Theft

Theft is an Archetype in magic that is shorthand for effects that gain control of creatures and other permanents your opponents control. This can simultaneously weaken an opponent's positions while strengthening your own.

Cards that gain control of opponent's creatures are primary in blue and secondary in black and red.

## **Popular Cards & Commanders**

**Examples of +1/+1 Counter cards include:**

* Captivating Crew
* Act of Treason
* Mob Rule
* Agent of Treachery
* Merieke Ri Berit
* Control Magic
* Geyadrone Dihada
* Blatant Thievery
* Slave of Bolas
* Dominus of Fealty

**Popular +1/+1 Counter commanders include:**

* Marchesa, the Black Rose
* Brion Stoutarm
* Yasova Dragonclaw
* Hofri Ghostforge
* Sen Triplets

## **Strategy**

Theft decks can have 3 different strategies, which are not mutually exclusive:

### Permanent Theft

Decks of this kind want effects that gain control of a card permanently. They seek to deny their opponents powerful effect while giving them to themselves... in addition, this can also deny their opponents blocker
**Example Cards:** Agent of Treachery, Control Magic, Geyadrone Dihada, Mind Flayer, Sower of Temptation, Enslave & Blatant Thievery
### Temporary Theft + Sacrifice

Decks of this kind want to gain control of creatures, and then sacrifice them for benefit. This can even be used as a type of removal, since gaining control of an attacking creature will remove it from combat, and maybe even let it be used as a blocker. Repeatable theft effects work best here, but permanent theft can work too.
**Example Cards:** Merieke Ri Berit, Captivating Crew, Viscera Seer, Grim Haruspex, Slave of Bolas, Grab the Reins
### Extending Temporary Theft

Decks of this kind seek to use temporary means of gaining control of creatures and combine it with other effects to prevent them returning the creature
**Example Cards:** Sundial of the Infinite, Hofri Ghostforge, Marchesa, the Black Rose, Conjurer's Closet, Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
## **Common Deck Categories**

* Theft Cards
* Clone Creatures
* Spell Redirection
* Card Draw / Library Theft Cards
* Ramp
* Removal / Instant Speed Theft Cards
* Sacrifice Outlets / End Turn Cards
* Board Wipe Cards

**10 cards** will probably give you **2 cards in a given game** from that category, and a good chance to **start with 1** in your opening hand. Critical categories for your deck may require a similar or larger number than this, depending on expected levels of Counterspells or Removal.
**5 cards** will probably give you **1 card per game** of that category. Cards you don't want to overload on but still want access to (*board wipes in a tokens deck for instance*) may want a similar figure to this... Going smaller than this number makes receiving a card of this category very unlikely without Tutors or some other Toolbox approach.

## **Strengths and Weaknesses**

### **Strengths**

* Theft cards remove your opponent's threats and resource, while simultaneously granting them to you. This can allow you to cause massive swings in power

* Theft cards let you take the best permanents possessed by any of your opponents. In some ways this can be equivilant to your opponents drawing a card for you each turn.

### **Weaknesses**

* Counting on gaining control of opponent's creatures can be fruitless in certain matchups, mostly against hyper-defensive decks such as Pillowfort, Control and Stax strategies.

* Theft suffer a paradoxical weakness where they are empowered by their opponent's permanents, and therefore eliminating players can cost them resources, especially those that may be acting as Win Conditions.

* Theft is often limited to controlling permanents and gaining control of single targets, normally creatures. They may struggle against non-creature permanents, fail to assemble synergies by not gaining control of all pieces of a Combo, or be overrun by not controlling of the permanents belonging to a Token Deck

### Enchantress

Many blue theft effects are on Auras. Since Auras are enchantments, we can be rewarded for playing them as we would any other enchantment
### Aikido

Theft seeks to take your opponent's resources and then use them against them. Why not take out the middle step and just use their resources against them?
### Clones

If you are going to take your opponent's best creatures... why not make more of that? Failing that, Clone effects often give you the most useful half of a theft effect (*giving you the creature*) and these copies can outlast the player who owned the original.
**References:**

* EDHREC Theft theme
* Theft tagged articles on EDHRec