Thursday, 19 December 2019

Unusual Tribes 8: Rats


Introduction

Having spent the last few weeks looking at Dwarves, Orcs and other high fantasy races, it’s time to return to reality and analyse some tribes of real creatures. This week we’ll be looking at Rats and exploring how they are portrayed in Magic the Gathering, and whether you can build a viable decks around them. Despite their seemingly mundane and unassuming nature Rats possess some of the tightest synergies of any of the tribes discussed in this series so far. Magic’s premiere rodents offer some incredibly fun and unique deck building possibilities.

Magic the Gathering currently features 55 Rats. Every single Rat which has ever been printed has been black. There are, however, 3 Rats which are black/red, namely: Gobhobbler Rat, Sanity Gnawers and Hellhole Rats. As the overwhelming majority of Rats are mono-black, it is usually advisable to run Rats in a mono-black deck. This is both because other colours don’t have many Rats to offer, and for budgetary reasons. You probably don’t want to spend too much money on an expensive land base for a fun, yet gimmicky, deck full of Rats.


Relentless Rat Packs

Rats in Magic the Gathering are known for commonly possessing 2 sorts of effects. Discard and what is known unofficially as the ‘Relentless Effect’. This effect lifts the typical deck building limitation of only being able to run 4 copies of any given card. This unofficial term derives its name from the card Relentless Rats, the most famous bearer of the effect. The Relentless Effect’ demonstrates how rats live in huge packs, which grow increasingly threatening as they gain more members. Relentless Rats gains +1/+1 for each other iteration of Relentless Rats in play, encouraging players to fill their decks with as many copies of the card as possible. Rat Colony also possesses the Relentless Effect’. When compared with Relentless Rats, Rat Colony is one mana cheaper and gets stronger for each other rat your control, regardless of name. Unfortunately, unlike Relentless Rats, it has only 1 toughness and only gains +1/+0 for each other Rat in play, leaving it much more vulnerable.

Several other Rats possess abilities which are similar to the ‘Relentless Effect’. Plague Rats was the first Rat ever printed, back in Alpha. It was clearly intended to be run in decks similar to those structured around cramming in many copies of Relentless Rats or Rat Colony. Unfortunately, due to changes to the rules, Plague Rats is easily the worst of the three. As Plague Rats was printed prior to the rule restricting a deck to  4 copies of any individual card, it does not possess an effect stating ‘A deck can have any number of cards named Plague Rats’. As a result, it is now impossible to build a working Plague Rats deck. Even if this were possible, for 3 mana it hits the field as a 1/1, which is an unexciting prospect and makes it worse than Relentless Rats. For all of its flaws, Plague Rats does earn some style points  for having truly unnerving art work.

Rats nature, as pack animals, is also illustrated on the card Pack Rat fittingly enough. Pack Rat gains +1/+1 for each rat in play, showing how the pack gets stronger as more Rats join. Pack Rat also allows its controller to discard a card, and pay 3 mana, to create a token which is a copy of it. The discarded card represents the Rats consuming food to feed their growing swarm. This food is likely carrion, as Pack Rat’s art depicts the pack in the sewers beneath Ravnica. Discarding a card is the closest mechanical means the game can provide to dropping an unsavoury snack into the sewers to be consumed by Rats.

Discard and Disease

Now to look at discard. Rats association with discard effects can be explained in several possible ways. On one level discard may represent how Rats are stealing from the opponent. Burglar Rat is the most explicit in this regard, though the flavour text of several printings of Ravenous Rats also support this interpretation. The card states ‘Nothing is sacred to the rats. Everything is simply another meal’. This reflects real life rats which are notorious for pinching food and shiny objects.


There are several, more abstract, interpretations of what these discard effects may represent. The hand in Magic the Gathering is often used to represent the thoughts and mental wellbeing of the player’s character.  This is evidenced by cards such as Thoughtseize and Mind Rot which lead to discard as they are a direct assault on the opponent’s mind. Using this logic, it may seem strange that Rats cause discard. Unlike Spectres, another tribe frequently printed with discard effects, Rats are not magical creatures who directly assault the opponent’s mind.  The cards discarded may represent how Rats induce fear into people’s minds, leading to mental agitation and unrest.

