Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer Brawl Deck Guide

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer | Illustration by Magali Villeneuve

What if your commander could swing in on turn 1, steal your opponent’s best cards, and hand you extra mana at the same time? That’s exactly what Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer brings to the table in Brawl. It’s fast and it’s relentless, and in a format where players only start with 25 life, every hit snowballs the game closer to victory.

This Brawl deck is built to clear the way, keep the pressure on, and make sure Ragavan never runs out of gas.

Can a mischievous monkey pirate really take over Brawl? Let’s find out.

The Deck

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer | Illustration by Simon Dominic

This build is all about speed and pressure. Your early plays, like Monastery Swiftspear, Bomat Courier, and Earthshaker Khenra, make sure the damage starts to pile up right away. Robber of the Rich keeps the momentum rolling by turning every attack into extra cards. Put it all together, and the deck runs like a classic red aggro strategy—fast, relentless, and hard to stop—only now it’s powered up with Ragavan’s Treasure engine.

The Commander: Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

At the center of it all is Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. The plan couldn’t be more straightforward: Get the monkey down early, swing in, and let the Treasures and stolen cards snowball the game in your favor. Once Ragavan starts to connect, opponents struggle to catch up, which is why the whole deck is designed to clear the way for your commander to keep attacking.

Top Creatures

Some creatures in this deck aren’t just good—they’re game-ending if left unchecked. Laelia, the Blade Reforged is a perfect example. It attacks with haste, grows bigger every time you exile a card, and also gives you access to extra cards from your library. Laelia embodies the deck’s philosophy of aggression plus card advantage.

Then there’s Hellrider. Every time your creatures attack, it pings your opponent directly. That turns a simple board of two or three creatures into a massive burst of damage, especially if you pair it with Ragavan or other hasty threats. It doesn’t take many combat steps with Hellrider on the table before your opponent’s life total vanishes.

Torbran, Thane of Red Fell is another monster. By adding 2 damage to every red source you control, Torbran makes cards like Shock feel like mini Lightning Bolts and transforms your small creatures into huge threats. It warps the math of the game entirely in your favor. Glorybringer caps things off as both a hasty flying threat and a removal spell rolled into one. The exert trigger picks off enemy creatures while the dragon itself keeps pounding away in the air.

The Payoffs

This deck is full of cards that punish your opponent just for trying to play Magic. Eidolon of the Great Revel is notorious for dealing chip damage every time someone casts a cheap spell, and in a format like Brawl, where many spells cost 3 or less, it racks up damage quickly. It forces opponents to think twice about interacting, which is exactly what you want when you’re racing ahead.

Rampaging Ferocidon plays a similar disruptive role. By shutting down lifegain and punishing opponents every time they play a creature, this dinosaur makes it tough to stabilize against your aggressive strategy. The menace ability also makes it hard to block, which ensures you can keep swinging in.

At the top end, you’ve got devastating red finishers like Embercleave. Flashing this in mid-combat often ends the game on the spot, especially when you attach it to Ragavan or another hasty creature. Double strike and trample turn even small threats into lethal attackers.

The Enablers

The key to an aggressive red deck isn’t just speed—it’s consistency. That’s why this deck runs cards like Mox Amber and Chrome Mox. They let you deploy Ragavan faster or cast multiple spells in the same turn, which is often all it takes to stay ahead. Free mana rocks make sure that your curve never clogs up.

Card filtering and token generation also keep the pressure steady. Seasoned Pyromancer lets you cycle through your hand and replace discarded cards with tokens, while Fable of the Mirror-Breaker creates the coveted Goblin Shaman that generates Treasure before it flips into a value engine. Feldon, Ronom Excavator adds to this plan by turning damage into card selection, which helps you to find the exact piece you need to keep attacking.

These enablers don’t win the game on their own, but they ensure you never slow down. That’s critical for a deck built around Ragavan, since every turn you keep swinging piles on more value.

Interaction

Your interaction suite is designed to do one thing: to clear the path for combat. Lightning Bolt and Shock are cheap and efficient, and they ensure you never stumble against early blockers. Play with Fire adds value with its scry ability to let you line up your next big threat while still dealing damage.

Against bigger creatures, cards like Strangle and Molten Impact pull their weight. Molten Impact even leaves behind a delayed burn trigger for the next instant or sorcery you cast, which is perfect for keeping the board under control. Volcanic Spite pulls double duty because it removes threats while it cycles a card from your hand for a fresh draw.

The overall goal isn’t to control the board forever—it’s to buy just enough time for Ragavan and your other creatures to connect. Every spell is about tempo, trading up on mana and forcing your opponent to fall behind.

