Ixalan
goes on “sail” in a few weeks, but we’ve already got more than enough to
work with to start tackling the format on deck. The plundered rare sheet
leak isn’t going to sink this preview season, and as fate would have it,
there arrr enough known Pirates to dive in head first.
Captain Lannery Storm is one of the most interesting Pirates revealed so
far. There is just so much implied depth in the ways you can use the
abilities, alone or with other cards.
For starters, she’s not just a 2/2 haste with upside. That you can
sacrifice the Treasure immediately, even with nothing to spend it on, means
she’s most of a 3/2 with haste. Of course, “nothing to spend it on” is
hopefully not the usual case.
One-cost removal is particularly attractive with Captain Lannery Storm,
immediately letting you use the mana inside your attack phase efficiently,
as well as helping ensure she lives to find more Treasure next turn.
That said, if you hit a defenseless opponent on turn 3 (maybe you used a
removal spell on their turn 2 on the blocker they tapped out to cast) and
decide to keep the Treasure, you’re not just ramping three-into-five, but
actually three-into-six, if you want it. Just attack with Captain Lannery
Storm again the next turn, and you’re already there.
Even just casting Captain Lannery Storm on turn 4 can make for an excellent
turn. Now we’ve got access to two-cost removal in combat, or just
activating Fathom Fleet Captain (as discussed below).
Unclaimed Territory is basically just a Cavern of Souls reprint without the
uncounterability clause. Even without that clause, however, the untapped
fixing of any color is an extremely attractive option in the new Standard
with Wandering Fumarole, Smoldering Marsh, and Foreboding Ruins all
rotating out. The combination of Captain Lannery Storm and Unclaimed
Territory opens up some interesting deckbuilding space, such as potentially
splashing a third or fourth or fifth color into a deck with some tribal
leanings, particularly if we can make use of Aether Hub and/or Spire of
Industry (which obviously works great with Treasures anyway).
The Pirates are not so singularly focused as to suggest only one clear way
to play with them. For starters, which colors do you play? Rakdos? Izzet?
Dimir? Grixis? Even among those combinations, how focused should they be on
aggression versus disruption?
For instance, here’s a version of R/B Pirates that prioritizes interaction,
making use of the aforementioned Fathom Fleet Captain:
Creatures (21)
- 2 Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
- 3 Glorybringer
- 4 Captain Lannery Storm
- 4 Fathom Fleet Captain
- 4 Ruin Raider
- 4 Kitesail Freebooter
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (24)
Spells (12)
- 2 Shock
- 4 Fatal Push
- 2 Cut
- 2 Abrade
- 2 Doomfall
There’s a lot to unpack here. To start with, let’s walk through the
creature selections.
While Kitesail Freebooter hits less hard than Tidehollow Sculler (which was
heavily played), it has flying and is actually bigger than Mesmeric Fiend
(which was also heavily played).
Not hitting creatures is a serious blow, so depending on what direction the
metagame goes, it could easily end up wrong to play; however, I think it’s
very worthwhile to explore. Being able to help clear the path for Captain
Lannery Storm is great! Besides, flying helps make the body a lot more
relevant than something running “no attacks, no blocks” would be.
Fathom Fleet Captain is the main tribal payout here. A 2/1 with menace is
already fairly respectable, and we can compare the ability to Glint-Sleeve
Siphoner.
Setting aside Glint-Sleeve Siphoner’s synergies with other energy cards, it
basically lets you pay a life to draw a card every other turn. With enough
synergy, Glint-Sleeve Siphoner starts to approach being able to use the
ability every turn. Fathom Fleet Captain requires Pirate synergies just to
be able to work but starts all the way up, giving you the extra card every
turn. It doesn’t cost you a life, but it does require you to buy a two-cost
2/2 menace creature.
How successful Fathom Fleet Captain turns out to be is largely going to be
a function of whether Pirates are a good strategy, at all. Among Pirate
decks, I think this one is a clear hit.
