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Legality
| Format | Legality |
| 1v1 Commander | Legal |
| Archenemy | Legal |
| Block Constructed | Legal |
| Canadian Highlander | Legal |
| Casual | Legal |
| Commander / EDH | Legal |
| Commander: Rule 0 | Legal |
| Custom | Legal |
| Duel Commander | Legal |
| Highlander | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Leviathan | Legal |
| Limited | Legal |
| Modern | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Pauper | Legal |
| Pauper Duel Commander | Legal |
| Pauper EDH | Legal |
| Planechase | Legal |
| Quest Magic | Legal |
| Tiny Leaders | Legal |
| Vanguard | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
Swarm of Rats
Creature — Rat
Swarm of Rats's power is equal to the number of Rats you control.
legendofa on
infinite rats
11 months ago
Pulling from my own Rat tribal deck (Modern-ish casual, not EDH):
Karumonix, the Rat King gives you an out against lifegain-heavy decks. I don't recommend going deeper than that with poison (i.e. don't add Ichor Rats or Septic Rats), but Karumonix adds a layer to your attacks and keeps rats coming.
I haven't gotten Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm yet, but I want to. It looks amazing. If your budget can handle it, I'm recommending it just in theoretical grounds.
I personally am not impressed with Swarm of Rats (Rat Colony is pretty much all-around better) and Pestilence Rats, but they might work better in EDH, where you always have access to a fear-granting effect. How have they worked for you?
Ratcatcher is a free tutor for a rat every turn. Highly recommended.
Memoricide is a little odd, since it can only hit one card that isn't in play. Is this a meta choice? Do you have a specific target for it that you know you'll see?
Unless you see a bunch of Voltron, Battlecruiser, or other decks with one big creature, I would diversify the removal a little bit. You have a lot of single-target creature removal. I'm a big fan of discard, so I'm recommending based on what I like at this point. Cabal Therapist, Mind Slash, and Sadistic Hypnotist turn your rats into hand removal. Feed the Swarm offers enchantment removal with a very evocative name for this deck. Try some of these in place of Cast Down or Ultimate Price or something. Also, Despise isn't great if you're just fishing. If you want a T1 discard effect, Thoughtseize is best, Inquisition of Kozilek and Blackmail are solid, and Dread Fugue is pretty good.
Following up on that, I see a good set of mass removal and graveyard recursion, and Marrow-Gnawer lets you rebuild quickly. This part looks solid.
osiczym on
rats tribal
2 years ago
I played with relentless before but they didn’t do well. It’s just, 3 mana is too expensive for 2/2 creature that will start to be good much later.
But colony looks much better. Haven’t played it myself cause it wasn’t printed yet in times I had my rat deck. But I played with Swarm of Rats that are similar and they were very good.
Anyway, both of them have really great combo with Aether Vial . It is really expensive - usually about 25€, but does awesome job with them. Just hold with 2 or 3 counters and you can put them once in turn additionally, as an instant for free (so play: 1 in turn 2, 2 in turn 3, 3 in turn 4-5 - if you have land every turn). On the other hand you will practically lose the game if your opponent would play something like Slaughter Games .
osiczym on
Rats Rats Rats Rats
3 years ago
Very nice deck!
Septic Rats doesn't seem to work well here - it is the only card that deals damage in form of poison counters, so if you won't manage to deal 10 damage with 2 of them in the deck, they won't actually do anything. Unless you want them just for block using -1 counters... Maybe Swarm of Rats ? I know they are much worse than Pack Rat, but you already have 4 of these. The majority of your creature spells cost 2 mana (18/30) I would consider using Aether Vial and stop on 2 counters to speed up the drops I don't really get the Fabled Passage here. How is it better than just swamp, since the only card you can take with that is swamp and it may come tapped? I would rather use Swarmyard s instead
EnbyGolem on
Ellie's Rats
3 years ago
I love rats!! My first 'real' deck was rat tribal and it used a bunch of old rat matters cards like Swarm of Rats and Pestilence Rats. It's changed over the years but I still have it :)
Something I recently added to mine is Defile. I find it to be extremely usesful as it's really effective against regenerate and indestructible creatures. I like it better than tragic slip in my deck since I don't have a consistent way to sac creatures.
I also use Vampiric Link. It is one of my favorite cards as you can throw it on your favorite pack rat and pad your life total agaisnt those aggro decks or (and more often than not) you can put it on an opponent's creature and effectively pacify it for 1 Mana.
Profet93 on
Cracking Rats - Gone Septic
4 years ago
I see you want cut ideas based on your comment on my wall. As such....
Butcher of Malakir - Too expensive to be impactful. Would rather have Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos if you still wanted to keep it
Gnat Miser - Weak static effect and doesn't do much other than being a tekashi69 (a rat :P)
Sinuous Vermin - Being or not being a monsterous, it is weak. Not worth a slot.
Swarm of Rats - Potentially big dude with no trample, you already have 1 or 2 of these, redundancy is not needed. I don't even think the others are. They seem win-more.
Typhoid Rats - Is cute, but 1/1 deathtouch with no way to abuse is ripe for cutting.
Bad Moon - Definition of win-more. Anthem helps opponents too, weak static effect. Not worth it at all.
Gravepurge - Eh, there is much better recursion in black if you are so inclined.
Cast Down - Meta dependent, but I would go with Go for the Throat
You could add in some more relentless rats or some of the suggestions I recommended.
Coffers is the primary card you should add if you can, SO much ramp. But I'm biased because I have a deck based on it. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx would help you ramp out alot too!
Reply here instead of on my wall so I can keep track of everything :)
burferking on Moon art cards for Princess …
4 years ago
Portal Second Age expansion: Chorus of Woe Dakmor Bat Sea Drake Swarm of Rats
garruk3 on
Oh Rats!
5 years ago
Slaughter Games , although not very widely used, could also cause some problems in this deck. I don't know if you are making this deck on a budget, but there seems to be a lack of removal in this deck (like Dismember , for example). If you want to go a more tribal route then maybe Coat of Arms could work, as well as Cavern of Souls , even though COS is pretty costly. If you want to, you could also throw Thrumming Stone in there for Rat Colony . Relentless Rats is also another card like Rat Colony , for even more rat fun. Swarm of Rats also exists for a beefy rat creature. There are a bunch more cards I could name off, but you could probably find what you need on the wizards of the coast card finder.
