We are back for round 3 of the OTJ commander deck upgrades. You know what's better than playing 1 deck? Playing them all. Grand Larceny will let you do that, and to help out, we have Gonti, Canny Acquisitor. If you are looking for the other decks, you can find them here: Desert Bloom, Quick Draw and Most Wanted.
This deck is the embodiment of Villainous Wealth. Stealing all the value off of your opponents either using Gontis' ability or from other cards. Gonti even gives you a discount for casting spells that you don't own. For clarification, a player owns all the cards that start in their deck including their commander at the start of the game. Control of those cards can change throughout the game from effects like Mind Control, Threaten, or stealing cards with effects like Gonti. Even if control changes, the owner doesn't. This is relevant for cards like Run Away Together, which is also a funny card as this now constitutes as a crime according to Magic rules.
Table of Contents
Upgrade 1
The first card I am cutting is one I suggested for Quick Draw, Diluvian Primordial. I liked it in that deck as it synergizes well with Stella Lee. While still good in Gonti it is quite an expensive card that you might not get great results. Tasha, the Witch Queen does a reasonable impression of Diluvian Primordial if she can stick around for a turn. This might be hard as she is a Planeswalker, but the extra value and lower mana cost she brings to the table makes it worth it. This comes in the form of her static ability. Whenever you cast a card you don't own, create a 3/3 demon. Spoilers: this deck will cast a lot of cards you don't own.
Upgrade 2
Mind's Dilation is a bit of a weird one, it looks like it's the perfect EDH card. Big cost and big effect. I can't say I have ever seen it on the table. I think it just costs too much mana and has a big target on it to be removed before it can generate too much value. It is also hampered by not being guaranteed a spell if you hit a land. While Court of Locthwain isn’t going to get you as much value every turn cycle, it's more likely to get you more value in the game. This is due to not being as much of a target, so hopefully will be able to stick around. It also brings the monarch into the game. This will draw you a card at the end of the turn, and this deck already wants to play evasive threats, so getting the monarch back shouldn't be too hard.
Upgrade 3
Author of Shadows is a great value card. Not only is it graveyard hate, but it also gets you the best card out of them. Additionally, Gonti and a couple of other effects in the deck will help discount its cost. I am cutting Oblivion Sower. This does have an interesting interaction in this deck. Normally you would only be getting the lands off the cast trigger, but with the way it is worded, you can get any exiled land that the player owns. So if you have exiled with Gonti's ability you can get those. Even with this, the card costs 6 mana so this is going to be close to your top end and capping out the end of your curve. The ramp does not help as much unless you are looking to multicast in a turn. There are only a couple of (x) spells in the deck so having more mana doesn't help as much when you get to this stage. The other downside to this is Gonti allows you to play the cards meaning you can play the land you get. While it won't be as explosive as with Oblivion Sower, it will steadily ramp you anyway. Which is how Gonti wants to play anyway. Grindy value.
Upgrade 4
Chaos Wand is the next card I am cutting. This does give value, and a use for excess mana, but the random element is what I'm not liking in this deck. This is a value deck that wants to get creatures to connect with players. I can see why this was added to the deck as it lets you cast your opponent's spells, but I don't think it fits with Gonti, which is why I'm cutting it. Nightveil Specter on the other hand is a mini Gonti and if you have him out you’re getting double triggers. It is exactly what you want in this deck to pair with the commander. Evasive and also works on its own if struggling to keep your commander on the battlefield.
Upgrade 5
Culling Ritual looks like a good card, especially considering how common treasure token generators are. That is until your opponents learn to crack them in response, denying you the mana. This only really works as the name suggests. As a way to kill tokens. This might hit the random mana artifacts, but it's unlikely to net you mana unless you boardwipe lots of tokens. This is why I'm dropping it. Mnemonic Betrayal is another value card that will help you grind out a win. Either fire it off early if you want to get a card from your opponent. Or wait until later in the game when there should be stacked graveyards and cast all the good cards from a single one.
Upgrade 6
I am adding Dimir Charm as a tech card. This has a pretty unique effect in the second option: You can look at the top three cards of the target player's library. Put one back, and the rest into that player's graveyard. The key is to mess with your opponents' libraries, allowing you to get the best card from the 3 with Gonti's steal ability. This leads to my honourable mention of Portent.
