Every Partner variant before 2022 paired one creature with another creature. Choose a Background, introduced in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, broke that pattern entirely.
Instead of pairing two legendary creatures, Choose a Background lets a monocolored legendary creature pair with a legendary Background enchantment as its second commander, opening up a structurally different kind of two-card command zone.
The mechanic drew inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons character backgrounds, giving your commander a piece of backstory that also grants a real, functional in-game ability.
This guide covers how Choose a Background works and why it represented a genuine expansion of what Partner-style mechanics could do.
Choose a Background appears only on monocolored legendary creatures, letting them pair with a legendary Background enchantment card as their second commander instead of a second creature.
Both cards start in the command zone together, and the Background contributes to your deck's overall color identity exactly the way a second Partner commander would, even though it is not a creature itself.
A Background typically grants your commander an additional ability or a stat boost while it remains on the battlefield, functioning as a permanent upgrade attached conceptually, though not literally, to your commander's identity.
Thirty Background enchantments were printed in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, giving players thirty different ways to customize a Choose a Background commander's overall function.
Every prior Partner-style keyword, Partner, Partner With, and Friends Forever, paired two creatures. Choose a Background instead pairs a creature with a non-creature permanent, structurally changing what a second commander even means.
This shift meant a Background could offer static, always-on value without competing for combat relevance or board presence the way a second creature commander inherently does.
Faceless One is both a Background-having creature and a Background itself, making it uniquely flexible among the thirty-two Choose a Background cards printed in the set.
Because of this dual role, Faceless One can partner with virtually any other Choose a Background commander, or serve as the Background for a different legendary creature entirely, within the limits of the legend rule.
The combined color identity of a Choose a Background commander and its Background enchantment works the same union principle as free-choice Partner, expanding your legal card pool to include both cards' colors together.
This lets a monocolored commander effectively access a second color's worth of cards through its Background, without needing to be printed as a multicolor legendary creature in the first place.
Choose a Background remains, so far, exclusive to Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, the only set to have printed the keyword as of this writing.
Its tight thematic link to Dungeons & Dragons-style character backstories may make it a harder mechanic to reuse outside of a similarly narrative-driven Commander-focused product.
A Background typically offers a static, always-on benefit rather than the combat presence or additional board impact a second creature commander would provide, trading raw stats for consistent, reliable value instead.
This makes Choose a Background decks feel structurally different at the table, often leaning more on a single strong creature commander supported by a permanent upgrade than on two independently threatening bodies.
Backgrounds range from combat-focused abilities to resource-generation effects, giving Choose a Background commanders a wide variety of ways to specialize beyond their base printed text.
Because a Background is a permanent on the battlefield rather than a card in the command zone once cast, it can also be targeted, copied, or interacted with differently than a second creature commander would be.
Unlike Partner, which continues to appear in new products, Choose a Background has not been reused since its 2022 debut, making Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate the sole source of these thirty-two cards.
This gives the mechanic a self-contained, complete-set collecting appeal that ongoing mechanics like Partner do not share in quite the same way.
Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate introduced the mechanic in 2022.
Thirty legendary Background enchantments were included in the set.
No, only monocolored legendary creatures printed with that specific ability can.
Yes, it contributes to the deck's combined color identity the same way a second commander would.
Choose a Background proved that a second commander did not need to be another creature at all, opening design space Partner had never touched before. Whichever Background-paired commander you build around, a set of EVORETRO matte sleeves keeps both cards glare-free and legible during a long multiplayer game.
A dedicated deck box also keeps your full 100-card Commander deck organized between sessions. The EVORETRO plastic deck box fits a full Commander deck comfortably regardless of how your two commanders are structured.
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