Speaking of paying life to draw cards, Ruin Raider gives us access to some
more traditional Dark Confidant exchange rates. Yes, it’s a 3/2 for three
instead of a 2/1 for two, but it also has “virtual haste,” since we can
draw the first card on the turn we cast it instead of waiting a turn.
There’s a lot of risk of Ruin Raider getting smoked by Shocks, Magma
Sprays, Abrades, and Lightning Strikes; but the upside is so big, it easily
warrants exploration.
I’m conflicted on Walk the Plank. I do appreciate the mana efficiency, but
being double black and not an instant are both hits. How often is it
actually killing something that Cut // Ribbons couldn’t kill? Cut //
Ribbons is easier to cast and gives us an excellent long-range plan. Plus,
it kills Merfolk!
If we’re going to use sorcery-speed removal, Doomfall might be a more
attractive option, helping fight The Scarab God (which I believe likely to
be one of the defining cards of the format), as well as contributing to the
disruption plan Kitesail Freebooter begins.
Of course, it wouldn’t take many artifacts (besides Lannery’s Treasure) to
make Unlicensed Disintegration the clear favorite…
Even though Fathom Fleet Captain is a nice tribal reward, you only really
need one Pirate to activate it. There’s no reason we have to be all-in on
Pirates.
Even though the allied-color combinations lost two multicolor lands while
enemy combinations lost just one, the printing of Dragonskull Summit and
the like leaves allied combinations with two “good” multicolor lands
(Dragonskull Summit and Canyon Slough, for instance), while enemy pairs
have just one (Spirebluff Canal). It’s going to be interesting seeing the
implications to deckbuilding, which combinations can be stretched.
Dire Fleet Captain is a tribal payoff I did not use above, despite being
on-color, as all it does it beat down, and the rate is not so compelling as
to require play. It is sweet with Captain Lannery Storm, however, and if we
want to try using it, I think we might want to look at an even more
aggressive build.
Creatures (26)
- 4 Captain Lannery Storm
- 4 Fathom Fleet Captain
- 2 Deadeye Tracker
- 4 Rowdy Crew
- 4 Ruin Raider
- 4 Dire Fleet Captain
- 4 Wanted Scoundrels
Lands (24)
Spells (10)
My concern with this direction is that it looks like a Ramanup Red deck
with worse mana and few one-drops.
I definitely am going to need to play some games to get a better feel for
Deadeye Tracker, but it doesn’t look that impressive to me. Sinbad wasn’t
exactly pushy, and while this card’s a mana cheaper to start, you’re
already a mana behind when you activate it. In exchange for that big
increase in operating cost, you get a +1/+1 counter and a scry 1 the 60% of
the time you don’t hit a land. It could easily turn out to be the
Cryptbreaker of the archetype, but it’s also missing Cryptbreaker’s
“virtual haste,” the times when you just dropped it and drew an extra card
immediately.
Okay, now I’m hooked!
We’ve come a long way since Balduvian Horde…
Obviously you’re not always hitting the +2/+2, but when you do,
you’re getting a 5/5 trampler for four that draws you a card rather than
discarding a card.
Just straight up, however, the card is a 3/3 trampler for four that has an
enters-the-battlefield ability better than drawing a card. After all, being
able to potentially turn a couple of dead Fatal Pushes into business can
really help shore up a control matchup.
Rowdy Crew encourages us to look at lining up all of our removal. For
instance, Cut // Ribbons might still be good enough to use anyway, but it
would be nice if we could rely on all instant-speed removal so that we’re
more likely to get +2/+2.
Rowdy Crew isn’t the only compelling four-drop Pirate we’ve seen so far.
Setting aside the awkward “prior to release errata” on Hostage Taker (it’s
not supposed to be able to target itself, as otherwise, it would loop
infinitely with itself, forcing draws and creating infinite triggers that
might kill someone), it’s a very compelling Faceless Butcher (with a wider
range of targets), bringing with it the option to straight-up steal the
card, for yourself.
