Rat Circus

Modern Competitive Discard Infinite Combo Primer UBRG

Sjorpha

Land (20)

• 1x Blackcleave Cliffs
• 2x Blood Crypt
• 3x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Darkslick Shores
• 1x Island
• 1x Mountain
• 4x Polluted Delta
• 1x Spirebluff Canal
• 2x Steam Vents
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 2x Watery Grave

Creature (19)

• 4x Izzet Guildmage
• 4x Merchant of the Vale
• 4x Pack Rat
• 2x Spectral Sailor
• 4x Squee, Goblin Nabob
• 1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang

Enchantment (4)

• 4x Training Grounds

Instant (17)

• 3x Fatal Push
• 4x Izzet Charm
• 4x Lightning Bolt
• 4x Manamorphose
• 2x Prismari Command

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Sideboard

Creature (7)

• 2x Big Game Hunter
• 1x Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
• 2x Nezumi Graverobber  ^Flip
• 2x Plague Engineer

Sorcery (5)

• 3x Collective Brutality
• 2x Thoughtseize

Instant (1)

• 1x Hurkyl's Recall

Planeswalker (2)

• 2x Ashiok, Dream Render

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SQUEE!!

This deck combines Training Grounds combos with discarding synergies, this works surprisingly well as you can use the discard engines to find your combo pieces and discard redundant cards.

Gameplans

You have three main lines of play, so the deck is way more complex than it looks at first.

1. Pack Rat overload.

The first of your Training grounds combos center on Pack Rat and simply overloading the board with more rats than your opponent can handle. Ideal sequence is turn 1 Training grounds and turn 2 Pack Rat, this gives you potentially up to 4x 4/4 rats on turn 3 and a lethal attack on turn 4. Squee is amazing with this line of play as each squee lets you churn out an extra rat per turn.

2. "Infinite" Combo

This is the second Training Grounds combo and another potential turn 3 win. The combo consists of Izzet Guildmage, Training Grounds and Manamorphose. You need 3 mana up to go off with a minimum of 1 red and 1 blue. How it works is that you cast Manamorphose using the RX mana holding priority (hold down ctrl while casting in MTGO) and copy it with the guildmage using the blue. Now let the copy resolve and choose UU, use them to copy the original spell twice, let the copies resolve for UUUU, copy the OG spell 4 times and so on until you have enough mana and draw enough cards to find a Lighting bolt. Then let enough of your copies of Manamorphose resolve and have the last one you resolve make UR so you have mana to copy a lethal number of lightning bolts. Cast lightning bolt holding priority and copy it as many times as needed.

It's good to keep the original Manamorphose unresolved on the stack and some extra blue up in case your opponent counters the lightning bolt (which, in case you've stacked up a number of mage triggers removes their target spell and fizzles all of them), then you can either respond by copying Manamorphose again a number of times, either to dig for/cast a Izzet charm to counter the counterspell or to just find another lightning bolt and copy a lethal number on top of the counterspell. All this happens at instant speed so you can hold the combo up and go off in response to a removal spell if you think your opponent has one.

The ideal opening is Turn 1 Training Grounds, Turn 2 Izzet Guildmage, Turn 3 Manamorphose and go off for the win.

Izzet Guildmage + Training Grounds can obviously also be used to copy other spells directly just as a value/utility play without going infinite.

3. Value grind

If the game drags out and none of the first 2 gameplans go through, Nezumi Graverobber, spectral Sailor, Merchant of the vale or Tasigur in combination with Training Grounds (or on their own) offers a way to grind yourself back into the saddle. Nezumi once flipped with 1 or 2 training grounds up can rebuild your board using creatures from either graveyard. And Tasigur/Sailor can just use Training Grounds to grind out card advantage. Using the looting spells or Merchant of the vale with a Squee can also grind out card advantage and Squee can be continually cast as a chump blocker as well. These grindy value lines are your backup plan and can make the deck quite resilient in a pinch.

Top Ranked	Achieved #15 position overall 6 years ago Achieved #5 position in Modern 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Modern Primer 3 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	0 - 1 Mythic Rares 28 - 6 Rares 25 - 6 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.02
Tokens	Copy Clone, On an Adventure, Treasure
Folders	decks to try, Unique Modern, Cool Decks, Modern Decks, Modern, Modern Decks I Did Not Make, Jank