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Brodents!

Standard Aggro Budget Competitive Mono-Black

TSmash

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Sorcery (7)

Instant (6)

Creature (23)

Planeswalker (1)

Land (23)

Sideboard

Sorcery (10)

Creature (2)

Instant (2)

Enchantment (1)

Maybeboard

Sorcery (9)

Artifact (4)

Enchantment (1)

Let's Build Rat Colony for Standard!

Our strategy here is simple, yet twofold...

  1. Control - A. Disrupt the opponent's hand and field on turns 1-3. B. Build up to 4+ Lands, then overwhelm the field with a plague of rats! C. Attack over the next 2-3 turns for game.

  2. Aggro - A. Fill our field with rats on turns 1-4 and poke for damage. B. Clear out the opponent's hand and field with disruption cards. C. Finish attacking for game over the next 1-3 turns.

Our current card ratio is 23 Creatures (all rats of course), 23 Lands, 10 slots for hand/field disruption, 3 slots for draw power, and 1 slot for our favorite Necromancer Planeswalker!

Details on card choices below.

Rat Colony / Burglar Rat

  • Our win con only needs 3-5 Rat Colony on the battlefield to attack for damage each turn and win the game. Easy way to remember the damage multiplier is that your Rat Colony creatures will always have 1 more power than the total number of rats you control. For example: controlling 3 rats puts all Colony cards at 4 power, while 5 rats puts Colony at 6 power. 10 rats = 11 power and so forth. Deck runs 20 Rat Colony total.

  • Burglar Rat acts as another rat creature to satisfy Colony's +1/0 ability, but also acts as a hand disruption for our opponent. Deck runs 3 as Burglar is almost a dead card after it hits the field.

Divest / Never Happened / Burglar Rat

  • Divest is our under-rated black card of the year from Dominaria Set! Great first-turn play that forces our opponent to reveal their hand and let's us discard their best creature or artifact - all for 1 mana! Deck runs 3 copies.

  • Never Happened is another great hand/graveyard disruption choice for this deck from Guilds of Ravnica. For 3 mana, opponent reveals their hand and then we choose ANY target in the opponent's hand or graveyard (besides a Land) and exile it. Main deck runs 1 copy, with more available in the sideboard.

  • Honorable mention here for Burglar Rat. When Burglar enters the battlefield, opponent chooses to discard a card from their hand. Deck runs 3 copies as mentioned above.

Cast Down / Murder

  • There's a reason why Cast Down is $1 uncommon card. This tech destroys 1 nonlegendary creature for the cost of 2 mana - no questions asked. Any creature we can't swing over or advances the opponent's win con will be blasted by this dark beauty. Deck runs 4 copies.

  • Murder is a great follow up from Cast Down. At 1 more mana, we lose the legendary restriction and can simply destroy a target creature. M19 is not my favorite artwork for this card, but that's a personal choice. Think I will shell out the 80 cents to obtain 4 copies of the Masters 25 version. Deck runs 2 copies of Murder with the other 2 available in the sideboard.

Blood Divination

  • This deck needed more card advantage in the form of draw power. I played with Sword-Point Diplomacy and had some success, but found that Blood Divination was a better fit, even though it cost 1 more mana and forces us to sacrifice a creature. Sword-Point was great when the opponent's Life is already low, but it was not a good card to have early-mid game as the opponent denied our resources. Blood Divination fixed that problem as it is a guaranteed 3 cards to our hand. We also have an army of disposable rats, so the sacrifice cost doesn't harm us if played appropriately. Our best sacrifice target is Burglar Rat and our best time to use Blood Divination is Main Phase 2 on a tapped rat that just attacked. Deck runs 3 Blood Divination.

Liliana, the Necromancer

  • Liliana, the Necromancer is not needed in this deck, but 1 copy is a beautiful way to spice up the monotonous win con of Rat Colony. Also, all 3 of her Loyalty abilities can be useful to us mid-late game. Her +1 gives us a slow burn that has to (eventually) be dealt with by the opponent. Her -1 returns a rat from graveyard to hand. And her Ult -7 helps clear the field and ensure our victory. Her slot in the deck also allows us an easy pick for sideboard swapping. Deck runs 1 Liliana.

Swamp / Cabal Stronghold

  • Swamp is currently run at 21. 1 copy of Unstable and 20 copies of our favorite full art Land Cards.

  • Cabal Stronghold is on the fence for me. LOVE the artwork, but don't see the benefits of it's ability being used to it's full potential in this deck (as we can max out at 3-5 Lands and still reach our win con). Will keep 2 copies of Cabal for now, but am actively looking for better engine choices.

Our sideboard picks are above, but here's a quick rundown of what we want:

Feel as if all of these are good options to add in so to fit different play styles:

Let's hear your thoughts! What cards did I miss? Can the ratios be stronger? It seems we just lost some good tech choices with the new Standard Rotation, but that's part of the fun in re-building!

Regardless, this deck is surely one that Brian Jacques would be proud to play!

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Revision 5 See all

(4 years ago)

Date added 5 years
Last updated 4 years
Legality

This deck is not Standard legal.
Rarity (main - side)

1 - 0 Mythic Rares

2 - 2 Rares

9 - 4 Uncommons

27 - 9 Commons
Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.24
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