Crypt Rats

Creature — Rat

{X}: Crypt Rats deals X damage to each creature and each player. Spend only black mana on X.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (49)

legendofa on Is my custom card legendary …

1 week ago

I don't think it's overpowered, really, but there's a lot going on here. This card takes a while to read, longer to understand, and its abilities seem like they would just slow the game down.

For starters, the type line is flavorful, but feels a little arbitrary. Does it need to be both an Elemental and a Spirit? Are you trying to use this in a tribal deck?

While none of the keywords it has really contradict each other, some of them seem unnecessary. Defender is fine, if it's a Wall. Reach is a little out of place. Lifelink and wither, I would pick at most one of these. Protection from creatures with haste ties in with the next section, so I'll discuss that later. Protection from you seems awkward and unnecessary, and isn't always a drawback (it would survive pretty much any "damage each creature" effect you control, like Pyrohemia/Pestilence, Blasphemous Act, Crypt Rats, and lots more).

The second ability should be a targeted effect. Granting provoke seems odd when you can choose to block (which as Caerwyn mentioned is very questionable under the rules). Granting haste is fine, but you can always choose to block with protection, so I'm not sure what the intent is here. Skulk reduces the effectiveness of provoke even further. I also don't understand the intent of the toughness boost.

The third ability is one of those things that makes sense intuitively, and I understand how it's supposed to work, but the actual rules can't support it. If you don't have any rules lawyers in your group, and don't use this card outside your group, you can probably get away with it, but expect some weird corner cases that tie everything up.

The last sentence should be its own ability, and it's pretty niche but self supporting.

If I may try to reinterpret this card:

Krii, Manifest of Spite Show

{2}{R}{W}{B}

Legendary Creature - Spirit Wall

Defender, wither

At the beginning of each opponent's combat step, choose target creature that player controls. That creature gets +1/+0 and gains haste until end of combat.

Whenever a creature with haste attacks, you may have the defending player gain control of Krii until end of combat. If you do, it gains "This creature must block if able and must block a creature with haste if able." and "Whenever this creature blocks a creature with haste, its owner draws a card."

3/6

---

It's still pretty wordy, but I think I captured the core of what's going on. I removed a couple of keywords, changed the toughness boost to a power boost, and reworded the last ability. Finally, I increased the toughness to make up for the lack of "protection from creatures with haste" ability, since it seems like a more combat focused card, as opposed to being targeted by a Cunning Sparkmage or whatever.

I'm just eyeballing the mana cost and stats, but they seem pretty close to right.

Of course, your group should get final say, but in my opinion, this card as it stands is too complicated for what it's trying to do and will result in a stalled-out game as people try to figure out what they can and should do with it.

legendofa on Sheoldred Reanimate

1 month ago

Tempo is basically the pace of the game. Slower, more attrition-y decks want to extend the game and gain value over time, which is where I think this deck is trying to be. Compare that to a high speed, high damage deck that tries to do as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. What I mean by saying those cards keep your tempo up and your opponents down is that they represent threats, while also disrupting your opponents' strategy by forcing discards and damage.

The mana curve is a measure of how efficiently you use your available mana each turn. A low-curve deck will be more aggressive and try to win in the first few turns. A higher curve will try to extend the game to get to its best effects. The idea of playing "on curve" is basically that you play a land and use all available mana that turn. Turn 1, play a land and spend 1 mana, T2 land + spend 2 mana, T3 land + spend 3 mana, etc. It's important to balance the amount of mana you have with what you can do with it--if you're consistently leaving mana unused, or if you regularly don't have enough to cast your key spells, you need to rebalance.

EDH games tend to run longer, so there's more opportunity to get to higher mana values, and I see a lot of single-use 2-mana cards in this deck. Once your Elderfang Disciple or Virus Beetle or whatever does its thing, it's basically relegated to the role of chump blocker. My suggestions, especially the enchantments, aim to give this deck a way to use and reuse them, so you can get more value out of them. Self-destructive cards like Crypt Rats and Fleshbag Marauder also are worth using more than once.

As another thought, there's a lot of counter manipulation, but only Liliana of the Veil, Undying Evil, Undying Malice, Blightbelly Rat, Oriq Loremage, Bloodchief Ascension and Contagion Engine actually use or create counters, unless I'm overlooking something. There's as many or more ways to move or add counters as ways to actually get counters. I'm not sure what role Power Conduit plays in here.

