Michelangelo, the HeartMichelangelo, the Heart | Art by Néstor Ossandón Leal

Hi, I'm Michael Celani, and I think typed partners are stupid. Let me explain.

Recently, Secret Lair x PlayStation introduced typed partner sets to Magic, which is a mechanical update to to the partner keyword that lets the designers enforce more granular restrictions on which legendary creatures can share the command zone. Now, you may designate up to two legendary creatures with partner as your commanders as long as each you've selected share the same partner designator.1

As an example, the characters from The Last of Us are SurvivorsSurvivors, and thus can only partner up with other characters from The Last of Us, while the two characters from the God of War Secret Lair are Father & sonFather & son and can only partner up with each other.

You can't mix the two groups up, no matter how badly you want to canonize your fanfiction.

What's Old is New Again

On the surface, this is a smart, precise change that allows Wizards to manage subsets of legal commander pairings without having to nanny the Comprehensive Rules. In practical gameplay terms, this update means nothing. Magic's done typed partner sets for years; it's just that, until now, they've always been called something else. They've never truly been the real deal.

Friends foreverFriends forever is to civil unions as partner is to marriage, which is why AkromaAkroma is confirmed the most homophobic commander.

Sure, there have been slight mechanical quibbles in the past that might have in theory warranted new keywords, but all of them amounted to solving the problem of enabling legal commander pairings from among two disjointed sets of cards — whether that be choosing a Background or finding the doctor a companion.2

Even partner with is an example of typed partner sets; there may only be two options available, but a small set is still a set, dammit.

Where They Came From

But why bother restricting partners in this manner at all? Well, it all starts back at the beginning, with a little set called Commander 2016.

Commander 2016 hit the shelves running with a series of five unique face commanders: Yidris, Maelstrom WielderYidris, Maelstrom Wielder, Saskia the UnyieldingSaskia the Unyielding, Kynaios and Tiro of MeletisKynaios and Tiro of Meletis, Breya, Etherium ShaperBreya, Etherium Shaper, and Atraxa, Praetors' VoiceAtraxa, Praetors' Voice.

At this point in time, four-color commander decks weren't just rare, they were impossible to build. There simply weren't any legendary creatures in the game that had almost every color available to them; they all either capped out at three colors or pushed for the full five.

The problem with introducing four-color legendary creatures in a commander set is that Commander decks have backup commanders, and creating two such cards with strangely specific color identities per deck without making them feel similar to one another is difficult.

Instead, Wizards created the original partners. They were all two colors, so you could mix and match them to create a variety of color identities.

This decision is notable for being exclusively maligned.

Why the Original Partners Were Busted

It's easy to point to the partner mechanic itself as a problem, and when it came to the Commander 2016 set, that's what people did. You could start a game with eight cards! You could build almost any color identity you want! Four-color generic good-stuff decks abound!

These reasons all contribute, sure, but they're a scapegoat distracting from the true issue. No, the actual problem with the original partners was that all of them were too powerful on the face of it.

Thrasios, Triton HeroThrasios, Triton Hero is absurdly busted on its own, to the point that the fact that you could add a second commander to your deck almost doesn't matter. A simple test to apply to these original partners is: "If they didn't have partner, would they still be playable as a standalone general?" If the answer is yes, it probably shouldn't have partner, and far too many of the original fifteen fail this test.

In fact, for Thrasios in particular, Wizards tried that: version 2.0 is named literally all of Simic Gretchen TitchwillowGretchen Titchwillow, and even after removing partner they still found the need to nerf the activated ability by adding color requirements.

A Problem That Didn't Exist

Wizards overcorrected for the partner problem in the wrong way multiple times. First, by simply not touching the damn thing. They didn't revisit partner until 2018. When they did, their second mistake was that partner with limited commanders to specific pairs instead of adding to the general population, and I hate this decision.3

Just like how people blamed partner for the power of the Commander 2016 commanders, people praised partner with for the benign nature of the Battlebond commanders (and all subsequent partner with commanders since). The actual reason they work is that Wizards, in general, intentionally made the partner with commanders less powerful to compensate for the additional card in the command zone.

Frankly, that's what they should have done in the first place.4

Take a look at all of the partner with commanders printed since Battlebond. How many of them become a bigger issue than they already are if they were added into the general partner population? By my count, only three: PakoPako, WillWill, and UkkimaUkkima.

Many of these commanders could have been released into the general partner population with no problems whatsoever. You're just taking away customization for no real reason.

The Way Forward

So why does this matter? I think Wizards should seriously consider using fewer typed partner sets going forward. They have their place, sure, but limiting player choice in this way doesn't have to be a safety valve they install every single time.

Be more adventurous with the original partner group! The context of each release should naturally guide casual players to the intended partner pairings, while allowing more experienced players to experiment with their own builds. As evidence, consider that Wizards eventually revisited the original partner mechanic in Commander Legends and added tons of new commanders to be used alongside the original Commander 2016 designs — and, a few misfires aside, it was fine.

Partner can be a fun way to create unique decks with fun play patterns. Simply keep the power level low in each individual commander. Even if you accidentally slip up and create a two-card combo in the command zone, players can solve that problem with social interaction and the Bracket system.

If I don't get to play SpongeBob alongside Owen Grady, Raptor TrainerOwen Grady, Raptor Trainer in the near future, I will be very sad.

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