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Marrow-Gnawer is one of the best Rat commanders available inMagic: The Gathering. It is often at the face of most Rat Commander decks, with the ability to snowball the game if not left in check, one of Rats' main traits in Commander.
Piper of the Swarm
Throne of the God-Pharaoh
x28 Swamp
War Room
Witch’s Cottage
The deck contains 35 creatures, four sorceries, nine instants, 16 artifacts, one enchantment, and 34 lands. Thedeck is heavily focused on creatures, while benefiting from artifactsto boost their power which is why they make up the majority of the deck.
Key Cards
Marrow-Gnawer
As you may expect,Marrow-Gnawer, the commander, is the most important card in the deck. The static ability to give all your Rats fear is useful to get in for guaranteed damage, as it makes it so yourRats can only be blocked by artifact and/or black creatures.
Marrow-Gnawer’s ability can be activated at instant speed, meaning you may use it before the turn cycle comes back to you, so all the Rats it makes will be able to attack without summoning sickness.
The more important ability is its activated ability to sacrifice a Rat to put Rat tokens into play. It willalways double the number of Rats you have, increasing your board presence with one activation. you’re able to sacrifice a weak Rat to get the token generation going, as once the ability is used once it’ll progressively get stronger as more Rats are put into play.
Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm
Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarmquickly becomes the strongest Rat in the deck once it hits the battlefield. It boosts the power of all your other Rats on both attack and block, meaning you won’t have to worry about chump blocking because your Rats will suddenly become massive so long as you have a lot on the battlefield.
Ashcoat needs to be attacking or blocking to trigger its effect, so make sure it’s either attacking safely or blocking a weak creature asAshcoat will not give itself a stat boost.
Theeffect to mill fourat the end step can be useful for getting Rats into your hand that got removed. Notably, the returned Rats don’t have to be among the cards milled. The effect is optional, justbe careful as it may accidentally mill a useful non-Rat cardthat’ll be near-impossible to get back.
Rat Colony
One of the few Magic cards that let you play any number of copies in your deck,Rat Colonyis a great tool for Marrow-Gnawer decks. With how many Rats you’ll be making, Rat Colony’s power will skyrocket and progressively become a must-answer creature.
Rat Colony only costs two mana, making it easy to get onto the battlefield early and if you draw multiple, you can raise the power of each one. Marrow-Gnawer’s effect to generate more Rats for practically free makes all your Rat Colony copies on the battlefield giant, albeit still with one toughness.
Karumonix, The Rat King
A great commander in its own right,Karumonix, the Rat Kingmakes for a great choice in the 99 as well. Its enter effect is great, getting you Rats in your hand so you always have more Rats to play. Since the rest of the cards aren’t put into the graveyard, you get to keep them in your deck for later.
Themain attraction is giving your Rats toxic one, however. This makes it so that if they connect for damage, it’ll give your opponent a poison counter, and ten poison counters mean they lose the game. While they can be blocked, since Marrow-Gnawer makes so many Rats, odds are there’ll be too many Rats to block asif just ten connect, that opponent is out of the game.
Mirkwood Bats
One of the very few non-Rat creatures,Mirkwood Batsdoes too much for the deck to not include. Itturnsany token creationinto burn damageto every opponent. Marrow-Gnawer is capable of creating dozens of tokens at a time, and when combined with certain artifacts, can make enough tokens to burn everyone out of the game with Mirkwood Bats.
As an added bonus,it’ll burn when you sacrifice tokens as well. This is how you’ll activate Marrow-Gnawer’s ability most of the time, as well as for a lot of the instant spells that draw you cards at the cost of sacrificing a creature.
Coat Of Arms
Coat of Armsis a staple artifact for any deck playing mostly one creature type. Since you’ll have so many Rats on the battlefield at all times, Coat of Arms will give stat boosts to all of them for each other Rat on the battlefield.
This turns what would normally be mostly 1/1 Rat tokens into massive threats that arenear-impossible to defeat in combat. It’s one of the main win conditions of the deck as few decks can fend off an army of massive Rats that have over ten power each.
How To Play The Deck
Marrow-Gnawer commander decksare all about flooding the battlefield with Rats and chipping away at your opponents' life totals. This is backed up by cards that increase the stats of certain creature types likeCoat of Arms, Door of Destinies,andHeraldic Banner.
Marrow-Gnawer’s effect is the main way you’ll be building up a board presence quickly, so ways to re-use it multiple times a turn are key. This is accomplished with artifacts likeIllusionist’s BracersandMagewright’s Stonewhich let you re-trigger Marrow-Gnawer. Although the new Rats have summoning sickness,Crashing Drawbridgecan give them haste the turn they enter.
There are a lot of ways todraw cards in the deck, letting you keep your hand full and dig through your deck for your most important Rats and artifacts.Deadly Dispute,Eviscerator’s Insight, andAltar’s Reapall draw you two cards by sacrificing a creature for cost, something you’ll have a plethora of fodder to feed into the costs.
When sacrificing cards for cost, you want to primarily use Rat tokens as these are easy to get back. However, if unable to do so, using your weaker Rats and creatures that already used their enter the battlefield triggers are the second best targets.
Marrow-Gnawer Commander decks win through a few ways.It primarily wins through combat, generating so many Rat tokens that your opponents won’t have enough creatures to block them. Even if they’re 1/1s, with so many that can be enough. When stat-boosting effects are tossed in, it becomes even easier to win quickly.
Other win conditionsinclude burning everyone out of the game, either withMirkwood BatsandThrone of the God-Pharaohwhich can burn with token creation and for each tapped creature you control respectively.Foul-Tongue Shriekcan also take someone out by burning someone for each attacking creature you control while gaining that much life to keep you in the game.
