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Pitiless Plunderer

Creature — Human Pirate

Whenever another creature you control dies, create a Treasure token. (It's an artifact with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.")

CMC
4
Mana cost
{3}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
uncommon
Set
Rivals of Ixalan
Price
$5.41
EDHREC rank
#231
Buy on TCGplayer
Pitiless Plunderer card art
Pitiless Plunderer turns every creature death into a Treasure token, which in sacrifice-heavy decks translates directly into explosive mana advantage that compounds turn over turn. At four mana it's not cheap, but Chatterfang, Squirrel General and Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder both hit 80%+ inclusion rates for a reason — the card is simply correct in any deck that kills its own creatures.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder

Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder

84.1% of decks · synergy 0.72

Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder incentivizes looting and sacrificing Pirates, and Pitiless Plunderer converts every one of those deaths into a Treasure, creating a self-fueling loop that keeps the engine running through disruption.

02
Vihaan, Goldwaker

Vihaan, Goldwaker

85.0% of decks · synergy 0.67

Vihaan, Goldwaker animates Treasures into attacking creatures, so Pitiless Plunderer doesn't just generate mana — every creature that dies produces another attacker for Vihaan to weaponize.

03
Teysa Karlov

Teysa Karlov

75.6% of decks · synergy 0.59

Teysa Karlov doubles death triggers, which means Pitiless Plunderer produces two Treasures per creature lost instead of one — a straightforward doubling of the card's output that makes it a near-automatic inclusion.

04
Admiral Brass, Unsinkable

Admiral Brass, Unsinkable

62.3% of decks · synergy 0.57

Admiral Brass, Unsinkable reanimates Pirates who die in combat, and Pitiless Plunderer cashes in on each of those deaths before Brass brings them back, generating Treasures on what would otherwise be free recursive attacks.

05
Caesar, Legion's Emperor

Caesar, Legion's Emperor

73.9% of decks · synergy 0.56

Caesar, Legion's Emperor rewards token creation and sacrifice, and Pitiless Plunderer feeds both sides of that equation — it produces Treasures from deaths that Caesar then converts into additional tokens and triggers.

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

Commander is where Pitiless Plunderer does its best work, slotting into any black sacrifice shell and scaling with the redundant death triggers that multiplayer games generate naturally. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but sees no meaningful play — four mana for a 2/2 with a conditional trigger is far too slow for formats where games end by turn two or three. Modern and Pioneer are similarly inhospitable; aristocrats decks in those formats exist, but the mana cost and lack of immediate impact make Pitiless Plunderer a fringe consideration at best compared to cheaper payoffs. Oathbreaker is a real home for it in any black sacrifice pairing, where the condensed game length still gives the card room to generate multiple Treasures before the game ends.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

27,589 decks
Pitiless PlundererGravecrawlerViscera Seer

Pitiless PlundererGravecrawlerViscera Seer

Infinite LTB; Infinite ETB; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite death triggers; Infinite scry 1; Infinite storm count; Infinite Treasure tokens; Infinite colored mana; Infinite colorless mana; Infinite creature tokens

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

Sifter of Skulls fills a similar role at well under a dollar, producing Eldrazi Scion tokens on creature deaths that provide the same mana-on-demand function — the trade-off is that Scions require tapping to sacrifice and don't stack with non-creature deaths. Pawn of Ulamog is another sub-dollar option in the same vein, though both alternatives lose the clean, no-hoops Treasure production that makes Pitiless Plunderer so reliable in combo lines.

Price Context

Current price

$5.41 mid tier

At $5.41, Pitiless Plunderer sits in mid-tier territory — expensive enough to feel like a deliberate inclusion, cheap enough that it's in over 80% of its best commanders' lists. The combination of combo utility and general sacrifice synergy keeps demand steady, so the price is unlikely to collapse barring a reprint.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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