One of the most intriguing formats players can compete in Magic: The Gathering is a Commander Masters Draft. From your packs you must build a 60-card Commander deck, following the color identity of whatever card, or cards, you pick to be your commander(s).
Normally you need legendary creatures with the partner ability to use two for your commander, but Commander Masters has a special rule that lets you use two monocolored, or even creatures with no color identity as if they had partner. This means you can create hybrid decks with both Sun Quan, Lord of Wu, and Avacyn, Angel of Hope as your commanders if you’d like!
These might not be the best partner pairings you can have for your Commander Masters draft deck, but you’ll rarely be able to grab the optimal choices in a draft with seven other folks. Instead, these are pretty good or pretty funny picks to try and aim for in your deck.
Heartless Hidetsugu & Heliod, Sun-Crowned
Okay, this one is on the silly side and extremely interruptible in a pod. But if you can hit this little combo in a game, it will feel amazing. All you have you do it have both your commanders in play, give Heartless Hidetsugu lifelink, and then activate its ability. Heartless Hidetsugu deals damage to each player equal to half that player’s life total, yourself included.
But Heliod, Sun-Crowned lets you give a creature lifelink for just two mana. When you tap the Hidetsugu to dome your opponents and yourself for a ton of damage, the lifelink will catapult you above your opponents. Don’t expect to be able to execute this combo more than once per game, since as soon as you assemble the pieces your opponents will likely have a few pieces of removal stockpiled to put an end to it.
Jazal Goldmane & Krenko, Mob Boss
There are a lot of fun things you can do with Krenko in Commander Masters and one surprising one is with Jazal Goldmane. You won’t have much support for a Goblin-based deck by adding white to the mix, but you can turn your Goblin tokens into an unstoppable army for only five mana.
Once you hit critical mass with the Goblin tokens you’re making off Krenko, you can use Jazal’s ability to give your attacking creatures +X/+X, where X is equal to the number of attacking creatures. Jazal doesn’t just care about creatures of a specific type, but Krenko and a healthy number of Goblins can quickly spiral out of control.
Mangara, the Diplomat & Baird, Steward of Argive
If you love pillow fort-style decks then the union of Mangara, the Diplomat, and Baird, Steward of Argive can help you comfortably sit behind your army as your opponents battle it out. Mangara is certainly the stronger of the two cards, discouraging your opponents from attacking by granting you an extra card advantage if they attack with two or more creatures, or letting you draw a card when an opponent casts their second card each turn.
Baird, on the other hand, taxes your opponents if they go to attack you or one of your planeswalkers, requiring them to pay one mana for each creature. Once you get both of these creatures out and perhaps a bunch of tokens to clutter up the board, you’ll be sitting cozy with a line of defense and a card draw engine to keep shields up.
Omnath, Locus of Mana & Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
Bringing together Omnath, Locus of Mana, and Selvala, Heart of the Wilds might not be the most original creatures to pair together, but since they’re both in your Command Zone you have easy access to both in your draft deck. Omnath has the unique ability to let you stockpile green mana across phases and turns, building up his power and toughness all the while.
Selvala can then take all your stored-up green mana and double it while at the same time doubling Omnath’s power in the process. When you can of course cast practically any card in your deck this way, you also have a guaranteed one-hit K.O. in the form of Omanth and Commander Damage. You can also use cards like Ram Through to push Omanth’s damage through or equipment like Forebear’s Blade to give it trample
Purphoros, God of the Forge & Arasta of the Endless Web
There are plenty of wild things you can do with Purphoros, God of the Forge which can help whittle your opponent’s life totals away. Every time a creature enters the battlefield in your control, Purphoros deals two damage to each opponent. All you need is a reliable way to continuously create tokens. While there are a few good choices for this, an overlooked one is Arasta of the Endless Web.
Arasta punishes your opponents by creating a 1/2 Spider token with reach every time your opponents cast an instant or sorcery spell. With Purphoros out, your tokens will also deal two damage when they come into play. Even if your opponent tries to use removal spells to get rid of Arasta, you’re still creating tokens and dealing damage. If left alone for a few turns, you can quickly rack up an impressive amount of damage after only a few spells.
Yedora, Grave Gardener & Yahenni, Undying Partisan
One of the stranger pairings from Commander Masters, bringing Yahenni, Undying Partisan, and Yedora, Grave Gardener together ensures your sacrifices won’t go to waste. Yahenni is a huge threat to your opponents, not only because it continuously grows the more your opponent’s creatures die, but all it takes to give it indestructible is to sacrifice another creature.
Yedora lets you keep those sacrifices around a bit longer while turning them into more resources for you later. When a nontoken creature you control dies, you have the choice to bring it back to the battlefield facedown as a Forest. It loses all other types and abilities this way, so make sure you’re bringing back creatures you don’t mind permanently losing access to. With both commanders out you can turn your sacrifices into resources, helping to accelerate you in mana and putting you several turns ahead of your opponents.
Ryan Hay (he/him) has been writing about Magic: The Gathering and video games for years, and loves absolutely terrible games. Send him your bad game takes over on Twitter where he won’t stop talking about Lord of the Rings.