Pirates, as portrayed in fantasy at least, truly are a cluster of contradictions. They’re whimsical yet deadly, friendly yet fierce, and capable of committing heinous acts while still bringing a smile to your face. The Pirates ofMagic: The Gathering’s Ixalan fall firmly into this camp, and there’s no better showcase for the faction than the Ahoy Mateys Commander Deck.
This preconstructed package brings together some of the finest folks ever to set sail on Magic’s briny seas, from treasure-hungry tyrants to calculating captains. If you’re looking to dredge up the best cards this deck has to offer, then buckle your swash, hoist your sails, and dive into our in-depth list below.
10The Indomitable
Few Can Stop This Vibrant Vessel
A real Pirate is nothing without their ship, and The Indomitable is the Magic equivalent of the Black Pearl. It hits hard, is easy to crew, draws you cards when your Pirates deal damage, and can even rise from the depths if it takes too many broadsides, provided you have some tapped Pirates lying around.
The latter condition is surprisingly easy to fulfill, since you can tap Pirates to crew The Indomitable in the first place, meaning it can easily serve as a value engine for aggressive Pirate decks. From functionality to flair, there’s no better flagship pick for your Pirate Commander decks than this beauty.
9Broadside Bombardiers
Improvise, Adapt, Explode
The new Pirates in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan have a bit of an artifacts-matter theme going on, and Broadside Bombardiers is primed and ready to take advantage of that. Whenever it attacks, you can toss any of your other creatures or artifacts into its cannon, and fire them out at any target you choose for big damage.
The power here lies in the flexibility: This can be used as a surgical removal tool against key creatures in play,a sacrifice outletfor creatures with powerful die triggers, or a means of finishing off opponents by cashing in expensive cards. Despite the fragile body, this is a worthy addition to your Pirate crew.
8Arm-Mounted Anchor
Step Ashore Onto Your Opponent’s Face
Equipment tends to perform better in Commander than elsewhere, owing to theprevalence of Voltron strategiesin the format, and Arm-Mounted Anchor is a fine piece of craftsmanship within the card type. It grants a sizable stat boost and pseudo-evasion in menace, which makes its on-damage looting ability much more likely to trigger.
Even if you can’t discard a Pirate to this effect, drawing two cards and discarding two cards is a stellar selection in singleton decks. The fact that it keeps your hand size balanced also makes its equip cost regularly drop to zero, at which point it starts punching well above its weight efficiency-wise.
7Gemcutter Buccaneer
Arm Your Crew With Your Sparkling Spoils
Given how common Treasure tokens have become in recent times, it’s easy to forget that they did actually make their debut in the original Ixalan block. It’s apt, then, that Lost Caverns includes many new support cards for Treasure, including this game-changing Gemcutter.
Creating a tapped Treasure for each Pirate you play would likely make this card good enough alone, but the really interesting line here is the one that turns all of your Treasures into Bonesplitters for your Pirates. Perfect for Equipment-matters decks and Pirate decks alike, this card is a real hidden gem(cutter).
6Admiral Brass, Unsinkable
Inspiring Loyalty From Beyond The Grave
The original Admiral Beckett Brass was one of the mostpowerful, iconic Pirate Commandersof all time, and her new Lost Caverns incarnation carries on that legacy splendidly. A 3/3 for five that mills four is hardly an exciting start, but her other ability, unconditional reanimation for Pirates every single turn, turns things up a notch or ten.
This ability does set the stats of the resurrected Pirate to 4/4, which may weaken some of the bigger targets, but for the most part, this is actually a positive, turning your aggressive early Pirates into legitimate threats later in the game. The addition of haste is a welcome final flourish, too.
5Francisco, Fowl Marauder
A Wise-Cracking Sidekick For Land And Sea
It’s not often that new legendary creatures make their way into Magic’s pool of potential partners, unsurprising given the ongoing balancing nightmare that the mechanic likely represents for the game’s designers, so the addition of Francisco is very exciting indeed. As a scalable evasive threat, this plucky parrot pairs perfectly with many of the best existing partners in the game.
Breeches, Brazen Plunderer and Ghost of Ramirez DePietro are natural fits, but the likes of Kediss and Keleth, notable members of the Familiar cycle, also provide solid support. As long as you bring a few Pirates along for the ride, Francisco will serve you well in all kinds of strategies.
4Storm Fleet Negotiator
Make Them An Offer They Can’t Refuse
If you’re looking to dabble in the political side of the Commander format, then this is the Pirate for you. In a Standard game, Storm Fleet Negotiator can give you up to four Maps per swing, before sweetening the deal for your opponents by dishing out a card to each of them.
This is the kind of card that most opponents will leave alone due to the card advantage it gives them, ignoring the stack of Maps you’re building up as long as their cut comes in. And while Maps aren’t particularly dangerous alone, they can fuel a number of potent artifact synergies.
3Don Andres, The Renegade
Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal
It’s always refreshing to see a new commander that rewards a lesser-seen style of play, and Don Andres does just that for the underrepresented ‘Steal your opponents’ cards’ archetype. He provides a significant boost to stolen creatures and noncreatures alike, giving you a reason to play a number of oft-overlooked gems.
The likes of Dire Fleet Daredevil and Hostage Taker get even more efficient with Andres in play, while Cunning Rhetoric suddenly becomes one of the best draw engines in the format. Stealing is one of the cornerstones of the Pirate experience, and Don Andres lets you do so better than any other captain out there.
2Skeleton Crew
You’d Best Start Believing In Ghost Stories
Excellent pun name aside, Skeleton Crew is an incredible addition to any deck that plays a substantial number of Pirates or Skeletons. It buffs both types, creates tokens that have both types, and can even be cast from your graveyard unconditionally at only a slight mana markup.
The second ability here encourages a style of play that makes use of reanimation or recursion effects, but you really don’t need to lean hard into it to enjoy the benefits of this card: even in a deck with no Skeletons andno graveyard shenanigans, this is still one of the best Pirate typal Lords out there.
1The Grim Captain’s Locker
Life Is Cruel, Why Should The Afterlife Be Any Different
The Grim Captain, Magic’s take on the legendary Davy Jones, manages to be even more horrific than its inspiration, and his locker retains plenty of that raw terror. For just four mana, this is an artifact that can both fill your graveyard and empty it again, letting your spent creatures serve another life sentence under your blackened mast.
The Locker isn’t Pirate-specific, and in fact works best with bigger creatures, since everything costs four to cast with it once activated. This makes it a solid card for many black decks in Commander, and one that will likely transcend the limits of its preconstructed home to become a format staple in time.
