All 21 Partner With Commander Pairs in Magic Ranked

Last updated on August 19, 2026

Krav, the Unredeemed | Illustration by Randy Vargas

It was an exciting day back in 2016 when Wizards legitimized the “two commanders” concept and gave us our first peek at commanders with the partner mechanic. This was widely seen as a mistake, even by MTG's Head Designer Mark Rosewater, and since then WotC has been much more careful when printing partner commanders, instead focusing lately on cards that can only be “partners with” one other specific creature.

While this change limits the overall variety of deckbuilding, these pairings can still pack a wallop and lead to some interesting play patterns. Today, we take a look at all partners with legendary pairs to see which are the best!

What Are Partner With Commanders?

Toothy, Imaginary Friend | Illustration by Zoltan Boros

“Partner with” commanders are legendary creatures that can be played alongside another specific legendary in the command zone, effectively giving you two commanders. They’re notably different from commanders with plain old “partner”, which allows them to team up with any other card with partner.

“Partner with” legends can be included in the 99 of your Commander deck, in which case they allow you to search up their partner card and add it to your hand.

Note that Magic has a number of “partner-like” abilities that only work with a subset of different cards, including doctor’s companion and backgrounds. Many of these, like character select, survivors, and friends forever all fall under the partner bucket, though “partner with” is still distinct from all of those, since it always involves an exact two-card combination.

#21. Blue, Loyal Raptor + Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer

Blue, Loyal Raptor and Owen Grady, Raptor Trainer are a pair of Jurassic World creatures that combine into a Temur commander pair built around dinosaurs. Owen Grady taps to put one of four ability counters on a dinosaur, and Blue makes other dinos you control enter with the same counters that it has. Their 3- and 4-mana costs make them a great play into one another; dropping Owen one turn, then following up with Blue and putting a haste counter on it is a pretty good one-two punch.

#20. Khorvath Brightflame + Sylvia Brightspear

Khorvath Brightflame and Sylvia Brightspear are a dragon and a knight that give knight creatures flying and haste and give dragon creatures double strike, respectively. They’re meant to lead the combined charge of a knights and dragons typal deck. There aren’t many other commander pairings out there that can run a typal deck for two different creature types simultaneously, making Khorvath and Sylvia unique in that regard.

#19. Kamber, the Plunderer + Laurine, the Diversion

Crimson Vow’s Commander decks featured the partners Kamber, the Plunderer and Laurine, the Diversion. This pair of rogues work together as a Rakdos commander to goad your opponents’ creatures into unfavorable attacks while gaining life and generating Blood tokens whenever they die.

Laurine and Kamber are just alright. Laurine’s activated ability is twice as expensive as it should be, and Kamber’s lack of a drain effect on your opponents means it won’t win you the game alone. They’ll need the other staple aristocrats cards to really come online, but they’ll have to focus on the ones that hit opponents' creatures.

#18. Krav, the Unredeemed + Regna, the Redeemer

Krav, the Unredeemed and Regna, the Redeemer are the most expensive paired partners to cast, and it hurts their playability. Their abilities really play together well, but at 5 and 6 mana each, they suffer from being hard to stick to the field consistently. Once they’re there, Regna and Krav’s abilities guarantee you at least two card draws, 2 life, and two more warrior tokens each turn that you activate Krav’s ability, but this is a middling payoff for what’s at least 12 mana worth of set up.

#17. Rhoda, Geist Avenger + Timin, Youthful Geist

I applaud Wizards for expanding the design space around tapper effects in blue and white, but they're often just not strong enough to justify an entire deck themed around them. Rhoda, Geist Avenger looks to generate +1/+1 counters off of Timin, Youthful Geist’s free tap-down each combat phase. Sadly, this isn’t a great payoff for a 9-mana investment that, to begin with, requires your opponents to have targetable creatures for you to tap down.

#16. Jenny Flint + Madame Vastra

Jenny Flint and Madame Vastra are a set of paired commander partners from the Doctor Who Commander decks. They play as a two-creature attack combo where you’ll attack with both and trigger Jenny’s training ability. Then, with some careful planning, a creature will be forced to block Vastra and be destroyed, creating a Clue and a Food. You follow up by sacrificing the tokens, putting counters on Vastra, and do the whole thing over again. It’s an eloquent design with an easy play pattern, and their Temur color identity means you have access to a lot of fun tools.

