Special shout-out to revenant213 for helping me build the initial draft of this to become what it is now
MASSIVE CHANGES AND UPDATES.
As of 4/3/2023 We're essentially doing an overhaul of the this deck. I've made a few changes that some people may or may not agree with and I'll explain my reasoning as to way.
CHANGES
The biggest change, is that I've switched the deck to no longer have ANY counterspells. None. Why? Why would I do that?
1- Because counterspells put MTG in EASY mode. Seriously. Do you know how much control you have when no one else plays aggressive blue? It just wasn't fun for me to play the deck. This Pirate deck is probably one of the funnest decks I've ever piloted, and my friends didn't like playing against it because it moves SO FAST for most playgroups. Pair that with me countering anything that could help them and I was winning more off my playgroup saying "ya we know we're locked out, let's just start a new one." So we're stepping it up. NO COUNTERS.
2- I've taken out almost all of the "Lockdown" pieces. No God Pharaoh Statue or Winter Orb. Same reason, locks people out way to fast and the deck just isn't fun for other people.
TLDR on first part - Rule 0. If people know the deck, they don't want to play because it isn't fun to fight against. If I took it to an LGS, people soon found out how it ran and weren't having fun. This deck shift is made to tell new or repeating playgroups. NO COUNTERSPELLS. NO INFINITE COMBOS.
My playgroup doesn't do Infinite Combos, to easy and boring. Technically we can do an infinite damage loop with Niv-Mizzet, Parun + Curiosity like effects, but we'll never do it.
That means this deck had to be optimized all over to be able to churn to our win-cons even faster.
Let's break down the commander's for those that don't know. Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator generates treasure when pirates deal damage to your opponents. Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar makes it so that when Malcolm hits one player, he hits all 3, which obviously generates 3 treasures.
You will LIKE piloting this deck if
1- You want a challenge. With no counterspells, we're essentially trying to build into wincons as fast as we can and whichever comes first.
2- You enjoy casting a LOT of spells. This is Izzet, we're THE color combo for spellslinging.
3- You enjoy assembling combos. We have NUMEROUS wincons that we can build to depending on what happens with the board.
You will NOT like piloting this deck if
1- You like combat, we are not a combat deck, our goal is not to go sideways.
2- Memorizing numerous combo lines. We have to build several wincons and some people don't like memorizing all the different avenues.
3- You LIKE infinite combos. This deck is mean to not have/use ANY. No 1 card combos or anything stupid like Thoracles.
Deck Strengths
Malcom/Kediss are very ramp based. This deck will absolutely LAUNCH by turn or 2-3 VERY consistently. This combo gives us a unique way to play Izzet since we eliminate one of it's greatest weakness. Ramp.
Every card in the deck is meant to dig or go get us to one of our wincons very quickly.
I'll give a full card breakdown to understand the several lines we'll go to.
Deck Weaknesses
This deck is VERY fragile in the early game. We are momentum based. We NEED to take off quickly or people will have a lot more interactions to remove our commanders. We need both of them out to really take off.
Artifact hate. A Vandalblast or Collector Ouphe will put us on our knees.
Arch Enemy. This decks ability is damn near cEDH. Put in a Glint-Horn Buccaneer and throw in counterspells and it's full blown cEDH.
Win-Cons --- Let's breakdown all the ways you can put together wins.
1- Our "2 card combo" is going to be Blightsteel Colossus + Chandra's Ignition. Super straight forward, 11 infect to everything and everyone that isn't you. GG.
2- Cyberdrive Awakener. Turns all of your artifacts into 4/4 fliers. Super good. Only downside is that your artifacts WILL have summoning sickness when turned into creatures so keep that in mind.
3-Fathom Fleet Swordjack. I actually have been able to generate a load of artifacts for this to hit really hard early but most of the time this is your "sneaky" win. With the Encore ability we'll generate a large artifact base and encore him while he's in the grave when opponents have lower life totals. The damage happens on ATTACK TRIGGER. So no matter what they're getting hit. He doesn't have to connect with combat damage.
4- Crackle with Power. Easy to generate the mana for a 1 shot on all opponents with this. You need 26 mana available to pump this thing to do 40 damage to each player.
5- Insurrection. Sometimes you just can't stop what's coming.
6- Guttersnipe. We can also just storm off. If we can get an Arcane Adaptation effect and Curiosity on him, we'll just do it all.
Inner Workings of the Deck - Let's go over some of the main pieces to get and use.
1- One of the main synergies of the deck is to use the cards that change creature types like Artificial Evolution/Arcane Adaptation to turn our global chip cards like Guttersnipe/Firebrand Archer into Pirates. This mean every instand and sorcery spell we cast will actually generate 3 treasures.
If you can put a Curiosity or Ophidian Eye onto them or another creature as well, then you also get card draw!
Spend 2 life to cast Gitaxian Probe, get 3 treasures and draw 3 cards! Pretty damn good!
2- Magda, Brazen Outlaw is basically the secret commander. She can get us almost all of our wincons straight to the field. If our commanders get killed and we need a burst of mana we can get Ancient Copper Dragon. Cards? Ancient Silver Dragon. Are you able to get Chandra's Ignition? Then get Blightsteel Colossus. Got loads of artifacts on the field? Cyberdrive Awakener will do the trick. Niv-Mizzet, Parun is a draw/chip engine himself.
3- We're running a lot of tutors, use them for whatever the situation calls for. Sometimes you'll need good'ol Cyclonic Rift. Other times you need to grab a card draw spell. Pretty obvious here. Just get what you need.
4- A low key allstar in this deck is Professional Face-Breaker. Turns all our treasures into impulsive draw we can use for the turn. Allows us to keep going even if we don't have a curiosity effect out. Favorite card from New Capenna. Breeches, Brazen Plunderer is almost the same thing, damage just gets us THEIR cards instead, still good. Exiles them so at the minimum we get rid of their cards.
5- Sneak Attack is a card I'm currently testing out. It's not like we have a ton of high cmc creatures in the deck but we do have a couple that give us a very large amount of value. Using it for one of our dragons or Cyberdrive will save us a lot of mana, it's more about the haste that it gives us. Comes in handy if we don't have Magda or enough mana for our 2 card combo with Blightsteel.
