Commanders
About commanders
Malcolm and Breeches are partner commanders from the Commander Legends set. Both are great in pirate tribal decks as they both provide lots of value if you are able to connect to your enemies with pirates.
Malcom, Keen-Eyed Navigator
Malcolm creates treasures whenever one or more pirates you control deals damage to the opponents. We'll use Malcolm to ramp us more, and turning our tiny flying pirates into tiny-flying-pirates-with-gold! Due to the phrasing the amount of damage makes no difference, but the amount of different opponents we hit does count. Also the timing of the damages counts. Important: the damage does not need to be combat damage to make Malcolm trigger!
Malcom, Keen-Eyed Navigator in EDHREC
Malcolm is one the most popular partner commanders. Malcolm has roughly ~4000 different decks with Malcolm as a commander. The most popular pair is Malcolm + Breeches. Big reasons for Malcolms popularity are: low mana cost, great evasion and the treasure creation trigger and bringing the blue color to the deck.
Breeches, Brazen Plunderer
Breeches has a very similar ability as Malcolm, but instead of creating tokens, it provides card advantage from the opponents. The deck uses Breeches as the main card draw machine, and removes our opponents wincons, hopefully, from their deck and puts them into exile in the process. We will also use Breeches to hit every land drop we can, and increase our odds to actually pay the-whatever cards we exile from our opponents. Same as with malcolm: the damage does not need to be combat damage to make Breeches trigger!
Breeches, Brazen Plunderer in EDHREC
Breeches is not as popular as Malcolm, but has ~ 2000 decks, of which 1900 is paired with Malcolm. Breeches is weaker than Malcolm for several reasons: higher mana cost, weaker evasion and non-permanent card advantage (compared to Malcolm).
Possible themes for Malcolm + Breeches
Pirate tribal
This deck tech is focusing heavily on the pirates, especially on the flying or hard to block pirates, and aim to just trigger Malcolm and Breeches as much as possible. Pirate tribal can, and most likely should be, built with a strong card-draw package and focusing on more destructive turns with ways to make all the creatures unblockable and then hitting with a Coat of Arms.
Izzet treasures
As Malcolm can create a ton of treasures one clear focus is just treasure tokens. Great ways to turn them into a straight wincons are with Academy Manufactor, Reckless Fireweaver, Xorn, Goldspan Dragon, Shimmer Dragon, Hellkite Tyrant, Galazeth Prismari and Hellkite Igniter (did you notice there are many dragons here?).
Izzet artifacts
Malcolm can create a significant amount of treasures and izzet has access to some of the strongest cards in MTG synergizing with artifacts. Great Izzet colored artifacts matter pieces are: Goldspan Dragon, Shimmer Dragon, Hellkite Tyrant, Galazeth Prismari and Hellkite Igniter (funny how these all also dragons :)).
Izzet combos
As Malcolm and Breeches triggers whenever a pirate you control deals damage to an opponent there are multiple ways to turn the deck into a full-steam combo deck. Only requirements are: a creature dealing damage to an opponent + being pirate + able to do the damage multiple times. There are multiple combinations to turn Malcolm into a pinger-monster, and the easiest one is Glint-Horn Buccaneer. Other combos are Reckless Fireweaver and turning it to a pirate with Arcane Adaptation, Maskwood Nexus or Runed Stalactite.
Keep in mind the combo decks have close nothing with in common with a pirate tribal deck, and the decks are mostly ramping, interaction and tutoring and strong draw effects to find the compo pieces.
Izzet Dragons Approach
After listing all the dragons in the previous sections I just realised Malcolm + Breeches can be turned into a Dragon's Approach deck and make it very violent.
Strategy
This specific Malcolm + Breeches deck is focusing on exiling opponents cards, creating treasures and then casting the exiled spells with the new treasures. The deck runs very few actual wincons, so we hope to hit some of our opponents combat or artifact based wincons, and riding to the sunset.
Early game and mulligans
T1 to T3 is the early game and the deck focuses to get at least one pirate and Malcolm out in the early game. The deck runs four 1 CMC pirates and five 2 CMC pirates so getting at least one pirate out before T3 is easy, and hitting all the land drops is crucial to get Malcolm out. Getting Malcolm out quickly is more important than casting a 2 cmc mana rock, as there are close to 0 use for them except for recasting the commanders.
Great Early game drops are: Spectral Sailor, Siren Stormtamer and Departed Deckhand.
Mid game
T4 - T6 is the mid game. In midgame we have both our commanders out, and are hitting at at least two of our opponents with the flying pirates during every combat creating the treasures and exiling cards. Most likely you will miss land drops, but the exiled lands can and should be played as much as possible.
As the deck focuses on pirating the opponents exiled cards, the deck runs many strong artifact ramps like Worn Powerstone or Thran Dynamo to help to cast the spells. Keep in mind spells exiled with Breeches can be cast with colorless mana too!
Great mid range cards to play: Thran Dynamo, Worn Powerstone, Xorn, Academy Manufactorer and Saheeli, the Gifted.
Late game
After T6 is the late game. In the late game our commanders have most likely been at least once been removed, but due to the ramping and hitting the land drops there should be no issues to cast them again or even a third time.
The flying pirates have hit your opponents reliably and netted you multiple triggers from Malcolm and Breeches. Hopefully you have cast some big haymakers or multiple removals from your opponents cards, and reaped the benefits of Breeches.
Winning the game
Winning the with this deck is not easy. The main strategy is to continuously read the battlefield and have clear image what your opponents are aiming for. The deck runs multiple removals and counter spells to prevent your opponents from winning, so it is important to keep track of your open mana, as you cast the exiled cards.
However, if the exiled cards have not helped you to win the deck runs the following wincons to close the game: Glint-Horn Buccaneer is a combo piece with Malcolm, and nets you an instant win, or at least will take you to 1-on-1 final. Galazeth Prismari makes your treasures more lasting, helping you to cast more spells. Lightning-Rig Crew is a strong synergy piece, netting you massive value as long as you have pirates to cast. Shared Animosity is the wincon with pure combat damage, as you get pumped up flying pirates with it.
Who is the deck for
This janky pirate deck is great for combat heavy decks with limited flying or reach. Steering the deck proficiently means you need to have experience of different decks and their strategies to know when to cast every exiled card and tap out, and know when to go slower and keep you removals ready.
The deck is super fun to play when you get to play Breeches with enough mana. Due to the pirating trigger you end up in some very weird and strong interactions as you cast the exiled spells!
If you more into stompy decks, or into combo decks I would recommend some other deck. For combo players Malcolm is a great commander, but I would change Breeches to Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar or Dargo, the Shipwrecker to maximise the combo potential in Izzet.
