Welcome back to another precon guide here on EDHREC. Today we’re upgrading Grand Larceny, the Commander deck from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. In case you missed it, go check out my review, where we looked at what the deck does and how to play it.

This deck has some solid leaders and excellent synergy, but what it lacks is small critters to get in for damage. Which is kinda the whole point.

Lickety split, let’s tune up.

What’s in the Original Deck?

Grand Larceny is black, green, and blue (Sultai) and led by Gonti, Canny Acquisitor. Gonti’s a 5/5 Aetherborn Rogue for five mana that makes spells you cast but don’t own cost one mana less, and whenever one or more of your creatures hit an opponent, you exile the top card of that player’s library. You can then play that card and use any color mana to do it. The backup commander is Felix Five-Boots, a 5/4 Ooze Rogue for five mana who doubles all of your triggers from dealing combat damage to a player.

Here’s the original deck list:

What Budget Cards Can We Add to Grand Larceny?

As always, we’ll break this upgrade up into two parts, one for the budget-conscious ($5 or less per card) and one for the lavish spenders ($5 or more).

The deck needed more cheap creatures with evasion to bring out before Gonti hits the board, so let’s start our upgrade there. Changeling Outcast, Tormented Soul, Dimir Infiltrator, Invisible Stalker, and Cephalid Facetaker all can’t be blocked, while Krydle of Baldur’s Gate and Aqueous Form can give “can’t be blocked” to a creature. 

Okay, we’ve got more creatures swinging in. What else can this deck do? How about more mana? Azusa, Lost but Seeking seems like a good call here. Because let’s not forget, Gonti’s trigger allows us to play the cards exiled from opponents' decks, not just cast them. So we can potentially have a lot of lands exiled. Might as well play some extra lands, right? There’s also Druid’s Repository, which gets a charge counter for each of our attacking creatures, and those counters can be turned into mana of any color. There’s also Nature’s Will, which untaps all lands we control when we hit a player with combat damage. So all those cards we just exiled? Yep, we can now afford to cast them. Heck, let’s even get a free creature each turn with Tlincalli Hunter.

How about some more exile effects? We can add Outrageous Robbery and Nightveil Specter for that. Or if we want to just draw a bunch of cards after casting stuff from exile, we can run Surge of Brilliance.

If exiling and casting someone else’s cards isn’t rude enough for you, how about killing them with one shot? That’s where Vorpal Sword comes. Eight mana with this attached to an Invisible Stalker means lights out for one opponent.

Lastly, I want to talk about first strike and double strike. With these abilities on creatures, we can get a lot more triggers off of Gonti, because it counts as a different set of damage from regular damage. Sadly, we’re not in the right colors for these abilities, but a good one I found is Mirri, Cat Warrior. Not only does it have first strike, it also has Forestwalk, meaning it’s basically unblockable by green players. Nice, right?

Of course, to make room for these new cards, some cards have to go to the bone orchard: Baleful Strix, Extract Brain, Thieving Skydiver, Tower Winder, Chaos Wand, Void Attendant, Arcane Heist, Gonti, Lord of Luxury, Plasm Capture, Stolen Goods, Whirler Rogue, Smirking Spelljacker, The Mimeoplasm, Diluvian Primordial, Sage of the Beyond, Silent-Blade Oni

Here’s the budget upgraded deck list:

And some more cards worth considering: Blade of Selves, Drana, Liberator of Malakir, Fireshrieker, Marang River Prowler, Whispersteel Dagger, Notorious Throng, Schema Thief, Marcus, Mutant Mayor, Tasha, the Witch Queen, Urban Evolution, Caller of the Pack, Elder Brain

What Are Some Good Expensive Cards We Can Add to Grand Larceny?

I’m glad you asked. Here’s where we start getting into more Rogue-based strategies. We’re adding Bitterblossom for a new flying Rogue each turn, Dauthi Voidwalker, because we weren’t already rude enough, Thada Adel, Acquisitor to steal some artifacts directly from opponents’ libraries, Grim Hireling for some extra cash, and Agent of Treachery for some more card draw.

We’ll even throw in a Kindred Discovery to get those Rogues filling our hands, plus a Roaming Throne to double all our Rogue triggers.

Exploration will take Azusa’s place in this upgrade, since it’s cheaper and less killable. Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor gives a nice damage trigger, plus a hefty activated ability that suits our strategy. Court of Locthwain brings the Monarchy into the mix, which we’re likely to have often with our unblockable creatures, and gives us more exiled loot to play with. And last is Praetor’s Grasp, which just yanks any card out of an opponent’s library.

We’re showing these cards the door: Krydle of Baldur’s Gate, Outrageous Robbery, Siphon Insight, Surge of Brilliance, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Cazur, Ruthless Stalker, Dazzling Sphinx, Oblivion Sower, Orochi Soul-Reaver, Thieving Amalgam, and Tlincalli Hunter

Here’s the upgraded non-budget list:

And some more cards to think about: Tinybones, the Pickpocket, Sword of Feast and Famine, Toski, Bearer of Secrets, Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait

Burn the Breeze

That’s it for the Upgrade Guide for Grand Larceny. We added more unblockable creatures, more mana to play with, and even a one-shot killer to make sure our opponents die standing up. So what do you think? Did I make this deck better? Any cards I missed? Let me know in the comments. And don’t go anywhere. We got plenty more precon fun coming at ya, here on EDHREC.

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