Grand Larceny Precon: Decklist, Value, and Verdict

Gonti, Canny Acquisitor

Spells you cast but don't own cost {1} less to cast. Whenever one or more creatures you control deal combat damage to a player, look at the top card of that player's library, then exile it face down. You may play that card for as long as it remains exiled, and mana of any type can be spent to cast that spell.

Singles value

$159.64

TCGplayer market, 85 cards, basic lands counted at $0

Sealed price

$206.82

TCGplayer price for the box (Amazon $266.80) · singles are 0.8× that

New cards

10 / 100

First printings in this deck

Bracket

Core, out of the box

Is Grand Larceny worth buying?

from Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander Decks: Are They Worth It? by Timothy Zaccagnino

I hate to say it, but Grand Larceny is a miss for me. Not a complete bust, of course, but it’s dragged down by a theme we’ve seen plenty of times before, poor reprint quality, and the inclusion of some questionably weak cards. I love a lot of the new-to-Magic cards here, but I can’t see cards like Stolen Goods and Plasm Capture in a modern-day precon and recommend it to players in good conscience. There’s also something to be said about the polarizing opinions surrounding theft decks. It fits some players’ playstyles perfectly, and others absolutely loathe it as a strategy. Make what you will from that, but I’m going to have to settle on a pass for this precon.

How Grand Larceny plays

primer from Grand Larceny Upgrade Guide: 10 Easy Changes You Can Make by A.L. Walser

Grand Larceny (the precon, not the crime) is a “theft” deck. We’ve seen these before, and the only truly unique thing about this one is that it’s flavored as a “saboteur” strategy, that’s to say rewarding you when your creatures deal combat damage to a player. Gonti, Canny Acquisitor runs the show, essentially drawing cards from your opponents’ libraries as your creatures make contact with their faces. Gonti also cheapens spells you’ve stolen from your opponents, something we haven’t really seen before.

You could also run the alternative commander, uh, Felix Five-Boots. It basically doubles your saboteur effects, though it’s in clear second place to Gonti for the purposes of playing out of the box. This deck has some terrible cards like Slither Blade and Triton Shorestalker, which are only justifiable if Gonti’s there to make them useful. Swapping Gonti for Felix might be a rootin’ scootin’ good time, but the rest of your deck suffers under Felix’s watch.

Otherwise, this is standard theft-faire, and not entirely unique in any meaningful way. Steal cards from your opponents and hope they’re better than the odd assortment of cards in your deck. Pro tip: I know it’s the Wild West, but be sure to return anything you “borrowed” from your opponents at the end of the game.

It’s playing a bunch of bangers from early Commander days that don’t feel up to snuff in modern Magic, things like Diluvian Primordial and Silent-Blade Oni. It’s operational out of the box against other precons, but you’ll definitely feel the age of these cards if you port it over to the average Commander pod.