The History of Partner Mechanics in Magic

In 2016, after six years of official Commander support and yearly Commander precons, Wizards decided to experiment with the very fabric of the format. In addition to the game's first four-color legendary creatures, Commander 2016 introduced the Partner mechanic, which may be one of the biggest and most influential additions to the format in the last decade. This is the story of Partner and the many mechanics that have built off it since its inception.

As a mechanic, Partner is incredibly simple. It is a keyword that allows players to have two commanders if both have Partner, with the deck's color identity being a combination of the pair's identities. The first round of Partner commanders were fifteen two-color legends that were included as back-up commanders in the precons, allowing players to mix and match them for more customizable decks. These first few partner commanders varied wildly in power level. Some were narrow build-arounds like Reyhan, Last of the Abzan or Silas Renn, Seeker Adept, but others offered generic value engines like Tymna the Weaver, Kraum, Ludevic's Opus, and Thrasios, Triton Hero.

This first round of Partner commanders was an interesting experiment and was generally received well but had a few issues in the higher echelons of competitive Commander and several community formats like Tiny Leaders. For one, when playing EDH, your commander essentially gives you an extra card in your hand, so Partners had the inherent advantage of giving players a second extra card from the start. This slight advantage may not seem like much, but at a competitive level players take every little bit they can get. They also gave decks access to a lot of colors, and even if you only intended to play one commander consistently, you could tack a partner on just for the colors. This flexibility led to the rise of three- and four-color piles helmed by pairings like Tymna/Thrasios and Tymna/Tana in CEDH, where you could have access to both a card draw engine and an infinite mana outlet at all times from the command zone.

Despite having a few power level outliers in CEDH, the Partner mechanic proved to be quite popular, and it wouldn't take long for Wizards to begin experimenting with it further. In 2018, Battlebond introduced a variant called Partner With, which fixed one of the biggest issues of the mechanic by limiting the number of possible combinations. Cards with Partner With came in set pairs, where playing one card in the pair let you search your library for the other. If both cards in the pair were legendary, they could also share the command zone. This "fixed" version of Partner was a fantastic compromise and allowed for cool designs without any clear power-level outliers. Partner With would return several times over the next few years, usually in Commander precons like those for Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, Innistrad: Crimson Vow, and the Lord of the Rings.

In 2020, for the first Commander Legends set, Wizards once again experimented with Partner, bringing back the mechanic as it was in 2019 but with a small twist. For this set, 41 new commanders were printed with the partner mechanic at all rarities except common, and these new commanders were just one color rather than two. These new Partner cards were well-received, making Limited more varied and allowing for even more combinations in Constructed Commander. There were a few that proved to be stronger than others, with Rograkh, Malcolm, Krark, and Sakashima finding lasting homes in CEDH, but for the most part these new Commanders were fun and well-balanced.

In 2021, Wizards would introduce yet another variant of Partner in the form of Friends Forever, which was featured on many of the new legends printed in the Stranger Things Secret Lair. This mechanic was essentially Partner by only with other Friends Forever cards, allowing that set of cards to partner only with each other. This concept of cards only being able to partner with other cards in a certain batch would return in 2022 with the release of Battle for Baldur's Gate. This set introduced backgrounds, legendary enchantments that could be paired with legendary creatures if those creatures sported the "Choose a Background" line of text. What made backgrounds so interesting was that instead of providing a static effect if they were on the board, almost all of them also required your commander to be on the board as well, typically by only granting your commander certain abilities. These pairings made for fun draft and constructed experiences and matched the flavor of Dungeons and Dragons very well, and although they weren't as highly regarded at the time many players look back on this mechanic, as well as the set overall, very fondly.

While the Friends Forever mechanic has yet to return, a very similar mechanic was introduced in another Universes Beyond set, this time in 2023's Doctor Who. This set introduced Doctor's Companion, which allows you to play a second commander as long as one of your commanders has the Time Lord and Doctor creature types and the other has Doctor's Companion. Like Friends Forever, this is a spin on Partner that limits the number of potential pairings, with 17 potential doctors and 28 potential companions. This was the most recent new take on Partner, but it surely won't be the last as WOTC continues to experiment with giving players multiple commanders.