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Pirates! is a deck first developed
and published by Craig Stevenson, who played the Deck at PT New Orleans
2003. It went 4-4 in a tournament where Tinker was running wild and turn
3 kills happened more often than reaching turn 6. The deck was pretty
bad against Tinker, but Tinker was banned short thereafter and Pirates
began to emerge as a new Extended Archtype. You can read a 7-0-0
Tournament report by John Samples here!
This is the newest built of the deck, built out of the original Version
of Craig.
For a Bottle of Rum!
Originally by Craig Stevenson, Changed by Daniel Wünsche (DrLambda)
Creatures - 12
2 Gilded Drake
2 Morphling
4 Rishadan Cutpurse
4 Rishadan Footpad
Spells - 26
3 Ankh of Mishra
4 Boomerang
1 Capsize
2 Counterspell
3 Echoing Truth
4 Hoodwink
3 Isochron Scepter
4 Parallax Tide
2 Stifle
Lands - 22
3 Dust Bowl
1 Faerie Conclave
10 Island
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
Single Card Analysis
Creatures - 12
4 Rishadan Cutpurse - When you bounced their permanents and they only
got 1 or 2 lands left, you can use Rishadan Port to tap them out if they
aren't and then drop the Cutpurse to kill one of those lands. Also, once
you dropped one of them, your opponent will be much more careful with
tapping his lands, even more if you got a Port in play.
4 Rishadan Footpad - Same here, except that it's even harder for your
opponent to keep 2 lands untapped (Port again).
2 Gilded Drake - With all the bounce running around in this deck, this
becomes evil. If you can't stop their lands and creatures, steal one of
them and then bounce the Drake back as often as you want to.
2 Morphling - Random kill creature. Maybe replaced with any fat blue
flyer if you want to go budget. But if you got the Morphlings, play
them.
Spells - 26
3 Ankh of Mishra - There aren't many decks in which the Ankh is as evil
as in this deck. You bounce their land turn after turn, and whenever
they replay it, they get 2 to the head. Together with Parallax Tide this
is a 2-card 10 damage combo.
4 Boomerang - Bounce No. 1. Either put it on an Isochron Scepter or stop
their early development. Island - Island - Boomerang is a good play,
believe me.
1 Capsize - You don't really want more of those. It is useful if the
game is stalling, but most of the time, its a not-imprintable Boomerang.
Still, one is playable.
2 Counterspell - Sometimes you just need to say no.
3 Echoing Truth - The latest addition to the deck. It bounces back
Mongrels and Aquamoebas like nothing else, and it kills multiple tokens
at once. Very solid bounce.
4 Hoodwink - Bounce more land. Nuff said.
3 Isochron Scepter - You either got Boomerang every turn, or Echoing
Truth every turn, or Hoodwink every turn, or, if you got the time to do
it, Counterspell every turn. Whats not to like about this card? This
really makes the deck running smooth.
4 Parallax Tide - Choose one, either you deal 10 damage with Ankh of
Mishra, or you stop their development the hard way.
2 Stifle - Multiusefulness at it's best. There are plenty of ways to use
this. Oh, and it kills fetchlands dead.
Lands - 22
3 Dust Bowl - The game is running to long? Try Dustbowl, our favorite
way to bring your opponent into trouble!
1 Faerie Conclave - Additional Win Condition.
10 Islands - I heard these are pretty broken in blue decks.
4 Rishadan Port - Port the lands they still have when you bounce the
other ones back. And enable the Cutpurse and Footpad.
4 Wasteland - Even more disruption.
Alternative Cards
Waterfront Bouncer - Needs a turn to become active, only hits creatures
and has a very fragile body. If aggro is big in your metagame, you may
want to include this to stop more creatures. Cards to cut would be
Rishadan Cutpurse, or if you really want to go the creature bounce
route, Hoodwink.
Rhystic Study - Your opponent doesn't want to pay
when you got Pirates en masse floating around. This is efficient
card-draw, but a bit to slow against Madness and RDW. If your in a
control metagame, you can cut cards like Capsize and one or two Parallax
Tide.
Sideboarding Options
Arcane Laboratory - Limiting your opponent to one spell per turn while
you can bounce it at insta-speed can disable Aggro. Also, it can stop
any combo deck like Twiddle Desire or Enchantress pretty good.
Chill - If RDW / GobboSligh is big in your area, this is the card to add
to your sideboard. Making every spell they play cost 2 more together
with your bounce is a good way to slow those decks down enough to win
against them.
Powder Keg - Your card against anything aggro, from UG Madness to RDW.
Propaganda - Again, an anti-aggro solution.
Sphere of Resistance - Anti-Combo. Comes together with the Pirates.
Cursed Totem - If you need to beat Tog, Rock and Madness even harder.
Gilded Drake - Anti-Aggro.
Energy Flux - Your favorite card in an artifact-heavy enviroment.
Trinisphere - Another piece of combo/aggro-hate, a bit slow for you
because you aren't running acceleration. It hits most of your spells
too, so Sphere of Resistance maybe a better solution.
Matchups
Combo
(Twiddle Desire, Enchantress, Aluren)
Those decks don't like your disruption. Bounce everything in your way.
The main problem is that those decks sometimes just explode out of a
sudden. Hold back the Counterspells for the important spells in those
decks. Remember you got Stifle against Storm. After match one, sideboard
in your combo hate. If you are able to play it early enough (Arcane Lab
pE.) the game should be yours.
Aggro
(Red Deck Wins, Madness, Fiends)
These are your hardest matchups. You need to nail them down as fast as
possible. Against some of those, its better to go an aggro way than the
normal, controllish way. Use your Gilded Drake excessivly, and don't
bounce the land because they don't need to much anyway. Keep your good
bounce for the creatures (Fiends is kinda different because of a
somewhat unstable mana base. You can try to disrupt it.). After
sideboarding, the aggro hate makes your matchup much better. RDW
normally can't win afterwards, Madness got a lot of problems, and
Fiends... well, is still Fiends.
Control
(The Rock, Tog, IsoTog)
Your favorite matchup. Denial them access to their landbase, and these
decks loose. Rock is a lot harder than Tog, because Tog simply can't win
the game. Cursed Totem shuts a lot of their tools down after
sideboarding, and enhancing the cost of already mana-intensive decks
with Sphere of Resistance helps as well. |
