Help make a competitive Rat Deck
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on Sept. 19, 2017, 11:52 p.m. by Pack_Rat
Yeah, I already know this is going to be difficult, and there are so many other good options. However i love rats it is my favorite creature type and I feel like this might be able to go somewhere if built correctly. Well first let me tell you what I know, about these evil little creatures.
Rats are really good at discarding with creatures such as Ravenous Rats Rotting Rats and Drainpipe Vermin
Rats are WAY more powerful in numbers with of course two of the best rat cards Pack Rat and Marrow-Gnawer Another okay card is Swarm of Rats
Some of them have a very strong ability called ninjutsu. Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni being one of the best since you can get a free card from their graveyard, one you most likely discarded. Throat Slitter and Skullsnatcher are also good ninjutsu cards.
So how can i do this? I know modern is a very fast format and so I have thought maybe making it black green creature aggro with some mana ramp to get out Marrow-Gnawer early and even run some collective company because that would make Pack Rat and Swarm of Rats bigger. Then the other deck i was thinking of was Black Blue control making them discard their hands and then use counters to stall until i can get the field full of rats. So what are your thoughts?
APPLE01DOJ says... #3
If you want to make a deck competitive you simply need to add competitive cards. Liliana of the Veil, Fatal Push, Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize. Then fill in the rest of your shell with the best value rats you have.
Pack Rat Rock was a thing that did well in the short time it lived. You can look it up on mtgtop8
September 20, 2017 1:44 p.m.
APPLE01DOJ
"If you want to make a deck competitive you simply need to add competitive cards."
The statement above is only true if you are talking about midrange.
Combo decks for example, can do pretty well with rarely played cards.
Same is true about prison strategies.
Pack Rat is an extremely powerful card, but - like many others - its suffered from what i like to card "standard visibility syndrome".
When a card does well in standard, as it rotates out modern spikes pick it up, and keep it for a year or so in the deck, if its not integral to the strategy.Some examples:
Kolaghan's Command, Courser of Kruphix, Huntmaster of the Fells
Flip, Olivia Voldaren... etc.
Such cards go in and out of Jund all the time, while its core of Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf, Liliana of the Veil, Raging Ravine & Lightning Bolt are always included.
That doesn't mean that Kolaghan's Command, or Courser of Kruphix are bad.
(Tireless Tracker & Grim Flayer are the next two cards to come out from the "only true competitive" Jund lists...)
Its entirely possible to build a prison deck with discard, rats with deathtouch + 6-8x Viridian Longbow, and some crazy stuff like recurring Chittering Rats
September 21, 2017 4:03 p.m.
I would also argue that both Thoughtseize & Fatal Push can be actively bad for the deck that has them, in some metagames.
Fatal Push basically provides a full playset of dead cards against any deck whose key cards are above 4 cmc.
Which will likely become a relevant "does it die to bolt?" attribute over time. To be honest i love the card since it takes real estate from cards that could harm my lock piece, Platinum Angel.
And to take a more popular example, the card is dead against skred and eldrazi tron - thus i wouldn't state that its "the best removal evah", its just too situational.
And if Lightning Bolt and hyper aggressive deck (be it eight whack variants, or Hollow One + Vengevine deck) hold a large part of the meta, casting Thoughtseize is a mistake.
PickleNutz says... #2
RATS!! No way!!
Modern* PickleNutz
SCORE: 2 | 8 COMMENTS | 278 VIEWS
Here's a Rats deck I made a while ago that was pretty controlly and did shockingly well.
September 20, 2017 3:43 a.m.