The Golden Age of Piracy — The Articles

Commanded by Edward Teach, Blackbeard, this Rakdos (black/red) 100-Card Commander Deck plays piracy as it was actually run between 1700 and 1725: ships with no owner and no wages, and a sheet of numbered articles signed by every man aboard, captain included. One vote each, one share each, no prey no pay — and for a man who would not fight, marooning. No parrots, no peg legs, no treasure maps: every name is out of the record.

• The Articles: whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, every creature you control gets a share counter, and Blackbeard gives each one +1/+0 per counter. At your end step, every creature that blocked or could have attacked and didn't is exiled. You may bring one back for {2} and 2 life. The whole crew is paid for one man's success, and the sensible block is the one thing the contract punishes.
• The Black Spot: name a permanent type and an opponent. Before their next turn they hand you one permanent of that type, or they sacrifice every permanent of that type they control. There is nothing to negotiate; the only decision left to them is which one you get.
• The company: Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Calico Jack Rackham, Bartholomew Roberts, Charles Vane, Samuel Bellamy, Stede Bonnet and Israel Hands — with Lieutenant Robert Maynard and Governor Woodes Rogers among the five cards that can never sign.

Why Rakdos

Black is the paper and the price: the articles, the purser's ledger, the compensation clause, the gallows below the high-water mark at Wapping. Red is the boarding: grapnels, the powder magazine and the fireship Vane sent at the Royal Navy. Twenty-eight cards print the Articles in full, forty-three handle share counters, and eight carry the Black Spot.

A complete 100-card Commander deck plus 4 tokens, tuned for Bracket 4, available as a digital print-yourself edition or a printed physical deck, and offered in 10 languages.