Relentless Rats in EDH?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on May 16, 2012, 8:27 p.m. by Sov92
I have not made a single EDH deck or done anything at all with it. I want to make my first EDH deck soon and am currently working on drafting up a concept. I have not done an EDH game or seen it played so I am a little behind on that. So I was going to draft up a deck and in EDH it says you can only have 1 copy of any card thats not a basic land. I am wondering if it would be legal for me to make an EDH deck based around the card Relentless Rats It states that you may have any number of relentless rats in your deck. If this is not breaking any EDH rules I dont know about I would like to make it with Marrow-Gnawer as its general. I might throw a Coat of Arms in there too. If this is in fact legal does anyone have any suggestions?
Ohthenoises says... #3
Door of Destinies is always good with Relentless Rats. Someone in my shop had the deck and it's QUITE nasty. He runs 1 of each tutor and Coat of Arms and Door of Destinies and starts cranking out rats.
May 16, 2012 8:54 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #4
Also, If you build this you're going to want Cabal Coffers and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Seeing as you're not going to be spending much on any single card it should be well worth it for the total deck budget.
May 16, 2012 8:56 p.m.
metalmagic says... #6
Thrumming Stone is also good with Relentless Rats. Marrow-Gnawer would be a great general for the deck. Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni is another good card for the deck.
May 16, 2012 9:02 p.m.
Thanks for pointing out the article Epochalyptik it had a lot of good information that cleared quite a few different things. One question I do have is does the general effect anything from the command zone? Can activated abilitys be activated and such or how does that work?
Ohthenoises thanks for the pointers. You have some very good card ideas. Door of Destinies is not a card I knew of. I will be sure to include it.
I agree with Leaf-steel that Thrumming Stone would be awesome.
I have not heard of Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni before. I like that card. It would go nice in any rats deck. The Ninjitsu ability is not something I have seen before. That seems nice.
May 16, 2012 10:50 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #8
no the general does not have an effect from the command zone (otherwise Omnath, Locus of Mana decks would be more ridiculous)
May 16, 2012 10:52 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #11
He would get the same thing zandl with another relentless rats. In effect it gives all other relentless rats +1/+1 (unless of course he wants to boost his general then it's totally legit but a deck like this I hardly ever see people play their general)
May 16, 2012 11:06 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #12
34-36 is usually a good number depending on your ramp.
May 16, 2012 11:07 p.m.
Thanks for the tips guys im hoping this EDH deck will be pretty sweet when im done.
May 17, 2012 3:05 p.m.
Strange_Adams says... #16
Pick up a Caged Sun and a Gauntlet of Might while you're at it. Your basic strategy will be to simply bash with as many rats as you can, as fast as you can, and try to win the game through sheer brute force. Mana acceleration is your friend here. It will increases the number of Rats you can put out in a turn, which in turn pumps your existing rats even more.The major weakness of this deck is that, even if you have a god-hand, a Wrath tears you up and leaves you with an empty hand.Card draw is your friend here. The faster you can replenish your hand, the better. Remember: If your board gets emptied, and you don't have the resources to reapply the pressure, your deck stops being good in a big hurry. Find a Skullclamp.
May 18, 2012 5:08 a.m.
I am not too sure Gauntlet of Might will work too good in a black deck. I may get Gauntlet of Power instead.
May 18, 2012 3:08 p.m.
FuneralofGod says... #19
I've yet to see any real synergy here. I mean..sure all of the cards suggested to you so far would be great for a mono black rats EDH deck, but why run a bunch of Relentless Rats instead of other, better rats? He is just a vanilla 2/2 for 3 mana. Seems kind of pointless unless you're using some effect that benefits from having multiple cards with the same name. Even stuff like Coat of Arms only looks at creature type, not creature name.
May 18, 2012 6:58 p.m.
FuneralofGod says... #20
we really need to be able to edit our posts on here..
May 18, 2012 6:59 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #21
Actually funeral each rat acts like a lord for the others. The more rats you have the stronger they all are.
May 18, 2012 7:02 p.m.
Relentless Rats is a 2/2 for 3 mana that gets bigger for every other card named relentless rats on the field. I think that thats a pretty sweet deal.
May 18, 2012 8:05 p.m.
I have first prototype deck:relentless-rats-suggestions-welcome. Let me know your opinions.
May 24, 2012 1:12 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #28
No one is going to run counterbore except a playgroup where they are hating on that deck specifically
Epochalyptik says... #2
Card text overrules deck construction rules, so you may use any number of cards named Relentless Rats
in an EDH deck so long as they follow the other rules of deck construction.
For starters, if you're new to the format I suggest reading this article. It covers the basics of EDH deckbuilding theory and is meant to be a guide to players such as yourself. Feel free to contact me with additional questions (or ask them here)!
May 16, 2012 8:34 p.m.