Marrow-Gnawer

Legendary Creature — Rat Rogue

Rat creatures have fear.

{T}, Sacrifice a Rat: Create X 1/1 black Rat creature tokens, where X is the number of Rats you control.

Combos

• Marrow-Gnawer + Thornbite Staff
• Ayara, First of Locthwain + Marrow-Gnawer + Plague of Vermin
• Marrow-Gnawer + Plague of Vermin

Tokens

• Rat 1/1 B

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
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

legendofa on infinite rats

4 months ago

So it is Dragon tribal, be cautious about Patriarch's Bidding. I think it has a place in this deck until proven otherwise, but make sure you get at least as much value out of it as Atarka-deck does.

What I see here is a bunch of high-mana dragons, and I assume the mana dorks to support it will be in there, too. Crippling Fear has potential to be an all-star. I don't think you need more fear, since your commander grants fear and you have pretty good stall capacity until Marrow-Gnawer comes out. I'm not sure what ramp to recommend if you're at your budget limit, but Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Crypt Ghast, and Nirkana Revenant are all cards to keep in mind.

legendofa on infinite rats

4 months ago

Patience, patience. While swampwalk + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is a sound idea in theory, I'm going to advise against it. Your commander grants good evasion already, especially against a {RG} deck, and Filth and Leshrac's Rite pretty much useless if you don't have Urborg TOY in play. It's not worth using a Diabolic Tutor or whatever just to get some redundant evasion, and you don't have any other way to get a land on demand. Stick with the fear from Cover of Darkness and Marrow-Gnawer.

legendofa on infinite rats

4 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.

griffstick on infinite rats

4 months ago

Yes add it. Also add Ayara, First of Locthwain and Plague of Vermin as this combos directory with Marrow-Gnawer

Michigone on Isshin for a Fight

6 months ago

Been a second since I changed anything, deck was overdue for a little update. A newer player in my playgroup plays a Kardur, Doomscourge deck, and I read an article recently that talked about how to combat power creep in a playgroup in ways that are fun and interesting for everyone. And the article talked about building decks with your meta in mind, or at least coming up with ways to combat specific decks that you are likely to see, and in the interest of full disclosure, I don't often do that. I find myself building decks that excite me from a mechanical perspective, and then fine tuning the deck relative to my playgroup through playtesting, and in this way letting the meta affect my card choices for slots in my 99. I don't think it's a bad way to deck build, but I think I ask others for their opinions a lot (sorry Crow-Umbra), and that it's a result of me not looking at my meta in particular. I think that thinking about my card slots in terms of what I'll sit down and face on any given play night would actually have me asking less, or maybe just different questions of what my deck should be doing to accomplish its game plan.

Okay, so that's a long ramble, and all of this is to say that against the players in my play group that field decks that put up big bodies that I can't swing into (Gargos, Vicious Watcher, Ghired, Conclave Exile) or their decks go wide enough that they can chump block my creatures to death (Edgar Markov, Ghired, Conclave Exile, Alela, Artful Provocateur, Marrow-Gnawer, Isperia, Supreme Judge, Lathril, Blade of the Elves), or they play Goad (Just the Kardur, Doomscourge Deck currently), I need more protection for my attackers. Now Crow-Umbra mentioned Reconnaissance way back, and I kind of slept on it because I thought (incorrectly) that it would hamper my ability to do damage, but still offer me the benefit of vigilance. But I realized that after the errata by Magic in creating multiple combat steps, that I can still use Reconnaissance to untap my attacking creatures after they've dealt damage, during the combat end step, thus allowing me to "have my cake and eat it too." So I was wondering what to cut, and I landed on cutting Curse of Opulence. It is irritating to the player that it gets put on, and it's hard to assess as early as turn one who the biggest threat will be, and it embitters whichever player I put it on against me, so even though I get ramp off of it, and other players do too, it doesn't really do me too many favors. So Curse is out, Reconnaissance is in.

Coward_Token on Jumpstart 2022

10 months ago

Where to find the previews

Image gallery

My thoughts Show

• Don't like most of the Japanese art, looks like cheap screencap alters. Mind you, I like anime.
• Runadi should really be titled Hydra Caller
• Creeping Bloodsucker is a fine addition to Belbe, Corrupted Observer, even if it doesn't curve. Three life a turn isn't bad either.
• Chevill is getting support at a glacial pace
• I'd rather have another Plague Spitter reprint than Festering Evil
• Towering Gibbon looks so cute, haha. I kinda wish it looked at all your permanents though, mostly feels like a more boring green Clone
• I've definently never seen Kibo before. Anyway, are primates only getting two new cards? Because I feel gruul doesn't have very exciting support for EDH. At least Scrounging Bandar works.
• Pirated Copy: So this isn't quite Clone + Tandem Lookout. For one, it's drawing you on combat damage only, so no shenanigans with Lightning-Rig Crew. However, it also lets you copy other people's stuff, which means that their combat can benefit you. I think, but am not sure, that copying a token will make the drawing ability work with all tokens with the same type that aren't otherwise named. Because go-wide decks needed to be put down more in EDH. Not really into this with Admiral Beckett Brass TBH, too high MV. (What I really want is for Protean Raider to get the preserved tribal part of the ability.)
• Don't like white getting copies trough Preston the Vanisher, even if they're weak. Illusions in particular don't feel right for a truth-oriented philosophy, although I suppose light can blind and not just reveal. Surprised it didn't have a blue mana pip somewhere.
• Ashcoat curves nicely enough into Marrow-Gnawer, regardless which one is your commander. Attack with Ashcoat to give your Rats extra power, sacrifice one of them with Gnawer for extra tokens (and even more attack power next turn), then recur the saced rat with Ashcoat. Getting to recur not just one put two cards a turn is quite generous too.

WolfOfTheFray on Can I infinitely combo off …

1 year ago

Heres my knowledge so far. Iv been playing for years but never done a huge amount outside of my turns and I have a general understand of how priority works in regards to order, such as whoever's turn it is holds main priority then when they cast a spell/ability/phase changes/etc priority is passed in turn order and if nothings done that spell or action clears. Now thats about as far as my knowledge goes and i start to get generally confused.

Just to kind of break down the combo in question Marrow-Gnawer has an infinite combo with Thornbite Staff and himself as long as you have at least 2 other rats, one to sac so you still net 2 tokens off marrow and the remaining rat.

So to elaborate on my question I want to make sure that if I ever needed to make my tokens at someones end step if its possible to do the combo infinitely like i can on my turn and just how i need to interact with priority and the stack if so. Im assuming in order for thornbite to untap Marrow the ability first needs to clear the stack after sacrificing a rat but im not sure if the end step just ends and the next persons turn starts after this clears since the turn owner has priority or does priority ever return to me to do this again in that end step.

Brimstone on Pattern Recognition #244 - Lands …

1 year ago

I remember building my first competitive modern deck. It was an Infect deck, and Inkmoth Nexus cost a chunk of money at the time (they still arn't cheep). I got one in a draft, and then spent the next 3 months, buying one each paycheck.

Not only have they been niche wins in modern, Especially against control decks, but also have won me a few CMDR games.

So! Eventhough I agree you usually don't use manlands to win with agro decks. Sometimes you can.

Mutavault is also really fun. It's versatile. I have used it in my Marrow-Gnawer deck to help get the engine running again after a bad boardwipe, or to steal a neat effect from an enemy tribal deck with global buffs.

Another reason I like to run manlands, especially in EDH, is when someone forces you to sacrafice a creature when it looks like you don't have anything except valuable creatures to sac. You can turn your land into a creature and sac it instead.

Thank you for the great artical! It was a really fun read.