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Endless Rats (Relentless Rats Go Brrrr)

Modern* Combo Jank Mono-Black Rats

CommandOmega

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Creature (26)

Instant (4)

Land (18)

Artifact (12)

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Sorcery (7)

Instant (4)

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Instant (8)

Sorcery (4)

Creature (4)

Land (4)

This deck is built around a Relentless Rats + Thrumming Stone combo. Basically, if you cast Thrumming Stone and then a copy of Relentless Rats, you have a high chance of playing all of your copies of Relentless Rats out at once, making every copy a giant beater to swing face with. This deck will usually kick into action on your 4th or 5th turn and can win on your 5th or 6th. This is definitely not competitive, and I don't suggest going out and buying the cards to put this together. The deck is pretty casual and you should really only put it together if you have the cards laying around or if you have proxies. I'm positive that this idea isn't original, but I was too lazy to check around for a deck like it, so if you see any decks made before this one, please link them in the comments and I'll include a disclaimer and link in the description.
Of course, we have Relentless Rats and Thrumming Stone as our main combo, but we have some utility pieces as well.

  • Piper of the Swarm gives your rats menace, making them more powerful and much harder to block, and essentially turns them into removal spells. Their first activated ability lets you create rat tokens to sacrifice or swing with, which is very helpful in this build. Its second ability, gaining control of an opponent's creatures, is also super helpful and very powerful with an abundance of rats.
  • Marrow-Gnawer is a terrific trick to have up your sleeve. It gives your rats fear making them extremely hard to block, and it can create tons of rats at once just by tapping and sacrificing a token. Who would have guessed that Krenko, Mob Boss was a good card?
  • Dash Hopes is the only black counterspell out there, which is as good as we can get in terms of spell protection. Draining 5 life is weak compared to a counter, but it isn't a terrible alternative.
  • Lotus Bloom is a terrific turn 1 play, as it will let you cast Thrumming Stone a turn early, and is still a decent draw later in the game. This is probably the best 0-drop mana production artifact in modern, despite the single-use drawback.
  • Mox Tantalite is another 0-drop suspend artifact that will let you cast your Thrumming Stone a turn early and help you ramp later on.
  • Bloodstained Mire and Polluted Delta are simply allied fetchlands that will fix your mana and thin out your deck, making cards easier to hit with Thrumming Stone, as fetches always do.
  • Thoughtseize is super helpful in removing troubling cards like Grafdigger's Cage and slowing your opponents down.
  • Infernal Tutor is a good response to discard decks yet it is not practical in your average matchup.
  • Fatal Push is always great to have around to get rid of those troublesome creatures like Tarmogoyf.
    • You don't want to rely on topdecking with this build, so I suggest you mulligan most hands without Thrumming Stone, either Lotus Bloom or Mox Tantalite, and 1-3 lands. However, it is very likely that you will topdeck a copy of Relentless Rats before you get Thrumming Stone down, so don't worry about them. You'll usually want a 2-drop like Piper of the Swarm or Dash Hopes or some form of early-game play, but they aren't necessary.

    The perfect hand would look something like this:

    Don't worry if your hand doesn't look exactly like this, as you can mulligan to 4 and still have most of the components. When using a mulligan, ditch Relentless Rats first, then a 2-drop. Try not to ditch mana rocks or Thrumming Stone.

    Get your Thrumming Stone out as quickly as possible and play a copy of Relentless Rats.

    Turn 1: Play a land and suspend whatever copies of Mox Tantalite or Lotus Bloom are in your hand.

    Turn 2: Remove a time counter from your suspended permanent, then play your second land and any sorcery-speed turn 2 plays you have (that would be Piper of the Swarm), or hold back for Dash Hopes.

    Turn 3: Remove a time counter from your suspended artifact(s), then play your third land if you have it. Either hold back again with an instant, activate an ability on Piper of the Swarm, or play a copy of Relentless Rats. You may want to hold your rats back if you are not guaranteed to play them next turn or on turn 5.

    Turn 4: Remove the last time counter from the suspended permanents played on turn 1, play a land, and cast Thrumming Stone. If you a) have a copy of Relentless Rats in your hand and b) cast two or more suspended permanents on turn 1 and one of them was a Lotus Bloom, crack it for and play Relentless Rats, triggering Thrumming Stone and (hopefully) play out all of your copies.

    Turn 5: If you got all of your copies of Relentless Rats onto the battlefield on turn 4, swing at your opponent, most likely causing you to snag the win. If you weren't able to get out your rats, play Relentless Rats now, starting the chain and (hopefully) casting all of your copies.

    Turn 6: If you won on turn 5, simply ignore this, but if you got all of your rats out last turn, simply swing at your opponent with your rat army or however many are necessary to kill your opponent.

    I'm playing with the idea of adding red to the mana base to gain access to some instant-speed ramp, but it may overcomplicate the deck too much so I can't promise anything. Some cards I'm looking at are:

  • Do you like to play fun/jank decks?
  • Do you like hitting face with giant creatures?
  • Are you okay with losing a few rounds?
  • Are you competitive?
  • Do you like to win through intricate combos/are you a fan of more tactical plays?
  • Do you dislike jank?
    • Strong Against:
  • Weenies
  • Humans (sans Meddling Mage)

    • Weak Against: - Aggro - Soul Sisters - Meddling Mage/Ixalan's Binding - Most Ramp

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    99% Casual

    Competitive

    Date added 4 years
    Last updated 3 years
    Exclude colors WURG
    Key combos
    Legality

    This deck is Modern legal.
    Rarity (main - side)

    4 - 0 Mythic Rares

    24 - 7 Rares

    0 - 4 Uncommons

    22 - 0 Commons
    Cards 60
    Avg. CMC 3.24
    Tokens Rat 1/1 B
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