World Rat Day — Let’s Build a Rat Deck in Magic: The Gathering Arena

Today is World Rat Day, a time to celebrate and enjoy the much-maligned mammal. Rats are adorable in my opinion — little cuties skittering around with their soft fur and their long whiskers coming out of their teensy wee noses. Don’t get me wrong — other rodents, like mice, are often just as cute, but rats, in particular, come with centuries of baggage as bringers of plague and sickness. However, that’s no reason to dismiss rats out of hand! These creatures can be friendly, helpful, and really really cute, so take this day to remind yourself that rats are a blessing on this Earth.

For my part, I’ve celebrated World Rat Day by constructing a rat-themed deck in Magic: The Gathering Arena. I’ve actually been sitting on this idea for a short while now, ever since I saw the art for the Rat Tokens in the card game; the little guy just looks so cute the way they’re holding that little raspberry! Now, I’m not that good at Magic: The Gathering and I especially struggle to put together a strong deck that can consistently win, but I had a few Rat-focused cards from the starter decks and the packs I’d opened as a new player, so I thought I could at least put together something that worked with the current Alchemy ruleset.

I started out with five Creatures: two Typhoid Rats, 1/1 Rats with deathtouch (the first “1” referring to the Rats’ power, with the second referring to their toughness and “deathtouch” meaning that, in a battle with another creature, the Rats will always be able to destroy their opponent); Harried Spearguard, a 1/1 Human Soldier with haste that, when defeated, creates a 1/1 Rat Token that cannot block to take their place (“haste” meaning that the Spearguard can attack the same turn that they enter the field, since without haste, creatures must wait until their second turn on the battlefield before attacking); Tangled Colony, a 3/2 Rat that also cannot block, though when it dies, it creates an amount of those 1/1 basic non-blocking Rat Tokens equal to the amount of damage dealt to the Colony that turn (which typically would mean two new Rats, unless they were defeated by something with more than enough power to take them out); and Ratcatcher Trainee, a 2/1 Human Peasant that has first strike as long as it’s their player’s turn (meaning they deal their damage first in combat and can thereby survive if they destroy their opponent before the regular damage can play out), though they can also be cast at any time from the hand to create two more 1/1 Rat Tokens (if this alternate usage gets played, the Trainee is exiled from the game, though they can still be played as a creature later on.

In short, that’s two copies of Typhoid Rats and one copy each of Harried Spearguard, Tangled Colony, and Ratcatcher Trainee, a few interesting Rats and two other random people that can create more Rats in specific situations. My Rat-themed deck was sadly not coming together perfectly right from the start. However, I had plenty of wildcards at my disposal and could use them to obtain more cards that would fit my deck. I only had so many, so I had to be a little choosy, but this was also my only way to guarantee more Rats for my deck. Additionally, at this point, I was already split between Black and Red mana, so I was going to have to be careful not to spread myself too thin if I could help it.

From there, I was able to collect 21 more Rat-related cards, spending most of my wildcards. It was somewhat annoying to search for all the Rats, because other words that included “rat” within them, like “pirate” or “rather”, were picked up too, and they outnumbered my poor Rats. I leaned into the cards that produced as many Rats as possible and those that could boost a large amount of Rats all at once. The most notable of these would be:

• Lord Skitter, Sewer King, a 3/3 Rat Noble that creates one new basic Rat Token essentially every turn and also exiles cards from an opponent’s graveyard whenever a Rat enters the field (including those Rat Tokens I was just talking about).
• Song of Totentanz, a sorcery card (“sorceries” being cards that have an immediate effect and can only be played during your own main phases) that creates a number of basic Rat Tokens equal to the chosen amount of mana spent on playing the card (ignoring the one extra point of Red mana you also have to spend) and also gives all your creatures haste until the end of your turn.
• Karumonix, the Rat King, a 3/3 Phyrexian Rat with toxic that gives all of my other rats toxic (“toxic” meaning that, when a creature with this trait deals damage to a player, that player also gets a poison counter; once a player has 10 such counters, they lose) and they also let me put any Rat cards into my hand from among the next five cards in my deck when they enter the field.
• Twisted Sewer-Witch, of which I have two! They’re a 3/4 Human Warlock that, upon entering the field, first creates a basic Rat Token, then enchants all your Rats with the Wicked Role (which basically means they add one to both their power and toughness and will also deal one point of damage to your opponent when they die; technically, it’s when the Role Token itself is sent to the graveyard, but that automatically happens when the equipped Rat would die, so it’s okay).

There are a variety of other useful Rat-related cards I nabbed, like a giant magical faerie rat named Old Flitterfang that can fly (basically meaning that they cannot be blocked by any enemy creatures that cannot fly themselves or that have the ability “reach”), a Pied Piper-like character named Totentanz who creates more Rat Tokens whenever one of your creatures dies, and a futuristic rat with swords that forces your opponent to discard a card. However, I couldn’t entirely fill my deck with Rats — not only would my deck have some serious weaknesses (like a lack of low-cost flying creatures or easy removal options), but I didn’t really have enough wildcards to get everything I wanted. No, for this deck to work and truly reveal the great power of ratitude, I needed a few helping hands.