Removal

Sometimes tempo plays aren’t enough, so you’ve got a handful of heavier hitters in the removal department. Fiery Confluence is extremely flexible—it can sweep small creatures, deal direct damage to players, or destroy artifacts. That versatility makes it one of your best late-game cards to topdeck.

Glorybringer deserves a second mention here, since its exert trigger is a form of repeatable removal stapled to a giant flying threat. Fury also clears multiple creatures the turn it enters, especially against wide boards. And Exquisite Firecraft gives you a guaranteed way to deal with planeswalkers or players thanks to its uncounterable clause once spell mastery is online.

This isn’t a deck that wants to play the long game, but these removal tools give you the reach to break through when the battlefield gets complicated.

Win Condition

Your win condition isn’t a hidden combo—it’s raw, relentless damage. Ragavan provides early chip shots and Treasure acceleration. Cheap burn like Lightning Bolt and Skewer the Critics double as reach to close out games. By the time you drop heavy hitters like Hellrider or Torbran, Thane of Red Fell, opponents are often already within burn range.

The late game is locked up by cards like Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Embercleave. Chandra offers both removal and inevitability with its emblem, while Embercleave can turn a single combat step into lethal damage out of nowhere. If the game drags on, your creature lands like Den of the Bugbear or Mutavault provide extra attackers to keep the pressure on.

The Mana Base

Your lands do more than just provide mana—they’re part of the aggression package. Den of the Bugbear creates extra Goblins every time it attacks, Mutavault and Mishra's Foundry become creatures in a pinch, and Castle Embereth boosts your whole team to finish games quickly.

You also get utility from lands like Ramunap Ruins and Barbarian Ring, which act as reach when you’ve run out of spells. Legendary lands like Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance give you emergency attackers that slot right into your game plan. Even Arena of Glory helps push through by granting haste when you need to surprise your opponent.

It’s a mana base designed not just to support spells, but to function as an extension of the aggressive game plan. Every land has a job, whether it’s fueling Ragavan or swinging for those last points of damage.

The Strategy

This deck’s game plan comes down to one idea: pressure, pressure, pressure. You want to get Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer on the field as early as possible, then back it up with cheap burn and hasty creatures so the advantage snowballs fast. Cards like Chrome Mox make this even scarier, since they let you power Ragavan out right away or cheat a 3-drop like Laelia, the Blade Reforged or Screaming Nemesis onto the battlefield a turn early. That kind of tempo swing puts your opponent on the back foot immediately.

From there, you just keep stacking damage. Payoffs like Eidolon of the Great Revel, Hellrider, and Torbran, Thane of Red Fell make every attack sting more. Unlike slower red builds that try to grind with card draw, this one leans fully into tempo—you’re perfectly fine trading resources as long as Ragavan and your creatures keep connecting. Burn spells aren’t just removal here; they’re the final push to the face once the board stabilizes.

The trick is to never let your opponent breathe. Each turn should either add another threat, clear the way, or crank up the damage. It’s relentless, it’s fast, and it’s exactly the kind of chaos Ragavan thrives on.

Combos and Interactions

Even though this isn’t a dedicated combo deck, you do have plenty of spicy synergies. Soul-Scar Mage turns all that burn into permanent -1/-1 counters, which lets you shrink indestructible creatures down to nothing.

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker flips into Reflection of Kiki-Jiki to open up endless value plays. Copying Seasoned Pyromancer floods the board with tokens, while copying Hellrider results in ridiculous amounts of damage. Even something as simple as doubling a Robber of the Rich attack can swing the game.

These little overlaps are what keep the deck fun. You don’t need combos to win, but when the right cards line up, the interactions feel explosive and reward smart sequencing.

Wildcard-Friendly Alternatives

One of the easiest ways to save wildcards in a Ragavan deck is to rethink the land base. Cards like Den of the Bugbear, Mutavault, and Mishra's Foundry are undeniably strong, but they aren’t required for the deck to function. Instead of burning rare wildcards, you can stick with basic Mountains or use cheaper Arena-legal options like Forgotten Cave or Sunscorched Desert. These lands might not provide the same upside, but they keep your mana base consistent without the extra cost.

Value engines like Seasoned Pyromancer and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker are great, but Arena has plenty of cheaper replacements. Experimental Synthesizer is one of the best—at uncommon, it gives you impulse draw and doubles as a token producer. Spells like Thrill of Possibility and Hearth Elemental are also excellent to filter cards and keep your hand from running dry.

Even the removal package has wildcard-saving options. You can trim high-rarity burn spells like Exquisite Firecraft or Fiery Confluence in favor of Arena-legal uncommons like Abrade, which doubles as artifact removal, or Lava Coil, which exiles creatures outright. Incendiary Flow also provides both damage and exile, which makes it a reliable substitute. You won’t miss much power while you save wildcards.

