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Lightning-Rig Crew

Creature — Goblin Pirate

{T}: This creature deals 1 damage to each opponent.
Whenever you cast a Pirate spell, untap this creature.

CMC
3
Mana cost
{2}{R}
Color identity
R
Rarity
uncommon
Set
Ixalan
Price
$0.14
EDHREC rank
#8536
Buy on TCGplayer
Lightning-Rig Crew card art
Lightning-Rig Crew deals 1 damage to each opponent on every Pirate spell or triggered Pirate ability — in a Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator deck that's pinging three players multiple times per turn, the cumulative damage is real. The four-mana cost is steep for a tap-to-ping creature in isolation, but Breeches, Brazen Plunderer // Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator turns it into a passive damage multiplier that requires no tap at all.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Breeches, Brazen PlundererMalcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator

Breeches, Brazen Plunderer // Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator

72.6% of decks · synergy 0.71

Breeches, Brazen Plunderer // Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator is the canonical home — every spell that triggers Malcolm also pings all opponents through Lightning-Rig Crew, turning a single Pirate-heavy turn into a multi-point life drain without any extra investment.

02
Kediss, Emberclaw FamiliarMalcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator

Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar // Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator

42.8% of decks · synergy 0.41

Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar // Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator doubles down on the multi-opponent ping plan, and Lightning-Rig Crew slots in as another redundant source of damage that scales with however many Pirate triggers the engine generates each turn.

03
Malcolm, Keen-Eyed NavigatorVial Smasher the Fierce

Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator // Vial Smasher the Fierce

27.9% of decks · synergy 0.27

Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator // Vial Smasher the Fierce runs Lightning-Rig Crew as incremental pressure alongside Vial Smasher's own cast triggers, stacking damage sources that punish opponents just for letting the deck operate normally.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Lightning-Rig Crew is a Commander card through and through — the passive damage-per-Pirate-trigger only matters in a shell dense enough with Pirates and spell-casting to generate multiple triggers per turn, which is a tribal synergy package that 60-card formats don't support. In Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer, four mana for a 1/3 with a conditional ping is well below rate, and no competitive Pirate shell exists to justify it. Oathbreaker could theoretically support a Malcolm-style build at smaller table sizes, but the damage output shrinks with fewer opponents. Stick to Commander.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.14 bulk tier

At $0.14, Lightning-Rig Crew is bulk in every sense — buy a playset for the cost of a coffee. It's a narrow tribal enabler with a small target audience, so don't expect the price to move.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.