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Marrow-Gnawer is the commander, but just there to be a commander
Get out as many rats as you can, enhance them if possible
This deck has been viewed 15,355 times.
so, does the card effect replace the commander rule?
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Yes.If not, I don't know a play group that would contest to it.
Just saw your deck and wow seems legit but I have one question who is the recommended commander for the deck?
Just saw your deck worldsoul and wow seems legit but I have one question who is the recommended commander for the deck?
Which one?
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***a budgeted standard deck, if thats possible: http://www.mtgvault.com/wowwow27/decks/landho-have-a-cigar/ ...also the bigger cards may hold modern value. thank me later-
I think so. I don't see why it wouldn't
good point.
oh, can you look at my decks?
Great deck! I aprove. It looks like a lot of fun to play. If I may suggest cards, here are my picks:Adaptive Automaton (looks good)Brass Herald (maybe)Door of Destinies (definitely) Konda's Banner (good on the commander)Obelisk of Urd (not as good as others, but if you don't mind cutting a couple rats)Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII (good for making a huge army of rats. I really like this one)Storage Matrix (great for trolling your opponents)Pack Rat (great for huge swarms: please run!)I like Door of Destinies, Storage Matrix Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII, Pack Rat, and maybe Adaptive Automaton. At least take a peek at all these cards, maybe sideboard them, maybe run them.Great deck! +1! Keep up the good work!
those cards are awesome!
also, Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII does not make rats. It makes thrulls, Camarids, Citizens, Saprolings, or Goblins.
Whoops. You're right. But the other ones work.
Pack rat can't get as big as the relentless rats, ad storage matrix isn't right for the deck. The other's look good, though
Acutely, I'd have to disagree on Pack Rats, and here is why:Pack Rat would acutely be the same as Relentless Rats, except with -1,-1. The difference is that you can discard a card to get another strong creature, so if you have too many swamps, you can discard it to get another pack rat. And, while it may be the same as Relentless Rats with -1,-1, but with the ability to clone? I'd personally take. Now, that's my decision, and it is ultimately up to you, but that's my argument.I'm just pointing out the use of Pack Rat, not saying "You should run it or else I will hate you forever! Bwahahaha!" That was quotes, not real, so don't freak out xD.
just annother thing to point out: Pack Rat is worse than Relentless Rats for this deck NOT because of numbers on the battlefield, but because of numbers in the deck. A commander deck can have 99 Relentless Rats, but only one Pack Rat. I would take a +1/+1 over clone if it meant I'd see it more often.
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but lategame pack rat can turn lands into pack rats, there is literally no reason to not have it in the deck
the pack rat can be killed in early or mid game though, so it has to be a middle-deck card to be effective.
I think you guys are forgetting that pack rat works with rat tokens. Considering marrow and slumlord pack rat would be way stronger then your ral rats. The only reason not to have pack rat is because it wouldn't sync with thrumming stone.
What about Pack Rat??
I included that in my suggestions.
you might think about having Thespian's stage in here, so you can have a second swarmyard.
No, as that would require drawing both cards (2 cards) out of a 99 card deck, so the odds that you'll draw both are so low that it's better just to have more rats. The odds would end up around 2/99, more if you count mulls.
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double comment!
Yeah. Same thing here. :)
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Triple post
you should run Shizo, Death's Storehouse to give Marrow Gnawer fear and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to turn the board into swamps, could help with some swampwalk rats if you wanted to run any
Also Marrow-Gnawer gives rats fear, and I want as many relentless rats as possible so I don't want any swampwalk rats
So sorry for the multiple posts sormtide! It wasn't showing up as being posted for me, apologies. Shizo is harder to get rid of and since it doesn't come into the battlefield tapped there isn't a drawback to replacing a swamp with one. You may also want to run Volrath's stronghold to get back the slumlord or the artifact lords. Maybe one nevinyrral's disk to get rid of enemy artifacts and enchantments / boardwipe.
