself I think is very cool, although so far most of them aren't super thrilling to me as their abilities are rather basic. But then, just HAVING an additional commander gives you a lot of added complexity, so it's probably for the best.

Sidar is a little too vanilla, although it's fun how he makes your opponents easier to attack than you. I just don't think he's splashy enough, though.
bruse is another double-strike RW commander, so similar to the one we just got last year. Big meh imo.
Kraum seems powerful, but hard to strategize around. He's fine as a support but seems goodstuffy to me, hard to build around, although I think he'll play well.
Silas Renn is my favorite so far, obviously lends himself to voltron but has room to do other cool stuff.
kydele is an interesting design that doesn't interest me to actually build. Much like UG as a whole.
vial smasher the fierce is annoying for the random clause. And the player-only clause. I suspect I won't like much about the "random!" deck.

Quote from Deep_Woods »

I hope they retroactively make Brothers Yamazaki partners.

I look forward to trying them out. Individually they all look pretty dull but hopefully 2 dull generals can turn into an interesting deck.

Even if they did make yamazaki partners (which they won't do) you still can only have 1 per deck. So then they need an additional errata. And after all that, they're still hot trash to actually play with, being bad vanilla beaters. Never gonna happen, cute as it would be. And 0% chance of adding partner to any other existing legends.

With the current spoilers I'm not exactly sold on any synergy that makes me want to build anything.

It feels like an awkward attempt to appeal to the double-commander variant.


IMO, if there is not some obviously broken pair, or very good partner specific enablers that are not tethered to the legendary creature itself, it will most likely be a soon-forgotten gimmick that very few people realistically care about.

The pairs of enemy-colored partners are supposed to be connected to each other, so I'd expect those pairings will have the most direct synergy with one another (at the cost of only having two colors, of course). With Kraum's ability, I'd expect Ludevic to be something in the vein of Nekusar to have synergy with one another (and to complement the theme of the "group hug" deck). Not sure who or what will pair with Kydele, and I'm assuming Bruse will have some sort of beefy Ox to order around.

What I like about partner is that you can also still use them as a stand alone commadlnder in a two color deck. Izzet now has a non wizard legend.

But I saw this coming. Too obvious.

Thinking more on the mechanic, if they make same-color, or mono-colored partners, I would be pretty interested. For example if they made a mono-blue Ludevic wizard legendary to go with his creation, or some colorless legendary etherium-artifact creature for Silas.. That flavor would be a win for me.

I hope each pre-con will have than one 4 color identities legendaries,
but I think partner is fun.
I want to ask the others in the play group, can we have a house rule which is the same of Partner,
lots of combinations