The Grand Larceny deck is one of 4 preconstructed Commander decks released alongside the Outlaws of Thunder Junction set. It’s a Sultai (Black, Blue, and Green) color identity deck built around doing combat damage and stealing your opponents’ stuff when you do so.
Upgrading the Deck
Is this deck the most powerful, either out of the box or upgraded? No, not really. Is it still extremely solid and a hell of a lot of fun to play? You’re damn right it is. Stealing your opponent’s stuff is both hilarious for you and at least mildly infuriating for them, so a double win in my book. The nice thing about decks like this is that they tend to scale really well to the power level of the table you play them at – if they’re playing bulk rare jank that’s what you’ll be stealing, and they should be used to playing against it and have appropriate answers. On the other hand if you’re up against a bunch of decks trying to cheat out Blightseel Colossus, they should also be used to dealing with similar game ending threats, so your deck effectively plays up or down to their level.
Due to the secondary Commander Felix Five-Boots fitting extremely well as a roleplayer in the deck, this deck feels on the more focused end of the precon range, which is great. It does mean I am cutting a little lighter than I do a lot of the time, though I will be the first to admit I think this deck will require more tuning after the upgrade than most. There are some obviously only kind of okay creatures that are easy to replace with bigger, nastier threats like Ancient Brass Dragon and Old Gnawbones that also really want to connect for their own triggers in addition to Gonti’s. For the most part our threats are relying on deathtouch or evasion like shadow or flying to connect, so it’s very possible that down the line you may want to include some more guaranteed ways to connect like trample or straight up unblockability.
In the same fashion, I could easily see this being tweaked to be similar to an Edric, Spymaster of Trest deck with lots of cheap unblockable creatures and things that fit with Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive. Alternatively you could just toss in a Champion of Lambholt. I also suspect you will eventually find a slot for at least one of Coastal Piracy or Bident of Thassa in addition to Edric and the Deepfathom Skulker that has been added already.
As is, I am leaning into having as many sources of steal effects as possible and seeing what feels good in actual play. The ramp package is increased and upgraded a little because you want to get Gonti down as quickly as you can, plus you want to have as much mana as possible to cast the things you steal. I could even see adding a little Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth package and some tutors, Crypt Ghast effects, Mana Reflection and its ilk…. big mana will definitely be useful in the deck.
Finally the suite of answers is slightly upgraded, though again I suspect you will want to tweak to your personal taste. It’s a little light on its own removal but hopefully the table will have plenty for you to steal. There’s very much the potential for this to be a goodstuff deck so you almost can’t go wrong!
Cut List
- Ghostly Pilferer
- The Mimeoplasm
- Bladegriff Prototype
- Cazur, Ruthless Stalker
- Ukkima, Stalking Shadow
- Whirler Rogue
- Void Attendant
- Thieving Amalgam
- Stolen Goods
- Extract Brain
- Diluvian Primordial
- Curse of the Swine
- Feed the Swarm
- Baleful Mastery
- Darksteel Ingot
- Opulent Palace
- Swamp
- Forest
- Culling Ritual
Add List
- Dauthi Voidwalker
- Grim Hireling
- Steel Hellkite
- Ancient Brass Dragon
- Old Gnawbone
- Deepfathom Skulker
- Glissa Sunslayer
- Nightveil Specter
- Rogue Class
- Outrageous Robbery
- Schema Thief
- Damnation
- Krosan Grip
- Cyclonic Rift
- Talisman of Dominance
- Farseek
- Nature’s Lore
- Rogue’s Passage
- Mnemonic Betrayal
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