I considered a few options for flyers, though finding good flying creatures that only took a little bit of Black or Red mana to play was somewhat difficult. I was tempted by Barrow Naughty, a 1/3 Faerie that can get lifelink if another Faerie is on the board, and Faerie Dreamthief, a 1/1 Faerie that can help with seeing or drawing the next couple of cards. However, even though they syngerise well enough with each other and felt like they had the right vibe for the deck, I didn’t actually have either of them. Instead, I went with three Savage Gorgers (1/1 Vampires that gain an additional 1/1 counter, boosting both values, every turn that your opponent takes damage) and the Bloodfeather Phoenix (a 2/2 Phoenix that cannot block attacking enemies and can theoretically return to the battlefield after dying if you deal damage with sorceries or instants — basically sorceries, but they can be played whenever). After playing a few test rounds, I found the Phoenix somewhat unhelpful for this deck and might swap them out for one of the Faeries. The Gorgers, on the other hand, were a massive help! Since the deck is built around Rat Tokens (who cannot block) and other Rats, it made the most sense to play aggressively, which also led to my Gorgers growing in strength nearly every turn.

As for finding non-combat methods of dealing with my opponent’s creatures, I used a few fantastic cards. There are some generically useful cards in here, like Murder, which, uh, murders a creature, or Lightning Strike, which can deal three damage to any target. Then there’s also Pile On, an instant that also destroys a creature, only the mana to play it can come from the creatures you control in addition to your typical mana sources — it’s fun to make your opponent think you can’t cast anything because you’ve used “all your mana” to bring out a bunch of Rats, only to take out their strongest creature once they can no longer do anything to stop you. My personal favourite of these, though, is Penregon Besieged, an enchantment (a card with a typically ongoing effect that stays on the board) that perpetually reduces your opponent’s weakest creature’s power and toughness by one at the end of each of your turns. Sadly, Besieged will leave the board once your opponent is out of creatures, but if you can get it out when your opponent has some already and essentially has to keep putting more on the field unless they want to lose, it can seriously turn the game in your favour.

So there I had it: a mostly operational Rat deck for Magic! I decided to call it Song of Ratenratz (as a pun on Song of Totentanz) and set about testing it against other players, both existing friends and random people over ranked matches. I won more often than not, owing in great part to the great control over the field that having loads and loads of Rats offers, but there were a few issues. I already brought up how Bloodfeather Phoenix was underwhelming in performance, but there were also loads of cards that I never actually used. Some of them, like Old Flitterfang or the Charging Hooligan (a guy who temporarily boosts their power when attacking with more creatures), just didn’t seem to come up or be all that necessary, though I feel that’s more down to the luck of the draw. Still, while I enjoy having multiple paths to victory, having more cards that I’m actually going to use is likely better.

Another major issue was the mana supply! I slightly prioritised Black mana since the majority of this deck’s cards use it, but I still often wound up with more Red mana than I needed. Of course, it’s never a good idea to shortchange yourself on any given mana types if they can be used, but I think I can get away with having less Red mana. Theoretically, it could be useful to replace those mana sources with more dual-type sources that offer both Red and Black mana. They usually come with some additional cost, like not being usable on the first turn they enter the field, but they would be more generically useful.

Putting the negatives aside, I was pleasantly surprised by how nicely this deck worked! I was consistently able to get Rats onto the field and remove my opponent’s creatures. Then, once I was able to get either of my Kings or my Sewer-Witches out, I was quickly able to overwhelm my opponents. Savage Gorger especially turned out to be an amazing tool, working particularly well with Penregon Besieged; Gorger doesn’t completely fit the theme, and I still somewhat want to avoid relying on them, but they’ve saved my hide many times now, and I’m happy to have three of them.

For future changes, I’m planning on swapping out my Phoenix for other cheap flyers (likely the Faeries from before, since they can actually block), reducing some of the more costly duplicates that I’m not using (like the Charging Hooligans of which I have two), potentially removing cards that I’ve not yet used (like the Nezumi Free Wheeler, as cool as the art on that card is), and reorganising my mana supply. I don’t want to weaken my deck, but I think these key changes could improve its staying power.

However, even now, Song of Ratenratz is a fun deck to play with! I love using Toxic to complicate the game a little, and it’s just such a nice feeling in my soul to get to see each and every Rat Token enter the field. They’re just so cute! If you’d like to try recreating Song of Ratenratz, it might take a little bit of wildcard use unless you get pretty lucky, but I certainly recommend giving it a shot if you can. Rats are fun and cool, and getting to play as a horde of rats taking a bite out of everything is a fantastic time. Have you ever built a Rat deck? How does it compare to this one? Please let me know in the comments! I’m still learning a lot about Magic, but I’m enjoying it, and I want to learn more.