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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 |
| Planechase | Legal |
| Quest Magic | Legal |
| Tiny Leaders | Legal |
| Vanguard | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
Nezumi Bone-Reader
Creature — Rat Shaman
, Sacrifice a creature: Target player discards a card. Activate this ability only at any time you could play a sorcery.
luizfpa on
Skitter Budget Rats
3 months ago
The deck looks good for casual play, though you should consider removing most or all of the Rat Colonies. Since you do not have most of the high-sinergy cards, such as Thrumming Stone, maybe your deck would benefit from more of the utility rats and rats with deathtouch or other form of evasion. For exemple, if I were you, I'd include Tangled Colony as it turns Crypt Rats (already in your deck) into a really uneven boardwipe.
Also, it is important to remember that any shapeshifter with "changeling" is also a rat and there are some good black ones with deathtouch or unblockable.
If you want to up the discard angle, you may include Locust Miser and Nezumi Bone-Reader. This last one goes great together with cards such as Syr Konrad, the Grim. Keeping the oponent's hands in check is a good way to build your boardstate without disruption.
Finally, the deck could benefit of more anthem effects, such as Bad Moon or Coat of Arms, and enchantment removal, such as Debt to the Kami or Bone Shards. Unfortunatelly, black does not have reliable ways for dealing with artifacts.
legendofa on
Skeleton Control
8 months ago
Welcome to the club, Hundrumleek!
Bubbling Cauldron doesn't feel like it offers that much here. How many games has the life gain made a difference for you, where it actually bought you the time to win? Unless the life gain from Bubbling Cauldron regularly and reliably helps you win matches, I think that adding another source of pressure would work better.
Sticking with the "cheap sacrifice outlet" idea, life loss from Lampad of Death's Vigil or Vermin Gorger would offer another chance for Gutterbones to recur. Cabal Therapist or Nezumi Bone-Reader can force discards. While not Skeletons, these are "safe" and affordable options, if budget is a concern.
I also think you can safely cut one of the Skeletal Swarmings and add some more draw cards. Village Rites is another Corrupted Conviction, for example. This will help lower your mana curve and reduce early game dead draws. Since this deck is more control-y than ramp-y, getting SkeleSwarm before you can use it is just a dead draw.
Skeleton is my favorite creature type, and is my favorite color combination, so this sort of deck always gets my attention. Above all, have fun!
razdatgrvyrobr on
The Rat Pack
1 year ago
Suggestions: Mask of Avacyn Nezumi Bone-Reader Plague Rats Underworld Connections Attrition Dismember Reprocess Crypt of Agadeem Malicious Affliction Imp's Mischief
pea_body on
-1 Counters
1 year ago
wallisface Thanks for the advice, I have been playing this deck with only Archfiend of Ifnir and often struggle to keep it in play long enough to trigger its ability and should have foreseen the problems of running twelve 4+ mana cost cards.
Obviously, I should change out the 4x Splendid Agony, but would replacing Archfiend of Ifnir with Black Sun's Zenith be an okay change?
In my actual deck at the moment I have Dismember and Tragic Slip to easily kill creatures. I assume that it would be okay if I replace Wasteland Scorpion and Nezumi Bone-Reader with those if I replace Archfiend of Ifnir.
Random card replacements
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Fatal Push over Tragic Slip? Or both??
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Less Skinrender and Sickle Ripper, 4x Fume Spitter and add more swamps.
Again thanks for the ideas! I'm just playing against friends so I can't make it too good if you know what I mean. :)
DemonDragonJ on Should I Keep Angrath in …
2 years ago
After deliberating my above list of sacrifice outlets, I have removed several creatures; I removed Gnawing Zombie because Lampad of Death's Vigil is strictly better than it; I removed Gutless Ghoul because Disciple of Griselbrand is better than it in the majority of situations; I removed Skullport Merchant because it cannot sacrifice itself;, and I removed Soulreaper of Mogis and Spark Reaper because their abilities are to expensive to activate; thus, here is my new list of potential sacrifice outlets for my deck:
Sacrifice Outlets Show
Which creature is the most appealing of these?
DemonDragonJ on Should I Keep Angrath in …
2 years ago
seshiro_of_the_orochi, that is an excellent card, but it requires that the stolen creature be sacrificed immediately, and it is also a one-time effect, and I am seeking a repeatable effect.
