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Pirates, Rogues, and Rebels

Commander / EDH Casual

Woelore_Wingrider

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Creature (30)

Enchantment (1)

Land (39)

Sorcery (7)

Commander (1)

Commander: Marchesa, the Black Rose

Artifact (13)

Instant (9)

Maybeboard

Creature (7)

Artifact (5)

Enchantment (1)

Instant (3)

Sorcery (3)

I set out to make a Commander deck based on 3-color pirates but wasn't interested in the Admiral as my commander. Poking about, I discovered Marchesa. She sounded like an underworld crime lord so I expanded my coalition to rogues and rebels. Most of the rebel contingent has dropped out of the build at this point but some may reappear. Marchesa brought some fine rogues from Conspiracy with her. Most cards were picked for flavor over power, but there are a few that are in primarily for function.

Pirates tend to be small and generally cheap. That means on the creature front, they trend toward go-wide strategy but they don't pump in tokens to help with that so they need to bring some added value with them. Marchesa'a dethrone boon can be important if you get a counter on these guys so you can bring them back if(when) they die. Getting to use them twice is a big advantage. Marchesa likes the security of Opal Palace for its +1/+1 counter.

One of the big piratey things I am doing with this deck is potentially stealing a lot of cards. Hijack, Mark of Mutiny, Mass Mutiny, Captivating Crew and Kari Zev's Expertise all have the ability to borrow a creature for a turn. The Admiral, Hostage Taker, Kitesail Freebooter, Gonti, Stolen Goods, Grenzo, Havoc Raiser, and Dire Fleet Daredevil can swipe you something for longer than that, or at least exile it.

Grenzo's bigger, badder self, the Dungeon Warden, can pump out most of my creatures from the bottom of the library for two mana, or one if you have a cost reducer in play (Heartstone). In my deck, he can combo with Timestream Navigator to go infinite on turns if you have the city's blessing. For 2UU the Navigator goes to the bottom of the library, getting an extra turn after this one, and for 2 more Grenzo can pull her off the bottom and plop her back on the battlefield. My worst-case scenario is to have Lightning-Rig Crew out to tap each of those infinite turns to do 1 to each opponent, but Smuggler's Copter is in here for that too.

It is nice to have more than 6 mana available so you can activate Grenzo more or cast the cards you draw on those turns. I also like to make sure Grenzo was cast with at least x=1 so he has a counter to take advantage of Marchesa's return ability in case he dies. One could optimize for Grenzo by adding more scry and ability to put cards from the graveyard onto the bottom of the library (Conjurer's Bauble).

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