One possibility is to splash blue into R/B Pirates with some of the
aforementioned five-color enablers. Another possibility is straight U/B:
Creatures (26)
- 4 Scrapheap Scrounger
- 2 The Scarab God
- 4 Champion of Wits
- 4 Hostage Taker
- 4 Fathom Fleet Captain
- 4 Daring Saboteur
- 4 Siren Stormtamer
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (24)
Spells (8)
The first card that really jumps out at me here is Siren Stormtamer:
A 1/1 flier for one with a relevant creature type is already not
embarrassing, and this ability seems truly excellent. There’s no reason
Siren Stormtamer ought to be confined to Pirate decks only. The card is
just straight-up excellent, assuming you’re in for some cheap aggressive
evasion and you’ve got some creatures worth protecting (like Hostage
Taker).
To start with, the evasion from Daring Saboteur, Siren Stormtamer, Fathom
Fleet Captain, and (if we wanted it) Kitesail Freebooter might be a clue as
to the sort of strategy we should be sculpting. Of course, Daring Saboteur
and Jace, Cunning Castaway also suggest a “looting package,” with Champion
of Wits also in consideration. The question is, however, what we loot away
now that Shadows over Innistrad and Eldritch Moon have
rotated out.
The latest Jace is going to most likely live or die on two points:
- What graveyard synergies do we have to make the looting
good (assuming we’ve got evasive creatures that can reliably trigger
it)? - What is the value of the 2/2 illusion in the format? Are people
easily able to kill it with profit, or is mostly just a full
card?
What does The Scarab God have to do with anything?
The card is busted.
I tried building U/R Pirates, but I’m not sure why the deck is “Pirates.”
Creatures (25)
- 3 Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
- 2 Glorybringer
- 4 Captain Lannery Storm
- 4 Rowdy Crew
- 4 Daring Saboteur
- 4 Siren Stormtamer
- 4 Wily Goblin
Lands (24)
Spells (11)
So, like, our reward for playing Pirate tribal is getting Unclaimed
Territory as a passable multicolor land? You know, we could always just
play a color combination with more than one multicolor land in the first
place…
It doesn’t help the U/R Pirates cause that the U/R Pirate is a worse looter
than the mono-red one (Rowdy Crew). Marauding Looter isn’t out of the
question, but we’d need to see some great looting incentives to really
sweeten the pot.
Okay, this one, I kind of like, but we could just play it in R/B. Being
able to cast Chandra on turn 3 could be really sweet, and Glorybringer is
an excellent card to play ahead of schedule. Even just playing Captain
Lannery Storm with an extra mana means we’ve got more options for removal
to get her through, plus she profits from sacrificing that Treasure, too.
On top of all of that, eight sources of Treasure is most of the way there
on a Spire of Industry plan, and once you factor in good ol’ Scrapheap
Scrounger and Unlicensed Disintegration, we’re starting to get into
something.
Creatures (24)
- 4 Scrapheap Scrounger
- 3 Glorybringer
- 4 Captain Lannery Storm
- 3 Hostage Taker
- 4 Fathom Fleet Captain
- 2 Ruin Raider
- 4 Wily Goblin
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (24)
Spells (10)
There’s a lot to think about with building manabases in the new world. Just
how far are we supposed to push the five-color fixing? Besides, why are we
limited to just black spells in the list above? It’s not like casting Fatal
Push is appreciably easier than casting Negate or Cast Out or Blossoming
Defense. There are just two Ifnir Deadlands upping the black mana supply
compared to any other color.
Dear Urza, do I hope this card isn’t what Standard’s about. Fortunately, a
mediocre four-drop lord spread across three colors, at a cost where there
is real competition, is hopefully enough to make that unlikely.
Okay, P, signing out for today, but don’t get mad…
…you know, like a Pirate…
…without the “P.”
Bonus Grixis Deck!
Creatures (6)
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (26)
Spells (27)