So the main combo here is
Maskwood Nexus
and
Marrow-Gnawer
.
Maskwood Nexus
makes every creature you control or own every type of creature.
Marrow-Gnawer
taps to sacrifice a rat and spawns more rats based on how many rats you have plus giving all rats fear. With
Maskwood Nexus
we can get be a real pain in the ass.
Pack Leader
make is so every dog gets a +1/+1 and doesn't take damage when attacking.
Brutal Hordechief
makes it so every time you attack defending player loses 1 life and you gain one life. With
Pack Leader
and
Brutal Hordechief
you don't even need to hit them to do damage.
Hungry Lynx
make it so whenever you lose a rat you put a +1/+1 counter on every Cat.
Gemhide Sliver
makes every sliver tap for any mana.
Greatbow Doyen
and
Virulent Sliver
is a nasty combo.
Greatbow Doyen
makes it when an archer deals damage to creature the creatures controller takes equal damage.
Virulent Sliver
gives all slivers give one poison counter when they hit a player. When a player has ten poison counters that player loses the game. So with both of those cards they can either A: not block, take damage, and gain poison counters or B: they can block, not gain poison counters, and still take the damage anyways. With
Pack Leader
none of your creatures die from combat. With
Elderfang Venom
all elves gain deathtouch and when an elf you control dies each opponent loses one life and you gain one life. With
Brutal Hordechief
you can force opponents creatures to block and you get to choose how they block. And again with
Pack Leader
none of your creatures die. And with
Elderfang Venom
all of their creatures die. And with
Greatbow Doyen
they take damage anyways! As the damage from
Greatbow Doyen
is not combat damage it does not trigger the poison counters from
Virulent Sliver
. Combat damage is only when a creatures attacks and deals damage to a player from that attack.
With
Piper of the Swarm
all your rats have menace. Which means they need a minimum of two creatures to block your creatures. Which is just awesome. On top of that
Piper of the Swarm
first ability is a token generator. It's second ability allows you to steal other creatures to your side of the field by sacrificing three rats.
Font of Mythos
is our draw engine. With
Gnat Miser
it will most likely cause your opponents to discard because of maximum hand size.
Thwart the Grave
brings creatures back from the graveyard. And because every creature is every creature type with
Maskwood Nexus
as long as you have four creatures out it makes
Thwart the Grave
cost only two black. And because even in your graveyard creatures count for every creature type you can bring back two creatures. For only 2 black mana!
This deck started out with me pulling
Maskwood Nexus
from a booster box I got with my girlfriend. It went from several iterations ranging from a 5 color changeling deck to a blue Leviathan deck that spawned more Leviathans. I have always wanted a rat deck though and this one is nasty. Most cards play off each other and synergize well with each other. Some only really play well when
Maskwood Nexus
is on the field but with four of them it should be easy to get out.