Shizo could only work on Marrow-Gnawer, and there's not much point in that since he would have fear. I'm trying to keep this deck modern, so Volrath's Stronghold would ruin that. Nevinyrral's disk would destroy all of my things too. And that happens to me
I personally wouldn't, because:1.) IT could HELP your opponent2.) It's 7 dolors for something useless, or helpful to your opponent3.) Why put in an expensive, useless, possibly-help-your-opponent card?
I mean Tomb of Yawgmoth when I say you shouldn't
So, this is just a curious question...are you keeping it Modern legal so you'll have the base for a Modern deck if you decide to switch it up? Just wondering, because I've never come across someone having that criteria for a Commander deck before. (Considering you don't need much in the way of bells & whistles, it's not a bad idea...Commander can get pricey pretty quickly if you don't already have a lot of your cards.) +1.
What do you mean?
Why do you want to keep your deck Modern legal, when Commander doesn't require that? Again, just curious.
I don't know, i just like to have modern decks if I can. Also a lot of the vintage cards they suggested wouldn't help the deck much, unless i read them wrong
'Nuff said. Thanks for getting back. :)
If you find the wording on old cards confusing just look them up on gatherer.They normally have the text 'modernized' also rules text for confusing bits.
Stormtide, just repeating the message here, in case you miss it on "Temur Badger Rage"...for a list of decks featuring less-than-mainstream tribes, look up, "Tribal challenge! Whats yours?" by zaklax13. Happy hunting! (I'm about to go check out the elephant one myself!! :D)
OK, i'll do that later
Just to forewarn you about the elephants, though...apparently THAT tribe went extinct. -.-
funny, I didn't know
Have you ever actually tried playing anyone with this?You need to compare what your deck is realistically capable of consistantly doing & how fastIn a format that can see Genesis wave for 14 on turn 7 quite easily or a boardwipe every turn lockdown combo you need to think, if I go uncontested I might have a couple 4/4s that do nothing else like turn 5, will that be good enough?You need to look at what cards are actually doing for you & understand if their actually helpful or a hinderance & will actually prevent you from doing your thing as quickly & relyably as possibleAdaptive automation = same mana cost, dosnt get boosted by rats ability, dosnt continue thrumming stone = hinderanceCoat of arms = already have that ability with the rats themselves, a proper rat deck should have all its rats out making the rats big enough to win on their own, dosnt carry on thrumming stone = hinderanceDoor of destinies = same issues as coat of armsI would basically cut everything you have except the rats themselves & thrumming stoneOgre slumlord is OK cuz he helps if u get wrathedThen I'd run as many fetchland that can grab black as possible to thin your deck out so that you reduce your risk of missing a thrumming stone trigger (I hope you know that you can run any fetchland in any color edh deck cuz they don't actually have any mana symbols on them)I'd switch your commander to something that can tutor for thrumming stone itself like sidisi& mana ramp, Sol ring, mana vault& just straight tutors your in monoblack, demonic tutor vampiric tutor
double post
Aether vial seems like it would make this deck a lot better...
I'll cut adaptive automaton, konda's banner, brass herald, obelisk of urd, and door of destiny. Coat of arms doubles the effect of the rats, the whip is for lifegain, and the slumlord is for early in the game. And I haven't used this deck in real ife, it's too expensive for me to buy.
I would keep herald, he lets you draw cards.
