Pirate Fleet: Standard Izzet Pirates

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Before We Start

Looking back at the four tribes of old Ixalan, Standard at the time had Gruul Dinosaurs and Simic Merfolk, and Vampires, besides the tribal deck, also shone in White Weenie, while only the Pirate tribal deck was lackluster, with only strong individual cards standing out. Does The Lost Caverns of Ixalan change that?

Chart a Course: Concept Analysis

In The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Limited, we often ran into the disgusting board of Captain Storm, Cosmium Raider paired with Breeches, Eager Pillager, accelerating, growing, and drawing cards while attacking. Interacting with artifacts is exactly this set’s Pirate theme, so naturally the Standard version’s main axis is also built on artifact synergy.

Looking at The Lost Caverns of Ixalan’s Pirate card pool, we can see a clear aggro tendency with small creatures, so the artifacts that pair with them are naturally Equipment that boosts abilities, or Vehicles that can counter ordinary sorcery-speed sweepers. Although on the Vehicle side there is the powerhouse Subterranean Schooner, which could be called Smuggler’s Copter 2.0, considering the overall creature tempo, the tribal synergy of the Pirate lords, and how Equipment shores up red-blue’s removal, the author decided to go the Equipment route. The decklist is as follows:

Decklist

There is basically not much room for choice in the creature base, so we just fill in the best Pirate creature at each point of the curve: at one mana Spyglass Siren and Goblin Tomb Raider, at two mana Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel, Captain Storm, Cosmium Raider, and Staunch Crewmate, at three mana Breeches, Eager Pillager and Kitesail Larcenist, for 25 creatures in total.

The legendary pair mentioned at the start is indeed powerful, but the real core creature of the Pirate deck is not those two famous pirates, but the supporting character who in the movies always saves the day at a critical moment and links the two systems of Pirates and artifacts, Staunch Crewmate. Its ability, entering for two mana to look at four and take a Pirate or artifact, is almost guaranteed to find a live card in this deck where Pirates and artifacts together make up more than half, steadily earning a card. The body is no loss whether you trade it for a 3/2 creature or rush in with Equipment to trade off a blocker, and it can fetch as many as 6 removal spells, so it is a key card that absolutely must be maxed out in a The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Pirate deck. Besides being the only one-mana flying Pirate in the card pool, the Map tokens made by Spyglass Siren also help Goblin Tomb Raider and Captain Storm use their abilities, and depending on the situation can also serve as one of the targets for Kitesail Larcenist, turning explore into mana to speed up the tempo. As for Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel, which has little connection to the overall game plan, it is used as a flash flyer with filtering ability, with the missing power made up by Equipment.

For Equipment, in line with the Pirates’ artifact theme, we chose Diamond Pick-Axe, which makes Treasures, and Dire Flail // Dire Blunderbuss, which acts as a mana sink and can consume spare artifacts to act as removal. We also added The Irencrag as a way to accelerate while shoring up body size. This deck has as many as nine legendary creatures and its overall costs are also low (the average mana value of all the nonland cards works out to just 2.1), so usually once you accelerate on turn two there is soon room to turn it into the Equipment Everflame, Heroes’ Legacy. The removal that works with this crowd of low-cost Equipment is Rebel Salvo, which cares about Equipment. Finally, we added two Magmatic Galleon as extra removal and a source of Treasures. For creature lands, considering the overall faster tempo and the need for artifact types, we used a combination of two each of Restless Spire and Mishra’s Foundry.

Reaver Ambush: Gameplay Demo

The ideal board for Izzet Pirates is the golden combination of Breeches + Captain Storm, but it isn’t going to be a holiday every day when you play, so generally it is mostly a flyer carrying Equipment, attacking and chipping away at life under the cover of removal such as Rebel Salvo. When the board has built up two or three creatures, or a single creature carrying Equipment can deal damage steadily, you can hold creatures back as appropriate to dodge sweepers, and after being swept, use flash Malcolm or haste Goblin Tomb Raider to pick up the Equipment and keep the pressure on your opponent. The creature lands Restless Spire and Mishra’s Foundry, besides having cheap animation costs that let them attack directly with Equipment, can also be used to crew Magmatic Galleon and ram into the opponent. The sideboard is reinforced with counterspells, sweepers, and graveyard hate. Besides the common Negate, Disdainful Stroke, Lithomantic Barrage, Spell Pierce, and Brotherhood’s End, for graveyard hate we chose Unlicensed Hearse, which suits a creature deck. For staying power, we added Treasure Map // Treasure Cove, which produces Treasures and can turn Treasures into cards in hand, and also Asinine Antics, which answers large creatures.

Conclusion

At the time of writing, Subterranean Schooner is putting up good results in Standard, and of course the author threw it in for testing too. Honestly, apart from being an artifact, it really can’t be called a fit in other respects: Pirates care about attack triggers and require Pirates and artifacts to enter, and the Schooner doesn’t quite meet those needs, so the version in this article takes Equipment as the main route. Of course the Schooner still has its strengths, and readers who don’t like the Equipment route can try the Vehicle route for themselves.