The Cutest Thief That Ever Lived *Primer*

Commander / EDH Discard Exile Group Slug Midrange Mono-Black Multiplayer Primer Sacrifice Suicide Black Tokens

Jack-Frost

Creature (19)

• 1x Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal  ^Flip
• 1x Archfiend of Ifnir
• 1x Archon of Cruelty
• 1x Bloodthirsty Conqueror
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Cunning Lethemancer
• 1x Fell Specter
• 1x Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor
• 1x Gixian Puppeteer
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Nighthawk Scavenger
• 1x Rankle, Master of Pranks
• 1x Sangromancer
• 1x Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x Tinybones, Bauble Burglar
• 1x Tinybones, the Pickpocket
• 1x Tourach, Dread Cantor
• 1x Twilight Prophet

Land (33)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Castle Locthwain
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Lake of the Dead
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 23x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Enchantment (18)

• 1x Black Market Connections
• 1x Bloodchief Ascension
• 1x Bottomless Pit
• 1x Court of Ambition
• 1x Creeping Dread
• 1x Cunning Rhetoric
• 1x Exquisite Blood
• 1x Faith of the Devoted
• 1x Funeral Room / Awakening Hall
• 1x Koskun Falls
• 1x Liliana's Caress
• 1x Megrim
• 1x Necrogen Mists
• 1x No Mercy
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Raiders' Wake
• 1x The Meathook Massacre
• 1x Waste Not

Instant (7)

• 1x Darkness
• 1x Deadly Rollick
• 1x Dismember
• 1x Force of Despair
• 1x Slaughter Pact
• 1x Sudden Spoiling
• 1x Withering Boon

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Liliana of the Veil
• 1x Sorin Markov

Commander (1)

Artifact (13)

• 1x Anvil of Bogardan
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Ensnaring Bridge
• 1x Extraplanar Lens
• 1x Geth's Grimoire
• 1x Jet Medallion
• 1x Matzalantli, the Great Door  ^Flip
• 1x Null Brooch
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip
• 1x Thought Vessel

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Arterial Flow
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Dark Deal
• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Fraying Omnipotence
• 1x Syphon Mind
• 1x Vicious Rumors

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Maybeboard

Creature (6)

• 1x Abyssal Harvester
• 1x Bone Miser
• 1x Hostile Investigator
• 1x Tergrid, God of Fright  ^Flip
• 1x The Raven Man
• 1x Valgavoth, Terror Eater

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Black Market
• 1x Virtue of Persistence
• 1x Words of Waste

Instant (1)

• 1x Imp's Mischief

Land (1)

• 1x Ancient Tomb

Artifact (1)

• 1x Library of Leng

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Rise of the Dark Realms

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If there is one thing you can't deny, it's that this is the cutest thief that has ever roamed the multiverse. I took one look at them and said, "I know there are better commanders for a deck like this, but i'm building Tinybones because I love them". The rest, as they say, is history.

Our goal in this deck is fairly simple. Force our opponents to discard as many cards as possible while drawing the least amount of hate that we can until we're ready to go for the kill. And honestly, having played this deck hundreds of times now, it does a fantastic job of this. It's a very tightly built deck, where just by playing and drawing the deck works like a well oiled machine. There is a ton of redundancy so we rarely ever get stuck without our entire build, and Tinybones is honestly there to just draw us a few extra cards and keep things rolling. His activated ability doesn't come up that often, especially with the difficulty of keeping our opponents hands permanently empty, plus the high cost, but if your game goes well it can eliminate multiple opponents. However, if you don't use it at all, that's not a bad thing either as just its presence can distract our opponents from the rest of our board, which is often the real threat.

A very important thing I've learned while playing Tinybones is that while it seems really attractive and flashy to make our opponents discard a lot of cards at once, I have found that passive discard is far more effective, vastly more enjoyable to play against, and wins much more consistently. People don't like losing all of their cards at once and feeling stuck with nothing to do but top deck. Any time a mass discard spell comes out everyone focuses on you. However, if you have a passive discard engine set up, one where they discard a card or two at the beginning of their turn, and they take a few damage each time, it tends to become part of a routine and they don't really pay as much attention to it. They're focused on their turn. Once I started doing this my opponents began to have a lot more fun playing against me, I got to play and enjoy my deck more, and my win rate skyrocketed. It takes a bit of patience, but the payoff is worth it.

Cards like Bottomless Pit, Court of Ambition, Creeping Dread, Necrogen Mists, and Cunning Lethemancer consistently empty our opponents hands, but as they repeat every turn they tend to be forgotten over time compared to active spells that you cast on that turn.

To take advantage of all that discard, we use Bloodchief Ascension, Liliana's Caress, Megrim, Raiders' Wake, Waste Not, Dauthi Voidwalker, Fell Specter, Sangromancer, Syr Konrad, the Grim, Tergrid, God of Fright  , and Tourach, Dread Cantor, among others. You'll notice that they aren't all damage based, and don't all harm our opponents. That's because we're trying to tread a fine line between harming our opponents and not drawing too much attention to ourselves. We want to play our own game and let them fight each other. As such, many of our cards will take advantage of both their as well as our own discards, but will provide us with benefits, tokens, and power ups to deter our opponents from attacking or focusing on us.

