a deck ive built iup to try at my locals. the basis is an aggro pirates deck with scrapheap and other synergistic cards. I run playsets of both shock and lightning strike as means of extra reach when theres too many blockers and to close out games. so fare the deck has been doing pretty well and I'm excited to share it with everyone :)
LAND NOTES: I do not play canyon slough as ii find it too "slough" (geddit?). when building this deck, I wanted a straight up more aggressive build of ramunap red, but all the while still be able to compete with midrange past turns 4-5. because of this, the first 3 turns are super important, and tapped dual lands choking up the rate at which my land enters untapped isn't worth the ability to cycle. this deck originally ran 21 land. ive chopped it down to 19 with untapped lands ( assuming I can resolve my dragonskull summits post turn 1 ) and I've edited this deck well over 20 times in the last two weeks.
I run a total of 20 pirates in the mainboard at the moment and because of this, some may feel tempted to play 'unclaimed territory". I haven't tested this in the previous builds of this deck, since I feel with the current land base, its quite accurate in terms of what land I need. I have been however very unlucky in some games where I haven't been able to resolve a fathom fleet captain till turn 4 because I never drew into a swamp. with the recent addition of my extra 2 dragonskulls, making it a playset, I feel this may help the deck just a little more land wise, and I don't think unclaimed territory has a place in the deck. maybe in a grixis build , but then the deck would be completely different aswell, haha.
POST ROTATION: come to post rotation where we lose cards such as fatal push, shock, scrapheap scrounger etc. theres always the issue with filling these slots, or rebuilding it to be a little different ( temur marvel rebuilt into temur energy ). I'm obviously not psychic, I'm not sure what we will get in dominaria onwards, but I'm definitely going to try to continue to build this deck to be as aggressive and fast as possible. on a good note for post rotation, because this deck is so tribal based ( 20 pirates in the deck ) a lot of our core creature base is IXALAN specific. due to this, replacing 1/3-1/5 of this deck post rotation should not affect the overall structure of the deck too much.
UPDATE:
so far, I've played 4 FNMs, 16 rounds all up. round wins were as follows(4-0, 3-1, 2-2, 3-1). this deck seems to stomp on any variant of energy, with the exception of temur ( mono green, g/r ).
the deck does very well against other agro decks as its able to trade well and continue to reccur scrounger ( which helps a lot ).
I also played against naya treasures which i simply outpaced. I was able to do 20 dmg relatively easy within 4 turns game one. game two he sweltering suns, but I was able to play another two creatures then reccur scrounger to keep swinging for easy dmg.
the only deck I had lost two week 2 was a grixis control build. game 1 I drew no black lands and all black cards, second game I get him to 2 before he manages to vraska's contempt my scrounger, putting him out of lightning strike range, and my heart of kiran was useless on board now. he then ended up playing a scarab god, bringing back kari zev and others. I was still on full health but I was drawing dead cards at that point.
the amount of one drops in the main has increased with some advice from someone in my locals, trying to make it go a bit faster. I was exceptionally keen on the new reprint of mog fanatic ( fanatical firebrand ) and daring buccaneer . I feel these cards are going to make this deck a lot more red focused.
the last two weeks i have felt cheated out of first place due to my horrid luck with my mana base. the last round last week out of two games, i never drew into black mana, and with 2-3 black cards in hand throughout both games uncastable, it really gave my opponent ( U/B control ) time to get to prime removal spells. i also found myself drawing into too much land so i ended up cutting the land count down to 19 in hopes the agressiveness of this deck outspeeds the need for me to go about 4 mana.
CREATURE NOTES: only running 3 kari zev as i've learnt running a full playset of legendary creatures usually clogs up your hand full of dead cards. I also run the main boarded claim/fame if I ever need to bring back kari zev aswell.
Dire fleet poisoner is one of the newer cards from RIX, and I currently have not tested with it. the same will go for the rest of them obviously, but daring buccaneers replaces a card that was ultimately not as good ( inventor's apprentice) and because of this, he shouldn't be a problem. poisoner may end up becoming a 4 of, in which case I increase my swamps, decrease my mountains and I take out a couple red cards to keep mana consistency. I shouldn't need to increase the overall land count either even if I take out 3 other 1 drops in replace of the rest of the playset, as the deck is still quite low on the mana curve. I personally love the card as it can buff, I can leave mana open for removal or flash it in on an opponents end step, it can block things at instant speed. I cant wait to play it. I currently have only picked up 1 copy during my pre release. I may be able to pick up extra copies during my next fnm before we start our rounds for the night.
all in all, as a player who has previously played a lot of mid-range decks such as G/W tokens, G/B constrictor and my more recent deck, B/U GFG, I find this deck extremely fun and is able to swing wide efficiently. with the new additions from RIX ( Rivals of Ixalan ) ill be picking up to play as a 4 of, I cant wait to see I do next week.
winnings off this deck so far:
- 1 sunpetal grove, 1 foil burning suns avatar (opened pack) approx. $6 when won
- 1 Vraaska's Contempt (opened pack) approx. $12 when won
- 1 blood sun (opened pack) approx. $10 when won
TLDR: I apologise for such a long read, I want you all to know why ive made the choices I have and other ideas/plans for this deck in the future in terms of post-rotation, rebuilding and moving cards around in the main to sideboard.
