I feel like this touches (albiet indirectly) several connected, for lack of a better term subjective problems and that the crux of them lay not in the speculation put forth but rather between the lines.
Going on, I’m gonna give this all the (what should be) mandatory disclaimer. This is all just my opinion….
I’m still cautiously optimistic about Pioneer but I feel like the real motivations behind it are less than pure and foreshadow some grim realities. When announced it was billed as something more affordable than modern which can avoid some of the common pitfalls of standard (for convenience I’ll lump this all together as “sometimes standard is really bad with one or two decks taking up most of the meta” but this is all slightly more complex than this) .
When people talk about the power level of older formats they tend to ignore the fact that said “power level” is more or less universal in modern (with “busted” stuff you can do being balanced by “busted” hate cards to prevent those things from happening) and this is also true in legacy / vintage with a bit of a bias towards blue. If asked to break down the “core” eternal formats I would say…
Vintage is a format where you can play most any magic card. This format can be ungodly expensive to play.
Legacy is a flavor of vintage lacking some of the most expensive cards in the previously mentioned format but still has many reserve list staples which makes the format unattainable for many magic players. It feels futile to complain about the reserve list, even if it’s such a parasitic concept at this time that it kills the formats which depend on it and will eventually devalue the cards it set out to protect by eventually relegating their use to Commander.
Moderns start date is a bit arbitrary but if put to the gun I’d say that it’s defined by lack of reserve list cards and being started after the blue bias of Magic’s early years. While the price can still be inhibitive there’s not really any reason for this since none of the cards are on the reserve list.
Pioneer is a strange beast. It’s a fetch-less eternal format which lines up more with printing policies than game mechanics or benchmarks.
Wizards could give a ***** less about what players (or independent shops for that matter) want (to be fair, not everyone wants the same things) next to the bottom line. I feel like the real “bad guy” in this situation is Arena. Arena is, in theory a good enough thing. It’s a fine game and if it lets more people enjoy magic more often, great. MTGO serves a real purpose at this time, it keeps formats like Vintage and Legacy affordable (in a form) to many more people and keeps them from being entirely dead formats. Arena doesn’t do anything like this because of their limited card pool. As mentioned by myself and others (Wizards included) standard can be really bad sometimes and if dependent on that Arena would suffer so they had to come up with other ways to play magic. This is also well and good but it becomes a pile of ***** when the apparent intention is to make Arena the center of the Magic universe. Anyway, I digress. The issue at hand isn’t arena but….
Pioneer is unfolding to be more or less as expensive as modern and seems to be shaping up to being dominated by a few decks in the same way standard can sometimes be. If these trends continue (and there’s no reason they wouldn’t) the whole thing is going to turn into something that costs as much as modern (with significantly fewer playable arch-types), as stagnant as a rotation-less standard and at the end of the day as busted as anything else (if my opponent wastes time durdeling my pioneer deck can easily end games fairly consistently by turns 3-4 ). Meanwhile, a great answer to the standard blues is still modern which could be made cheaper by some meaningful (non-reserve list) reprints.
So, there are a lot of mono-red decks going around with a number of flavors, each with a number of variants. This seems about right to me because there's a lot of ways to play red in this format. This is the list I'm going with (I'm sure there will be more tinkering as time goes on). It's pretty unintentionally budget (personally, all I needed to buy was 4 Wild Slash, so it was very budget for me but that wasn't really my goal in putting it together. This deck is fast enough to frequently win by turn 4 and pulls off turn 3 wins more frequently than one might imagine.
Over the course of the next few days I will be writing up a bit of a guide for the deck and put it up here [ Insert primer here ] but it's pretty straight forward Prowess Creatures + Runaway Steam-Kin for extra manna, Dreadhorde Arcanist for free casts on swings (which also trigger prowess / Steam-Kin) along with cheap spells with a number of them being cantrips and burn to keep the train running, Soul-Scar Mage + burn to chip away at bigger creatures. The deck 3-1 a tournament for me this weekend with my one loss being a close round against Phoenix where I got badly flooded (with 18 lands....) in both losses (pulling 9, then 8 lands....) but then went on to trounce another Phoenix deck the next round when I did not flood.
It's not exactly on topic and I'm a bit bias but I kinda feel like Storm should probably be on the list of decks that can use some love. Among the "unfair" decks it seems like it's almost fair considering how much work it takes to pull off and there's disproportionate hate against it.
I agree that I was a bit low on threats. Lazotep worked pretty good for me (risk factor is a good card, It's totally maindeckable). Samut's Sprint is amazing and gets better with any of these two drops on board. Here's my current list. I'm sure I'll tinker with the sideboard before friday and it's still a work in progress but...
The runaway steamkin isn't a wizard but it still gets bonus for you casting spells, most all of the maindeck spells are red and many allow you to draw, scry or both. It's often possible to take steamkin to 3, pop it, cast 3 red spells and still swing for 4 on top of any bonuses that anything else on board might have and whatever benefit those one mana spells bring.
I'm currently tinkering with a wizards list. It's currently in a very early stage but has been .
The key idea that got me started thinking about this deck were Burning Prophet and Dreadhorde Anarchist, I played Wizards in Dominaria a bit so I immediately thought of the Cinder-Wind when I saw what those cards do. Warlord's Fury and Crash through both began to look very nice as spell triggers that do something and draw me a card and then can potentially get played again on attack for free. After doing my first incarnation, in assembling my sideboard I realized that a lot of spells that did things I wanted to had viable amassing options. The deck is kinda in a strange state right now, inadvertently sitting between two slightly different concepts that seem to be pretty much entirely complimentary. I'm going to be play testing this tonight and experimenting a bit more. I think the biggest issue I'm having is I originally designed the deck as a spell-slingy prowess like aggro deck but it seems like it wants to be more of a control-aggro type thing where the goal is to set back the opponent until it's safe to do some tricky stuff and swing for some massive amount of damage that the opponent can't do much about.... Yeah, that's all vague and ranty... Sorry.. The point is, here's the current decklist, I'd welcome any suggestions and I'll update this thread with a more detailed deck breakdown if / when I have a build I feel more solidly on.
