The results are in for the Commander Legends Partners Deck Building Contest! You can find the contest announcement here and a list of all 30 relevant partners here. Decks could compete in up to 3 categories, including most powerful, most flavorful, and coolest mechanics (jank).
We had a total of 51 decks submitted, including 10 white decks, 23 blue, 25 black, 26 red, and 14 green. The most popular commanders were Malcolm with 14 decks and Tormod with 10 decks. The most popular specific pair were Malcolm and Breeches, which accounted for 8 decks. A total of 29 decks were submitted in the power category, 23 in the flavor category, and 32 in the jank category.
Malcolm makes his debut as a powerful combo enabler and mana engine, helming several decks that combine well established combo pieces like Freed from the Real with some new and interesting spice like Wings of Velis Vel and Reckless Fireweaver. When Malcolm isn’t being used as a combo enabler, he’s leading powerful tempo/control decks by generating large amounts of mana to fuel interaction and card advantage.
When Breeches is along for the ride, he helps provide extra card advantage and interaction. When helping pilot a combo deck, he also provides an additional combo outlet, in case an opponent can prevent infinite damage.
In much the same way, Tormod fills two roles from the command zone: he can create value and act as a combo piece. When accruing value, he can take advantage of repeatable grave exiling and various recursion to pump out a huge army of zombies. With Tormod at the helm of a combo deck, he provides a powerful triggered ability that can flood the board with infinite zombie tokens to end the game by attacking or being sacrifice-fodder.
The only commanders not used in submissions were Keleth and Siani. These still seem like worthy additions to the format, even if nobody toyed with them this time around. Keleth can play well with the other 5 partners that mention +1/+1 counters, while Siani can command a top-deck-matters deck to make the best out of cards like Maelstrom Colossus and Forceful Denial.
The Most Powerful and Competitive
Thanks to the flood of Malcolm decks, there was a huge debate on the Home Base Discord. The voting results for the whole field of competitive decks were so close that it ended in a 3-way tie between the following decks:
This deck explores as many new and unique combo routes as possible with Malcolm and Breeches. It favors redundancy, multiple lines, and potential speed over the protection of a fistful of counterspells.
In contrast to the previous Malcolm deck, this one takes the more traditional cEDH/cPDH approach of less combo redundancy in favor of a stronger suite of interaction and counterspell protection. It also leverages its copilot, Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar, to greatly increase the amount of treasures Malcolm can produce. This helps make sure the deck always has the mana to both dig for combo pieces and hold up interaction.
As a foil to the above combo decks, this mono red monster can power out Dargo, the Shipwrecker as a turn one aggro voltron threat by sacrificing his partner, Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh. With ideal hands, this deck can even kill one opponent on turn one by giving Dargo haste and double strike.
Some of the other decks that were more popular in the competitive vote include more Malcolm/Breeches and Malcolm/Kediss decks by MtG-Crash, VennyIsAsleep4119, and ElodePilarre. It’s worth noting that all three of these would have probably done even better in the voting, too, if interest hadn’t been split by the wealth of other pirate and treasure decks.
The other two decks that received a large number of competitive votes were Ardenn-Esior Caw Blade by Boxes_O_Moxes, an efficient equipment voltron powerhouse, and ZomboCombo by SangvinPingvin, a Tormod/Ramirez midrange and combo deck.
The Best Lore or Flavor
While the Competitive vote was incredibly close, the Flavor category had one winner, far out in the lead:
This Toggo/Armix landfall and artifact control deck channels the pure joy of smashing all the shiny and scary things with rocks. The deck features many older cards with flavor text quotes from Toggo, and a slew of wily goblins, as well.
While first place in the flavor category was decisive, second place was a 3-way tie between these 3 decks:
This pet show gone right features some wild keyword soup as Anara and Falthis team up to wreak havoc. It wouldn’t be a pet show without costumes, though, and this deck delivers with extra equipment and enchantments to beef up its commanders.
This deck features much of the same wonderful Toggo flavor text as the winning Toggo deck, but instead of the gaggle of goblins, it has Toggo going on adventures with their deadly pet, Falthis.
This pair of pals is out to make the world more perfect, one horrifying body modification at a time. Ich-Tekik and Keskit get together to spread the +1/+1 counter love and sacrifice their favorite followers.
The Coolest Mechanics and Jank
In a surprising turn of events, the deck voted to have the best flavor also was voted the jankiest!
ROCKS! by Dumberfluff (AKA Dumbertfluff)may have leaned on the humor of goblins for flavor, but those same goblins make good use of all the artifacts floating around, while many other artifacts like Scaretiller and Veinfire Borderpost also help pull more value out of the deck’s landfall plan.
In second place, we have
This +1/+1 counter & artifact deck is led by Malcolm and Ich-Tekik, using Malcolm’s treasures to quickly grow a field of golems and changelings. This deck helps show off Malcolm’s non-combo side while also using an unusual tribe. The deck has also found room for a lot of powerful card advantage spells, which combine surprisingly well with the deck’s core gameplan.
As an honorary mentions, Preemptive RATaliatory Strike by NocheDeSangre (AKA TheMightyBattleSquid), The Undead Tide by Alkadron, and Big Stupid Nonsense by Alkadronall claimed a lot of votes and showed off some deliciously ridiculous jank, including Rat Colonies acting as removal, red creatures with high power for their mana cost, and a study of the value and zombie-tribal sides of a Tormod/Ramirez partnership.
Conclusion
Ultimately, we had a ton of good entries, including many spectacular brews that didn’t make it to the top of each category. Thank you to everyone that voted. Viewing and considering so many decks was a huge undertaking. The massive impact on the whole format by Commander Legends makes this set of decks even harder to evaluate quickly. Lastly, thanks again to the deck builders. Without your creativity and passion, this contest would have fallen flat. Thank you for letting us show off your hard work!
-Paul (Scarecrow1779)
@PDH Home Base
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