Pirates of Fire
This is an extremely aggressive aggro deck with quite a few fun tricks and surprises. I play it a lot on MTG:A Bo1, where it never gets old and never ceases to surprise my opponents.
This deck aims to get as many pirates on the battlefield as fast as possible, turn them sideways each turn to shave off life, and then finish out the game with a massive alpha strike powered by Dire Fleet Neckbreaker.
Your Pirate Crew
Dire Fleet Poisoner is your best guy. You can never really have too many of him. He surprise blocks, he gives surprise death touch, he gives surprise extra damage. Letting him die and then bringing him back with March of the Drowned to do it again is a blast!
Fathom Fleet Captain is a must-answer threat. Ideally you will play him turn 2 and get at least 1-2 menace tokens before he croaks. He gets blocked a lot, so is also a perfect target for combat tricks. He might seem small, but your opponents will be surprised in 2-3 turns when they can't block enough of the menace pirates to survive.
Ruin Raider is essentially your deck's Dark Confidant (so never play more than one at a time). As long as he sticks around, you're drawing 2 cards a turn. This puts a huge target on his back, which you can take advantage of! Your opponent is likely to want to block him and even trade a creature for him, so he's a perfect target for combat tricks.
Dire Fleet Daredevil is such a jerk. On the surface, he's a 2-power first striker who can be hard to block, which this deck obviously loves to have. Where he really shines is when your opponent has some tasty, low-cost instants or sorceries in their graveyard, like Opt or Cast Down. You'll get to play those - and exile them! - for some fun 2-for-1s.
Dire Fleet Captain is your big obvious threat. He can easily become a 5/5 or more when attacking, so he's usually the first tapped pirate to get removed. He has nice synergy with the deck and can be a game-ended if not answered, but the deck doesn't need him to function.
Rigging Runner seems like just another low-cost pirate, but his first strike can become suddenly and terrifyingly relevant. My favorite trick is to attack with him as a 1/1 into something huge that will obviously kill him, and then flash in Dire Fleet Poisoner for lovely first strike deathtouch. Always play him on turn 1 if you have no better options. It's far better to have a turn 1 pirate than to get the +1/+1 counter.
Forerunner of the Coalition is usually Dire Fleet Neckbreaker #5. The EtB life loss effect will occasionally win the game if the opponent is down to 1 or 2 life, but it's usually just a nice-to-have. If getting a Neckbreaker into hand isn't a priority, then the next best targets are usually Ruin Raider or a Dire Fleet Daredevil.
Dire Fleet Neckbreaker is the biggest win condition and makes for some surprise, brutal swings. Be careful that he doesn't get removed at instant speed during combat! Having multiples out is uncommon but will end the game very quickly if even a single pirate can get through blockers. Sometimes it's perfectly OK for him to die swinging in combat to absorb a blocker and lets other pirates through. What's best is having a March of the Drowned in hand so you can just play him again next turn. He doesn't need to attack to win you the game!
Your Pirate Tricks
Buccaneer's Bravado is a devastating combat trick and even a surprise finisher. Most pirates are 2 power and will do 6 damage when unblocked, but larger guys like Dire Fleet Captain and Ruin Raider will do 8 or more. With Dire Fleet Neckbreaker in play, you're easily getting 10+ damage from a single little pirate.
March of the Drowned is a brutally fast insane amount of card advantage for this deck. When you have one of these in hand, you can easily just send pirates to their certain deaths, knowing you're going to replay them on the same turn. You almost never want to have multiples of these in hand, though.
Fiery Cannonade deals with one of the decks biggest problems: lots of smaller blockers. In those games, it is a one-sided board wipe. In other games, it can help do enough noncombat damage for your smaller pirates to take down something larger. Your mileage may vary.