After feeling the pain of getting all of my wincons removed from my deck a couple times, I'm experimenting with a one of, main deck, Thing in the Ice in place of an Electromancer (Currently running 4 Barals, 2 Electromancers and 1 Thing). Here's my thinking, it's a good card, it's worked well in the sideboard of the deck before it almost never feels like a bad play, if you throw it out while you're still trying to assemble your hand you have the bonus of worst case scenario (well, other than it being countered or removed) it can give you a chance to win just in the attempt to gather the bits needed for a typical storm win.In game one it can give us a third wincon for a gifts pile and in the common game two scenario of pieces of the puzzle + empty the warrens it can have the pleasant effect of clearing the way for our horde of goblins. After just a bit of playtesting / goldfishing it seems like a pretty solid. Part of me wants to squeeze in a second (I wouldn't eliminate any more manna reducers, it'd be some other spell, as if I was running 4 Electromancers) because things get removed because at what point does deviating from our focus on storming out become detriment? I guess the point is, what are your thoughts on one (or two) maindeck Thing in the Ice in the current environment?
Thanks for the input folks, I updated my list slightly when I happened into a local shop doing some commander games and happened to have my deck on me. My current build:
The current addition that I question the most is Arcane Adaptation, the floor for this card (like Panharmonicon) is terrible (a 3 mana enchantment to turn your merfolk into merfolk) but the ceiling is amazingly high (like Panharmonicon) when combined with a number of (most) other cards. This deck isn't exactly swimming with non merfolk (I totally intended that pun...) creatures but there are a lot of reasons why it's amazing to have those few non-merfolk also be merfolk that tends to pile on each other the way this deck does. Sure, Seahunter is great... but it's really great when you get to tutor for Seahunter, lord it out of range for most sorts of removal,cheat out a merfolk (any other creature) of your choice for 3, make it cost two more for your opponents to interact with and then untap it at the end of your turn to use it again. Yes, that is an extreme case but that's just one of ... a lot... of amazing lines of play.
If you question Walking Ballista I wouldn't suggest going out and getting it but if you happen to have one, I would highly suggest giving it a try in this deck. Most of the times when it shows up it performs amazing for me. There's often a lot of manna floating around to pump into it and a number of ways to search up a Vorel of the Hull Clade and make things crazy.
Last summer, I was working summer school and Magic had become a major part of the events. Many of my students played or wanted to play Magic, some of them owned some cards legal in various formats and those who didn’t were all given welcome decks. A problem began to arise through out the summer though, the kids who had more cards then the welcome decks always won against the welcome deck only kids. So, I brought in a bunch of my bulk cards and began giving out big chunks of them as rewards for whatever good thing I could call them out on. The next problem arose when there were uneven numbers of kids who wanted to play and some kids who were uncomfortable initiating with other students asking them to play with them and as such were never asked. So, I found a chunk of legendary creatures, made them classroom rewards and built this merfolk deck (Which is, incidentally, my first built from scratch commander deck) with a bunch of stuff I had on hand (to be fair, I had a lot of merfolk stuff to begin with) and I really liked it. I played with some friends and it seemed like it had some solid potential (my other EDH deck is Ur-Dragon and she tends to get targeted real quick) so I’ve been slowly tinkering with it over the past several months… Here’s a brief run down but I will likely eventually come up with some kinda more in-depth break down.
Kumena has several things going for him as a commander. He’s cheap, if he gets killed it’s not unreasonable to get him back out (probably more than once). He’s a U/G merfolk, and there are a lot of great cards for U/G merfolk. His abilities are all super useful in commander. What’s not to love about this guy?
So, in building this deck I’ve realized there are a lot of great cards that could (and some that probably will at some point wind up in, the deck is a constant work in progress) fit in to this deck. One of the “problems” faced constructing this deck is the conscious decision to not want to go “all in” with any potential angle while still maintaining some kinda actual focus... or something like that. This deck is based around the commander and it is first and foremost a Merfolk tribal deck. It uses tap mechanics and runs with the ideas of evasion, card advantage and counters, most of this deck is dedicated to (sometimes, rarely, in the most vague sense) these ideas. That said, that’s a really wide net and there are a lot of great options to do those things in these colors.
The basic idea is that this deck aims towards in most games is to build a board state full of big, nasty, evasive merfolk while maintaining a massive hand. While the deck isn’t combo-centric it is made to function with high synergy. The last major change I really made with this involved ditching some counter magic for land ramp cards. While part of me still second guesses this my basic thought behind it was that even with more counter spells the deck wanted to be more aggressive. By adding a bit of land ramp I’m helping myself achieve the goal of building a “machine” out of enchantments, artifacts and synergistic creatures by giving myself the resources to do so sooner. This also seemed like a good idea because I’m already not running a whole lot of lands and doing a bit of land ramp would allow me to dig out the lands I need to fuel to fire while also increasing the fire to fuel ratio left in the deck.
At this point there’s a number of cards (some low hanging fruit Murkfiend Liege and Metallic Mimic both seem like great ideas, there’s not a lot of non merfolk in this deck but the ones are are pretty handy so Arcane Adaptation seems like it could be useful, Collected Company seems like it might not suck here) that I think may work well with the other cards here but part of the problem is what replaces what and if it is really worth it to make the exchange at all. Anyhow, what do you guys think about what I’ve got going on here so far, any suggestions?
Recently, minor events have kept the Pirates land locked (I took a week off to play something else, had to get more important house stuff done on a Friday so I missed FNM, played last week... and I am missing next weekend for my girlfriend's birthday).
Last Friday was kinda notable for a few reasons.. I hadn't played my pirates for a while, I didn't entirely make up my mind to play them until right before hand and I had gotten a few bedevils right before hand. This isn't quite the list I played but rather what, after a little thought, the list should look like with Bedevil in it.
I only wound up going 2-2 again but it still seemed pretty promising.
Round one was lost to Gates (1-2), which this deck had previously done quite well against. Each of the two games I lost, my opponent was able to pull two (all that they were running) Deafening Clarions and play them at opportune times. Round two was lost to Boros aggro again. Early and multiple Knight of Grace(s) is what hung me up in those games. While this deck certainly has the tools to deal with those Knights, those just weren't the cards I drew. Rounds 3 & 4 were both swiftly won (by me) against mono-blue artifacts and Esper midrange.
Hey, good work so far. I’m not sure what sort of specific feedback to give your deck as far as your deck goes but here’s some general stuff.
* If you can, check out your lgs and dive in head first but if you live in an area with several local shops I’d suggest taking time to check them each out. This point could be moot if you live in an area without very many shops or if your transportation is limited but if this is not the case you’ll find that there’s a pretty huge amount of variance just in your local shops. This truth is across the board and can cover everything from atmosphere to format, pricing, prize payout and pretty much everything you can imagine. The point is, shop around for a location as much as you can or until you find just the right fit and then give it a go. Most likely you won’t go 4-0 on your first time, you might even go 0-4. It happens, keep on sloggin’.
