The Archon Council decided to put a change up for vote. You can vote on the following change:
1. Ban the Partner Pairing: & [c]Ellie, Vengeful Hunter
Voting closes: 15-03-2026, 11:30 CET
You can head over to our discord to cast your vote!
Here are the reasoning for the proposed change:
The Ellie/Ellie deck is an aggressive Rakdos creature strategy built around low mana value threats, efficient removal, and payoffs in the form of Blood Artist–style effects. The two commanders reinforce this game plan from complementary angles: Ellie, Brick Master establishes early board presence at two mana, while Ellie, Vengeful Hunter converts that presence into direct damage at three mana. Together, they create a streamlined, resilient aggressive strategy. We believe this specific Partner pairing should be banned in Archon for the following three main reasons:
1. Both Commanders are above rate for the Partner mechanic
Partner is a uniquely strong keyword as it literally doubles the number of commanders in your command zone. This advantage is usually held back by the lower power level of the individual cards. A partner in the command zone offers you more consistency as a second “always” present resource in the exchange for individual strength. In the case of Ellie/Ellie both creatures are maybe not on the power level of modern legendary creatures, like for example Ajani or Omnath, but both cards offer a good rate for the mana cost. In particular the three mana Ellie offers a unique effect, “turn each creature into two damage”, paired with protection against a large portion of removal spells. The pairing Ellie/Ellie thus offers an additional strategic angle on top of being already efficiently costed. In contrast, the Yoshimaru and Tymna pairing is also aggressively costed but both cards can be dealt with creature removal or even blockers
2. Exceptional Consistency
Both Partners sequence well into each other making the deck more consistent than its competitors. As both Ellies fill the two and three mana spot on the curve, the deck has to only fill the missing one mana slot. It is already desirable to play a low mana curve as possible, therefore you can play a large amount of one-drops without running out of steam in the long game. With the amount of threat density in the command zone, one can even play a rather large suite of removal without having to fear dead draws in control matchups. The combination of curve in the command zone and high density of one-drops allow the deck to Mulligan exceptionally well. This advantage makes the deck a perfect choice for longer tournaments allowing to reduce the chance of bad draws tremendously compared to other singleton decks. In addition, the deck can easliy afford to try to mulligan for matchup specific hate cards to as low as five or four cards. For example, a five card hand of three lands, a one-drop and a Maddening Hex provide the same clock as any seven card hand without a silver-bullet.
3. Counterplay against Ellie, Vengeful Hunter is limited
Pairing built-in reach with indestructible makes Ellie, Vengeful Hunter an oppressive threat against decks that have a hard time dealing with indestructibility. Basically, all colors except blue and white have no real means to remove the “big” Ellie and have to resort to racing the deck. While races can be interactive, three mana Ellie punishes interaction thus enforcing decks to be more linear overall. Archon strives to be an interactive magic format with one of its core philosophies being: “The ability to interact with a particular strategy should not be limited to a minority of decks.”. Ellie, Vengeful Hunter in combination with the pressure added through her two MV counterpart clearly violates this principle.
In conclusion, strong individual cards, a consistent repetitive aggressive curve, and a hard-to-interact-with threat push the deck to a power-level that is bad for the Archon format as it warps the “theoretical” meta game. If you want to play an aggressive deck, you should choose Ellies because it is the most consistent and includes reach. If you want to play an interactive strategy, you should choose a deck containing blue and/or white if you want to stand your ground against the Ellies. If you want to go for a combo deck, you need to consistently be able to outpace the Ellies to really a have a chance. A huge majority of decks does not fall into any of the above categories and will have an even harder time in the meta, e.g. midrange strategies and non-blue control decks.
Breaking up the Partner pairing is the least invasive way to solve the problem and it will still allow “Aristocrat” strategies around Ellie, Vengeful Hunter without the consistency added by Ellie, Brick Master.