MTG Salvation

So, I had always planned to build a pirates deck once Ixalan hit, and never got around to it. I've recently gotten the itch to build again, so I want to put together a Pirate-themed deck. By choosing Pirates, I already understand that this deck will be largely casual, but I think it has a chance to win some games. And after playing with the list, I think it will play out in a fun way. I was a bit surprised to find that nobody had made a Pirates EDH decklist on here.

But I always appreciate help! The goal of the deck is to amass some Pirates, swing for large chunks of life and steal valuable permanents. I got the base of my ideas off EDHREC, but that's only a starting point, not a finished product.



And there are a lot of cool cards that I'd like to play, but haven't found a spot yet. Check them out below.

I love casual tribal decks, nice one!

As with any tribal theme where the individual creatures are pretty weak in of themselves, I'd suggest a few more ways to strengthen them..

Adaptive Automaton AKA robo-pirate (you have Metallic Mimic in your maybe already)

Door of destinies

Konda's Banner A fine flag for the captain

Shared Animosity

Heirloom blade always good to draw more pirates

Quote from joeyb11223 »

I love casual tribal decks, nice one!

As with any tribal theme where the individual creatures are pretty weak in of themselves, I'd suggest a few more ways to strengthen them..
Adaptive Automaton AKA robo-pirate (you have Metallic Mimic in your maybe already)
Door of destinies
Konda's Banner A fine flag for the captain
Shared Animosity
Heirloom blade always good to draw more pirates

Thanks for the input!
I definitely agree that Adaptive Automaton would be great, and he's already in the list. I know there's a million creatures so it's hard to see.
Door of Destinies and Konda's Banner: Both are fine cards. It's hard to choose between Herald's Horn, Vanquisher's Banner, Door of Destinies, and Konda's Banner. I'm not sure if all of them would be too much. The reason I've currently chosen Herald's Horn and Vanquisher's Banner is that those two provide card advantage. Once I play the deck some, I'll hopefully get a feel for if my Pirates are just too small, in which case I'll consider the Door and the Banner.
Shared Animosity is great; unfortunately, my only copy is in another deck. If I get my hands on another copy, I'm sure it will find its way in here.
Heirloom Blade is a good idea too! At 3CMC, it is competing with Herald's Horn for utility that can draw cards, and at that I think the Horn wins out; however, a lot of my Pirates have some form of evasion, so I wonder if this would be worth it for the incremental damage and the extra card on death.

I do actually have a Becket Brass deck built and sleeved, but can't contribute a lot of experience, since I've never really played it so far.
I was just very tempted to build a "theme over efficiency" tribal deck for a long time. Another deck-style box I'd been wanting to check for a while was a thieving theme and since that goes very well thematically with pirates, I finally pulled the trigger when Ixalan came around.

Only thing that comes to mind I would specifically recommend is Cover of Darkness as a nice way to actually get your pirates through and get value from the admiral's eot trigger.

I'll also leave the full list here. It's far from optimized (and mostly doesn't even want to be), but maybe there is an idea or two in there for you
(I plan to add an Expropriate and a Kindred Discovery sometimes, but since the deck is not high on my update priority, I didn't so far for budget reasons)

Thanks for the input, and I love the all-in theme deck!

Cover of Darkness is a great idea, and on theme too - I can see my pirates advancing their ships under the cover of darkness. I’ll have to see if I can find my copy.

Makeshift Munitions is a neat card I didn’t remember. I’m not as heavy into thievery as you are, but I still have quite a few theft options, and aside from High Market, I didn’t have much in the way of a sac outlet.

Belbe's Portal and Cryptic Gateway can help in getting Pirates into play from the hand.

Patriarch's Bidding lets each player bring back tribal creatures from their graveyard.

Patriarch's Bidding is really great, unfortunately my only copy is in a 5-color tribal modular deck I have built right now.

Belbe's Portal and Cryptic Gateway are both good ways of getting my pirates into play, but I notice that many of my pirates are low on the curve. Between their generally low CMC and my suspicion that this deck will produce large amounts of treasure tokens, I'll have to see through playtesting whether I need the ability to spew out more pirates.

You may also want to look into War Cadence. It does the same job of helping make it harder to block by taxing it. You can use it for yourself or assist another player when they declare attackers not targeting you.

There's also the opposite War Tax if you want to control who can attack.

Treasure Hunt for flavor

Holy cow, War Cadence is really cool! I’m sure I’ve seen that card 20 times and never actually looked at it. I definitely need to find a spot for it!

Treasure Hunt is very flavorful. I wish I could take full advantage of it in my list. Similar to Dead Man’s Chest.

The deck made its maiden voyage this weekend, and results were mixed. It got pounded a few times because it lacks removal, but I smashed two opponents on the heels of Fell Flagship, Admiral Beckett Brass, and Dire Fleet Neckbreaker. Those buffs really added up quickly!

Mob Rule is pretty good for grabbing all the big creatures and can finish off some opponents.

Ancient Excavation for mass looting or basic land cycling.

I definitely think this deck could go all-in on creature theft and sacrifice, and I’ve considered that in the past. I wonder if I use Mob Rule to steal a player’s creatures, hit him/her with 3+ pirates with Admiral Beckett Brass on board, will I be able to trigger the permanent theft at end step, or are they not under that player’s control when the Beckett trigger goes off?

End of the turn effects like Mob Rule ends during the cleanup step of the end phase after the phase when 'At the beginning of the end step' would trigger.