* Do as much research as is fun for you. Remember, it’s just a game… That said, it’s a game that tends to be the most rewarding to those with a deeper understanding of it. The internet is full of great resources, the issue is finding the aspects of the game that are most interesting to you and taking the time to learn them. Even if you’ve been playing kitchen table (I played kitchen table off and on for about 22 years before I even put any thought into playing at a shop) for a long time, there’s likely going to be aspects of the game that you just never really put much thought into. This could include any range of stuff from watching deck techs and videos of matches, cramming some hypergeometric probability distribution or just a great deal of reflection on your abstract goals for the deck and how the chosen chunks of the color wheel can best help you.
* Check out some other formats. What this means can really range based on your resources and where your interests lie. At the very least it’s worth looking at what some of the top decks in the formats do because the face of standard is constantly changing. In the long run, if there are groups that play such things the eternal formats are a much better value (and more diverse metas) but have a higher buy in.
* Commander:
It’s my stance that if you play magic, you probably should build a commander deck. It doesn’t make you a worse player or human being than if you don’t play commander, commander is just a worthwhile chunk of value packed fun. These are the points I’d
* Due to the multi-player nature of commander the best deck doesn’t always win. Often times, the best deck becomes quickly identified and that player targeted by the rest of the group.
* Most magic players have cards that aren’t legal in whatever primary format they play in or that they otherwise might not be able to play with that can be played in commander.
* Most magic players already have a favorite color or colors to play in and tend to have a chunk of cards in those colors. This is helpful for building a commander deck. Also, if you’re not quite there there’s a lot of great options to help you get there. The preconstructed commander decks tend to range from not bad to amazing and the Guild kits are also really great starting points for commander decks. If you really like Orzhov, pick up the guild kit and there’s not only multiple commanders to choose from there’s also a bunch of good cards to start you down the path as one ofs but if budget and inclination allows you’re not limited to two colors with the guild kids, you could always pick up a few with shared colors, for example if you want a mardu (Black, white, red) commander deck (you’ll need a mardu commander) you can start with Orzhov, Rakdos and Boros and have a good bit of choices in starting your deck. In short, commander is a fun format that you can tinker with at whatever rate you want.
* Pauper: Pauper is great (kinda). It’s been called legacy light and that’s absolutely true. Pauper is a format that allows for a tremendous range of decks at incredible value. This also allows you to try out wildly diverse deck styles to see what feels right and build a pool of commons useful in other formats. The only problem is that it’s not quite real. Maybe what we have is enough for some players but until we have a sanctioned paper pauper format that allows for all paper commons with the exception of a universally recognized ban list I’m hesitant to invest into this format too emotionally… Jeez, that last sentence made me feel like an Azorius...
A bit on Modern and Legacy:
A lot of players get really intimidated for a number of reasons regarding these formats. Some of these reasons are valid, others not so much. Generally the stereotypes associated with either format are interchangeable but seen as more true for legacy. Also, all of this is worth nothing if there’s not a group to play with in your area.
Price is a factor. When you look at deck prices for Legacy and Modern it can often seem pretty intimidating. The good news is that they’re eternal formats, for the most part, a deck that is good now will not be bad in a year or two. If it takes you a while to build your deck, that’s fine. You’ll be able to play it (perhaps with minor changes) for much longer than it took you to acquire it (well… to be fair there are some legacy decks that cost more than a decent used car, I don’t know what your funds look like). While the buy in is higher, if you’re playing magic years down the road you’ll have saved a great deal more if you play an eternal format. If budget is your primary concern there are still good options. A legacy burn deck (don’t build if you don’t like to burn face) is cheaper than many tier standard decks right now and will never rotate. This is, however, not the case universally…
I wound up with my same first round opponent as I did the previous week. We both tweeked our decks a bit, he took out his splash of white and I made mine a bit sleeker. This week I came out on top.
Round 2: Gruul Aggro 1-2
My second round opponent was also playing Gruul Aggro. He won.
Round 3: Simic Aggro with Wildgrowth Walker explore package 0-2
With consistent life-gain enough for my opponent to hang on and a stream of bodies to batter me, this was a sad loss.
Round 4: Gates 2-0
This deck is really good against gates...
A bit about matchups.
Instead of breaking down how these pirates rate against individual decks, I’m going to comment on some trends I’ve noticed.
This deck tends to shred through the slower decks being played. While there’s no such thing as a sure victory, unless they pull off some kinda god-draw if they’re taking a few turns to set up, these pirates are likely to swab the deck with any opponent too scurvy to keep up with our threats.
Aggressive match ups tend to be in our favor but none of them are really in the bag. If we’re able to execute our plan this deck tends to be faster than most other aggressive decks. That said, sometimes our opponent is able to get their deck to do exactly what they want and sometimes this deck doesn’t do what you want it to. This can mean any number of things in the context of various aggressive decks but the bottom line is, this deck is very fast but not bulletproof.
The games that give this deck the hardest time involve decks (or individual games) which opponents are able to somehow match it in value. This can play out in a bunch of ways that we don’t want but most likely it’ll mean that your opponent has some kinda consistent life gain going on while filling up the battlefield while somehow battering the buccaneers down to 0.
The landbase works out pretty good for me. I know 3 four-drops seems a bit much for 19 lands but It’s entirely possible to win with this deck by turn four with just two lands and the right pirates for the job. Obviously, Light Up the Stage can help us get to lands but Fathom Fleet Captain is also a great stall card until the deck draws some more lands. While hitting the curve isn’t bad at all, regardless of how many lands are on the battlefield if they’re all tapped each turn you’re probably doing ok (to be fair, unless your opponent is really slow, more than only a couple turns on one manna, and that manna must be somehow red, will likely set this deck behind). Judith, the Scourge Diva and Dire Fleet Neckbreaker might be key pieces to this deck but it’s also not too hard to win without them.
To my experience so far...
this deck is strongly favored against Gates and Reclamation, about even, if not very slightly match-ups against mono blue and mono red (these matches seem to come down to who has the better hand / draw), green based aggro with big trample creatures can be a real problem if we can't kill them fast, as can boros with lifegain (and especially strike... and vigilance...) or if opponents are able to make enough dinky blockers to deal with our threats. I've tinkered with my sideboard a bit to maybe help deal with these problems. I'll most likely have some kinda little write up on how it went next week. I've also gone down to 19 lands, I've goldfished this a lot and it seems to work pretty well, in the open slot I put a Theater of Horrors as a one of, it's a bit pricey manna wise for what I'm going for but it offers repeatable card advantage and a way that might not be great value but repeatable way to ping the opponent if it comes down to that.
