Pirates are one of the most exciting tribes to come out of Ixalan, but unlike Dinosaurs, there’s been some Pirate support in previous sets. There’s even been a Pirate deck that was played at the Pro Tour! That said, all of these new Pirate-themed cards provide an opportunity to go back and look at previous Pirates in a new light, and that’s exactly what happened earlier this week. There were rumblings of players dominating Legacy queues with a Pirate deck and conceding with four wins so that the decklist could stay secret. As with most things on the internet, there was much speculation, but eventually the list leaked. Take a look at this crazy Pirate Stompy brew:

Pirate Stompy - Legacy | Bob Huang

• Creatures (18)
• 2 Phantasmal Image
• 4 Rishadan Brigand
• 4 Rishadan Cutpurse
• 4 Rishadan Footpad
• 4 Snapcaster Mage

• Instants (8)
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Siren's Ruse

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Chart a Course

• Artifacts (10)
• 3 Chrome Mox
• 3 Smuggler's Copter
• 4 Chalice of the Void

• Lands (20)
• 3 Island
• 2 City of Traitors
• 3 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Ancient Tomb
• 4 Cavern of Souls
• 4 Wasteland

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
• 1 Flusterstorm
• 3 Griselbrand
• 4 Show and Tell
• 2 Sneak Attack
• 1 Surgical Extraction
• 2 Volcanic Island

Buy This Deck

This deck gets to utilize Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors alongside Chrome Mox to resolve Rishadan Cutpurse on the first turn. Cavern of Souls makes it so that Force of Will and other early countermagic don’t matter, and each subsequent Pirate you resolve makes it less likely that your opponent will be able to pay for future Pirates.

And that’s unfortunate, because the whole idea is that you’re going to lock your opponent under Rishadan Pirate triggers. You have twelve natural Pirates plus Phantasmal Image to try to deny your opponent resources. But on top of that you have Siren's Ruse to flicker your Pirates and apply more pressure, as well as Snapcaster Mage to buy them back. You even have Chart a Course to keep the cards flowing and keep hitting your land drops. All that and you can still just end games on the first turn by resolving a Chalice of the Void.

This deck is one of the most exciting things about a game as old and broad as Magic. Even the most innocuous cards from a new set can have rippling repercussions in eternal formats because of subtle interactions. Before the technology is public information, the players who find it can have a huge edge against the rest of the field. Now that the deck is a known quantity, we’ll find out it Pirate Stompy has what it takes to keep up with the rest of the format.