Volrath the Relentless Rat

Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai) Casual Rats Theme/Gimmick

insobrietivemagic

Land (37)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Bad River
• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1x Botanical Sanctum
• 1x Captivating Cave
• 1x Cave of Temptation
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Esper Panorama
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Forest
• 1x Grixis Panorama
• 1x Island
• 1x Jund Panorama
• 1x Littjara Mirrorlake
• 1x Llanowar Reborn
• 1x Necroblossom Snarl
• 1x Novijen, Heart of Progress
• 1x Opulent Palace
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Restless Cottage
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 1x Strip Mine
• 6x Swamp
• 1x Swarmyard
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Temple of Mystery
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Creature (37)

• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm
• 1x Crashing Drawbridge
• 1x Marrow-Gnawer
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 30x Relentless Rats
• 1x Species Specialist
• 1x Yavimaya Elder

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Distant Melody
• 1x Explosive Vegetation
• 1x Harmonize
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Pact of the Serpent
• 1x Triumph of the Hordes

Instant (5)

• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Polymorphist's Jest

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Tamiyo, Collector of Tales

Commander (1)

Artifact (7)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Simic Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thrumming Stone

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Bloodbond March
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Nantuko Shrine
• 1x Phyrexian Arena

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Rats, Rats, We’re the Rats…

I don’t think it gets much more casual than this. I noticed a lot of good tribal support in blue and green, and I had been wanting to build a Relentless Rats deck, so I took a crack at it. Bloodbond March and Nantuko Shrine seldom see commander play, so it’s a breath of fresh air to see some different spells being taken advantage of. Not wanting to devote my spells to proliferating and adding counters to creatures I selected a handful of lands i could take advantage of secondary abilities from like Llanowar Reborn and the such. This will help Volrath find shape shifting targets on our side of the field and avoid dropping -1/-1 counters on our own stuff.

Thrumming Stone is a lesser known card in the commander format as it relies on decks that use cards with effects that allow you to have more than one copy of a card on the deck, like Relentless Rats. Thrumming stone really goes off when it starts working more often than not pulling out double digit numbers of relentless rats. It itself is almost a win condition. We run lots of affordable fetch lands like Evolving Wilds and Jund Panorama aimed to thin the deck at slightly to make the most out of effects like thrumming stone as well as Tamiyo, Collector of Tales and Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm.

A more brutal win condition is to drop Triumph of the Hordes after building a massive board state, which Marrow-Gnawer is great at helping build. I know infect can often be a touchy topic in the commander scene, but, it’s one card, not the entire deck, so I think it gets a pass.

One really fun thing this deck does is make Volrath, the Shapestealer into one of the relentless rats and then smash around some serious commander damage. Our friend the Shapestealer can get out of hand fast with enough relentless boys out and about.

Let’s talk about the fundamentals. We’re running three colors which opens us up to a good signet package, Kodama's Reach and a bad case of Explosive Vegetation to ramp us up so we can drop more rats. We have card draw from Distant Melody, Harmonize, and Mystic Remora, to make sure we have rats to drop, and removal from Assassin's Trophy, Beast Within, and Acidic Slime. We have included interaction with a side of card draw with Cryptic Command and Mystic Confluence.

But is the deck any good? Actually, yes. The small sample size of games I’ve played with it have proven to to be a very decently built deck against various different strategies.

Okay, but it it fun? I think it is relentlessly fun!

Date added	10 months
Last updated	9 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 21 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 20 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.05
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Copy Clone, Food, Rat 1/1 B, Squirrel 1/1 G