You don't really need spear spewer.Sure, that's a great card to go with it but we've got other great pirate options to trigger spectacle. That's one of the bigger reasons I'm running Fanatical Firebrand as a 4 of, with 3 March of the Drowned. While it's pretty unlikely to pan out that way I can trigger spectacle with firebrand up to ten times per game. In the exceptionally unlikely event that Judy is out for each of those sacs, that's 20 damage! If that were my only wincon that'd be a bad plan but it's enough (on top of any turns that the deck otherwise can get damage through, which is pretty common) for me to justify leaning on the spectacle mechanic to get more value out of my cards.
As an other note, from what I've seen so far with my current (short) run of pirates, March of the Drowned is just as useful in bringing back pirates that have been countered as it is bringing back those that got to hang out on the battlefield a bit before going to the graveyard.
At least with my build and my experience so far, Reclamation is not much of a problem at all. I ground out several hours of games against this match up on Monday. Most of the time, pre-boards unless they get an ideal hand or I got a notably sub par hand I won. I didn't really feel like I needed to sideboard (but if I did again I would put in some Fiery Cannonade and / or Crash Through) but post boards were more or less the same with the exception of games where Murmering Mystic was able to stall me with blockers long enough to get exploded to davey jones' locker.
Hey, I remember you from the old thread. Here’s a few thoughts.
The biggest issues I ran into running pirates before (besides a general meta shift) involved (most of the time) running running out of gas. Sometimes, however, what I was running before was a (bit more or less at various times) bit of a tool box deck and the problem involved not getting the right cards at the right time. So, going into it this time I wanted to stay as focused as I could on a battle plan (that said, there are a surprisingly large number of really good Pirates that do a really wide range of often times very impressive things and my angle is in no way the definitive one, there are a diverse range of battle plains that could produce great results) and I wanted to ensure that the threats keep coming.
Regardless of the why, you’ll probably want some more card advantage kinda stuff. Ruin Raider could be your best route depending on what build you go with but I always kinda wished the card was a “you may” rather than simply “if you attacked”. Since you’re bound to be pretty aggressive regardless of what plan you choose, this can put you in a situation where if you don’t win with your attack you will likely loose and since your opponent will know this, they can be ready for this moment. If you are doing Grixis and running Ruin Raider as a core bit to your deck I’d also put in some kinda counter magic to help keep your opponents from turning this into too much of an advantage. Keep in mind that in running 3 colors it’s likely you’ll need to shock yourself more than once. Experimental Frenzy is a good card but I think there are a lot of better options when it comes to pirates since you probably want to decide when the best time to play certain cards (Darring Buccaneer, Rigging Runner, Dire Fleet Poisoner, Dire Fleet Neckbreaker… etc) rather than get bound to the whim of the deck. Depending on the goals you set for your deck there are a lot of great options. Treasure Map is pretty great because Captain Lannery Storm is a pirate, on that note, Karn, Scion of Urza is a good way to go through your deck a bit and if you have a pile of treasure can help you pump out big ol’ fatties (and he’s in your colors no matter what they are!). If you want to go the cheap route, light of the stage can be triggered most turns and open up a ton of options. If you don’t mind paying the cost, Risk Factor could be a really good idea, even if you don’t get the cards your opponent takes 4 to the face and it’s got jump-start. On that note, it’s probably a worse idea for Risk Factor but there’s something to be said for it in some potential builds but Sword Point Diplomacy offers the same 3 cards but the potential to do more damage than double, jump-start Risk Factor (but is bound to give you the worst of all worlds). Going grixis you probably shouldn’t overlook curious obsession, this might not be mono blue but there’s probably going to be some really good target for it. Theater of Horrors as a one or two of might not be bad depending on your build. No matter what build you go with you’ll probably throw in as many March of the Drowned in your deck as is reasonable. Regardless to how they got there, pirates tend to die pretty easy. March of the Drowned can help recycle your creatures and that can mean any range of things from another counter or two via stormtamer to a point or two (or 4 if you’ve got Judy on board) of damage to close out the game with Firebrand.
One play that feels great with this deck is… (It’s probably not even the best play… it’s still feels really great and it can happen pretty frequently but…) If you have a Judy on board and sac a Firebrand to trigger spectacle for Skewer the Critics, you just cast Goblin Grenade! Wooo!
Anyway, I'm interested in seeing what direction you go. Keep us updated.
Post script:
Brass never let me down, you probably won't regret her. Warlord's Fury and Crash Through are both cheap combat tricks that do things pirates want to do and replace themselves.
I playtested this deck last night against a friend running Temur Reclamation. I thought I was going to have a chance to fine tune the sideboard, unfortunately (kinda) this didn't really get to happens. Turns out that Pirates do pretty good against Reclamation. I won almost all of the pre board games and well over half of post board (I didn't really need to board anything), the games I lost were either due to very bad draws or to Murmuring Mystic.
I'm pondering the merits of dropping a land and replacing it with a spell, a fourth March of the Drowned could be nice, so could a single Maximize Velocity or Risk Factor, a single Carnival // Carnage could also be a helpful way to activate spectacle in the worst of situations or more... Still, there's a lot to be said for 20 lands.
Going on, I’m gonna give this all the (what should be) mandatory disclaimer. This is all just my opinion….
I’m still cautiously optimistic about Pioneer but I feel like the real motivations behind it are less than pure and foreshadow some grim realities. When announced it was billed as something more affordable than modern which can avoid some of the common pitfalls of standard (for convenience I’ll lump this all together as “sometimes standard is really bad with one or two decks taking up most of the meta” but this is all slightly more complex than this) .
When people talk about the power level of older formats they tend to ignore the fact that said “power level” is more or less universal in modern (with “busted” stuff you can do being balanced by “busted” hate cards to prevent those things from happening) and this is also true in legacy / vintage with a bit of a bias towards blue. If asked to break down the “core” eternal formats I would say…
Vintage is a format where you can play most any magic card. This format can be ungodly expensive to play.
Legacy is a flavor of vintage lacking some of the most expensive cards in the previously mentioned format but still has many reserve list staples which makes the format unattainable for many magic players. It feels futile to complain about the reserve list, even if it’s such a parasitic concept at this time that it kills the formats which depend on it and will eventually devalue the cards it set out to protect by eventually relegating their use to Commander.
Moderns start date is a bit arbitrary but if put to the gun I’d say that it’s defined by lack of reserve list cards and being started after the blue bias of Magic’s early years. While the price can still be inhibitive there’s not really any reason for this since none of the cards are on the reserve list.