The same principle applies to your midrange threats. Hellrider and Torbran, Thane of Red Fell are undeniably strong, but they aren’t the only way to keep the pressure on. Uncommons like Ahn-Crop Crasher clear blockers while attacking, and a common like Fanatical Firebrand chips away early while offering a ping later on. Even cards like Cunning Coyote bring solid stats for an uncommon wildcard.

Mythic planeswalkers like Chandra, Torch of Defiance are nice to have but not mandatory. Budget alternatives like Tibalt, Rakish Instigator or Chandra, Novice Pyromancer still give you ways to push damage, create tokens, or support your burn plan, all while saving those precious mythic wildcards for other decks.

At the end of the day, Ragavan is the piece that makes the whole deck shine. As long as you back it up with a fast curve of creatures and cheap burn, the deck will still feel just as aggressive. By leaning on Arena-legal commons and uncommons, you can cut down on rare and mythic costs without losing the explosive identity that makes mono-red Ragavan so fun to play.

Other Builds

One way to build Ragavan in Brawl is to lean even harder into a burn-heavy approach. Since Brawl games start at 25 life instead of 40 like Commander, direct damage spells go a lot further.

You can load up on cards like Boltwave and finishers like Mechanized Warfare that pair up perfectly with others like Torbran, Thane of Red Fell or Hellrider, and suddenly every attack step feels like a burn spell in itself. This version plays like a classic mono-red aggro deck—fast and punishing, and ready to end games before your opponent stabilizes.

Another fun path is to push Ragavan toward a Treasure-matters build. Since Ragavan already hands you Treasure tokens, you can double down with support cards like Magda, Brazen Outlaw or its counterpart Magda, the Hoardmaster. Both versions turn Treasures into a payoff engine, whether that’s tutoring up a big dragon or turning every Treasure into extra mana for explosive turns. You can also pair them with cards like Goldspan Dragon or Professional Face-Breaker to keep Treasures flowing and turn them into real value. This build is less about ending the game with burn and more about turning your small gains into an overwhelming resource advantage.

Adapting for Commander

Turning a Ragavan Brawl deck into a paper Commander build starts with a big shift in mindset. Brawl is built for 1v1 games, where Ragavan can come down early, connect a few times, and snowball into a quick win. But Commander is multiplayer. Games run much longer, players pack more removal, and table politics become just as important as card advantage. That means a deck that leans only on speed and burn won’t hold up—you need to mix in threats and engines that give you staying power.

Another key difference is life totals. In Brawl, players start at 25 life, which makes quick burn strategies much more effective—you only have to push through a smaller cushion of damage. In Commander, every opponent starts at 40, and you often facing three of them at once. Suddenly, the same burn plan that crushes in Brawl feels stretched too thin. You’ll want to adjust by adding cards that can keep generating value or deal chunks of damage to the whole table, not just chip away at one player at a time.

Legality also matters. Arena’s Brawl format allows digital-only cards like Mephit's Enthusiasm and Melt Through, which don’t exist in paper and need to be cut. At the same time, paper Commander opens the door to classic staples that aren’t available on Arena. Cards like Sol Ring and Deflecting Swat are legal and widely played, and they give you stronger ramp and protection.

Commander also offers a deeper pool of powerful haymakers. While Arena leans on recent sets, paper gives you access to classics like Ruination and Blasphemous Act, which scale beautifully in multiplayer. On top of that, you can reach for finishers like Inferno Titan, Hellkite Tyrant, or Ancient Copper Dragon—big threats that can actually end a game in a room full of players sitting at 40 life.

Lastly, your interaction has to widen. In Brawl, it’s often enough to run one-for-one removal like Strangle or Volcanic Spite to keep the path clear for Ragavan. In Commander, you’ll want sweepers and scalable answers. Vandalblast can knock out multiple opponents’ artifacts at once, and engines like Outpost Siege or Experimental Frenzy give you the card flow you need to stay relevant in longer games.

All in all, adapting this deck for paper Commander means cutting Arena-only cards, respecting the higher life totals, and leaning into multiplayer staples. Ragavan remains the centerpiece, but instead of racing for early kills, you’ll want to build a deck that can endure, adapt, and deliver knockout blows when the table is at its most vulnerable.

Commanding Conclusion

Treasure | Illustration by Zoltan Boros

Thanks for checking out this build! If you love fast, aggressive decks with a sneaky value engine driving the action, this Ragavan list is definitely worth a try.

We’d love to hear your thoughts—what changes would you make, or which direction would you take the deck in your own games? Drop us a comment and join the conversation in our Discord server. And don’t forget to follow us on social media so you never miss a new brew.

Take care, and we’ll see you again next time.