Snarf.

Ewoks.

Pikachu.

Stitch.

Toothless.

Grogu.

... Loot?

As a species, humans have an insatiable desire to grab something that looks playful and/or fluffy and squeeze it until its eyeballs pop out. As such, many businesses make sure to find a mascot (whether driven by a marketing team or just lucking into an organic one) to trigger this innate desire to cuddle in their customers, driving them towards merchandise and filling up the company coffers.

Magic has never had such a mascot, but it looks like they are doing everything in their power to create one in Loot. He's a focal point of the current storyline, has had a card in each of the last three sets, and is starting to leak into ancillary merchandise. I'm not against the idea (I have a stuffed Loot sitting on my desk right now); I like the little guy, but his impact on the game itself has been miniscule so far.

But, what if the newest Loot card is actually... powerful? What if he's more than just a mascot?

I've played Loot, Exuberant Explorer in a number of my decks, and while it hasn't been crucial, it has been a fun inclusion. But, it hasn't been powerful enough to try and build a deck around. Loot, the Pathfinder, however, does look like a card you may want to build your deck around.

As a 2/4 he is resilient. Unlike his previous cards, he's not dying to Cut Down. He's also not dying to Nowhere to Run, Torch the Tower, Anoint with Affliction, Elspeth's Smite, or Lightning Strike. This is a huge improvement from the previous Loot cards and makes him much more likely to see play.

He has double strike, so even though he's a 2/4, he hits as a 4/4. Not game wrecking but adding in haste means he's not necessarily a lost cause when it comes to attacking/blocking. Vigilance means he can be both aggressive and defensive, allowing you to use his abilities while continuing to affect an opponent's life total. That's all good, but it really just gets him to the baseline of possibly playable. We're really here for the abilities.

And those abilities are a little nutty. So nutty, in fact, that they gave him the keyword exhaust, an Aetherdrift original. Exhaust means you can only activate the ability once per game. Which is probably for the best, as otherwise we'd be shoving Loot into every "untap this" combo deck imaginable. Better to play it safe and just let him use his fun little abilities once. No one would ever want to repeatedly draw three cards, repeatedly Bolt an opponent, or maybe even come up with some way to make infinite mana with Loot. That would be problematic, right?

Yeah, it's me, I'm the problem.

While exhaust locks down a specific Loot, it only looks at this one particular game object. So, if you play another Loot, it's unaffected. If you copy Loot, the copy is free to run wild again. If you blink Loot, hey, the game thinks he's a new little guy, so who are we to argue?

So, when we start building a Loot deck, we want to figure out ways to maximize his abilities. The easiest and most obvious choice right away is with Agatha's Soul Cauldron. All three of Loot's colors excel at getting cards into the graveyard. Both Green and Blue have mill effects (such as Cache Grab or Fallaji Archaeologist), Blue has looters (like Kitsa, Otterball Elite), and red has rummage effects (like Bitter Reunion). Getting Loot into the graveyard shouldn't be a problem. We need to figure out the best creature to pair with Loot and Soul Cauldron, similar creatures with activated abilities that can benefit from being exiled with Cauldron.

Previous versions have run things like Sleep-Cursed Faerie, and I think that's a strong consideration. Likeness Looter is another strong contender, though we'd have to branch out into 4-colors for it to work (which may be for the best anyway, as Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler can be a fantastic addition to the deck). Fauna Shaman is a way to find the cards you need while also putting what you want in your graveyard.

Lilysplash Mentor may be the best enabler. It has an ability that would allow us to reset Loot once you've exhausted his exhaust abilities. With a either a Loot or Mentor exiled with the Soul Cauldron, and one of the other in play (or any creature if both Loot and Mentor are exiled with the Cauldron) you can pay any mana (since Cauldron lets you use mana of any color to activate abilities) to add 3 mana with Loot's Blue exhaust ability. Use this mana to blink the creature. It comes back with a +1/+1 counter thanks to Mentors ability, and is still eligible for the Cauldron benefit. You can repeatedly blink your creature this way. It also means any other mana you have can repeatedly draw cards or Bolt the opponent's face.

Fortunately, we had another great exhaust card, to pair with Loot, spoiled in Draconautics Engineer. This is another excellent target for the Soul Cauldron and provides the possibility of a different endgame for the deck. I'm very impressed by this card and think it could be a serious player in the format.

There's a lot going on here. Let's toss them all in a pot (Cauldron) and get a stew going.

I don't know what other exhaust creatures Aetherdrift may have in store for us at the time I'm writing this, but I think I'd start with something like this for a Loot/Soul Cauldron deck. I think there are definitely 4-color variants that might be better, splashing White or Black, but this is where I would start:

Loot's Cauldron | Standard | Travis Hall

• Creatures (28)
• 1 Voldaren Thrillseeker
• 2 Fauna Shaman
• 2 Sleep-Cursed Faerie
• 3 Kitsa, Otterball Elite
• 4 Draconatics Engineer
• 4 Fallaji Archaeologist
• 4 Lilysplash Mentor
• 4 Loot, the Pathfinder
• 4 Twitching Doll

• Instants (4)
• 4 Cache Grab

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Agatha's Soul Cauldron

• Lands (24)
• 2 Forest
• 1 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 3 Commercial District
• 3 Fabled Passage
• 3 Thornspire Verge
• 3 Willowrush Verge
• 4 Hedge Maze
• 4 Botanical Sanctum

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There are so many different ways you can take a Soul Cauldron deck (I haven't even scratched the surface on the infinite combos you might be able to do), so this is a very early rough draft of what a Loot Cauldron deck may look like. I went with Archaeologist and Cache Grab for my mill/enablers because they can both grab Agatha's Soul Cauldron. Honestly, the mana may be a big factor in determining what we play in a final version.

Overall, Loot, the Pathfinder looks like an exciting card, and I can't wait to jam it into multiple decks!

You can find more of my Magic musings on Twitter/X @travishall456 and on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/anakinsdad.bsky.social