Pioneer is a strange beast. It’s a fetch-less eternal format which lines up more with printing policies than game mechanics or benchmarks.
Wizards could give a ***** less about what players (or independent shops for that matter) want (to be fair, not everyone wants the same things) next to the bottom line. I feel like the real “bad guy” in this situation is Arena. Arena is, in theory a good enough thing. It’s a fine game and if it lets more people enjoy magic more often, great. MTGO serves a real purpose at this time, it keeps formats like Vintage and Legacy affordable (in a form) to many more people and keeps them from being entirely dead formats. Arena doesn’t do anything like this because of their limited card pool. As mentioned by myself and others (Wizards included) standard can be really bad sometimes and if dependent on that Arena would suffer so they had to come up with other ways to play magic. This is also well and good but it becomes a pile of ***** when the apparent intention is to make Arena the center of the Magic universe. Anyway, I digress. The issue at hand isn’t arena but….
Pioneer is unfolding to be more or less as expensive as modern and seems to be shaping up to being dominated by a few decks in the same way standard can sometimes be. If these trends continue (and there’s no reason they wouldn’t) the whole thing is going to turn into something that costs as much as modern (with significantly fewer playable arch-types), as stagnant as a rotation-less standard and at the end of the day as busted as anything else (if my opponent wastes time durdeling my pioneer deck can easily end games fairly consistently by turns 3-4 ). Meanwhile, a great answer to the standard blues is still modern which could be made cheaper by some meaningful (non-reserve list) reprints.
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Soul-Scar Mage
4 Runaway Steam-Kin
4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
Land
17 Mountain
1 Castle Embereth
Instant
3 Titan's Strength
4 Wild Slash
3 Expedite
3 Wizard's Lightning
4 Shock
2 Warlord's Fury
2 Crash Through
2 Light Up the Stage
3 Skewer the Critics
2 Rampaging Ferocidon
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Abrade
2 Blazing Volley
3 Lava Coil
2 Chandra, Fire Artisan
Over the course of the next few days I will be writing up a bit of a guide for the deck and put it up here [ Insert primer here ] but it's pretty straight forward Prowess Creatures + Runaway Steam-Kin for extra manna, Dreadhorde Arcanist for free casts on swings (which also trigger prowess / Steam-Kin) along with cheap spells with a number of them being cantrips and burn to keep the train running, Soul-Scar Mage + burn to chip away at bigger creatures. The deck 3-1 a tournament for me this weekend with my one loss being a close round against Phoenix where I got badly flooded (with 18 lands....) in both losses (pulling 9, then 8 lands....) but then went on to trounce another Phoenix deck the next round when I did not flood.
4 Ghitu Lavarunner
4 Runaway Steam-Kin
4 Burning Prophet
4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
3 Adeliz, the Cinder Wind
Land
3 Island
7 Mountain
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Steam Vents
4 Wizard's Lightning
4 Opt
4 Shock
4 Samut's Sprint
Sorcery
3 Warlord's Fury
4 Crash Through
1 Wee Dragonauts
2 Wizard's Retort
2 Risk Factor
1 Lazotep Plating
3 Callous Dismissal
1 Maximize Velocity
1 Invade the City
1 Tibalt, Rakish instigator
3 Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor
The runaway steamkin isn't a wizard but it still gets bonus for you casting spells, most all of the maindeck spells are red and many allow you to draw, scry or both. It's often possible to take steamkin to 3, pop it, cast 3 red spells and still swing for 4 on top of any bonuses that anything else on board might have and whatever benefit those one mana spells bring.
The key idea that got me started thinking about this deck were Burning Prophet and Dreadhorde Anarchist, I played Wizards in Dominaria a bit so I immediately thought of the Cinder-Wind when I saw what those cards do. Warlord's Fury and Crash through both began to look very nice as spell triggers that do something and draw me a card and then can potentially get played again on attack for free. After doing my first incarnation, in assembling my sideboard I realized that a lot of spells that did things I wanted to had viable amassing options. The deck is kinda in a strange state right now, inadvertently sitting between two slightly different concepts that seem to be pretty much entirely complimentary. I'm going to be play testing this tonight and experimenting a bit more. I think the biggest issue I'm having is I originally designed the deck as a spell-slingy prowess like aggro deck but it seems like it wants to be more of a control-aggro type thing where the goal is to set back the opponent until it's safe to do some tricky stuff and swing for some massive amount of damage that the opponent can't do much about.... Yeah, that's all vague and ranty... Sorry.. The point is, here's the current decklist, I'd welcome any suggestions and I'll update this thread with a more detailed deck breakdown if / when I have a build I feel more solidly on.
3 Ghitu Lavarunner
1 Wee Dragonauts
4 Burning Prophet
4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
3 Adeliz, the Cinder Wind
Land
3 Island
7 Mountain
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Steam Vents
1 Blast Zone
4 Wizard's Lightning
4 Opt
4 Shock
4 Samut's Sprint
2 Lazotep Plating
Sorcery
3 Warlord's Fury
4 Crash Through
1 Invade the City
1 Wee Dragonauts
2 Wizard's Retort
2 Risk Factor
1 Lazotep Plating
3 Callous Dismissal
1 Maximize Velocity
1 Invade the City
1 Tibalt, Rakish instigator
3 Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor
1 Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca
Creature
1 Tishana, Voice of Thunder
1 Altered Ego
1 Empress Galina
1 Silvergill Douser
1 Stonybrook Banneret
1 Prime Speaker Zegana
1 Vorel of the Hull Clade
1 Cold-Eyed Selkie
1 Tidal Courier
1 Wake Thrasher
1 Deeproot Elite
1 Lord of Atlantis
1 Seahunter
1 Seedborn Muse
1 Fallowsage
1 Merrow Harbinger
1 Merrow Reejerey
1 Surgespanner
1 Deepchannel Mentor
1 Lullmage Mentor
1 Herald of Secret Streams
1 Kopala, Warden of Waves
1 Master of the Pearl Trident
1 Master of Waves
1 Merfolk Sovereign
1 Seafloor Oracle
1 Merfolk Mistbinder
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Shapers of Nature
1 Forerunner of the Heralds
1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
1 Merrow Commerce
1 Spreading Seas
1 Quest for Renewal
1 Hardened Scales
1 Cryptolith Rite
1 Kindred Discovery
1 Arcane Adaptation
1 Deeproot Waters
1 Hadana's Climb
1 Simic Ascendancy
1 Guardian Project
Land
1 Novijen, Heart of Progress
12 Island
1 Vivid Creek
1 Vivid Grove
1 Flooded Grove
1 Alchemist's Refuge
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Temple of Mystery
1 Command Tower
1 Yavimaya Coast
1 Thornwood Falls
1 Lumbering Falls
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Path of Ancestry
1 Unclaimed Territory
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Field of Ruin
6 Forest
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Library of Leng
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Door of Destinies
1 Sol Ring
1 Bident of Thassa
1 Panharmonicon
1 Herald's Horn
1 Vanquisher's Banner
1 The Immortal Sun
1 Walking Ballista
Instant
1 Chord of Calling
1 Familiar's Ruse
1 Counterspell
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Engulf the Shore
1 Wizard's Retort
1 Growth Spiral
Sorcery
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Rampant Growth
1 River's Rebuke
1 Aquitect's Will
A few future upgrades that I have my eye on are replacing library of leng with thought vessel. Murkfiend Liege, Exploration , Metallic Mimic and Doubling Season all seem like they want to be in this deck some day as well.