#15. Bebop, Skull & Crossbones + Rocksteady, Mutant Marauder

The absolute best thing you can do with this pair is ignore Bebop, Skull & Crossbones and just focus on Rocksteady, Mutant Marauder as a persist combo enabler. Bebop adds black to that deck for pivotal persist creatures like Putrid Goblin, but it’s not an essential part of the strategy unless you want to forego the combo route in favor of the intended counter-based gameplay these two promote.

#14. Rowan Kenrith + Will Kenrith

We met the Eldraine twins for the first time in Battlebond, where they appeared as planeswalker commanders that partnered with each other. They’re both fairly expensive as 6-mana planeswalkers that only enter with 4 loyalty each, but at least Will Kenrith can make casting Rowan Kenrith a little easier if you tick Will down.

This Izzet commander pairing clearly want to play in some sort of halfway build between being spellslinger and superfriends, as each of their ultimate abilities let you copy any instants and sorceries or activated abilities (which includes loyalty abilities).

#13. Gorm the Great + Virtus the Veiled

Gorm and Virtus are one of the first “partner with” legendary pairs from the Battlebond set. Gorm the Great holds blockers’ attention while Virtus the Veiled sneaks by to cut an opponent’s life total in half. These two can form the basis for an interesting Golgari deck that makes use of all the “forced block” cards like Lure, Hunt Down, and Irresistible Prey. Stack a Wound Reflection on top of that damage from Virtus and you’re looking at a one-turn kill.

#12. Evie Frye + Jacob Frye

Evie Frye and Jacob Frye combine with freerunning cards for some nifty play. You get a cheap loot and free saboteur attacker thanks to Evie. Then Jacob takes any assassins you discarded (or put in your graveyard another way) and gets you that card. Good card selection and a built-in way to get unblocked creatures on inexpensive cards is a solid path to take.

#11. Cazur, Ruthless Stalker + Ukkima, Stalking Shadow

Cazur, Ruthless Stalker and Ukkima, Stalking Shadow want to be the really cool Sultai +1/+1 counter commanders you’ve dreamed of, but they fall short. Besides being a bit overcosted (Cazur could easily be a 2/2 for 3), they just don’t seem to intuitively work together. While Cazur provides a great source of counters for the unblockable Ukkima, the whale wolf's second ability implies that you want to sacrifice or bounce/blink it for full value. Except that removes all of Ukkima’s +1/+1 counters, and you have to start all over again powering it up.

I suppose the actual play for Ukkima would be to protect it from targeted removal with Ghostly Flicker-type effects, but I personally hate a strategy that relies on my opponents interacting with my board.

#10. Amy Pond + Rory Williams

Amy Pond and Rory Williams head up the suspend-themed Doctor Who deck. Together, this duo works as a Jeskai commander that can hit the ground running by casting (suspending, really) Rory early and then using Amy to remove its time counters.

Rory is good value for a legendary creature, coming in as a 3/3 with not one but two relevant mechanics for just 2 mana, but Amy is the real star of this team. Removing time counters early means you’re playing things like Greater Gargadon for 1 mana and your Aeon Chronicler is drawing you a mountain of cards before it hits the field.

#9. Alisaie Leveilleur + Alphinaud Leveilleur

This Final Fantasy duo forms the basis of a solid double-spell deck, offering the pivotal combination of extra mana (via cost reduction) and card draw that come together on some of the most powerful commanders. That’s all they do though, and everything else about the two cards is just fine. This deck’s really more about what you put in the 99, using Alisaie Leveilleur to “add mana” while Alphinaud Leveilleur keeps the cards flowing.

#8. Pir, Imaginative Rascal + Toothy, Imaginary Friend

Pir, Imaginative Rascal is one of a few counter-multiplying legends. Besides the obvious synergy with Toothy, Imaginary Friend’s +1/+1 counters and card draw, Pir can really increase the effectiveness of planeswalkers, vanishing permanents, and more.

These two work best with cards that let you dump all the extra mana that green cards make into draw spells like Prosperity and Blue Sun's Zenith. Double down on this strategy with Chasm Skulker and Fathom Mage, then use Herald of Secret Streams to clean up.

#7. Merry, Warden of Isengard + Pippin, Warden of Isengard

The actual stars of The Lord of The Rings are featured on a pair of partners in the same deck as Frodo and Sam. Merry, Warden of Isengard makes a soldier token once per turn when you make an artifact, and Pippin, Warden of Isengard can make and break Food tokens to great effect. Any haste enabler outside of red is an exciting prospect in my book, and Merry and Pippin's Abzan color identity gives you access to a lot of lifegain, tokens, and creature synergy.

