A Wooded Landscape by Meindert Hobbema (1660). Ghave by James Paick.
In 2016 we saw the introduction of Partners into the game of Commander. We can now have two legendary creatures share the command zone, provided they have the Partners keyword on them. Wizards of the Coast created 15 new 2-color legendary creatures for us to use in this way.
The thing I probably love more than anything else about Commander is the incredible diversity there is in our format. Competitive EDH is a different matter, but casual mid-range play sees an incredible range of viable decks that can be fun to play and even have a chance at winning the occasional game. You can discover weird old cards from weird old sets that nobody else would play and few would even know about, and you can build decks that are yours and yours alone. Your "pet cards" might make the deck objectively worse, but they also make it unquestionably yours, and that matters.
Fifteen partners means 105 possible combinations of legendaries you can put in the command zone.
I got it in my head that there were going to be some amazing combinations and that I was going to find one or two to run in a deck.
My first step was to print out proxies. I printed them all out at roughly 3.5" x 2", cut it down, sprayed them with spray-mount adhesive and stuck them onto some crummy commons I was never going to use. I sleeved 'em up and carried them around with me for days so I could look at them, think about different pairings and figure out what I was going to go with.
There were lots of combinations that made little to no sense, and there were others that didn't appeal to play styles I enjoy. There were two partner combinations, however, that sparked my interest.
Naya Tokens
I have a Mayael the Anima deck and love it. Cheating big dumb creatures into play with her ability and having big dumb battles with my big dumb monsters is just too much fun. I have played decks that run low and wide, but after a few too many encounters with Elesh Norn, I moved away from that approach and hadn't revisited it in a while. Then I met Sidar & Tana.
Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa
Flanking. Creatures your opponents control without Flying or Reach can't block creatures power 2 or less.
I'm not sure where Jamuraaa is, but every time I cast Sidar Kondo of Jamuraaaa, I have the urge to say Jamuraaaaa with just a little more emphasis on the last letter in Jamuraaaaaa because if two letter a's is better than one, why stop at just two? Jamuraaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
All kidding aside, if you're going to run low to the ground, you might as well have a way to get your damage through. Sidar is does that and does that well.
Tana, the Bloodsower
Trample. Whenever Tana deals combat damage to a player, create that many 1/1 green saproling creatures.
Tana is less important, but having a guaranteed token generator early game is actually a fantastic first step in the Tana-Sidar one-two punch. Play Tana. Next turn play Sidar, swing with Tana and now you have two saproling blockers! Even if your opening hand only has mana and random stuff that doesn't help the overall strategy, you can still start and know that your early game is probably going to go smoothly. Nobody will look at you as a huge threat and you will probably get rolling and safely reach mid-game.
Getting in Under the Door
I have learned to love combat tricks. It is just too much fun to surprise your opponent with some weird instant that you can spring on them that turns a bad situation into a good one, or a good situation into a win. Playing like this is not only fun, it allows you to not present an obvious threat and as a result, avoid some of the hate that folks playing Eldrazi and other huge threats will rightly have to deal with.
Playing instants like Trumpet Blast, and Inspired Charge on a wide enough board that is unblockable can turn a 10 damage swing into a 30 damage gut punch. A spell like Rally the Peasants, when played for its cost and flashback cost in the same turn has allowed me to hit an Oloro player with 9 creatures for 45 damage.
Creatures like Mirror Entity are fantastic in this deck as well, as you can pump your creatures at instant speed and in the late stage of an EDH game it is relatively easy to have 10 mana available when you're playing green. Sunhome Guildmage will let you pump at instant speed, and Elder of Laurels will also help out, though he only pumps a single creature.
The key is that your creatures have to be power 2 or less. You have to be small enough to get in under that closed door and then, once blockers have been declared but before damage is assessed, you blow them up so you're actually doing real damage.
Dealing with Flyers
So what do you do if they've got flyers?
Maybe you're faced with a dragons or bird tribal deck, and your clever plans are feeling a little less clever.