The current addition that I question the most is Arcane Adaptation, the floor for this card (like Panharmonicon) is terrible (a 3 mana enchantment to turn your merfolk into merfolk) but the ceiling is amazingly high (like Panharmonicon) when combined with a number of (most) other cards. This deck isn't exactly swimming with non merfolk (I totally intended that pun...) creatures but there are a lot of reasons why it's amazing to have those few non-merfolk also be merfolk that tends to pile on each other the way this deck does. Sure, Seahunter is great... but it's really great when you get to tutor for Seahunter, lord it out of range for most sorts of removal,cheat out a merfolk (any other creature) of your choice for 3, make it cost two more for your opponents to interact with and then untap it at the end of your turn to use it again. Yes, that is an extreme case but that's just one of ... a lot... of amazing lines of play.
If you question Walking Ballista I wouldn't suggest going out and getting it but if you happen to have one, I would highly suggest giving it a try in this deck. Most of the times when it shows up it performs amazing for me. There's often a lot of manna floating around to pump into it and a number of ways to search up a Vorel of the Hull Clade and make things crazy.
1 Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca
Creature
1 Tishana, Voice of Thunder
1 Altered Ego
1 Empress Galina
1 Silvergill Douser
1 Stonybrook Banneret
1 Prime Speaker Zegana
1 Vorel of the Hull Clade
1 Cold-Eyed Selkie
1 Tidal Courier
1 Wake Thrasher
1 Deeproot Elite
1 Lord of Atlantis
1 Seahunter
1 Fallowsage
1 Merrow Harbinger
1 Merrow Reejerey
1 Surgespanner
1 Deepchannel Mentor
1 Lullmage Mentor
1 Herald of Secret Streams
1 Kopala, Warden of Waves
1 Master of the Pearl Trident
1 Master of Waves
1 Merfolk Sovereign
1 Seafloor Oracle
1 Merfolk Mistbinder
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Shapers of Nature
1 Forerunner of the Heralds
1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
1 Stormtide Leviathan
1 Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep
1 Merrow Commerce
1 Spreading Seas
1 Quest for Renewal
1 Hardened Scales
1 Cryptolith Rite
1 Bounty of the Luxa
1 Kindred Discovery
1 Deeproot Waters
1 Hadana's Climb
1 Simic Ascendancy
1 Guardian Project
Land
1 Novijen, Heart of Progress
12 Island
1 Vivid Creek
1 Vivid Grove
1 Flooded Grove
1 Alchemist's Refuge
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Temple of Mystery
1 Command Tower
1 Yavimaya Coast
1 Thornwood Falls
1 Lumbering Falls
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Path of Ancestry
1 Unclaimed Territory
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Field of Ruin
6 Forest
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Library of Leng
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Door of Destinies
1 Sol Ring
1 Bident of Thassa
1 Panharmonicon
1 Herald's Horn
1 Vanquisher's Banner
1 The Immortal Sun
1 Walking Ballista
Instant
1 Familiar's Ruse
1 Counterspell
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Engulf the Shore
1 Wizard's Retort
1 Growth Spiral
Sorcery
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Rampant Growth
1 Cultivate
1 Aquitect's Will
Kumena has several things going for him as a commander. He’s cheap, if he gets killed it’s not unreasonable to get him back out (probably more than once). He’s a U/G merfolk, and there are a lot of great cards for U/G merfolk. His abilities are all super useful in commander. What’s not to love about this guy?
So, in building this deck I’ve realized there are a lot of great cards that could (and some that probably will at some point wind up in, the deck is a constant work in progress) fit in to this deck. One of the “problems” faced constructing this deck is the conscious decision to not want to go “all in” with any potential angle while still maintaining some kinda actual focus... or something like that. This deck is based around the commander and it is first and foremost a Merfolk tribal deck. It uses tap mechanics and runs with the ideas of evasion, card advantage and counters, most of this deck is dedicated to (sometimes, rarely, in the most vague sense) these ideas. That said, that’s a really wide net and there are a lot of great options to do those things in these colors.
The basic idea is that this deck aims towards in most games is to build a board state full of big, nasty, evasive merfolk while maintaining a massive hand. While the deck isn’t combo-centric it is made to function with high synergy. The last major change I really made with this involved ditching some counter magic for land ramp cards. While part of me still second guesses this my basic thought behind it was that even with more counter spells the deck wanted to be more aggressive. By adding a bit of land ramp I’m helping myself achieve the goal of building a “machine” out of enchantments, artifacts and synergistic creatures by giving myself the resources to do so sooner. This also seemed like a good idea because I’m already not running a whole lot of lands and doing a bit of land ramp would allow me to dig out the lands I need to fuel to fire while also increasing the fire to fuel ratio left in the deck.
At this point there’s a number of cards (some low hanging fruit Murkfiend Liege and Metallic Mimic both seem like great ideas, there’s not a lot of non merfolk in this deck but the ones are are pretty handy so Arcane Adaptation seems like it could be useful, Collected Company seems like it might not suck here) that I think may work well with the other cards here but part of the problem is what replaces what and if it is really worth it to make the exchange at all. Anyhow, what do you guys think about what I’ve got going on here so far, any suggestions?
Last Friday was kinda notable for a few reasons.. I hadn't played my pirates for a while, I didn't entirely make up my mind to play them until right before hand and I had gotten a few bedevils right before hand. This isn't quite the list I played but rather what, after a little thought, the list should look like with Bedevil in it.