At this point, I should probably mention that I'm not a high-end EDH builder; I have a lot of gimmicky decklists and just design around whatever catches my interest at the moment. Still, I hope my suggestions and advice keep your wheels going!

xactly on Premodern Mono Black Control

4 months ago

Thank you Plaguedr88 for the suggestions. I think you are right with the one off tutor isn't needed. I will replace it with a PlagueSpitter. Also will try to fit in 2 Ensnaring Bridge by cutting 1 Crypt Rats and 1 Pestilence.

I also think I need to adjust the Sideboard. Mutilate and all the other stuff should handle creatures very well so I am not shure if I need Perish just against green.

MrMortifex145 on Mono Black Control - 2022

4 months ago

Profet93 Thanks for the suggestion! The deal is that Chainer's Edict flashback becomes extremely relevant, I've been playing mono B for years and we never really had a strong card advantage engine so having singular cards that replace themselves or give card advantage becomes really fundamental, especially since this deck can really drag out games with all the removal, plus more removal late game can be really cluch since most decks now have singular chuncky boys as win cons (gone are the days of Atog + Fling thankfully). As for the life loss I 100% agree and I've always been against Snuff Out in mono B. However, now that turn 2 Tolarian Terror is a thing, having two Snuff Out in my experience does save some games since you don't have to wait for turn 4 to Cast Down it and hope they don't have a Counterspell or Spell Pierce. Before Tolarian Terror was meta, instead of Snuff Out I had the second Crypt Rats and Oubliette in the main and an Okiba-Gang Shinobi in the side. This would honestly be my favorite version, maybe when Tolarian Terror isn't so prevalent or if you don't play that much against it I would recommend these cards. Really appreciate that you like the deck!

amarthaler on EDH Rakdos Group Slug

7 months ago

Updates!

In: Crypt Rats... Neheb, the Eternal... Brash Taunter... Ob Nixilis, the Adversary... Black Market Connections... Tainted Remedy... Lethal Vapors... Curse of the Cabal... Bedevil

Out: Battle Strain... Rain of Gore... Furnace of Rath... Fate Unraveler... Bloodgift Demon... Stuffy Doll... Crackle with Power... Dreadbore... Temporal Extortion

Some pretty straight forward 1 for 1 swaps with better cards. Trying to add a little more interaction into the deck with cards such as Curse of the Cabal, Lethal Vapors, Neheb and Crypt Rats. Ob Nixilis looks interesting and is in there to test as well.

DreadKhan on Beefy Budget Pox

8 months ago

YodaVoda Not sure if this is similar enough, or quite cheap enough (you could probably replace No Mercy with another Crypt Rats for example), hopefully there are some ideas you can use.

FolkOccult on Sheoldred, Rising Dead v2

9 months ago

Boxfish It was a wonderful weekend, thank you!

I love all of these changes, they look quite well-decided. Viscera Seer is a monstrous card when you can use them. They've the ability to just help you dig for answers, like your Crypt Rats or Gray Merchant of Asphodel.

It's a touch rude for a solution, but for token producers like Scute Swarm, Krenko, Mob Boss, Myr Battlesphere, Thopter Assembly, or even Blade of Selves; Pestilence, Withering Wisps, Toxic Deluge; Cheap solutions that can get expensive, that can wipe your own dudes (but it's not like you're unable to bring them back).

If you're ever looking for ways to wipe the board without playing Mass Removal which Indestructable can dodge. Dictate of Erebos, Grave Pact, Urborg Justice, Killing Wave, Torment of Hailfire can access more than one target in a turn, and remove them without the need for targeting and benefit you in the ability to just bring a dude back with your commander or any other spell. Though I can't deny that this is a rather rude option, especially with cards like Tergrid, God of Fright  ^Flip, who would just give you control of all creatures your opponent's could sac. You'll gain control of most any board with just Tergrid alone. Then you've got little dudes like Fleshbag Marauder, Demon's Disciple, Plaguecrafter, Merciless Executioner, Gravelighter, Slum Reaper, which all had triggered abilities that react to the formerly listed removal, your commander, Ayara, First of Locthwain, and is prone to getting your targeted even harder, but does result in a powerful and satisfying resolve once you carry the reputation of dishing out a challenge. Depending on overall deck-composition. I don't necessarily recommend all of these; but... just saying Pestilence will get your table's attention every time, draw every bit of removal, and can you activated in response to any cast that isn't a counter. With a single Dark Ritual or Cabal Coffers cast/activation... your table will weep. Sorta.

