Top 10 Universal Pump Effects for Ellie, Brick Master and Joel, Resolute Survivor

<p style="text-align: right;"><em><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Michelangelo, the Heart" href="#" target="_blank">Michelangelo, the Heart</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | Art by <a href="https://www.artstation.com/nezt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Néstor Ossandón Leal</a></em></p>
<p>Hi, I'm <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/author/michael-celani" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Michael Celani</a>, and I think typed partners are stupid. Let me explain.</p>
<p>Recently, <em>Secret Lair x PlayStation </em>introduced <em>typed partner sets</em> to <em>Magic</em>, 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 <em>as long as</em> each you've selected share the same partner designator.<span id='easy-footnote-1-166993' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'></span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https://edhrec.com/articles/no-typed-partners-are-not-good-for-commander/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-166993' title='Commanders printed before this update and lacking a partner designator in their rules text still share their own typed partner set; it&#039;s just the unnamed, original, and largest one.'><sup>1</sup></a></span></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Joel, Resolute Survivor"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Atreus, Impulsive Son"></div></div>
<p>As an example, the characters from <em>The Last of Us </em>are <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Joel, Resolute Survivor" href="#" target="_blank">Survivors</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and thus can only partner up with other characters from <em>The Last of Us</em>, while the two characters from the <em>God of War</em> Secret Lair are <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Atreus, Impulsive Son" href="#" target="_blank">Father &amp; son</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and can only partner up with each other.</p>
<p>You can't mix the two groups up, no matter how badly you want to canonize your fanfiction.</p>
<h2>What's Old is New Again</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Wernog, Rider&#039;s Chaplain"></div></div>
<p>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 <em>nothing</em>. <em>Magic</em>'s done typed partner sets for <em>years;</em> it's just that, until now, they've always been called something else. They've never <em>truly</em> been the real deal.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Wernog, Rider&#039;s Chaplain|SLD|347" href="#" target="_blank">Friends forever</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is to civil unions as partner is to marriage, which is why <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Akroma, Vision of Ixidor" href="#" target="_blank">Akroma</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is confirmed the most homophobic commander.</p>
<p>Sure, there have been slight mechanical quibbles in the past that might have <em>in theory</em> warranted new keywords, but <em>all</em> of them amounted to solving the problem of enabling legal commander pairings from among two <em>disjointed </em>sets of cards — whether that be choosing a Background or finding the doctor a companion.<span id='easy-footnote-2-166993' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'></span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https://edhrec.com/articles/no-typed-partners-are-not-good-for-commander/#easy-footnote-bottom-2-166993' title='&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: 12pt;&quot;&gt;I don&#039;t even think that hurdle would be insurmountable with a more specific implementation of partner typing. It&#039;s just finding the right way to represent it on the card that&#039;s tricky.'><sup>2</sup></a></span></span></p>
<p>Even partner <em>with</em> is an example of typed partner sets; there may only be two options available, but a small set is still a set, dammit.</p>
<hr />
<h2>Where They Came From</h2>
<p>But why bother restricting partners in this manner at all? Well, it all starts back at the beginning, with a little set called <em><a href="https://edhrec.com/sets/c16" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Commander 2016</a>.</em></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Reyhan, Last of the Abzan"></div></div>
<p><em>Commander 2016 </em>hit the shelves running with a series of five unique face commanders: <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder" href="#" target="_blank">Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Saskia the Unyielding" href="#" target="_blank">Saskia the Unyielding</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis" href="#" target="_blank">Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Breya, Etherium Shaper" href="#" target="_blank">Breya, Etherium Shaper</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Atraxa, Praetors&#039; Voice" href="#" target="_blank">Atraxa, Praetors&#039; Voice</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<p>At this point in time, four-color commander decks weren't just rare, they were <em>impossible</em> to build. There simply weren't any legendary creatures in the game that had <em>almost</em> every color available to them; they all either capped out at three colors or pushed for the full five.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Kraum, Ludevic&#039;s Opus"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker"></div></div>