4 Rigging Runner
4 Fanatical Firebrand
4 Fathom Fleet Captain
4 Dire Fleet Captain
3 Daring Buccaneer
4 Dire Fleet Poisoner
3 Judith, the Scourge Diva
3 Dire Fleet Neckbreaker
1 Theater of Horrors
3 March of the Drowned
4 Light Up the Stage
4 Skewer the Critics
Pillaged & Plundered:
4 Dragonskull Summit
7 Mountain
4 Swamp
4 Blood Crypt
3 Kitesail Freebooter
3 Fiery Cannonade
3 Bedevil
3 Warlord's Fury
3 Drill Bit
I only wound up going 2-2 again but it still seemed pretty promising.
Round one was lost to Gates (1-2), which this deck had previously done quite well against. Each of the two games I lost, my opponent was able to pull two (all that they were running) Deafening Clarions and play them at opportune times. Round two was lost to Boros aggro again. Early and multiple Knight of Grace(s) is what hung me up in those games. While this deck certainly has the tools to deal with those Knights, those just weren't the cards I drew. Rounds 3 & 4 were both swiftly won (by me) against mono-blue artifacts and Esper midrange.
* If you can, check out your lgs and dive in head first but if you live in an area with several local shops I’d suggest taking time to check them each out. This point could be moot if you live in an area without very many shops or if your transportation is limited but if this is not the case you’ll find that there’s a pretty huge amount of variance just in your local shops. This truth is across the board and can cover everything from atmosphere to format, pricing, prize payout and pretty much everything you can imagine. The point is, shop around for a location as much as you can or until you find just the right fit and then give it a go. Most likely you won’t go 4-0 on your first time, you might even go 0-4. It happens, keep on sloggin’.
* Do as much research as is fun for you. Remember, it’s just a game… That said, it’s a game that tends to be the most rewarding to those with a deeper understanding of it. The internet is full of great resources, the issue is finding the aspects of the game that are most interesting to you and taking the time to learn them. Even if you’ve been playing kitchen table (I played kitchen table off and on for about 22 years before I even put any thought into playing at a shop) for a long time, there’s likely going to be aspects of the game that you just never really put much thought into. This could include any range of stuff from watching deck techs and videos of matches, cramming some hypergeometric probability distribution or just a great deal of reflection on your abstract goals for the deck and how the chosen chunks of the color wheel can best help you.
* Check out some other formats. What this means can really range based on your resources and where your interests lie. At the very least it’s worth looking at what some of the top decks in the formats do because the face of standard is constantly changing. In the long run, if there are groups that play such things the eternal formats are a much better value (and more diverse metas) but have a higher buy in.
* Commander:
It’s my stance that if you play magic, you probably should build a commander deck. It doesn’t make you a worse player or human being than if you don’t play commander, commander is just a worthwhile chunk of value packed fun. These are the points I’d
* Due to the multi-player nature of commander the best deck doesn’t always win. Often times, the best deck becomes quickly identified and that player targeted by the rest of the group.
* Most magic players have cards that aren’t legal in whatever primary format they play in or that they otherwise might not be able to play with that can be played in commander.
* Most magic players already have a favorite color or colors to play in and tend to have a chunk of cards in those colors. This is helpful for building a commander deck. Also, if you’re not quite there there’s a lot of great options to help you get there. The preconstructed commander decks tend to range from not bad to amazing and the Guild kits are also really great starting points for commander decks. If you really like Orzhov, pick up the guild kit and there’s not only multiple commanders to choose from there’s also a bunch of good cards to start you down the path as one ofs but if budget and inclination allows you’re not limited to two colors with the guild kids, you could always pick up a few with shared colors, for example if you want a mardu (Black, white, red) commander deck (you’ll need a mardu commander) you can start with Orzhov, Rakdos and Boros and have a good bit of choices in starting your deck. In short, commander is a fun format that you can tinker with at whatever rate you want.
* Pauper: Pauper is great (kinda). It’s been called legacy light and that’s absolutely true. Pauper is a format that allows for a tremendous range of decks at incredible value. This also allows you to try out wildly diverse deck styles to see what feels right and build a pool of commons useful in other formats. The only problem is that it’s not quite real. Maybe what we have is enough for some players but until we have a sanctioned paper pauper format that allows for all paper commons with the exception of a universally recognized ban list I’m hesitant to invest into this format too emotionally… Jeez, that last sentence made me feel like an Azorius...
A bit on Modern and Legacy:
A lot of players get really intimidated for a number of reasons regarding these formats. Some of these reasons are valid, others not so much. Generally the stereotypes associated with either format are interchangeable but seen as more true for legacy. Also, all of this is worth nothing if there’s not a group to play with in your area.
Price is a factor. When you look at deck prices for Legacy and Modern it can often seem pretty intimidating. The good news is that they’re eternal formats, for the most part, a deck that is good now will not be bad in a year or two. If it takes you a while to build your deck, that’s fine. You’ll be able to play it (perhaps with minor changes) for much longer than it took you to acquire it (well… to be fair there are some legacy decks that cost more than a decent used car, I don’t know what your funds look like). While the buy in is higher, if you’re playing magic years down the road you’ll have saved a great deal more if you play an eternal format. If budget is your primary concern there are still good options. A legacy burn deck (don’t build if you don’t like to burn face) is cheaper than many tier standard decks right now and will never rotate. This is, however, not the case universally…
Round 1: Gruul Aggro 2-1
I wound up with my same first round opponent as I did the previous week. We both tweeked our decks a bit, he took out his splash of white and I made mine a bit sleeker. This week I came out on top.
Round 2: Gruul Aggro 1-2
My second round opponent was also playing Gruul Aggro. He won.
Round 3: Simic Aggro with Wildgrowth Walker explore package 0-2
With consistent life-gain enough for my opponent to hang on and a stream of bodies to batter me, this was a sad loss.
Round 4: Gates 2-0
This deck is really good against gates...
A bit about matchups.
Instead of breaking down how these pirates rate against individual decks, I’m going to comment on some trends I’ve noticed.
This deck tends to shred through the slower decks being played. While there’s no such thing as a sure victory, unless they pull off some kinda god-draw if they’re taking a few turns to set up, these pirates are likely to swab the deck with any opponent too scurvy to keep up with our threats.
Aggressive match ups tend to be in our favor but none of them are really in the bag. If we’re able to execute our plan this deck tends to be faster than most other aggressive decks. That said, sometimes our opponent is able to get their deck to do exactly what they want and sometimes this deck doesn’t do what you want it to. This can mean any number of things in the context of various aggressive decks but the bottom line is, this deck is very fast but not bulletproof.