I don't know if you can directly link decks, but my Halana and Alena, Totally Just Roommates, and my Atla Palani deck's all feature cards printed in their respective planes if not, cards printed in extra supplementary sets like how Odric, Master Tactician was first printed in (M13) but is unable to planeswalk to other planes, and resides on Innistrad; technically the coresets were the base and all else added to their printings and materials, but in reality it felt like the other way around (in my experience), the story blocks made the "core" sets feel like additional content to add to your lore; this being a factor I consider when building some decks. Sacrificial Splicer is a similar case (Except I kept my favorite artifacts from other planes in the deck, I have Ich-Tekik, Salvage Splicer as a partner to Rebbec, Architect of Ascension who are respective enemies in a sense to the Phyrexian cause, one directly influencing the Praetors while the other for a time was using Powerstones to make a barrier strong enough to keep Phyrexia out, and have constructed the deck around ''Compleating'' Rebbec, which locks the board down.

The Lore in magic, is an entire rabbit hole I highly recommend exploring. Pick a plane and start from there. Find a character from that plane and follow their journey. If not by card, by flavor text. If you're into it enough, there are a series of comics out there printed by ARMADA. The Shadow Mage and Dakkon Blackblade are some of my favorite printed stories in magic, which just recently received cards. Likewise was true a couple of years ago for Yawgmoth and Urza who didn't really see their official name's on legendary cards until 2020 (despite having story presence since the beginning). The Weatherlight Crew, new and old, feel like a group of avengers, using their ship to planeswalk because they don't have a spark, and are simply putting together this weapon to stop the ultimate evil, and you can almost feel the stakes mounting as you scroll through the sets they were released in. From Urza's Sage to Invasion, to Time Spiral, to Dominaria. Now Dominaria United. I believe the story of the cards makes the deck that much more meaningful, but there's something to be said about finding the most fun cards and constructing something nuts out of them.

Boxfish on Sheoldred, Rising Dead v2

9 months ago

TheSnuggleLord Great weekend here! Hope yours was as well, always fun to finish up some decks and get to test them out. After reading through this latest comment, I immediately realized some changes cards I should swap for ones that I was wanting to try that I, quite frankly, just forgot had already gotten here in the deluge of other TCGPlayer orders (thank God for the cart optimization, but holy hell it keeps my mailbox full).

So UPDATE 3.1: Swapped out Phyrexian Broodlings and Drudge Skeletons with Bloodflow Connoisseur and Crypt Rats.

I gotta say, I do love the broodlings. But saving that one mana is absolutely worth it. I might end up sideboarding them for now, just to see if there is a situation, I might want both in the deck. Although with the last few games, I don't think that'll be likely. With Drudge Skeletons, it just really comes down to hardly ever finding it worth it to save that one mana to block with them and regen. Crypt Rats gives me a bit of a nuke option for token decks and is a nice addition to the abilities Necrotic Ooze can access if the rats are sacked or just milled and aren't worth pulling out of the grave.

At the moment, I'm also testing having Unmarked Grave in place of Cling to Dust (a card a found myself using more often for draws than anything else, and can't really justify an entire slot just for one card draw per game), Rune-Scarred Demon in place of Harvester of Souls, Viscera Seer in place of Okiba Reckoner Raid  ^Flip, Buried Alive in place of Gravedigger (With all the graveyard pulls I have, one to the hand for a 4 drop didn't seem to justify its place, even if it can be pulled itself from the grave), and Haunted Crossroads in place of Unhinge (a card that just never seems to have a good time to use for the cost).

Haha, yeah, I've been learning the hard way about the struggles of mono black against graveyard hate. The game's I've done the best against the deck with it really have come down to just trying to maintain board control. Something that has been hard against token heavy decks, but I'm hoping having another answer, in the form of Crypt Rats, will help with that side of things at least. I'm for sure going to keep my eye on the new cards next month. Excited to see if anything would fit in this deck, or any of the others I've started working on.

I honestly had no clue so many of the cards had art that directly tied into lore from the mtg universe. I spilled down a small Rabit hole after reading your comment on that, and holy heck it's so cool to see. Really does add an entire new layer to consider when deck building!