Zidane, Tantalus ThiefZidane, Tantalus Thief | Art by Canata Katana

Final Fantasy is already released, but I've still got a lot of awesome cards to look at, so we're checking out one more today. Today's deck is gonna be built around Zidane, Tantalus ThiefZidane, Tantalus Thief, a commander that incentivizes us to steal creatures, but just for a little bit.

I absolutely love theft decks, especially in Pauper, because they tend to match the power level of your opponents' decks. Of course, right? Because you're playing with their creatures. This means that I can play this deck against non-Pauper decks, because even though those decks are built with stronger cards than mine, I can just snatch them, and boom, my deck is just as powerful.

So this is gonna be a lot of fun.

What Does Zidane, Tantalus Thief Do?

While Zidane is shiny and new, what he's doing isn't particularly fresh. We've had cards that snatch creatures from opponents' boards for years. But Zidane really gives us something to build around, and offers a payoff in the form of Treasure tokens when we give our creatures back.

Though having a big scary creature for a turn is a pretty decent payoff on it's own.

In addition to this, Zidane nearly doubles the amount of theft cards we can run in our deck, just by having that effect on an ETB. How? Because of the color white, which lets us run blink spells. Essentially, we can turn CloudshiftCloudshift into a one-mana copy of Act of TreasonAct of Treason.

And for whatever reason, Zidane also grants lifelink to our stolen creatures, making it even better.

Key Cards for Zidane

Blink Spells

So of course, we're gonna run all the blink spells we can. ScrollshiftScrollshift, awesome. Flicker of FateFlicker of Fate, even better. EphemerateEphemerate, hell yeah!

There are more than enough great options in Pauper, from Justiciar's PortalJusticiar's Portal, to Acrobatic ManeuverAcrobatic Maneuver, to Slip On the RingSlip On the Ring. We should be able to blink Zidane constantly, and reap the rewards of his theft ability.

And the Treasure we get afterwards just fuels further robbery. Unfortunately, some of these spells, like Otherworldly JourneyOtherworldly Journey, only return Zidane at the end of the turn, skipping combat. But this doesn't make them totally useless, and you'll see why in a bit.

Theft Spells

First though, let's complete our arsenal of theft spells. Obviously, our supply of blink spells isn't infinite, so we have to dip into actual theft spells, like HijackHijack. But that's no big worry, because some of these spells are quite decent.

GoatnapGoatnap, for instance, gives +3/+0 if what we're stealing is a Goat. Haha, ok, obviously not that one, but Traitorous BloodTraitorous Blood can give trample to something huge. That'll be particularly funny when you hear your opponent muttering that they "could win this game if they only had trample."

Then there are just some generic ones, like WrangleWrangle, Price of LoyaltyPrice of Loyalty, Bloody BetrayalBloody Betrayal, etc. Nothing special, but it's not the spells that need to be big and threatening; it's our opponents' cards. And we can usually count on that.

Yes, I did consider running some cards that give our opponents big creatures, but I doubt that'll be necessary

Evasion

Anyways, now that we've got some big creatures on our side of the board, sometimes with lifelink, what are we gonna do with them? Well, we're gonna attack with them, obviously. So let's get some evasion in here.

Goblin War DrumsGoblin War Drums is a personal favorite of mine. Trust me, the difference between one chump blocker and two is huge. Orcish OriflammeOrcish Oriflamme is also a decent anthem that'll give us a boost if all we're doing is trading hits with an opponent.

Sacrifices

But attacking isn't all we can do. I mean, you can't reduce a creature's worth to just their power and toughness. That'd be so dehumanizing. Don't forget their value as sacrifice fodder!

Yes, if we sacrifice the creature, we don't get Zidane's Treasure token, but it's absolutely worth it to steal a creature for three mana, swing for a ton of damage, and then rob our opponents of a huge creature while gaining some bonus for ourselves.

There's plenty of ways to do this. Ashnod's AltarAshnod's Altar, of course, although two mana isn't really that helpful post-combat. We'd rather use something that's useful any time, like Angelic PurgeAngelic Purge. Cards like Tavern ScoundrelTavern Scoundrel and Dark-Dweller OracleDark-Dweller Oracle are pretty handy as well, sitting around until we need them.

And of course, we can't forget FlingFling, the iconic game ender.

I ultimately decided to go fairly light on the sacrifice outlets, because constantly stealing your opponents creatures and then sacrificing them over and over again is a pretty nasty game plan. And hey, it means Zidane triggers more. But if you really wanted to, it wouldn't be difficult at all to make an extremely powerful, if toxic deck.

The rest of the deck is just some support for the main game plan. A bunch of ramp, and a ton of removal for the things we can't steal. Our whole plan is essentially just to snatch the biggest things on the board and win with that, so there doesn't need to be a whole lot else here. As long as we make sure that we've always got the mana and cards to carry out that game plan, we should be golden.

And just for extra safety, we'll throw in a few protection spells, like Gods WillingGods Willing and Apostle's BlessingApostle's Blessing to protect Zidane, because he is a five-mana commander and we really don't want to be recasting him too often.

Yeah, the blink spells could double as protection, but we'd rather use them on our turn, and not in response to a removal attempt.

Zidane, Tantalus Thief Pauper Commander Deck List

Welp, that's the whole deck. To be honest, I'm surprised it never occurred to me to make a theft deck before. I don't really have a Pauper pod, so I often have to hurl my commons at a bunch of rares and mythics. But this way, I can just steal those shiny cards for myself. Awesome!

Just due to the nature of the strategy, this deck is pretty strong, and I'm quite happy with how it came out.