Marrow-Gnawer, Mischief Maker

Commander / EDH Casual Mono-Black Multiplayer Tribal

Drathro

Rats (23)

• 1x Burglar Rat
• 1x Crypt Rats
• 1x Drainpipe Vermin
• 1x Infected Vermin
• 1x Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
• 1x Nezumi Bone-Reader
• 1x Nezumi Graverobber  ^Flip
• 1x Nezumi Ronin
• 1x Okiba-Gang Shinobi
• 1x Pack Rat
• 1x Pestilence Rats
• 1x Rancid Rats
• 1x Rat Colony
• 1x Rotting Rats
• 1x Ruin Rat
• 1x Scrib Nibblers
• 1x Sewer Rats
• 1x Sinuous Vermin
• 1x Skullsnatcher
• 1x Stronghold Rats
• 1x Swarm of Rats
• 1x Throat Slitter
• 1x Typhoid Rats

MoreMana (6)

• 1x Black Market
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Caged Sun
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Liliana of the Dark Realms
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum

CoolStuff (10)

• 1x Basilica Screecher
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Door of Destinies
• 1x Eldrazi Monument
• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Ogre Slumlord
• 1x Possessed Portal
• 1x Thornbite Staff
• 1x Thrilling Encore
• 1x Trading Post

ManaRocks (10)

• 1x Bontu's Monument
• 1x Charcoal Diamond
• 1x Coalition Relic
• 1x Coldsteel Heart
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Jet Medallion
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Worn Powerstone

Draw (9)

• 1x Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1x Krav, the Unredeemed
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Sign in Blood
• 1x Skeletal Scrying
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Soul of Innistrad

Commander (1)

Control (9)

• 1x Butcher of Malakir
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Imp's Mischief
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Oblivion Stone
• 1x Perilous Vault
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Lands (32)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Crypt of Agadeem
• 1x Everglades
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 24x Swamp
• 1x Swarmyard
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Wasteland

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Maybeboard

DrawOrSelection (4)

• 1x Codex Shredder
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Promise of Power
• 1x Shrouded Lore

NotOwnedYet (1)

• 1x Sword of the Animist

MoreGoodStuff (3)

• 1x Ascendant Evincar
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Sudden Spoiling

PlayableRats (1)

• 1x Rats of Rath

ExtraMana (2)

• 1x Corrupted Grafstone
• 1x Star Compass

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This is a casual Marrow-Gnawer Rats tribal EDH/Commander deck that eschews the obvious builds and instead plays one copy of every "playable" Rat.

The deck is designed as a fair deck in my playgroups, but if you want to power it up, add more tutors to reliably find Thornbite Staff and be that guy who always combos out (boring!).

Overview

Ideally, your want your opening hand to have mana and a little card draw. The current build is a little land light, so being willing to mulligan helps.
The early game is about sending attacks elsewhere by presenting bad trades with cheap blockers such as deathtouch rats. Graduate to sweeping the board and rebuild with Marrow-Gnawer active. From there, play a permanent that helps you win with lots of Rats. Simple, right?

Typical attempts at winning:

• Door of Destinies : The weakest of the wincons, but a nice slow build to being able to play very large Rats for very little mana. It plays differently than your typical win condition, because nobody panics and kills you right away when you open this Door.
• Eldrazi Monument : An active Marrow-Gnawer + 3 Rats is enough to feed the Monument each turn while still building your army.
• Possessed Portal : My favorite wincon. If Possessed Portal survives back to your upkeep, then a Marrow-Gnawer -fueled mischief is likely a beautiful soft lock on the game.
• Liliana of the Dark Realms + Exsanguinate : Protect Liliana long enough to ultimate. Exsanguinate everybody. Feels good.
• Marrow-Gnawer + Thornbite Staff : The Dirty Combo win. Turn active Marrow-Gnawer and two Rats into an arbitrarily large swarm.

Notable Inclusions

Krav, the Unredeemed : Krav is pretty fantastic here! He provides more card draw, substantial life gain, recovery from board wipes, and a sacrifice outlet for Grave Pact effects. Even better, he provides a way to win outside of the combat step. When you have the Marrow-Gnawer + Thornbite Staff combo, each means you can force an opponent to draw more cards than they have left.

Sewer Rats : Ewww, pay 1 life and to pump just the power? Seems pretty bad, especially in a deck that pays life to draw cards. But Sewer Rats almost always goes unblocked because of the pump threat, and that enables some timely Ninjutsu shenanigans or just an extra point of damage.

Basilica Screecher : The addition of Krav, the Unredeemed has ameliorated the issue a smidge, but there's still too little lifegain and too much paying of life in the deck. Basilica Screecher extorts, blocks a flier for a turn, and is an evasive outlet for Ninjutsu.

Notable Exclusions

Check the Maybeboard for cards I would play if I could figure out the space. Cards you probably like that don't even make the Maybeboard cut:

• Relentless Rats - Not playable as a one-of.
• Gnat Miser , Locust Miser : In my experience, the hand size ability rarely does anything important. Even when opponents discard a card to hand size, it's usually because they just drew 4 to 7 new cards. In that case, they just discard fluff they don't need anyway. Gnat Miser is about as playable as Muck Rats , and a 4-mana 2/2 do-nothing is definitely not cost effective.
• Coat of Arms : Unless you're killing everybody the turn you play it, you're asking for trouble.
• Ratcatcher : Generally speaking, the non-Rat cards in the deck are more powerful than the Rats. Six mana is better spent refilling my hand now than slowly tutoring out what's left of my "good" Rats.
• Lab Rats : Actually, this is pretty tempting, but I've already got a Maybeboard full of better stuff that doesn't make the cut.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	5 years
Key combos	Marrow-Gnawer + Thornbite Staff
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 28 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 20 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.15
Tokens	Copy Clone, Emblem Liliana of the Dark Realms, Goat 0/1 W, Rat 1/1 B