A final interpretation may be that the discard represents Rats spreading disease. This is backed up by the fact that many of Magic the Gathering’s Rats are associated with illness, for example Rotting Rats. Discard is not the only way through which Magic’s Rats show their propensity to produce plagues. Ichor Rats and Septic Rats both demonstrates Rats’ ability to spread sickness through the use of poison counters. Whilst Typhoid Rats represent Rats’ role as carries of deadly diseases via the ability Deathtouch. The Rats depicted in Disease Carriers demonstrate the accuracy of their name by giving opponent’s creature -2/-2.

Kamigawa and the Nezumi

Rats were pushed most prominently as a tribe during Kamigawa block. The Nezumi (which translates from Japanese as ‘rat’ creatively enough) are anthropomorphic Rats native to the plane. As Kamigawa’s Rats are more humanoid than their counterparts on other planes, the block provided Rats with a slew of subtypes they would not normally have access too. Nezumi Cutthroat is a Rat Warrior, Nezumi Bone-Reader is a Rat Shaman and, of course, due to Kamigawa being based on Shinto and Japanese mythology, there are a slew of Rat Samurai and Rat Ninjas.

On Kamigawa, Rats’ typical focus on discard is present, but it is also expanded in new ways. Gnat Miser and Locust Miser both reduce each opponent’s maximum hand size. These effects play into Saviours of Kamigawa’s ‘hand size matters’ theme, wherein certain cards put the player at an advantage for having more cards in their hand than their opponent, such as Akuta, Born of Ash.

Every legendary Rat ever printed was released in Kamigawa block. Marrow-Gnawer, the most notable of these Rat legends, warrants his own section and will be discussed below. Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni is a Rat Ninja bearing the Ninjustsu effect, as many of Kamigawa’s ninjas, whether they are Rats or otherwise, also do.

This block also featured two Rat flip cards, a visually unique card type exclusive to Kamigawa. Nezumi Graverobber/Nighteyes the Desecrator and Nezumi Shortfang/Stabwhisker the Odious.  Both of these cards tell interesting, self-contained, tales of mundane rodents rising to infamy. Nezumi Graverobber empties out an opponent’s graveyard, as is perhaps appropriate for a Graverobber, before transforming into Nighteyes the Desecrator. Nighteyes’ ability to return creatures from graveyards to the battlefield demonstrates how they have advanced from merely robbing the dead to reviving them through necromancy. Although the two sides of this card are inherently non-synergistic (you can no longer return cards from the dead who Nezumi Graverobber  has exiled,) it still offers a compelling story. Nezumi Shortfang, meanwhile, tells the tale of a small-time thief transforming into the fearsome, if incredibly stupidly named, master criminal Stabwhisker the Odious. Nezumi Shortfang’s discard effect is used to convey the idea of the Rat Rogue robbing your opponent. Stabwhisker’s effect, which penalises opponents who have few cards in their hand, then demonstrates a crime lord preying on the poor.

The Witch, the Piper the Slumlord and Marrow-Gnawer

Although there are no Rat ‘lords’ in the strictest terms, meaning there is no card which provides +1/+1 to all other Rats in play, there are several Rat support cards, or cards which grant all Rats beneficial abilities. The first of these is Marrow-Gnawer, a legendary Rat Rogue printed in Champions of Kamigawa. Marrow-Gnawer grants all Rats Fear, including himself and any Rats your opponent may control. He also allows you to sacrifice a Rat to create a number of 1/1 Black Rat tokens equal to the number of Rats you control. Although Marrow-Gnawer is an expensive card, both in terms of money and mana, he remains the most obvious choice for the commander of any Rat tribal EDH deck. 


Ogre Slumlord, printed in Gatecrash, is the next notable Rat support card. The Slumlord creates a 1/1 Rat token for his controller whenever another non-token creature dies. He also grants all Rats Deathtouch.  This effect is reasonably powerful even in decks which aren’t running any Rats. The Slumlord is considered an auto include in many mono-black EDH decks, especially those themed around sacrificing creatures. In Rat tribal decks the Slumlord’s effect grows even better. Ogre Slumlord grants a large swathe of your deck Deathtouch, whilst also generating a potentially huge number of tokens of a relevant creature type.