<p>The problem with introducing four-color legendary creatures in a commander set is that Commander decks have backup commanders, and creating <em>two </em>such cards with strangely specific color identities per deck <em>without</em> making them feel similar to one another is difficult.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>This decision is notable for being exclusively maligned.</p>
<h2>Why the Original Partners Were Busted</h2>
<p>It's easy to point to the partner mechanic itself as a problem, and when it came to the <em>Commander 2016</em> 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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Thrasios, Triton Hero"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Tymna the Weaver"></div></div>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Thrasios, Triton Hero" href="#" target="_blank">Thrasios, Triton Hero</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is absurdly busted on its own, to the point that the fact that you could add a <em>second</em> 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 <em>far</em> too many of the original fifteen fail this test.</p>
<p>In fact, for Thrasios in particular, Wizards tried that: version 2.0 is named <a href="https://commandersherald.com/breaking-new-simic-commander-lets-you-draw-a-card-and-play-an-extra-land/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><del>literally all of Simic</del></a> <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Gretchen Titchwillow" href="#" target="_blank">Gretchen Titchwillow</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and even <em>after</em> removing partner they <em>still</em> found the need to nerf the activated ability by adding color requirements.</p>
<hr />
<h2>A Problem That Didn't Exist</h2>
<p>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 <em>hate </em>this decision.<span id='easy-footnote-3-166993' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'></span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https://edhrec.com/articles/no-typed-partners-are-not-good-for-commander/#easy-footnote-bottom-3-166993' title='You might argue that partner with was actually designed as a limited mechanic for Battlebond, since playing one searches up the other from a target player&#039;s deck. This is true, but if they didn&#039;t want it to affect Commander, they could have named the mechanic something literally anything other than partner with and locked them out from sharing the command zone.'><sup>3</sup></a></span></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Gorm the Great"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Virtus the Veiled"></div></div>
<p>Just like how people blamed partner for the power of the <em>Commander 2016</em> commanders, people praised partner with for the benign nature of the <em>Battlebond </em>commanders (and all subsequent partner with commanders since). The <em>actual</em> 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.</p>
<p>Frankly, that's what they <em>should have</em> done in the first place.<span id='easy-footnote-4-166993' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'></span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https://edhrec.com/articles/no-typed-partners-are-not-good-for-commander/#easy-footnote-bottom-4-166993' title='This is actually the problem with eminence, too. If they provided simpler benefits, or a sidegrade to regular play instead of straight buffs, it would have been fine.'><sup>4</sup></a></span></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Alisaie Leveilleur"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Alphinaud Leveilleur"></div></div>
<p>Take a look at <a href="https://scryfall.com/search?q=o%3A%22partner+with%22+is%3Acommander&amp;unique=cards&amp;as=grid&amp;order=name" target="_blank" rel="noopener">all of the partner with commanders</a> printed since <em>Battlebond</em>. 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: <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Pako, Arcane Retriever" href="#" target="_blank">Pako</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Will Kenrith" href="#" target="_blank">Will</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ukkima, Stalking Shadow" href="#" target="_blank">Ukkima</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<hr />
<h2>The Way Forward</h2>
<p>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 <em>have</em> to be a safety valve they install every single time.</p>
<p>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 <em>Commander Legends</em> and added tons of new commanders to be used alongside the original <em>Commander 2016</em> designs — and, a few misfires aside, it was fine.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sakashima of a Thousand Faces"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Krark, the Thumbless"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Kodama of the East Tree"></div></div>
<p>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 <a href="https://edhrec.com/guides/edhrec-guide-to-commander-brackets" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Bracket system</a>.</p>
<p>If I don't get to play SpongeBob alongside <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer" href="#" target="_blank">Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> in the near future, I will be very sad.</p>
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No, Typed Partners Are Not Good For Commander