Ramirez DePietro, PillagerRamirez DePietro, Pillager | Art by Anna Steinbauer

From Treasure Island to Pirates of the Caribbean, there has been a romanticization of pirates in media. They’ve been shown as swashbuckling, charming, and anarchistic, doing and taking what they want with roguelike reckless abandon.

It’s debatable as to whether they are positive role models, but eye patches, peg legs, hook hands, and jolly rogers have left indelible marks on modern media from, Spongebob to One Piece. As iconic as they are, Pirates have had a tough time accurately translating into Magic cards.

Like with Dinosaurs from last week, Pirates as a supported creature type can trace their origins to Ixalan. One of the problems they had almost instantly, though, is that the same roguelike reckless abandon they’re known for was already occupied, and largely with the same colors…by Rogues.

As a result, it becomes a bit difficult to make a deck around what makes Pirates unique, and it took a few legendary Pirates to finally get one that checks off the ability boxes, although it still doesn't have all of the core colors of piracy.

What Does Ramirez DePietro, PillagerRamirez DePietro, Pillager Do?

Pirates are known for a variety of things, which makes finding a commander and building a deck that encapsulates as many of those elements as possible difficult.

Originally, Pirates were reflected through cards like Coastal PiracyCoastal Piracy, which triggered on combat damage, but those cards have become either generic or Rogue-related. While pillaging cards from damage has a bit of that theft feel, there are cards now that steal opposing creatures and that cast or take control of opponents’ spells. This is where Admiral Beckett BrassAdmiral Beckett Brass comes in, as the first supported Pirate commander.

But there’s something missing with Beckett, something that Captain Lannery StormCaptain Lannery Storm and her variants emphasize: a predilection for shiny things, especially Treasures.

Ramirez DePietro, PillagerRamirez DePietro, Pillager is a beautiful connection between old and new Pirate mechanics. To start, he makes two Treasure tokens when he enters. He then exiles the top card of any player’s library who was damaged by a Pirate in combat and lets us cast any spells exiled that way for as long as they remain exiled, a clean union of Coastal PiracyCoastal Piracy and modern theft effects.

The Treasures are the secret sauce that enables us to cast those spells regardless of the color pips: gold is just as valuable in just about every culture, after all.

This biggest problem Ramirez has is that he's only in Dimir colors, while there are two incarnations of Admiral Beckett Brass] that have the full Grixis identity and have a better selection of Pirates as a result. The original was a Pirate lord with a combat damage trigger that stole creatures. While that seems pretty ideal, the theft was limited to creatures, which would be more kidnapping and less pillaging, and didn't care about Treasures.

She’s cool and close to what we want, but there are reasons she didn’t catch on, outside of Spelltable difficulties.

Admiral Brass, UnsinkableAdmiral Brass, Unsinkable, the second incarnation of the Admiral, is more powerful and popular than her previous version, but she really isn’t a Pirate commander. She's a commander that is a Pirate, but her abilities include self-mill and reanimating Pirates. If you want a Pirate deck to play on Spelltable and that has all three colors, she’s your gal.

If you want a deck that really engages in Piracy, Ramirez checks all the boxes: Treasures, stealing, and benefitting off of combat.

Key Cards for Ramirez DePietro, PillagerRamirez DePietro, Pillager

The biggest reason for favoring Ramirez over similar commanders that only do some of his effects is that he puts those abilities in one package, which means we can load up on Pirates and play fewer copies of cards that do those effects.

That allows us to use some of the cuter Pirates that can operate as pseudo-removal, such as Warkite MarauderWarkite Marauder and Kitesail LarcenistKitesail Larcenist. They're evasive threats that consistently get in to trigger our commander, while playing around with opponents’ cards in unique ways.

Speaking of playing around with opponents’ cards, we have two ways to do that: theft and Control MagicControl Magic effects.

It was mentioned earlier that Control MagicControl Magic effects are more like kidnapping than pillaging, but, if we’re being fair, capturing people and tying them up with rope is something Pirates are known for, and seems to be a flavorful way for them to deal with larger threats. As a result, we play those alongside cards like Memory PlunderMemory Plunder, even the name of which sounds like something magical Pirates would do.

Those effects steal from our opponents’ graveyards, libraries, or hands and take their valuable spells for ourselves, sometimes even CommandeerCommandeering them from the stack.

Some of these theft spells have a prohibitively high cost, such as Mnemonic DelugeMnemonic Deluge, while others, like our commander’s ability, require mana to cast, including mana we can’t easily make. So, how do we make colors besides Dimir? And how do we afford these expensive spells? Well, the answer is gold.

Well…not quite gold. Gold tokens were introduced in Theros and operate slightly differently from Treasures. Treasures were introduced along with Pirates, and we use our Pirate booty to cast our Pirate bounty!

Since we only have two colors, we don’t need to fix our mana with our nonbasic lands. We can instead use them to synergize with Treasures, like FountainportFountainport and Treasure VaultTreasure Vault, or to sneak in a bit of extra damage to trigger Ramirez with Rogue's PassageRogue's Passage or Access TunnelAccess Tunnel.

Treasure MapTreasure Map shows us the way to go, and Revel in RichesRevel in Riches is pretty much the endgame of any moustache-twirling comic book villain Pirate. After all, who doesn’t dream of Scrooge McDuck diving into a pool full of coins?

How Does This Ramirez DePietro, PillagerRamirez DePietro, Pillager Commander Deck Win?

Ramirez looks to drop early Pirates, make some Treasure tokens, and cast opponents’ spells to go over the top. The tricky part can be finding a good opponent to pick on, and we do want to be judicial in our attacks.

Most opponents will have solid spells for us to cast, and if we go too hard on any one opponent, we lose all of their stuff when they lose the game. Theft decks tend to walk that tricky line of wanting to keep opponents alive long enough to take everyone else out with their spells and then win the one-on-one.

Ramirez DePietro, Pillager Commander Deck List

Conclusion

Pirates tend to be small-to-mid power creatures, making a Pirate deck a somewhat slow aggro deck. The Treasures and over-the-top ability to match the power of the table with theft and Control MagicControl Magic spells elevate the deck from mediocre Midrange to powerful and synergistic Pirate typal.

Ramirez brings these disparate parts together to make the whole better than the sum of its parts.