I think that I shall replace Angrath with Captivating Crew in my red/white/black deck, as that deck already has two sacrifice outlets in the form of Butcher of the Horde and Immersturm Predator, but, as for my red/green/black deck, I have actually found several cards that would work for it, which I shall compile into a list.
Sacrifice Outlets Show
That is an impressive list of creatures that sacrifice other creatures, so I now need to decide which of them I shall put into my deck; does anyone here have any suggestions?
Halbrechtt on
Ellie's Rats
3 years ago
I agree on the black counterspells — so much fun to surprise people with! I also use Withering Boon in non-Modern decks. I do think Imp's Mischief is best for this deck, but unfortunately it's both a little pricey plus from that same Time Spiral era that gives you trouble. :\
Speaking of budget, I'd honestly just wait for Fiend Artisan to rotate out, as it's biggest demand seems to be in Standard (and Pioneer). I've only seen Modern and Legacy toying with it a little, so hopefully it'll drop a bit.
That all said, I actually dislike the Nezumi, too (same with Orochi, Kitsune, etc.). Marrow-Gnawer just happens to be so good with rats that he got a pass from me. Same with my other rat deck, that's focused on discard — Nezumi Bone-Reader synergizes so well with everything else in the deck that I couldn't not include him! Still ugly, though. LoL. I just pretend they're the rats from The Secret of NIMH.
That all said, I want to reiterate that I agree about Unearth being much better. After your reply, I realized that my bias towards Call is because it's in a mass discard deck (I also run a couple Dark Withering in that deck in addition to Tragic Slip). I'm also always fine casting Call for in that deck if I need to, so it's never a dead card for me. But yeah, in your deck, Unearth is far superior.
That's so interesting! I wonder why that specific era of cards were affected? I'm not familiar with South American history. Was there any sort of political or economic issues or something like that which would have affected trade/import at the time (2006-2007 was the US release)?
Apollo_Paladin on
Rat Attack!
3 years ago
For mono-black, Castle Locthwain is a fairly common one to toss a couple copies of. There's not much in the way of mono-black card draw, and at a glance that's what I see being the biggest constraint. Getting things out quickly can be nice, but against a control deck your creatures won't last long and then you'll be stuck Topdecking.
You might look at some early 1-mana Discard options to further play into your strategy/theme. Thoughtseize is by far the most common (and best) choice for this, but it can also be quite expensive to purchase singles of.
Other less costly options (albeit with more restrictions/conditions) for 1-mana discard spells are Duress or Specter's Shriek.
The newly released Mind Drain is vastly superior to Mind Rot, and is literally identical in its casting cost and card type; just an upgraded version.
I have a mono-black Hand Hate deck which I play regularly on MTGA online, and I've found Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage to be an excellent card to include. He serves beautifully as guaranteed damage per turn in longer games once the hands are cleared out, and he also provides a mana-free discard option for multiple turns while he's in play early so that you can keep the pressure on the opponent.
I have won numerous games on the back of Davriel, just by having enough creatures in play to act as stalemate blockers and then just keeping the opponent's hand empty and letting him tick each turn. Stalemate blockers can be amazing, and he's only a few cents to order singles of.
Drainpipe Vermin can be a useful 1-drop which would play into both your Rat and Discard mechanics, and it pairs very well when sacrificed to Nezumi Bone-Reader.
Ravenous Rats is an identical card functionally to Burglar Rat, in case you find this a useful card and wish to rebuild to include more than 4 of them by including both types.
Other neat suggestions you might want to try (depending on how this playtests) are Rancid Rats, Ratcatcher and/or Marrow-Gnawer
Beyond that, you mentioned Instants - I'd suggest control options even if they're cheap ones like Murder or Unmake (in case Indestructible is a thing you run into frequently) to handle things your Rats can't take care of straight away. There's also other permanents like Basilisk Collar which could make your weakling rats a real blocking threat, and it has a cheap enough Equip cost that you can attack with it on a creature, and typically afford to move it to an untapped Blocker immediately after. If the collar is too expensive or you don't like the Equip cost on it, you could go an Instant route with things like Deadly Allure, Lash of Thorns, Virulent Swipe, or Touch of Moonglove.
Even if none of these suggestions help, I like your build! +1
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