Go to a staples or a library & print off the cards, there's a handly little "proxy this deck" button on the right side of this screen to make it real easy, bup 100 random cheap cards in sleeves with the proxies over top & test it in real life before spending money on anything, every player should do this with every deck to see how it actually holds up against an opponent trying to stop itYou'll find cards that you thought were good actually suck & vice versa, over the course of years you'll save yourself $1000s & you'll get more skilled in every aspect substantially faster due to experimenting so muchThen when you've got a deck that you love & its exactly how you like it just buy those specific cardsAnyone bitching that your not using real cards just wants to be able to smack people with their wallets, this game is a test of intelligence, not whos willing to live in their parents basement so they can afford a playset of force of will& if they continue bitching I usually whip out my consistantly win turn 2 legacy deck that I own in entirety & they usually say OK u can go back to proxies that I actually have a chance against
Proxies for commander sure, but anything else? unless its just testing with friends to see how you like a deck nope.besides maybe legacy, our legacy group was letting something like 20 proxies (most people just used land proxies), just because we wanted to expand the legacy community without scaring people off with too pricy of decks.Most of us get to a point where we just want fancy commander decks, my one buddy has a printer that can print over foils. He printed alt art for every single card in a few of his decks lol, some people would bitch about it and he would have the other deck on standby to show he had the real cards lol
I would say Aether vial and eldrazi monument seem good here.Monument is great while your commander is in play.
Put in Akroma's Memorial or some card that'll give your rats Haste. That way you can play that and Thrumming Stone and win.
Pretty nice commander deck here. +1! the only issue I have is with coat of arms. people have already commented on it already, but I'd cast my vote for replacing it with door of destinies so as not to give your opponents the benefit of coat of arms...
Door of destinies only gives +1/+1 for the ones that enter after it (though it does give +1/+1 to all of them) but coat of arms would double the ability
i have a relentless rats edh with this general, and i can tell you this much, this deck will never work as is. black has the best search cards in the game and this deck has none of them. i ran 28 rats, since that's how many my card store had to buy, and statistically i SHOULD hit a rat within every 4 cards, and never has it not popped off twice in a row, so 2 rats in hand is all u need once the stone is out, or buff up to 40 rats so 1 is all u need.but please put Diabolic Tutor, Increasing Ambition, Rune-Scarred Demon, or if u got money, Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor.there's also a lot of good draw like, Baneful Force, Bloodgift Demon and Phyrexian Arena which all draw u an extra card at the cost of 1 life, or Staff of Nin which comes with damage, or Smothering Abomination to sac'ing tokens and synergizing with the general. Indulgent tormentor and Gravestorm provide ways to pressure ur enemies until they are forced to allow u to draw cards. and if u don't mind ur opponents drawing cards there is Howling Mine, Font of Mythos, Temple Bell, and Seizan, Perverter of Truth.also the MOST IMPORTANT THING Bone Harvest(although not as good) and the amazing twin-cards Gravepurge and Footbottom Feast which will put ur entire army back on top ur deck if someone sweeps the board, then the cards draw u a rat and u play them all over again, i say Bone Harvest is weaker since u only draw a card at the next upkeep but it is and instant so doing at their end step is still just as goodlastly, lands that produce vast amounts of black mana, they can be expensive but try proxying them against some friends for 10 games and you'll be saving pennies just to bag these the second u spot them at the store, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is awesome. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth works great with Cabal Coffers. Crypt of Agadeem if u end up with more creatures other than relentless. Thespian's Stage and Vesuva can become copies of the Coffers and offer even more mana. Desserted Temple is great to untap any of ur multi-mana lands and if u and the pricey Crucible of Worlds u can add Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins as welli really hope that this helps, the rats are a fun deck, but they don't hold there own without the stone and u can wait 80 turns for the stone to show up. good luck, godspeed, n let the force be with u
Thanks for the suggestions. I'm keeping the lands the way that they are to keep the deck relatively cheap (for people with more money than me). Also, I put some of the cards you suggested into the sideboard so that people still can have it modern if they want. You are right that it needs more "search your library" cards though.
glad i could help
glad i could helpp.s. stormtide is one of my fav and most nostalgic cards
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thornbyte staff
34 basic swamps!? Okay, so you are on a budget and don't want to add something like Volrath's Stronghold and Wasteland, but there are many affordable non-basics that would give you options, at the very least you should run Bojuka Bog.
i have a rat deck not wuite like tis bu similar a good cad for this deck would be door of destinies artifact, as door of destinies comesinto play choose creature type then when ever a spell of that type comes into play put a charge counter on door of destinies creatures you control of that chosen type get +1/+1 for each charge counter
One question about this deck who is the recommended card to place as commander?
