Rats have been aroundMagic: The Gatheringsince the release of Ice Age in 1995. Despite how long the creature type has been around, there is actually a rather small number of Rat cards, with only about 100 Rats in all of Magic. The type is most common in Kamigawa sets, with appearances in other ones like Ravnica and Bloomburrow.
Rats are best known for their ability to flood the battlefield and take advantage of how many Rats you control. The majority of Rats are black, with some appearing in other colors as well, most commonly blue. Despite the low number of Rats, the power of the best is very high.
10Refurbished Familiar
One-Mana Forced Discard
Although Refurbished Familiar costs four mana, more often than not, you’ll be casting it for much less, usually just one black mana. There are so many ways to get artifacts onto the battlefield; having an affinity of three to discount the generic mana in its cost is trivial, letting you potentially get it onto the battlefield as early as turn one.
Refurbished Familiar has become a staple in thePauper format in Affinity decksand has a home in other formats where Affinity is a viable strategy, such as Commander.
9Ink-Eyes, Servant Of Oni
Sudden Graveyard Recursion
Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni can keep itself protected with its ability to regenerate itself, all while being able to safely hit the battlefield with ninjutsu. Since ninjutsu is an ability, it can’t be countered by most counterspells, making it easy to guarantee Ink-Eyes connects for damage.
If your opponent has a lot of cards in the graveyard, you can keep connecting for damage with Ink-Eyes to keep getting them onto your battlefield. If you have ways to make Ink-Eyes an evasive attacker orif you give it double strike, you can use Ink-Eyes' ability twice.
8Crypt Rats
Common Board Wipe
Crypt Rats isone of the very few board wipesthat are available at the common rarity, making it widely played in Pauper decks that want something like that in their deck (primarily Golgari Gardens). So long as you have black mana to spend, Crypt Rats can wipe the board of anything as well as deal burn damage to your opponents.
Since only black mana can be used for Crypt Rats, it’s often played in decks that primarily use black mana, as the more colors you add, the harder it can be to activate. It’s a great way to close out a game if you manage to generate infinite mana.
7Nashi, Moon Sage’s Scion
Trade Life For Spells
Nashi is both a great Rat and commander, letting you cast the top card of someone’s library whenever it deals combat damage. If you have it in your hand, you can help guarantee the effect goes off by using ninjutsu on an unblockable creature.
The one downside to Nashi, Moon Sage’s Scion is you need to plan your deck around it. While casting spells without spending mana is great, Nashi can burn you out really fast. As such, it’s important to include ways to gain life if you’re opting to have a deck with Nashi as a part of its game plan.
6Pack Rat
The Bane Of Limited
If you have ever played a limited format with Pack Rat in it, you know just how out of hand this card can get. Pack Rat can easily make copies of itself, so long as you have mana to spend and cards to discard.
Pack Rat and its copies will boost each other up, and when combined with other Rat cards, the stats only get higher. For just two mana, you can start impacting the board right away. Since the token copies also have the ability to create token copies of themselves, once one copy hits the battlefield, it’ll be very difficult to remove them permanently.
5Vren, The Relentless
Rat Of Control
Vren, the Relentless is a Rat that wants you to constantly be destroying your opponents' creatures. Vren’s effect triggers on every end step, not just your own, so you can generate a ton of Rat tokens without having to use your removal only on your turn.
The Rat tokens Vren creates all get extra stats for every Rat, sowith just a few removal effects, you’ll have an army of Rat tokens that’ll be hard to deal with. Vren’s ward effect helps keep it safe from removal effects, especially if you have protection and counterspells to back it up.
4Greasefang, Okiba Boss
Speeding Vehicles
If you want to play adeck built around Vehicles, Greasefang, Okiba Boss is the card for you. It can bring any Vehicle out from the graveyard with haste, letting you attack with it right away so long as you have enough power to crew it.
The most common Vehicle used in tandem with Greasefang is Parhelion II, which leaves behind two 4/4 flying Angel tokens with vigilance. This combo is most common in Pioneer, where Greasefang is among the top decks, thanks to how easy it is to fill the graveyard in that format.
3Rat Colony
As Many As You Want
Rat Colony is one of the small handful of cards that let you play any number of copies in your deck. It’s often the focus of plenty of Rat decks, as the copies boost themselves and take advantage of generic Rat support cards to give them useful static abilities.
If you are playing a Rat Colony deck, Thrumming Stone is a must-include, as it’ll let you cast a spell with the same name among the top four cards of your library. This combo has the potential to get you a ton of Rat Colony copies on the battlefield with just the cast of one.
2Ashcoat Of The Shadow Swarm
Warlock Of Rats
Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm is one of the best support cards for any Rat deck. It’ll give your Rats massive power and toughness boosts when it attacks, so long as you have a lot of Rats on the battlefield (which in Rat decks, you most certainly will).
The effect to mill and return Rat creatures is great as well. Notably, the returned Rats don’t need to be among the cards you milled, so if a powerful Rat gets removed, Ashcoat can easily get it back so long as you don’t mind milling four cards (and that effect can play into graveyard synergies too).
1Marrow-Gnawer
Fear The Rats
Marrow-Gnawer is the primary commander for Rat decks if you’re building one, and even if you aren’t using it as a commander, it’s the best Rat card there is. By sacrificing a Rat, you can double up on the number of Rats you control. If you have ways to untap it right away, you can do this multiple times a turn to create agiant battlefield of Rat tokens.
In addition to making a giant number of Rats, Marrow-Gnawer gives them all fear, meaning only black and artifact creatures can actually block them. If no opponent has either of those, the Rats can swing in without worry and deal a ton of damage with how many are swinging in.
