Rats Vs Rats
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on April 17, 2021, 12:11 a.m. by Stardragon
So i was looking into rat tribal expecting Relentless Rats to be the top build only to find out that overall Rat Colony is more popular, and I'm wondering why? Yes Colony is a mana cheaper and so it makes for an overall faster deck but is that all there is to it or am I missing something? It seems to me that make making a bunch of X/1s vs a bunch of X/Xs is counter intuitive for the most part (yes there some combos or cards like Skullclamp that like less tough creatures) but if thats the case i feel like thats deafeats the purpose of the rats or am I wrong?
To add to what BiggRedd54 said, you can mitigate the lack of toughness with other cards if you need to, so that isn't always very important.
April 17, 2021 10:15 a.m.
1st reason is as you said there faster
Play out a basline with 1 land per turn no ther cards
Turn 2 cast 1, turn 3 cast 1 swing for 3 damage, turn 4 cast 2 swing two for 10 damage
Compared to turn 3 cast 1, turn 4 cast one swing for 3 damage
Second reson is
Piper of the Swarm
and
Marrow-Gnawer
wich are the back bone to every rat deck. Only colony benefits from them
April 19, 2021 7:51 a.m.
Stardragon says... #5
RambIe tbf Rentless also benefits from both piper and Gnawer as well though not to full extent as they don't get bigger from the tokens those two create true but they still gain both menace and fear
April 20, 2021 2:13 p.m.
Ya, sure
Turn 5 you could cast
Marrow-Gnawer
and swing two 3/3 menace
Relentless Rats
for 6+3= 9 damage
Or
Turn 5 you could cast
Marrow-Gnawer
and swing 4 7/1 menace
Rat Colony
for 3+10+28= 41 damage
We can nit pick that the constent add pop ups distracted me from typing the word damage in my last post but non the less this difference is the awnser to your question
April 20, 2021 6:20 p.m.
Stardragon says... #7
RambIe i agree with you and im seeing why colony is the more popular choice overall and why they are like $5 more a pop over relentless and if I add in things like Ogre Slumlord and Haunted Crossroads the 1 toughness doesn't matter as much
BiggRedd54 says... #2
Rat Colony is superior. It gets buff from all rats, which is pretty significant in Marrow-Gnawer builds. The toughness loss can be made up in form of recursion effects.
April 17, 2021 12:52 a.m.