However, occasionally you will run into decks that love having things in their graveyards, and that's something we don't like to see. Honestly, if our opponents never have a chance to use any of the cards in their graveyards, recursion or not, all the better. That's why you'll see so many cards like Leyline of the Void, Planar Void, Dauthi Voidwalker, Tergrid, God of Fright  , Bojuka Bog, and Scavenger Grounds. Unlike many passive decks, who simply want to be left alone, we want to keep a few fingers reaching out so we can manipulate and control things just a bit, and as subtly as possible. It requires us to keep an eye on our opponents, read how many cards they have in hand that they are keeping and don't want to lose, and how they are playing. And that's something Tinybones is very good at, as they'll have to keep losing cards and it makes the valuable ones very obvious.

Overall, i've had a lot of fun playing this deck, and as it doesn't punish drawing constantly, doesn't wheel constantly, and is limited by the single color, I and my playgroups have found it to not be nearly as oppressive and "unfun" to play against as standard wheel decks such as Nekusar, the Mindrazer and the like. I highly recommend giving it a try as it's honestly very enjoyable.

Some Card Choices Explained:

Creature:
Crypt Ghast- As we're running a single color and have a number of mana intensive cards, not to mention tinybones ability, the excess mana really helps, and the lifedrain is appreciated to help offset the lifeloss from Tinybones, Trinket Thief's ability

Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor- While we can take some advantage of this, a major point is to keep our opponents attacking each other rather than us. Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor along with Koskun Falls and Cunning Rhetoric in our enchantments definitely help along with this.

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse- Honestly, while I know this card does a ton of damage to our opponents, and it can paint a huge target on us, it's primary purpose is to offset the extreme amount of damage Tinybones, Trinket Thief can do to us when he is online. If our opponents have to discard a card on each of their upkeeps, we are taking 4 damage a cycle minimum, which adds up really quickly. Sure, we're drawing lots of cards, but it really hurts. Sheoldred is here to help us offset that, and instead we will end up gaining 1 life and drawing a card each time.

Instant:
Withering Boon- Most people don't know or don't remember that black even has counterspells or redirects at all, and we take full advantage of that. People will normally check the board for open blue mana and completely ignore us as we're in mono-black. That's where this comes in. The ability to counter or redirect a spell is huge, and it can be used to great effect depending on how you can politic the table, or just for the gratitude of saving other people, let alone helping you.

Sorcery:
Fraying Omnipotence- When you find yourself falling far behind, or when an opponent is really pulling away with the game, Fraying omnipotence is perfect for rebalancing things. It requires a bit of politics to use, but if you frame it as a necessary evil to stop the major threat, or apologize but you are so far behind you need to catch up somehow, you can usually get away with it with no backlash. Even if you can't, we run so many more enchantments that take advantage of people discarding cards, that the benefit will almost always outweigh any repercussions.

Enchantment:
Black Market Connections- Don't be afraid to spend 3 or even 6 life in a turn on this. Your life is a resource and you are just as dangerous at 1 life as you are at 40. Drawing extra cards and making treasures really adds up, and the occasional creature drop can help as a blocker or deterrent and will protect you when needed.

Koskun Falls- This card puts in work. Don't underestimate the cost of 2 extra mana to attack per creature. People often plan their turn well ahead of combat, and will often cast their spells before they attack, forgetting about the additional 2. Sure, we have to tap down a creature to keep it around, but it's just one fewer creature that can be goaded or forced to block. This is a fantastic card, and just one more reason that it's not worth attack us.

No Mercy Along the same lines as Koskun falls, we don't want to be attacked, or even paid attention to. As such a deterrent like this puts in a lot of work.

Artifact:
Anvil of Bogardan- An underrated card. Yes, we are giving our opponents an extra card, but we're also taking advantage of their discards and it can be politiced to make them think more favorable of us for it. It's a consistent discard every turn to trigger our abilities, and one they are less likely to target for destruction due to the fact that it's helping them.

Bolas's Citadel- Once again, our life is a resource. This is a game winning card. Being able to cast card after card for the low price of a little life (you'll notice the overall low curve in this deck) is a game changer. I can count the number of times on one hand where I've gotten this on the board and not won.

Planeswalker:
Sorin Markov- This card is here exclusively for the completely broken -3 ability. If you can set someone's life total to 10, they are immediately in Tinybones range, and they can never go lower than 1 card or they will immediately die. Honestly, they should not go below 2 cards as it's easy for us to make them discard a single card, but they will often forget this and we're happy to take advantage of that mistake.

Please feel free to post thoughts and suggestions in the comments as I love working with people on my decks and their own, and every chance to improve it is appreciated. In addition, i'm happy to explain any other card choices and you're welcome to use this decklist as Tinybones always loves new targets to pickpoc... I mean loves new friends!

Feedback and +1's are always appreciated!

Enjoy!

Top Ranked	Achieved #8 position overall 10 months ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Midrange 10 months ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Mono-Black 10 months ago
Date added	3 years
Last updated	1 day
Exclude colors	WURG
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	17 - 0 Mythic Rares 37 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 5 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.36
Tokens	Bat 1/1 B, City's Blessing, Shapeshifter 3/2 C, Monarch Emblem, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	stolen lists, Decklists, EDH Decks, Commander, edh discord, Commander Decks, 2. Mid Tier Decks, Funzone, brewwws?