Marrow-Gnawer of course. It's the only legend in the deck.
I have played a Relentless rats EDH deck with Marrow-Gnawer as commander for about 2 yrs now and he is definitely the best choice as general, and competitive in multi-player formats. You have covered most of the bases , but there are few cards you could add for more consistency. Cabal Coffers and Sol Ring - mono black staples. Brainspoil and, Beseech the Queen to tutor for Thrumming Stone. Necropotence, Greed or Phyrexian Arena for card draw. Patriarch's Bidding and Elixir of Immortatity for recovery from board wipe. Also useful are Whispersilk cloak, Loxodon Warhammer, Swiftfoot Boots or Lightning Greaves, and lastly Grave Pact, Syphon Mind and Crystal Ball. My deck only plays 35 rats so I have room for all of this toolbox flavor. Good luck with your deck. Rats often rule the field. Currently playing Grenzo Dungeon Master in EDH.
Thanks for the suggestions.
May I suggest [Door of Destinies] (( http://www.mtgvault.com/card/door-of-destinies/M14/ )) as a possible replacement for Coat of Arms ...?It has advantages, and disadvantages, compared to Coat-of-Arms in that CoA will work even if it's the last card on the table ... while DoD needs to be out as soon as possible. The advantage is: DoD's counters don't go away when a rat dies, so the bonus only ever goes UP ... never down.Picture, after bringing DoD out you cast five rat spells. That's 5 counters, +5/+5 for all rats. Then an opponent does a board wipe, and you're down to 0 rats. Summon one more rat, the DoD goes to 6 counters, and your single rat is +6/+6. With CoA, it'd be +0/+0.
I'm not sure if this has been suggested yet but Thornbite Staff + Marrow-Gnawer makes tokens forever.
wow! this is super sweet, it really speaks to me.
So, what does it say?
too many rats
I haven't read all of the comments but I would suggest adding, Urza's Incubator, Lifeline, Palace Siege, Oversold Cemetery, Cryptic Gateway, Obelisk of Urd, Orbs of Warding, Akroma's Memorial, Sanguine Bond ( combo with whip)
oh yeah and Patriarch's Bidding, Cloud Key, Æther Vial ( keep it at 3 so you can drop rats over and over for free), Soul Foundry
You have to realize, though, that every single card you add will reduce the number of Relentless Rats. At some point you'll run the risk of Thrumming Stone's ripple effect to fail, which is this deck is relying on. Even as a regular deck wihout ripple combo you should be careful to lower the RR-count - at some point you'll have more support cards in the deck than actual rats! You suggested no less than 12 (!) cards to add which would reduce the amount of the currently 50 RRs down to 38. And that's a huge difference ... you'll draw a rat every third card instead of every second!
diabolic tutor, or some tutor to tutor up rise of the dark realms, its not fair; but such is life (surgical extraction, cranial extraction, + theres another, maybe more).
>> You have to realize, though, that every single card>> you add will reduce the number of Relentless Rats.>> At some point you'll run the risk of Thrumming>> Stone's ripple effect to fail, which is this deck is>> relying on.Yes, and no. The current build shows _FIFTY_ Relentless Rats in the deck. That's literally half of all the cards in the deck, including the Commander.Going to 45 or even as low as 40, would still statistically preserve the benefit for that Thrumming Stone (at 40 cards, 40% of your Rippled cards should be Relentless Rats - which is 1.6 cards on average). Obviously, you don't want to go too low. But shaving out up to 5 or even 10 RRs to make room for other useful cards is entirely worthwhile.Not that my own list of suggestions would include all those OM listed. My first go-to for a mono-Type // Tribal deck was already adopted (Door of Destinies) ... but there's still other cards I think could be made room for:[Soul Foundry] - make token Relentless Rats. It costs you one RR to put in the deck, and one more RR to Imprint on it, for 2 RRs down. But in return, you can pump out a new RR every turn, regardless of cards drawn - you only need the {3} mana. NOTE ALSO, this can provide you with an easy way to "feed" your commander's ability. Make a token, sacrifice a token, cause a whole LOT of other tokens to appear.[Obelisk of Urd] - +2/+2 to chosen creature type ("Rat", of course); has Convoke to reduce net cost.[Grimoire of the Dead] - bring back EVERY creature in EVERY graveyard under your control. Excellent counter-boardwipe measure. (Plus you get _their_ creatures too.)
