How to Play ... Piracy Charm

May 2 2007 9:36AM

A cheap toolbox to keelhaul opponents
By Mark Young

Looking back at my past columns, it seems like I've been examining a lot of rares lately.  That's not a scheme to sell more cards, it's just the nature of the beast: rare cards are usually the ones that require the most instruction on how to play them.  It's not always like that, though; as soon as I saw an early spoiler of the Planar Chaos common Piracy Charm, I knew I was going to write about it.

It might seem like there's not much to say about Piracy Charm, other than cheesy pirate-related jokes.  After all, in keeping with one of the themes of Planar Chaos, it's a slightly altered reprint of a well-known older card: the Visions common Funeral Charm.  However, a card with three different abilities for one mana gives you, as a player, plenty of options, and option-heavy cards are usually the cards that people will most want to know how to play.

Wealth of Choice
Funeral Charm was unique in Magic history for a long time, as it was the only tournament-legal instant-speed discard spell in existence (the Time Spiral card Haunting Hymm changed that).  This is important because the opponent can be forced to discard at key points where he would prefer not to do so, such as during his draw step.  In fact, this was a key tactic in several mono-black decks back in the day - hit the opponent with a discard spell during his draw step, after he had drawn his card for the turn but before he had the ability to play creatures or sorceries.

A second key play for Funeral Charm back in the day was to use it on turn one to kill an opponent's turn-one play.  Throughout the game's history, the best way to beat a control deck has usually been to play a troublesome creature on turn 1, from Alpha's Savannah Lions to Jackal Pup to Goblin Lackey and back to Savannah Lions again today.  While the second ability of Piracy Charm might have designed as a mini-Unholy Strength, in tournament play it has been almost universally used as removal.

For that reason, the printing of Piracy Charm is a little scary because it brings this powerful play to a color which didn't need the help.  Blue has already had a ridiculously large number of ways designed for it to stop opponents from doing anything productive during their turn, from countermagic to Boomerang-type effects to cards like Time Stop.  Giving the Island player instant-speed discard and removal seems more than a little scary.

Decks Ahoy
This article may not be as much about how to play Piracy Charm as how to build decks around it ... or, more to the point, how to build decks around up to eight copies of it (since Funeral Charm was "timeshifted" into the Time Spiral set).

Much hype has been deservedly heaped upon Damnation, the so-called "Black Wrath," but I think that a Blue/Black control deck would benefit just as much, if not more, from having four copies each of Piracy and Funeral Charm. Such a deck would love to have a Wrath of God, sure, but it would like even more to have some way to disrupt the opponent at instant speed, so that it doesn't have to tap during its own turn, ever.

This is the motivation of the deck in the sidebar, a post-Planar Chaos version of the deck played by Guillaume Wafo-Tapa in the Standard portion of Worlds, which has subsequently become very popular in the Standard queues on Magic Online.  The plan is very simple: all of the cards are instants or have flash, the deck plays Mystical Teachings to search for them, and once Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir is in play, the win conditions of Dralnu and Skeletal Vampire can be searched up also.

Having played the deck and played against it, I can tell you that its strength does not come from having the most powerful cards - every time I have to tap four mana to counter a spell with Rewind, I feel slightly ill - but from its strategy.  Not having to do anything during your own turn ever, while simultaneously having a winning plan of your own, can present a big challenge to any opponent (well, unless he's running the same deck). This deck begs to have eight charms, because it would like to clear the way for Teferi by making the opponent discard several times during the draw step ... and if the same card just happens to be an effective answer to Savannah Lions or Soltari Priest, that's just icing on the cake.

You never know, even giving Skeletal Vampire islandwalk might be a relevant play against an opposing Blue deck.  That's the thing with Piracy Charm; you have a lot of options for kicking an opponent's ... booty.  Sorry.

The Deck with Piracy Charm
4 Dreadship Reef
4 Desert
7 Island
4 Watery Grave
4 Dimir Aqueduct
1 Urza's Factory
3 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Dralnu, Lich Lord
1 Skeletal Vampire
4 Remand
4 Piracy Charm
4 Funeral Charm
3 Rewind
3 Mana Leak
3 Mystical Teachings
4 Rune Snag
4 Think Twice
1 Sudden Death
1 Last Gasp

Sideboard:
4 Damnation
4 Bottle Gnomes
2 Seize the Soul
2 Shadow of Doubt
1 Commandeer
1 Trickbind
1 Helldozer

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