#6. Brallin, Skyshark Rider + Shabraz, the Skyshark

Brallin, Skyshark Rider and Shabraz, the Skyshark hail from Commander 2020’s cycling-themed deck. They both start as 3/3s that get +1/+1 counters whenever you discard a card or draw a card, respectively.

Anyone who’s seen a wheel deck before knows how out of hand this playstyle can get. All it takes is a full hand and a Flux and suddenly you’re looking at two 10/10s with built-in evasion.

Brallin and Shabraz are both playable absent their other half, as well. Brallin is a little less useful generally than Shabraz; sharks are a less popular creature type than humans so it follows that it’ll have less targets for its activated ability, but it's still a pinger for whenever you cycle or discard a card.

#5. Haldan, Avid Arcanist + Pako, Arcane Retriever

Haldan, Avid Arcanist and his dog Pako, Arcane Retriever are a fun Temur-aligned partner pair with a “steal your opponents' stuff” theme. Sometimes seen in cEDH, Pako and Haldan can accumulate a crazy amount of value in just a few short turns.

Pako hits the field running with haste for 5 mana and can get up to a 7/7 after its first attack trigger. Haldan is basically useless until Pako can exile cards and put fetch counters on them. Together, these two are quite a force to be reckoned with.

#4. Okaun, Eye of Chaos + Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom

Okaun, Eye of Chaos and Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom are a hoot to play with or against. As the unofficial kings of the chaos deck archetype, Okaun and Zndrsplt will have you flipping more coins than any other cards in Magic.

Their designs are rather simple. Both are 5-mana creatures that instruct you to flip coins at the beginning of your combat until you lose a flip. Okaun’s power is doubled each time a player wins a coin flip, and Zndrsplt draws you a card for each successful flip. On top of their internal synergy, there are so many Magic cards that revolve around coin flips that never see the light of day by virtue of being too swingy, and now have a permanent home with these chaos commanders.

#3. Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit + Sam, Loyal Attendant

Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit and his ever-loving friend are a Food token’s dream. As the best Food commanders in Magic, Frodo and Sam play really well into each other: Sam makes free Food every turn and reduces the cost to sacrifice them down to 1 generic mana. Frodo needs that 3 life from a Food to trigger its Ring-tempting ability. Once Frodo’s been tempted two or more times, you’ll draw a card with every attack.

Together, these two form a goofy little combo where Sam preps meals for Frodo on their long journey.

#2. Nikara, Lair Scavenger + Yannik, Scavenging Sentinel

Nikara and Yannik are another Abzan pairing with a lot of interesting design space between them. Yannik, Scavenging Sentinel exiles a creature you control until it leaves the battlefield, distributing +1/+1 counters while Nikara, Lair Scavenger draws you cards for any creature you control leaving the battlefield with counters on it.

There’s a number of ways you can build around this cleric–beast duo, which makes them one of my favorites on the list. Blink, +1/+1 counters, and sacrifice are just a few heavily-supported archetypes you could specialize into, and odds are you want to touch on all of them at least a little bit.

#1. Silvar, Devourer of the Free + Trynn, Champion of Freedom

Talk about environmental storytelling. Trynn, Champion of Freedom leads its army of soldier tokens out onto the battlefield, where they’re promptly eaten by Silvar, Devourer of the Free. At 4 and 5 mana each, Trynn and Silvar aren’t easy to get up and running, but once they are, they’re hard to stop. Silvar’s activated ability to buff itself while granting indestructible costs no mana to activate, making it a commander-sized Carrion Feeder. So long as Silvar keeps attacking, Trynn keeps pumping out tokens for it to devour, and the circle of life continues.

Best Partner With Commander Payoffs

Casting both of your commanders and sticking them to the field can be the hardest part of running a pair of legends in your command zone. With a little forethought, though, you can turn that into an advantage.

You need to cast two creatures to get your commanders’ full effect on the field, and you can synergize that extra commander-cast with cards like Captain Vargus Wrath and Genesis Storm. The Swarmlord hits the field as a 9/9 after you’ve played both commanders, and Jirina Kudro was basically designed to play alongside Silvar, Devourer of the Free/Trynn, Champion of Freedom.

A few cards were designed to protect commanders, so why not spread their protection to a second option? Codsworth, Handy Helper, Guardian Augmenter, and Vexilus Praetor are quite helpful.