He suggested no less than 12 cards which means he would go down to 38 rats, that's roughly every third card. Ripple looks up 4. While he will still get a rat statistically within those 4, chances aren't big enough anymore to count on it or to dump a significant number of them in one go. Statistically speaking you would get 3 rats and than failing to get one. It also means that, statistically speaking, Thrumming Stone will grant you NO rat every fourth game.Also, what I said was just a reminder - every time you add something, a rat will go and that will effect their performance. You have to seriously weigh the addition and the more you go down, the better the card you add needs to be. A lot of what he suggested was "meh".It's just a lesson I learned in the early days when I made a goblin deck. I ran Goblin Kings, Goblin Shrines, Goblin Caves and Goblin Warrens in full playets each and added even more things on top of that like Keldon Warlords and Goblin Grenades to go with the Warrens. But it turned out to have way too many pumpers/enablers/cards that are only good when it is rolling and way too few actual goblins (Goblin King was just a "Lord" but not a goblin back then).
the cards I'm suggesting cast all the rats at once; cheap too.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/wowwow27/m.html?item=182065503058&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562
i wasn't suggesting you add all of them just look at each card and consider them because they all have amazing buffs for the deck but its your decision of which direction you want to take the deck
Brainspoil and Dimir House guard are good for tutoring in EDH play your sideboard tutors in place of a few rats so you get out the creatures and artifacts that pump up the rats already in play. (Brainspoil for Thrumming Stone or kill something if its more important) Beseech the Queen is ok also
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cloaning this deck it looks like lots of fun lol
I updated this earlier today. Did it alert you, or is it just a coincidence? Because this hasn't had activity in months, so that's a bit weird
i just found it today lol im looking for other edh decks cuz as soon as my group figures out my deck they team up on me xD
btw when i cloaned it i dropped on of the relentless rats and put akromas memorial in since imo thats too good not to use lol
Only suggestions I'd make are more black mana ramp sources like Cabal Stronghold, Cabal Coffers, Crypt of Agadeem, and Nykthos Shrine to Nyx is a must for mono-colored decks. With all those rats on the board your devotion will be insane. As for creatures, Magus of the Coffers basically doubles your black mana and has a nice 4/4 body behind it. Crypt Ghast also does basically the same thing, just costs less to cast. I'd also consider cutting some rats to run a full playset of Ogre Slumlord and Marrow-Gnawer. That way, you won't have to rely on tutors as much to find them. Finally, board wipes do happen often in commander, so I'd have at least a few ways of bringing your creatures back from the grave. I see you are running gravepurge and footbottom feast, but I'd prefer cards that actually return your creatures straight to the battlefield instead of on top of your library. Cards like Twilight's Call, Rise of the Dark Realms, Patriarch's Bidding, and Living Death pretty much accomplish this without question. Sure they have higher CMC's, but the payoff during the long game is much stronger. Have you considered more card draw engines like Phyrexian Arena and/or Underworld Connections? This will keep you from going into the dreaded "top deck mode" and allow you to keep flooding the board with rats. Is Marrow-Gnawer your commander? He's the only legendary creature you are running it looks like. Anyway, those are the changes I'd make if this were my deck. Hope I may have been of some help. Cool deck!