Just draw into Bower Passage or Dense Canopy and you're all set.
As for the damage those dragons, sphinxes, birds or other big flying threats are going to do - that's why I run a bunch of fog effects. It's not a foolproof plan, and I should probably invest in a Silklash Spider for the deck, but so far it hasn't been too much of a problem.
Keeping the Token Train Rolling
Tana is a great token generator, but you're going to win you need to have other ways to generate tokens beyond just Tana.
Spawnwrithe is utterly and completely busted in this deck, and if you get it in your opening hand and it lasts even a few turns your opponents will need to boardwipe or die. Every time this elemental does combat damage to a player, you get another Spawnwrithe. If you get to four Spawnwrithes and Sidar is out, you're going to have a hard time not winning. If you can give it double-strike, that's just magical Christmasland, Sidar & Tana style, as you'll be getting twice the creatures.
Other token generators, such as Jade Mage, Dragonlair Spider, Oviya Pashiri and Selesnya Guildmage are important as well, though not as game-breaking as Spawnwrithe. I'm sure there are good ones I've missed, but more than anything you have to have some backup in case Tana is getting countered or bounced and you can't keep her in play.
Abusing the Situation
So you've got the ability to make tokens and you're able to pretty much guarantee that you can get them through and do damage. You may even have ways to make them bigger at instant speed. To round out our deck we need to add in way to abuse that easy damage and do truly horrible things to our opponents.
We aren't in the right colors to make 1/1 assassins with Vraska, and we can't run Master of Cruelties, but there are some things we can throw in to hit really hard even if we only have one little saproling on the field.
Scytheclaw and Quietus Spike are equipment that will reduce a player's life total by half when you do combat damage to them. Oloro players can get out of control sometimes. This will help with that. Even if you think your weenies won't ever be able to keep up with an opponent's life gain, you'll have in your deck an answer to that particular challenge.
With cards available to us from the beginning of Magic all the way up to the current sets, it would be shortsighted not to look at what other tricks we can pull with a near-guaranteed ability to get damage through. Centaur Rootcaster is an obscure old card that will help you ramp every time he hits a player. Relic Seeker will let you go get that Spike or Scytheclaw. Grenzo, Havoc Raiser is full of options, though I suspect I'll never be able to resist the ability to goad my opponent's creatures - that sounds like too much fun. Putting Destructive Urge on a saproling early game will go a long way towards keeping an opponent from establishing enough of a manabase to pose too much of a threat.
Results So Far
This deck will fold against certain strategies and commanders. I know it will have a hard time with Elesh Norn. That said - as of this writing my Naya Partners deck has won the past 4 games it has played in. Normally I consider myself lucky to win a quarter of my games, so this is uncharted territory for me. I think maybe, just maybe I have built a really, really strong midrange deck. What's more important to me is that it's fun to play and I don't feel like I cheated my way to a win with a combo or kept my opponents from being able to play the game too. Those are both perfectly viable ways to play (yes, despite my choice of the word "cheat"), but I enjoy wins on the battlefield far more than wins through combo or through preventing others from playing their decks.
Naya Partners on TappedOut
I post all my decks on TappedOut.net, but know that I also update them whenever I swap cards in & out.
Abzan Recursion
The only graveyard shenanigans I've really indulged in is with The Mimeoplasm. He's fun, but my experience working with and abusing graveyard recursion is limited. I have had a lot of fun with +1/+1 counters using Vorel of the Hull Clade, so some of the partners that caught my eye were the ones that dealt with moving around counters. When it became clear that the counters strategy was going to involve my creatures dying, I also looked at a partner that can bring creatures back from the graveyard. That, in a nutshell, is how I came to meet Reyhan & Ravos.
As a side note - I have spent months referring to this as reanimation, but I think calling it recursion is more accurate. Reanimation would return the creature to the battlefield, and we're just bringing them back to our hand.
