Rat Tribal has been my first love in Magic since beginning to play the game. I had a Mono-Black deck casual get Rats that could fill up the board as early as turn three with Pack Rats that was a ton of fun to play. Recently, I've been brewing with a more competitive (ie. Tournament Legal) version that has the potential to play both a beatdown and control game, and any help in separating the wheat from the chaff in both the mainboard and the sideboard would as always be greatly appreciated. Most importantly, though, I'm looking to make this deck as fun as possible.
The core idea of the deck is to get as many rats onto the field in the early game to gum up the board and get in chip damage where possible.
Gnat Miser
is a fun early target for removal, and is deceptively annoying against a control matchup, and
Typhoid Rats
is about as good as you can get as a ground blocker for 1 Black. The star of the deck is obviously Pack Rat, who has been a nightmare since the day it was printed. When I started playing MtG, I had no idea about how prevalent Pack Rat was in RTR Standard, I just knew I loved this card. It does it all: It's resistant to removal, it's a win condition in one card, and it can be a heck of a blocker.
Metallic Mimic is a new idea I had for this deck with Aether Revolt was spoiled, and I think it's got a natural home in this deck. It's a Rat in itself that pumps my other Rats, and is costed aggressively enough that it fits with the naturally small curve of the deck.
Squee, Goblin Nabob is a piece of Pack Rat tech I found in a Vintage deck called Ratsqueeze created on stream by Andy "Brassman" Probasco. He used it in conjunction with
Bazaar of Baghdad
for some pretty interesting plays, and I've tried to replicate that as much as is possible in Modern with Faithless Looting. Squee, Goblin Nabob is Pack Rat's best friend. It's a recurrable discard target that allows virtual card advantage at almost all points of the game.
Lingering Souls is the reason for the very small white splash in the mana base on the off chance that I have it in my hand with no way of putting it in the graveyard. It is also an excellent target for Pack Rat based nonsense, and gives the deck a little extra protection from flying sources of damage. This is also the reason for including the Smuggler's Copter. It's an aggressively costed beater that protects the air and filters the deck to allow me to find the cards I might need.
I have been looking for a fun deck to put my copies of Fatal Push into, and I think I've found it in this. Usually, getting rid of smaller creatures is all I'll be needing, but being able to take care of something bigger at instant speed is pretty great as well. There have been tomes and tomes written about the effectiveness and hype about Fatal Push so I'll spare you that here. Suffice to say, it's a cheap removal spell for 1 Black mana, and that's what this deck needs.
The Raven's Crime in the main are to give me a little extra game against removal in the first few turns of the game, or to strip a combo deck of some piece they might need early on. This version of Rats is not quite blazing fast, so being able to protect myself a in lieu of counterspells in the first 5 turns can be pretty important, and the reason for the sideboard control package.
The mana base is the aspect of the deck I'm least sure about. At it's heart, it's a mono-black deck with splashes of two-colours to mitigate bad hands. The Swarmyards are great protection from targeted removal and allow for profitable chump blocks. I've been thinking of adding some of the Kaladesh fast lands, but I like the idea of being able to fetch for two basic land types with the shock lands. It's up in the air at this point, like I mentioned above, this a brew that only exists in my head at this point.
The sideboard is pretty flexible right now as well. I wanted a little of something against the broadest archetypes. Leyline of the Void for graveyard based decks, Blessed Alliance for Infect / Boggles,
Ogre Slumlord
for grindier control games, and Dash Hopes and Shadow of Doubt for combo decks and Tron.
The creature base is pretty much where I'd like it to be. There might be some fiddling with numbers as I start to put the deck together and testing it in the future, but my primary concern with making this a fun deck to play is the mana base and the side board. Having said that, however, I'm open to any suggestions regarding any aspect of the deck.
If you like the deck, or even think it's mildly interesting, please don't hesitate to give it an upvote, and thanks very much in advance for any tips or tricks regarding the deck!