The games that give this deck the hardest time involve decks (or individual games) which opponents are able to somehow match it in value. This can play out in a bunch of ways that we don’t want but most likely it’ll mean that your opponent has some kinda consistent life gain going on while filling up the battlefield while somehow battering the buccaneers down to 0.
The landbase works out pretty good for me. I know 3 four-drops seems a bit much for 19 lands but It’s entirely possible to win with this deck by turn four with just two lands and the right pirates for the job. Obviously, Light Up the Stage can help us get to lands but Fathom Fleet Captain is also a great stall card until the deck draws some more lands. While hitting the curve isn’t bad at all, regardless of how many lands are on the battlefield if they’re all tapped each turn you’re probably doing ok (to be fair, unless your opponent is really slow, more than only a couple turns on one manna, and that manna must be somehow red, will likely set this deck behind). Judith, the Scourge Diva and Dire Fleet Neckbreaker might be key pieces to this deck but it’s also not too hard to win without them.
4 Rigging Runner
4 Fanatical Firebrand
4 Fathom Fleet Captain
4 Dire Fleet Captain
3 Daring Buccaneer
4 Dire Fleet Poisoner
3 Judith, the Scourge Diva (honorary pirate)
3 Dire Fleet Neckbreaker
4 Light Up the Stage
4 Skewer the Critics
3 March of the Drowned
1 Theater of Horrors
Lands pillaged
4 Dragonskull Summit
8 Mountain
3 Swamp
4 Blood Crypt
3 Kitesail Freebooter
3 Fiery Cannonade
3 Warlord's Fury
3 Crash Through
3 Drill Bit
To my experience so far...
this deck is strongly favored against Gates and Reclamation, about even, if not very slightly match-ups against mono blue and mono red (these matches seem to come down to who has the better hand / draw), green based aggro with big trample creatures can be a real problem if we can't kill them fast, as can boros with lifegain (and especially strike... and vigilance...) or if opponents are able to make enough dinky blockers to deal with our threats. I've tinkered with my sideboard a bit to maybe help deal with these problems. I'll most likely have some kinda little write up on how it went next week. I've also gone down to 19 lands, I've goldfished this a lot and it seems to work pretty well, in the open slot I put a Theater of Horrors as a one of, it's a bit pricey manna wise for what I'm going for but it offers repeatable card advantage and a way that might not be great value but repeatable way to ping the opponent if it comes down to that.
As an other note, from what I've seen so far with my current (short) run of pirates, March of the Drowned is just as useful in bringing back pirates that have been countered as it is bringing back those that got to hang out on the battlefield a bit before going to the graveyard.
At least with my build and my experience so far, Reclamation is not much of a problem at all. I ground out several hours of games against this match up on Monday. Most of the time, pre-boards unless they get an ideal hand or I got a notably sub par hand I won. I didn't really feel like I needed to sideboard (but if I did again I would put in some Fiery Cannonade and / or Crash Through) but post boards were more or less the same with the exception of games where Murmering Mystic was able to stall me with blockers long enough to get exploded to davey jones' locker.
The biggest issues I ran into running pirates before (besides a general meta shift) involved (most of the time) running running out of gas. Sometimes, however, what I was running before was a (bit more or less at various times) bit of a tool box deck and the problem involved not getting the right cards at the right time. So, going into it this time I wanted to stay as focused as I could on a battle plan (that said, there are a surprisingly large number of really good Pirates that do a really wide range of often times very impressive things and my angle is in no way the definitive one, there are a diverse range of battle plains that could produce great results) and I wanted to ensure that the threats keep coming.
Regardless of the why, you’ll probably want some more card advantage kinda stuff. Ruin Raider could be your best route depending on what build you go with but I always kinda wished the card was a “you may” rather than simply “if you attacked”. Since you’re bound to be pretty aggressive regardless of what plan you choose, this can put you in a situation where if you don’t win with your attack you will likely loose and since your opponent will know this, they can be ready for this moment. If you are doing Grixis and running Ruin Raider as a core bit to your deck I’d also put in some kinda counter magic to help keep your opponents from turning this into too much of an advantage. Keep in mind that in running 3 colors it’s likely you’ll need to shock yourself more than once. Experimental Frenzy is a good card but I think there are a lot of better options when it comes to pirates since you probably want to decide when the best time to play certain cards (Darring Buccaneer, Rigging Runner, Dire Fleet Poisoner, Dire Fleet Neckbreaker… etc) rather than get bound to the whim of the deck. Depending on the goals you set for your deck there are a lot of great options. Treasure Map is pretty great because Captain Lannery Storm is a pirate, on that note, Karn, Scion of Urza is a good way to go through your deck a bit and if you have a pile of treasure can help you pump out big ol’ fatties (and he’s in your colors no matter what they are!). If you want to go the cheap route, light of the stage can be triggered most turns and open up a ton of options. If you don’t mind paying the cost, Risk Factor could be a really good idea, even if you don’t get the cards your opponent takes 4 to the face and it’s got jump-start. On that note, it’s probably a worse idea for Risk Factor but there’s something to be said for it in some potential builds but Sword Point Diplomacy offers the same 3 cards but the potential to do more damage than double, jump-start Risk Factor (but is bound to give you the worst of all worlds). Going grixis you probably shouldn’t overlook curious obsession, this might not be mono blue but there’s probably going to be some really good target for it. Theater of Horrors as a one or two of might not be bad depending on your build. No matter what build you go with you’ll probably throw in as many March of the Drowned in your deck as is reasonable. Regardless to how they got there, pirates tend to die pretty easy. March of the Drowned can help recycle your creatures and that can mean any range of things from another counter or two via stormtamer to a point or two (or 4 if you’ve got Judy on board) of damage to close out the game with Firebrand.
One play that feels great with this deck is… (It’s probably not even the best play… it’s still feels really great and it can happen pretty frequently but…) If you have a Judy on board and sac a Firebrand to trigger spectacle for Skewer the Critics, you just cast Goblin Grenade! Wooo!
Anyway, I'm interested in seeing what direction you go. Keep us updated.
Post script:
Brass never let me down, you probably won't regret her. Warlord's Fury and Crash Through are both cheap combat tricks that do things pirates want to do and replace themselves.
I'm pondering the merits of dropping a land and replacing it with a spell, a fourth March of the Drowned could be nice, so could a single Maximize Velocity or Risk Factor, a single Carnival // Carnage could also be a helpful way to activate spectacle in the worst of situations or more... Still, there's a lot to be said for 20 lands.
Those cards plus Crash Through, Banefire, Warlord's Fury, Fiery Cannonade, Drill Bit, Dire Fleet Daredevil and Kitesail Freebooter are all in the running for sideboard slots.