by Johnny Cycles, April 24th, 2024

Tinybones, the Pickpocket is one of the most powerful 1-drop creatures printed since Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. And, in fact, the Skeleton Rogue compares favorably to the Monkey Pirate, as I first discussed here. Both creatures steal things from our opponents. Both are must-answer threats that can take over a game early or late. And both are teeny, tiny little cuties…

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is still the better cutpurse, since our opponent will always have something for him to exile and steal upon dealing combat damage. What makes Tinybones, the Pickpocket so intriguing and powerful is that, while Ragavan’s theft is random, Tinybones gets to pick the card he steals. Of course, this is contingent on our opponent having nonland permanents in the graveyard, but what are the chances this won’t happen (see our first practice match to find out…).

With the printing of Outlaws of Thunder Junction, the two pushed 1-drop creatures have something else in common, as well. They’re both outlaws.

Ride or die besties!

Other than these obvious and meaningful connections, Tinybones, the Pickpocket and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer are the inspiration for my Outlaw Aristocrat deck featured below. Rakdos is already one of the best decks in Modern, but what if we eschewed the old, boring, and unfun Scam strategy and instead took some of the best creatures in Red and Black, threw in some Aristocrat-style synergies, and topped the whole thing off with the outlaw boss himself, Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin? Ready to go robbing?

Here’s the decklist.

Decklist – Rakdos Outlaw Aristocrats with Tinybones, the Pickpocket

by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern

Creatures (27)

4 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
4 Tinybones, the Pickpocket
4 Dauthi Voidwalker
4 Orcish Bowmasters
3 Vial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier
4 Zulaport Cutthroat
4 Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin

Spells (12)

4 Fatal Push
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Thoughtseize

Lands (21)

4 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
5 Mountain
8 Swamp

Sideboard (15)

3 Alpine Moon
3 Molten Collapse
3 Roiling Vortex
3 Brotherhood’s End
3 Leyline of the Void

Deck Tech

Primary Game Plan

I knew I wanted to play Tinybones, the Pickpocket the moment I first saw him, but I didn’t want to just jam him in a Rakdos Scam deck as another must-answer early threat. Playing some of Magic’s premier creatures can certainly be good enough to win games, but that’s not what we’re interested in doing here at cyclesgaming.com. The column is called Keeping Modern Janky, after all, not Keeping Modern Tier 1. We want to offer readers and viewers some spicy, janky, fun, and competitive brews to take to their LGS or try out on MTGO.

Enter Vial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier.

This Goblin Mercenary, along with Zulaport Cutthroat, is the sun around which each other card in the deck orbits. He is the inspiration for taking outlaws and turning them into aristocrats.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Aristocrat archetype in Magic, I’ll sum it up briefly. It’s a combo strategy that exemplifies the phrase, the sum is great than its parts. Named after Falkenrath Aristocrat and Cartel Aristocrat, the deck looks to sacrifice its own creatures for value, often in the form of draining our opponent 1 life point at a time on the back of Blood Artist. Of course, the creatures sacrificed usually replace themselves, do something noteworthy upon death, or can be easily recurred, making their loss a 2- or 3-for-1. You can read more about the strategy in my Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin Commander article.

Vial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier brings a unique angle to the Aristocrat archetype. Rather than dealing a single damage from a death trigger, he deals one damage each time another outlaw enters the battlefield. This allows us to gain extra value from simply resolving some of the most powerful creatures in Modern. Which creatures, you ask? Well, I’ll pretend that you haven’t seen the decklist…

I can only include so many pictures of Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Tinybones, the Pickpocket in this article before your eyes will cross, but that’s three outlaws, two of which are proven all-stars. Rounding out our outlaw package is Zulaport Cutthroat, a worse version of Blood Artist, as it only triggers when our creatures die.

But is doing one point of damage really enough in today’s Modern?

Every Aristocrat deck needs a top-end finisher. Falkenrath Aristocrat did double duty in this regard as both a sacrifice outlet and a legitimate threat with evasion in the first Aristocrat deck way back in the early 2010s. In our deck, we’re running Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin. Flying and trample means it’s likely to get in damage on most boards, while the synergies with our pinging will make it more of a threat while finding us more action.

With Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin as our finisher, we’re incentivized to play one of Modern’s other best creatures and one we’ve suffered many times at the hands of…Orcish Bowmasters. No, they’re not outlaws, but we’re not just an outlaw deck. We’re an aristocrat-outlaw deck. Dealing a single damage fits the archetype and synergizes extremely well with Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin.

Ah, who am I kidding? Orcish Bowmasters is a busted, busted Magic card and, despite some of my deck choices, we do want to win matches. If you’re in Black, you better have a good reason not to be playing Orcish Bowmasters (I’m looking at you Dimir Dragons). We could go truly all-in on the outlaw synergies and I may still give that a try, but the beauty of this deck is that it has a powerful core strategy supported by the best cards in Modern. We can win games easily enough on the backs of these. But what we’re really hoping for is that our opponent spends all of their resources answering our must-answer threats and can’t get rid of our Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin or Tinybones, the Pickpocket. Winning with either or both of these will make me very happy.