This is one of the other cards that can do this, along with Architects of Will. I think Portent and Dimir Charm are better than the creature as it is fairly overcosted. I chose Dimir Charm over Portent because of the model flexibility. Also due to the instant speed nature of Dimir Charm, this allows you to attack and, when you know you have the trigger, you can respond with the Charm to set it up. It also puts other cards into the graveyard so if you happen to hit a bunch of bombs, then you are denying them to your opponents. Just adding salt to the wound. I am dropping Stolen Goods. This is one of the cards I don't want to cut as it fits nicely into the deck. It is also on point flavour wise but I am having to make room for some new cards. The only downside to this is it's random so you might not hit a card you want to cast right away. Unlike Gonti's ability you have to cast straight away or it's lost.
Upgrades 7 and 8
The next two I'm pumping together just because of the cards I'm cutting. These are Silhana Ledgewalker and Slither Blade. Slither Blade can be swapped for Triton Shorestalker as they are identical other than one being a Naga Vs Merfolk. I only kept the Shorestalker in because I think the art looks better and the slight off chance someone else plays Merfolk and has one of the old lords out. These two are just evasive bodies designed to trigger Gonti. Slither Blade has a slight advantage as it is fully unblockable whereas Silhana Ledgewalker has hexproof but only pseudo flying for its evasion. Instead I have added some other evasive creatures with upsides.
The first card I am adding is another tech card. This is similar to Dimir Charm in idea but different execution. Memory Lapse is normally a delaying counterspell as instead of actually countering the spell it just goes on top of the owner library. The idea for Memory Lapse is it's meant to be a “fixed” Counterspell. Although in a mill deck, it can be a proper one or in this deck it lets you steal the spell as long as they can't draw it or stop all your creatures from connecting.
The second card I am adding is Rogue Class. This is a newer type of enchantment from Adventures of the Forgotten Realms. These are a reflection of the classic Dungeons & Dragons class. Rogue Class does an impression of Gonti with exiling cards when you connect with a creature. To help with this, if you level up Rogue Class by paying (1)(U)(B) your creatures get menace. And the final level up for (2)(U)(B) turns it into Gonti by letting you cast the cards you exiled. The great thing about these effects is they stack so if you manage to connect with a creature you will exile 2 cards from the player's library. One with Gonti's ability and the other with Rogue Class. So double the value for the same amount of work.
Upgrade 9
Void Attendant is a weird one. This is also where it becomes a problem when writing these upgrade guides without fully playing the decks to thoroughly test the cards. It looks to be a good idea. Being able to turn the useless cards into tokens, and these being Scions (1/1) and not Spawns (0/1) means you can get the combat triggers as they actually have power. As you can play lands that you steal I feel like most of the time I'm going to be casting the cards and not wanting to turn them into Scions. But as I said this could be a wrong cut. But what isn't a wrong addition is Outrageous Robbery. Not only is this a flavour win, but it is also a great card for the deck. It fits in perfectly with the steal theme. This alongside Villainous Wealth, were cards that I thought were going to be in the deck. The only reason I can guess that they didn't add it is due to it being recently printed in Murders at Karlov Manor and Wizards of the Coast not wanting to add a reprint so close to the original release.
Upgrade 10
The final card I want to add is Xanathar, Guild Kingpin. This is one of the other true theft commanders alongside Sen Triplets.
Xanathar lets you pick one player and shut them out on your turn, and then you get to play spells from the top of their library. This can be used in a couple of ways. First, it can be used to stop the control player from interacting with you, as they can't cast spells if you target them. Or you could go for the deck you think has the most value for you. Also if you end up hitting 2 lands, as you are allowed to play one of them, you can get a Gonti trigger to clear that off and hopefully carry on casting spells. Ghostly Pilferer is on the way out. This can be a nice source of card draw and an unblockable threat when needed. Although I feel like the deck can already get the value from everyone else's deck and the evasion on this comes from discarding a card, which isn't great. While an okay card I just think Xanathar, Guild Kingpin has more to offer.
Conclusion
Grand Larceny as a deck lives up to its name. Aiming to beg, batter, and most importantly steal its way to victory. It looks to be a very grindy and value oriented deck. A stalled out board where you can get in with your evasive creatures to get the triggers off is exactly where you want to be. Slowly build up your boardstate with your opponent's cards, then when you have assessed your grand heist, turn all that wealth into a game win. As always I will leave you with some extra suggestions. Thank you for reading. I hope to see you in the final part.
Non-Budget Upgrades
PS. All the card prices were accurate at the time of writing.
Looking to pick up the Grand Larceny deck? Shop Outlaws of Thunder Junction and all things Magic: The Gathering here at Gathering Games.
Magic The Gathering: Outlaws of Thunder Junction Grand Larceny Commander Deck
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Description Once a thief, always a thief. Team up with Gonti to gain a wealth of stolen goods and outshine your opponents with a deck that’s ready to play right out of the box and experience Magic: The Gathering’s most… read more