Reyhan, Last of the Abzan
This 3-drop enters the battlefield as a 0/0 with three +1/+1 counters. Whenever a creature you control with +1/+1 counters dies or is put in the command zone, you may put that number of +1/+1 counters on target creature.
This enables a lot of interesting strategies, most involving sacrificing your own creatures at just the right time so you can put counters on a creature about to actually do damage. I set out to try to find ways to abuse them as much as possible.
Ravos, Soultender
Costing 2 more mana isn't a huge problem. This partner flies, gives your creatures +1/+1, and most importantly he allows you to return a creature from your graveyard to your hand at the beginning of your upkeep.
This can work well early and mid-game with Sakura Tribe Elder to help you ramp like crazy. You can also use Strionic Resonator to get two creatures back from the yard instead of one, so this is an ability that will seem less important than Reyhan's but which can help you out a lot.
The higher casting cost is fine, as you'll need creatures in the yard before you really benefit from Ravos' recursion ability. If we ever get a ridiculous number of counters out and in play, moving them to Ravos to swing for lethal commander damage in the air is a viable option to eke out a win if nothing else is working.
Maximizing Counters on your Battlefield
If we're going to try to win by moving counters around in artful ways, we are going to need creatures that have them or get them easily.
Modular creatures enter the battlefield as 0/0 creatures with +1/+1 counters on them. These creatures don't bring much else to the table, but that in itself is enough to include them. They are a key part of the engine we are trying to build. Other creatures like them are also good for this, so I included Endless One, Daghatar the Adamant, Mindless Automaton, Etched Oracle, Fertilid, Shinewend, and Mikaeus the Lunarch. Most of them bring something extra to the table, and all make sense in this deck.
Hydras are an obvious creature type to include, but not every hydra will work for us. I went with Mangorger Hydra because he can get out of control at a good-sized table. Kalonian Hydra is in there for obvious reasons - doubling your counters in a deck designed to have lots of counters is always a good thing. Scourge of Scola Vale was included as both a good hydra and a way to sacrifice creatures to take advantage of Reyhan's ability. Vastwood Hydra allows us to either mimic Reyhan's ability if she isn't on the field or do it twice if she is.
There are a few creatures worth including that will gain counters during play that are must-haves. Forgotten Ancient is one, and the aforementioned Managorger Hydra is another. Sunscorch Regent can also get huge over a few turns around the table. Bloodspore Thrinax is bonkers in here, as you'll have ETB counters for all your creatures based on the counters it has.
Abusing All Those Counters
Commander is a game where a big creature isn't necessarily going to win you the game. You might have to swing 8 to 10 times with your 20/20 at three opponents to be able to win the game - assuming you can even get your damage through. That is assuming your opponents don't remove it or boardwipe before you can close out the game. Sure, they are likely swinging at each other as well, but it's still important to run a few curveballs in your deck.
Outlast is a mechanic that caught my eye not only because it provides a way to put counters on your creatures, but also because many creatures with outlast provide keyword buffs for any other creatures with +1/+1 counters on them. In practice, I don't usually like to use the Outlast ability, as it is done at sorcery speed, but the anthem effects are huge and play well in this deck. Abzan Battle-Priest gives lifelink, and Abzan Falconer gives flying. The same goes with Ainok Bond-Kin and first strike, Longshot Squad and reach, Mer-Ek Nightblade and deathtouch, and Tuskguard Captain and trample. I wasn't able to find anything giving vigilance, but the rest of them are all pretty good in here.
In the first build of this deck I also included a bunch of infect creatures. While I pulled some of them out, I still have a few so that if I can swing with one and sac a hydra before damage, I might be able to sneak in a kill here and there. I went with Plague Stinger, Putrefax, Spinebiter, Tine Shrike and Whispering Specter. Putrefax's requirement that it be sacrificed at the end of your turn isn't an issue, as Ravos will let it come right back out of the graveyard on your next upkeep. On their own, these creatures can be annoying but with enough counters they become a huge threat that has to be dealt with.