Backgrounds play particularly well with partner commanders, which makes some sense since backgrounds are essentially a type of partner variant themselves. Most backgrounds grant “commanders you own” an extra ability, which will be added to both commanders in a partner pair. Agent of the Iron Throne suddenly deals twice as much damage, and Tavern Brawler draws two extra cards per turn, to name a few examples.

Can I Use One “Partner With” Commander as My Commander and the Other in the 99-Card Deck?

Yes, you can always choose to just run one half of the paired commanders in the command zone and the other in the 99 of your Commander deck… if the second commander matches the first’s color identity. Unfortunately, there are zero “partner with” commanders that share a color identity, so this is actually a moot question.

Should they print a “partner with” pair that meets this criteria, when you cast the partner commander from your command zone, you’ll have the option to search your library for the other partner and put it into your hand.

Can I Use “Partner With” Commanders With Other Regular Commanders?

You can’t use the “partner with” commanders with any other commander besides the one they’re paired with. This means you couldn’t run Silvar, Devourer of the Free alongside the popular blue commander, Talrand, Sky Summoner.

Do “Partner With” Commanders Have to Share a Color Identity?

“Partner with” commanders don’t need to share a color identity. Like a single commander, they determine the identity of your deck, not the other way around. All “partner with” commanders have different color identities so that the combined deck has a broader identity.

Do Both Partner With Commanders Start in the Command Zone?

Yes, if you choose to run a pair of partners as your combined commander, you start with both of them in the command zone.

Is Commander Damage from Partner With Commanders Tracked Separately?

Yes, the commander damage from partner with commanders needs to be tracked separately. Either commander would need to deal 21 damage on its own to eliminate a player.

Is the Commander Tax Added Individually to Partner With Commanders?

Yes, commander tax applies individually to partner with commanders. No joint filing tax status here.

Can I Have More Than Two Commanders in a “Partner With” Deck?

No. The “partner with” commanders allow you to have exactly two commanders, if they’re the two exact partner cards. You couldn’t run Amy Pond, Rory Williams, and The Fifth Doctor all at once. You’d choose whether to use their doctor’s companion pairing or their “partner with” pairing, but not both.

How Do “Partner With” Commanders Compare with Doctor's Companions?

“Partner with” and doctor’s companion are both abilities that allow you to have two commanders at once. The former also names a specific creature that they can pair with, and they’re inflexible in that manner, while you can pair doctor’s companions with any of the Doctor Who doctor legends. In essence, each “partner with” commander has two options as a commander: You can go solo, or pair with its specific partner. Doctor’s companions all have 18 combinations, either being your only commander or combining with one of the 17 time lord Doctors.

Doctor’s companion also has no meaningful text outside of deckbuilding; the ability doesn’t do anything in-game. “Partners with” actually has in-game utility as a way to tutor up another creature if the partner is in your deck.

Non-Commander “Partner With” Pairings

The following “partner with” pairs exist, mostly for the sake of fleshing out Battlebond drafts, but don’t include a legendary creature and therefore don’t qualify as commanders.

• Blaring Captain + Blaring Recruiter
• Chakram Retriever + Chakram Slinger
• Impetuous Protege + Proud Mentor
• Ley Weaver + Lore Weaver
• Soulblade Corrupter + Soulblade Renewer

Can I Have Partner With Commander and Companion?

Yes, you can add a companion card to your “partner with” commanders as long as you meet the deck requirements for companion. So you could build an Oops, All Creatures deck and basically start with an opening hand of seven cards plus Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit, Sam, Loyal Attendant, and Umori, the Collector. Umori would not count towards the 100-card deck total.

Are “Partner With” Commanders Legal in Commander Variants?

The short answer is yes; unless specifically stated, partner with commanders are legal in most Commander variants. If you play something hyper-specific like Kamigawa-block Pauper Tiny Leaders Commander, sure, you’ll have to brew something else.

Commanding Conclusion

Regna, the Redeemer | Illustration by Randy Vargas

The original Commander 2016 partner commanders are some of the strongest and most popular legendary creatures in the format, mostly due to the great variability and access to four colors that they provide. The “partner with” mechanic is seen by some as a dumbed-down version, but I don’t think that’s true. Instead, the “partner with” pairs allow WotC to dig into a design space that’s too specific to be broadly applied, and it lets them test out very specific play patterns.

Which “partner with” pairing is your favorite? Do you like them more or less than the legendary team-up cards from March of the Machine? Let me know in the comments, or over in the Draftsim Discord. And check out The Daily Upkeep newsletter to stay up to date on all the latest MTG news.

Thanks for reading! Make sure you’ve got a friend to watch your back out there!