Some of Magic: The Gathering’s mechanics have been complete headscratchers. I have no idea how Companions ever passed playtesting, but I understand the idea behind it. Commanders are fun to play with, and adopting that idea to constructed formats could help bridge the gap between MTG microcommunities. All of that said, the execution massively failed, and it isn’t the first mechanic to do that, nor will it be the last.
Partner Commanders, offering players the ability to play multiple Commanders at once, also seriously missed the mark, ultimately creating a massive power outlier that would dominate cEDH. The mechanic was so powerful that it even got seriously nerfed in Duel Commander just to allow the cards back into the format.
Despite Partner being an obvious power outlier as far as Commander goes, it’s also a great device for unique and flavorful Commander partnerships when used responsibly. It’s a great, flavorful storytelling device, especially for Universes Beyond crossovers. The Partner mechanic has returned once again in the most recent round of Secret Lairs and, according to Head MTG Designer Mark Rosewater, it will continue to return using its most recent iteration.
The New Face of the MTG Partner Mechanic
Perhaps the biggest crossover that MTG’s Secret Lair has ever seen, an entire superdrop based around multiple Playstation IPs are on the way. This includes God of War and The Last of Us, where this new Father & Son, and Survivor Partner mechanics appear. While the Survival Partner Commander group connects four mechanically unique cards across two different Secret Lairs, Father & Son allows Kratos, Stoic Father and Atreus, Impulsive Son to synergistically and flavorfully work together in the Command Zone.
While the extra dose of flavor is appreciated, spawning an entire new mechanic spinoff for what was easily accomplishable within the game’s existing ones did raise some questions. As pointed out by Blazinjsin, Kratos and Atreus’s exclusive partnering could have been easily mechanically represented with the Partner With mechanic.
Not only would Partner With allow them to stick in the Command Zone together, but if you decide to play Kratos, Stoic Father, and Atreus, Impulsive Son in the 99, they would be able to search for one another on entry. This would make the duo much stronger in an Azlask, the Swelling Scourge Experience Counter Commander deck, for example.
After asking Mark Rosewater about the lack of Partner With for these Commanders, he revealed that this will become the new norm going forward. “It’s our new template for partner variants. They all start with “Partner —“ and then list the name of that variant.”
A Strong Trail of Bread Crumbs
While Mark Rosewater just officially announced this as the new face for Partner going forward, we’ve actually already been using it for some time. Stranger Things’s Friends Forever mechanic was the first time seeing a Partner mechanic like this, and its advantages over Partner With are demonstrated by it.
The mechanic’s main strength over its ‘Partner With’ variation lies in its scalable versatility. These Partner Commanders aren’t limited to only one option, but can Partner with all kinds of different characters that share the same grouping. We now know that revisiting IPs, even years after the first launch, is possible in MTG. This could allow new Survivor Partners for future mechanically unique The Last of Us cards, for example. We already see four mechanically unique cards that work together across two different Secret Lairs.
This hints that a lot more Universes Beyond Commanders could be on their way. At the time of writing, this mechanic, and ones similar to it like Doctor’s Companion, have only been used to flavorfully represent Universes Beyond characters appearing in Magic. This being the new Partner mechanic going forward suggests that there’s going to be a lot of Universes Beyond cards designed to see play in the Command Zone.
There is a beneficial side effect to all this, however, and that’s keeping the original Partner power outlier in check. Anyone who follows the cEDH metagame knows that Partner Commanders are, by far, the best Commanders in Magic: The Gathering from a power level perspective. Even if new Partner Commanders aren’t very powerful, their color identities could allow the current Partner decks to become even more flexible than they already are. The last thing we need is for the dominant Partner strategy to become even stronger than its competition.
For the most part, the new Partner groupings are better than the old Partner With mechanic, but there is one big exception. Outside of the Command Zone, Partner With Commander cards are strictly better in the 99. Being able to tutor for other Partner With cards gives these Legendary creatures a lot more play, ultimately allowing the user to demonstrate their synergies consistently even outside of the Command Zone. This leads to a major flaw with the new system.
Say you draw Atreus, Impulsive Son, and daddy Kratos is nowhere in sight. Atreus’s activated ability becomes an extremely overcosted Shock to an opponent’s face if there’s no Experience Counters on the player using it. With the ‘Partner With’ mechanic, Atreus can find Kratos on entry, and start to get the Experience Counters rolling.
A Case for Both Parts
In positions where the new Partner grouping is only going to be used for two characters, making a grouping with them instead of just using the Partner With mechanic makes them strictly weaker. Father & Son is a rather specific name for a Partner grouping, which might make it difficult to add new cards to the group, at least in a way where it doesn’t fail flavorfully. If Wizards of the Coast were only expecting to use two Partners, using the new mechanic would be a disservice to the cards.
Fortunately, it’s unlikely that the Partner With mechanic is leaving for good. We recently received two new Universes Beyond characters using the Partner With mechanic in Final Fantasy. Alisaie and Alphinaud Leveilleur were unable to function as the Commanders for the Scions & Spellcraft precon they appeared in, and were created with their functionality in the 99. This suggests that there are still room for cards like this, even if they aren’t the focus in the forseeable future.
All in all, the new Partner groupings mechanic is a solid way to continue releasing flavorful and mechanically interesting partnerships without exascerbating the Partner problem that already exists in Commander. While some players may not like what it hints for the game’s future, this is ultiamtely a positive change, at least from a mechanical perspective.
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