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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