Rats in EDH: How would you go about it?
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on May 24, 2018, 9:31 p.m. by SteelSentry
What commander would be best for rats? For mono-, it's probably Marrow-Gnawer, but are other colors worth considering for support cards like Bloodbond March or Remembrance? Do you run Rat Colony or Relentless Rats, and how many? Since they already pump themselves, what support cards do you run? This is completely unlike any other deck I've brewed, and I feel completely lost.
I think I would run Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and just start flinging Rat Colony everywhere. Plus you can Genesis Wave into a ton of rats.
Just my take on rats.
May 24, 2018 9:51 p.m.
WHile there are some good effects in off colours, I think your best bet is to stick with mono black. Other colours will provide some nice support, but won't really feed into the rat tribal theme.
As for support cards, Obelisk of Urd and Dragon Throne of Tarkir are both great to run. I'm not a huge fan of Coat of Arms as tribal themes are quite common in EDH and it just ends up that everything gets buffed.
May 24, 2018 9:53 p.m.
Echoing Courage, Pack Hunt, Secret Salvage, Doubling Chant, Sphinx of the Chimes, Clarion Ultimatum, Kindred Summons, Call to the Kindred
May 25, 2018 1:32 p.m.
The problem I ran into my rat deck is the lack of haste cards. By the time I Thrumming Stoned a pile of Relentless Rats on the field, one of my opponents would toss down a wrath before I could attack. I tried to get around this through Living Death and Patriarch's Bidding. Or through an alternate wincon like Altar of Dementia and Altar of the Brood.
I have thought about re-building the deck using Alesha,Who Smiles at Death. That would give me access to Burst of Speed, Cyclops of Eternal Fury, Ogre Battledriver, and others mass haste cards. Then maybe some mass discard spells to keep the other players low on gas, and to give Alesha more targets for her triggered ability.
May 25, 2018 4:29 p.m.
Golgari offers a lot of additional combo setups and recursion that can really make a rat deck go off. I’ll expand on this comment a bit later and offer some cards to focus around beyond the rats.
DrukenReaps says... #2
I would do Rat Colony for the simple reason that it buffs off all rats you control where as Relentless Rats only buffs off other relentless rats. This allows you to run roughly 24 of them and have other rats that effect them. 24 is a good start point I think because you get a roughly 85% chance when drawing up your hand to get some, it is decent odds. You will want to play around with that number until you are happy with how many you get.
If you are looking at other colors beyond black you might consider Karador, Ghost Chieftain. It will give you both the cards you mention above and some other fun things.
Take a look through my Karona's Shadowy Apostasy deck for other things that work really well with multiple of the same name type of creatures.
May 24, 2018 9:46 p.m.