TCG Playability
Creature — Skeleton Pirate
Deathtouch (Any amount of damage this deals to a creature is enough to destroy it.) Raid — When this creature enters, if you attacked this turn, look at the top three cards of your library. You may put one of those cards back on top of your library. Put the rest into your graveyard.
Gutless Plunderer is a versatile two-mana creature that rewards aggressive strategies across multiple formats, making it an excellent addition to any black-based tempo or midrange deck. The combination of deathtouch and the Raid mechanic creates a card that punches well above its modest three-mana investment, as the 2/2 body with deathtouch immediately becomes a threat that forces opponents to reckon with its combat damage potential. The real value emerges when you've committed to attacking, triggering the Raid ability to dig through the top three cards of your library while simultaneously filling your graveyard—a characteristic particularly appealing to graveyard-focused strategies that benefit from cards in your discard pile. This makes Gutless Plunderer an excellent fit for aggressive black strategies in Standard and Pioneer, as well as graveyard-centric archetypes in Modern and Legacy that appreciate both the efficient body and the library manipulation. The creature slots cleanly into Rakdos and Orzhov aggro shells where you're already attacking consistently, turning every combat phase into incremental card advantage. Beyond competitive considerations, the card's flexibility makes it valuable in Commander and other casual formats where its utility scales with your deck's speed and aggression level. With legality across virtually every format including Pauper, this is an accessible card that delivers genuine utility without requiring exotic synergies, making it a smart pickup for players building or upgrading attacking-focused strategies.
Illustrated by Loïc Canavaggia