Weaknesses

We’re playing 4 1-toughness creatures and so are weak to an opponent’s Orcish Bowmasters. We’re heavy on the 1- and 2-drops and so can get hated out pretty hard by a Chalice of the Void on 1 or 2. Graveyard hate like Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace can hurt our death triggers, though we’re not as reliant on those as most Aristocrat decks since we have Vial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier.

We’re also a synergistic deck looking to build up a board of cards that all work extremely well together. Decks with a lot of spot removal can make it much less likely we execute our game plan.

Finally, there is one nonbo in our deck to be aware of: Tinybones, the Pickpocket and Dauthi Voidwalker. I haven’t been hurt by this yet, but there is a world where we nerf our own best line. However, given that Tinybones can be good early or late and that Dauthi Voidwalker is a must-answer threat in its own right, I think, more often than not, we should be able to navigate the game in a way that doesn’t see us get burned by this nonbo.

On to the games!

Practice Match 1 vs. Enchantress

Practice Match 2 vs. As Foretold-Restore Balance

Practice Match 3 vs. Dimir Affinity

Practice Match 4 vs. Carth Superfriends

Practice Match 5 vs. Ponza

Practice Match Record: 5-0

Wrap-Up

Conclusion

What a fun set of practice matches! And our first ever 5-0! Of course, 5-0 in practice matches doesn’t count the way a 5-0 in a league does, but it still feels good to not drop a match. It also bodes well for the deck’s viability in league play.

But not only did we win all of our matches, we won all of our games, as well! We’re 10-0 with Outlaw Aristocrats! I’m going to savor this feeling, particularly after last week’s Dimir Dragons went 1-4.

Our practice matches were odd in more ways than us winning each one. We didn’t play a single established tier 1 deck. Affinity was the closest thing to tier 1 we saw. That’s no disrespect to the decks we did play against. Each had a well-defined and known game plan. We didn’t play any crazy, off-the-wall brews like Lukka Surprise or Sarkhan the Masterless… They were all legitimate decks that have had success in the past. Still, it’s rare even in the free section not to run into one of the best decks.

Another odd thing about our practice games is that all of our opponents stuck it out. There was no early scooping after game 1 or after I resolved a Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. After so many of our test matches with Magda, the Hoardmaster only went a single game, I was pleasantly surprised to finish each match.

And finally, luck was definitely on our side in our games. Time and again we drew what we needed when we needed it to close out the game. This is also a feeling I’m not quite used to. And, before anyone attributes our change of luck to our many, many busted cards like Ragavan and Orcish Bowmasters, we had several games where it was a timely Zulaport Cutthroat or Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin that sealed the win.

Of course, when you’re playing must-answer threats up the curve, it’s more likely those late-game draws of our jank stick around to do what they’re in the deck to do.

But let’s get to the heart of the deck and how it performed.

The outlaw-aristocrat package felt like putting on an old, soft shirt or getting a hug from your kid (or mom, depending on your age). It was so nice to play again. I felt in my comfort zone the entire time. Whether it was casting a second Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer to kill our first one and trigger Zulaport Cutthroat to put Opponent to 3 and dead to our Lightning Bolt, or swinging in with the team to put Opponent in a lose-lose of block and die to Zulaport Cutthroat triggers or don’t block and die to combat damage, I was in my happy place. Only Gruul Dragons consistently does the same for me.

Tinybones, the Pickpocket didn’t live up to his vast potential. He mostly drew out kill spells, which allowed our later creatures to live, or got in for 1 point of damage with no nonland permanents in Opponent’s graveyard. That’s okay. His ceiling is high. The games we saw him in early happened to be against decks that didn’t have a lot of creatures for us to kill and then steal. The decks against which he would be good, we either didn’t draw him or he died.

The one exception to this was when we stole Opponent’s As Foretold. It seemed more funny than powerful at first, but then Opponent cast Restore Balance, leaving us both with a copy of As Foretold on the battlefield. Suddenly, their whole deck’s strategy was nerfed.

An impossible decision…

I’m torn over which drain effect to play. Blood Artist is strictly better, but the Vampire lacks an outlaw creature type. Furthermore, its 0 power can be relevant in a world of Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. Right now I’m sticking with the Human Rogue Ally because of its synergy with Vial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier, but it’s possible Blood Artist will end up dealing more damage over the course of a game.

By far, the card that stood out the most to me was Roiling Vortex. Nerfing lifegain is so important when playing a deck that pings for one or two a turn. The five damage for casting a spell without paying its mana cost won us our last game and was relevant more than once. We never got to live the dream of Roiling Vortex plus Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin, but the potential is there.

Overall, if you enjoy the Aristocrat archetype or are interested in trying it out, then give this deck a try! It’s fun, competitive, and has just enough jank to catch opponents by surprise. The one drawback is the cost of some of the cards. Ragavan has dropped considerably in price, though it’s still a healthy $15, but Orcish Bowmasters is still around $25. Throw in Dauthi Voidwalker at $5 and Tinybones, the Pickpocket at about the same amount and you’re looking at $200 for just a quarter of the deck.

Thanks for watching and reading! Let me know in the comments how you’d tweak the deck. Is Blood Artist over Zulaport Cutthroat a no-brainer? Should I make room for Roiling Vortex in the main? What outlaws (and cards that have outlaw synergy) am I forgetting?