Staples & Sac Outlets
A deck like this is going to have staples. Doubling Season is obvious, as is Death's Presence. Corpsejack Menace is also a great accelerator for what you are trying to do.
For sac effects, I went with Ashod's Altar, a few creatures with devour like Mycoloth, Marrow Chomper, and Bloodspore Thrinax. Flesh Carver also lets me sac a creature, but it's possible the deck needs more sac outlets than it currently has. One of the biggest cards in this build is Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord. Get enough creatures and enough counters on a single one of them and with Jarad and Reyhan out you can sac creatures in turn, moving counters to the next to easily kill a table.
There are definitely cards missing from this build. As an example, I should get High Market into this deck. My decks are built with what I have and can easily get, not fully optimized decks with the best possible cards money can buy, so they are always works in progress.
The Cherry on Top
This deck started out with a run of games in which it didn't do much. The manabase wasn't very well built, comprised of mostly basic lands, and the ramp I had included wasn't enough for it to really get going. For a while I wondered if I would ever win a game with it... until I discovered Reyhan's favorite toy - Blade of Selves.
If you equip Reyhan with Blade of Selves and swing with him, the following happens.
Myriad causes more Reyhans to show up, swinging at each other opponent. Each of them has 3 +1/+1 counters on it.
The legendary rule kicks in and the duplicates all die.
Each instance of Reyhan "sees" the duplicates die, and all of them will put +1/+1 counters onto the target creature of your choosing for each of the deaths it saw.
Let's do some math...
At a table of four players, if you swing unblocked on an opponent with your 3/3 Reyhan with Blade of Selves equipped, that opponent will die by commander damage. Two new Reyans are created, each with 3 +1/+1 counters. They both die. Three instances of "Reyhan adds counters to target creature" will occur for each of the 2 dying Reyhans, so that means 9 counters will be added 2 times. Your original 3/3 Reyhan will connect for exactly 21 commander damage.
The overall Reyhan / Blade of Selves math works out as follows, assuming you choose to put all counters on the original Reyhan.
Naturally, if you are at a large table and are swinging at other players with other creatures, like a well aimed Ravos, Shriek Rapter or Tine Shrike, you could put counters anywhere you like and really do some damage.
If this is not new to you, forgive my exuberance, but this was the first big surprise for this deck and is the only way it has won any games so far. Hopefully I explained it well, but I should thank Magic judge and NexGen Comics owner Mike Hinkle for helping us understand how truly broken this interaction is.
Results So Far
This deck has won a few games, but so far it hasn't done well. I habitually fail to add enough card draw into my decks, and have already made major revisions like the removal of Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos to make way for more creatures. I'm stubborn and will probably keep playing it and tweaking it for a while, especially now that I've discovered the wonderful Blade of Selves interaction. It is definitely not as effective as Naya Partners, but is a decent midrange build that I'm sure better players than I could improve upon and make really good.
A Little R & R on TappedOut
This deck has already seen a lot of change and I expect it may see more revisions in the future, but feel free to check it out.
Conclusions
I'm still tempted to explore more partner combinations, but at this point I'm really happy with how this has turned out. I created two new decks using partner pairings that were outside of the normal pre-con combinations and have even seen them win a few games along the way.
The decision to make proxies and spend time looking at and thinking about how they might combine was well worth it. I'm not sure I would have found these pairings in any other way. If any of you build a Sidar & Tana deck or a Ravos & Reyhan deck I would love to hear about it!
My next step might be to work on another idea I had - the "Partner Project". The goal would be to build 15 half-decks using commons and uncommons and each having a partner commander at its helm. Then we would play games where every player would combine two half-decks for their game. We'd have to get lots and lots of different colored sleeves so we could separate them out afterwards, but I think it would both be fun and would give me something to do with the piles of extra cards I have lying around.
To be honest, if those 15 partner cards were to fall into my lap (or be sent by a reader) I would absolutely take on the project and report back on how it goes. For now, I'm going to keep the idea in the back of my mind, possibly to be worked on at some later date.