Throne of Eldraine granted Rat tribal decks three new support cards. Chittering Witch, from the Savage Hunger Brawl preconstructed deck, generates a number of 1/1 of rat tokens equal to the number of opponents you have, and enables you to sacrifice creatures to give target creature -2/-2.  Though obviously non-viable outside of multiplayer formats, and perhaps more of a sacrifice matters than a Rats matter card, the Witch is still a potentially fun include in any Rat based Commander deck. Next up is Mad Ratter who, sadly, probably isn’t worth including in any Rat tribal deck. The Ratter is red and is not worth splashing for in an otherwise, probably, mono-black Rat deck. Furthermore, although its effect generates two 1/1 Rats, it is triggered by drawing a second card in a turn. Although card draw is always useful, and is available in both red and black, there are no Rats which provide card draw, meaning that you will need to add draw effects from other sources.

Although Eldraine’s two prior cards were perhaps barely worthy of a mention, Piper of the Swarm is by far the most relevant and exciting Rat support card from the set. The Piper grants all Rats Menace. He can also be tapped down to create a 1/1 Rat token, at the cost of two mana, and, for four mana, allows you to sacrifice 3 Rats to gain control of an opponent’s creature. Being able to do all of this for a mere 2 mana makes Piper of the Swarm an essential component of Rat tribal decks, and has certainly increased their viability going forward. Plus, the card is a neat reference to the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin and his ability to hypnotise both Rats and people through the hypnotic music of his flute.



Flavour: A

Rats have a consistent mechanical identity. They frequently have discard or the relentless effect’, and these repeated mechanics authentically convey life as a rodent. The relentless effect’ shows that Rats are pack animals, and encourages you to fill your deck with several iterations of the same Rat to reflect this. Discard is used to represent myriad things including: their ability to steal, how they induce fear and unrest, and how they spread disease. Rats’ nature as carriers of disease is also represented in several other ways, such as giving them Deathtouch or Infect, or having them debuff opponents’ creatures. In summary, Magic has always portrayed Rats creatively, coherently and effectively.

Viability: B+
There are several potentially fun decks which can be built with Rats. You can frustrate your opponents with mass discard before reanimating their graveyard, whether through Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni or cheaper, albeit less rodent-based, means. Decks based around Relentless Rats or Rat Colony are also entertaining to play. Last Standard season even bore witness to a number of Rat Colony decks. Although these decks were far from top tier, due to their incredible vulnerability to board wipes and direct damage spells, they remained present on the fringes and were both cheap to build and fun to play.

A Rat tribal deck is highly possible, and far more supported than many of the previous tribes discussed in these pieces. The plethora of support cards discussed above, in combination with the sheer power provided by Pack Rat, makes them an intimidating presence.

Finally, as so many rats are printed at common, they make good additions to Pauper decks. Chittering Rats makes for a decent removal spell in the format, and is a key component of mono-black devotion decks alongside Gray Merchant of Asphodel.

Best and Worst Cards

Just as Wurmcoil Engine was the clear winner in the article on Wurms, this week’s answer is an equally foregone conclusion. Pack Rat has earned itself an infamous reputation for breaking Return to Ravnica drafts in half. Pack Rat’s reputation is well-earned, and it is deservedly recognised as one of the most format warping Limited cards of all time. Pack Rat is so formidable due to the power of its 2 abilities. Its first ability makes its power and toughness equal to the number of rats you control, whilst its second allows you to pay 3 mana and discard a card to create a token which is a copy of itself. This makes Pack Rat, effectively, both the cheapest and most versatile of the ‘relentless’ rats described above. Its ability effectively lets you turn all of the other cards in your deck into, slightly more expensive, Pack Rats. This is especially useful in Limited where removal is less effective and board wipes, the bane of such a strategy, are rarer. Beyond Limited, Pack Rat naturally faces more well-constructed competition, though it is also possible to build more synergistic decks around the rodent. Making the swarm of giant rats which Pack Rat will inevitably generate harder to block through playing them alongside  Piper of the Swarm or Marrow-Gnawer poses a clear danger to opponents without an answer prepared.


Carrion Rats is possibly the weakest card of the tribe. Though one mana for a 2/1 creature is a good deal, especially in 2002 when the card was released, any player may prevent the damage the Rats would deal by exiling a card from their graveyard.  This is an easy price to pay in just about any game of Magic which has advanced beyond the early game. This condition is especially easy to meet in a game in which Carrion Rats is played alongside other Rats, as they will be rapidly filling your opponent’s graveyard due to their discard effects. Carrion Rats thus sadly lacks synergy with the rest of the tribe. Unfortunately  Carrion Rats often ends up either continuously striking through for no damage at all, or being blocked and brought down without trading.

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