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Secret Sewer-Rat Spy

This is my attempt to modernize my ancient Dimir Rat deck from the original Kamigawa set. Luckily the new Bloomburrow and rat cards fit nicely here, so nice in fact it was a bit tricky getting the deck down to 60 cards since I want everything.

Just like the many pathways in the sewers, there are many different sneaky strategies to achieve victory with this deck. Here are our goals:

  1. Force discards on our opponent (and ourself).
  2. Mill ourself (to Threshold).
  3. Draw lots of cards and play our cheap rats.
  4. Ninjutsu our cheap unblockable rats for strong surprising effects.
  5. Tutor for a critical combo card like Marrow-Gnawer or Vren, the Relentless

End game scenarios:

  1. Marrow-Gnawer + Intruder Alarm + sac a rat (3 or more on battlefield) = infinite 1/1 rat creature tokens (OG combo, this is the reason why I made Dimir Rats back in the day.)
  2. Vren, the Relentless produces beefy rat creature tokens from kills that stomp opponent
  3. Patriarch's Bidding or Liliana Vess ultimate ability to bring back all the milled / sacced / discarded creatures from graveyards.

Shoreline Looter and Azure Beastbinder are our unblockable creatures that will enable us to Ninjutsu anything easily. Silver-Fur Master makes Ninjutsu cheaper and buffs everything to boot. Marrow-Gnawer can also help Ninjutsu with Fear if he's out.

Shoreline Looter + Candlestick is a great early game combo to hit the Threshold count fast. Then it's all free draws from there out.

Tidecaller Mentor and Nezumi Prowler can regain their ETB effects by getting returned to hand from Ninjutsu. Rogue's Passage makes a fitting appearance here for this purpose, and it also combos with Throat Slitter. The mana + Ninjutsu cost shouldn't be a problem late game when you already have Threshold for Tidecaller Mentor. Also, with Marrow-Gnawer out, they will have Fear and be (mostly) unblockable.

Throat Slitter pairs nicely with Silver-Fur Master and also works wonders with Vren, the Relentless. And then Toxic Deluge is a board wipe option with Vren out to create our beefy rat bois. Nezumi Prowler can also get a sneaky kill in as well through Ninjutsu, comboing with Vren. And there's also just straight up removal with Drown in the Loch.

Surveil or Discard or Destroy Target Wonder to give all rats Flying.

Diabolic Tutor to pull anything to suit the situation. Typical best choices: Ratcatcher, Marrow-Gnawer, Vren, the Relentless. Situational choices: Patriarch's Bidding after getting board wiped or to close out game. Toxic Deluge to board wipe 1/1 or 2/2 hordes. Liliana Vess to force discards on self or opponent. Shoreline Looter or Sword of Fire and Ice for Draw. Tidecaller Mentor or Sword of Light and Shadow for targeted creature recursion. Wonder if going up against a heavy Flying deck.

Suggestions

Updates Add

Small update: added Wonder and Patriarch's Bidding and removed Tidecaller Mentor and Rise of the Dark Realms. Reasoning: RotDR is prohibitively expensive to cast at 9 mana in this format with little ramp, and even though Patriarch's is group hug it will most likely benefit this deck more since it is super heavy on Rat creatures. I cut a Tidecaller for Wonder because there is already decent recursion, and Wonder is just so powerful in the graveyard and this deck has multiple means of getting it there. I've also not tried it out before, and it provides some Flying to this deck that otherwise it wouldn't have.

Comments

97% Casual

Competitive

Revision 6 See all

(19 hours ago)

+1 Aqueous Form maybe
+1 Changeling Outcast maybe
+1 Cover of Darkness main
+1 Curious Obsession maybe
-1 Diabolic Tutor main
-2 Dimir Aqueduct main
-2 Drown in the Loch main
+4 Drowned Catacomb main
+2 Force Spike maybe
+2 Island main
+1 Polluted Delta maybe
-1 Rogue's Passage main
+1 Slither Blade maybe
+2 Stern Scolding main
+1 Swamp main
Top Ranked
Date added 3 weeks
Last updated 19 hours
Legality

This deck is Modern legal.

Rarity (main - side)

4 - 0 Mythic Rares

21 - 0 Rares

20 - 0 Uncommons

6 - 0 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 3.03
Tokens Rat 1/1 B, Rat 1/1 B w/ Kindred
Folders Modern Decks I Did Not Make, decks i stole
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