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Vren, the Relentless is a Dimir (blue/black) commander first released inMagic: The Gathering’sBloomburrow set. It offers a unique take on a Rat Commander deck, focusing more on controlling the battlefield and gaining Rats by doing so rather than going all-in with a ton of Rat creatures.
If you’re looking to play a Vren, the Relentless deck, expect to be countering a lot of spells and removing a lot of creatures. A Vren, the Relentless Commander deck is a hard control deck, shutting off your opponents' resources while you slowly amass a battlefield. If you’re planning on building it, expect to become the enemy at the table.
Sample Decklist
The deck plays a total of16 creatures, ten sorceries, 27 instants, eight artifacts, four enchantments,and34 lands.Since Vren, the Relentless makes creatures on its own, the creature count is very low in favor of interaction and ways to trigger it.
Piper of the Swarm
Go for the Throat
x9 Island
x14 Swamp
What Are The Key Cards?
Vren, the Relentless
The commander of the deck,Vren, the Relentlessis the heart and soul of the deck. It always wants to be on the battlefield, and it can keep itself safe thanks toits ward abilityto make iteven harder to remove.
Vren’s effecttriggers every end step, not just your own. So, if a creature dies in combat and gets exiled with Vren’s passive ability, you’ll get Rats for each creature that died that turn, even if you had nothing to do with it.
Once on the battlefield, it turns all creatures getting exiled into1/1 Rat tokensthatgain stats for each other Rat on the battlefield. Vren can create a ton of tokens quickly,largely thanks to the plethora of cards in the deck that forceopponents to sacrifice creatures, netting you a guaranteed three Rats assuming all of your opponents have at least one creature.
Marrow-Gnawer
Marrow-Gnaweris a way to easily turn your Rat tokens into win conditions. By sacrificing one Rat, you can double the number of Rats you control. While these don’t have the stat-boosting effect the the tokens Vren creates, it willstill boost Vren tokens, since they care about how many Rats you control.
Marrow-Gnawer’s passive ability to give your Rats fear is great too. This makes it so theycan’t be blocked except by artifact and black creatures. If your opponents don’t have either of those, your Rats can attack for guaranteed damage and since they’ll likely have massive stats, it’s possible to win the game off of one combat phase.
Kindred Discovery
Since you’re playing a control deck, you’ll always want to ensure you have interaction in your hand.Kindred Discoveryis a way toget a lot of extra card drawsto ensure you do. It triggers off of both attacks and Rats entering the battlefield, making it capable of drawing a ton of cards in one turn.
It is a bit costly in mana, but theinvestment is worth taking off a turn to cast itsince it provides you with so much card advantage. If creatures are dying on your opponents' turns, Kindred Discovery fills your hand for when you start your turn since youdon’t have to discard for hand size until your end step.
Toxrill, The Corrosive
Toxrill, the Corrosiveis the best support card to be on the battlefield alongside Vren. Not only does it give you more of a board presence by getting Slug tokens, but it’ll also let you draw cards if you’re running low on them in your hand.
Since both Vren and Toxrill activate at the same time, you can choose in which order they resolve. Make sure you stack it so Toxrill’s effect goes off first, as this can increase the number of creatures exiled when Vren’s effect resolves.
Toxrillputs slime counters on all creaturesyou don’t control each end step, so it’svery easy to get multiple creatures dyingeach end step, triggering Vren to make a ton of Rats that’ll have a clear line of attack once you actually start your next turn after the combo gets going.
Grave Pact
Grave Pactmakes it so no one will want to remove any of your creatures, either through a removal spell or in combat. It causes everyother player to have to sacrifice a creature, so even if only one creature dies, everyone has to sacrifice a creature.
Grave Pact triggers off ofevery creature dying,meaning if a board wipe happensand any creature remains, Grave Pact will still make them sacrifice. If Vren stuck to the battlefield, it’ll also convert all those creature deaths (and getting exiled) into a ton of Rat tokens to easily rebuild your battlefield.
Ogre Slumlord
Ogre Slumlordsynergizes amazingly with everything a Vren, the Relentless Commander deck wants to do. Ittriggers off of any nontoken creature dying, meaning with how many creatures you’ll be removing you’ll be getting Rat tokens from both Ogre Slumlord and Vren.
Ogre Slumlord also gives all your Rats deathtouch, making them very threatening blockers, and they’ll kill any creature they block. This will cause an opponent’s creature to die and give you more creature deaths for Ogre Slumlord and Vren to see to make even more tokens.
How To Play The Deck
Control, control, control. The name of Vren’s game ispreventing your opponents from being able to do anything. Ifany spell is cast that threatens Vren, the Relentless specifically, that’s what you’llwant to use your counterspells on.
You generally want tosave your targeted removal for powerful creaturesthat may cause a problem for you because they’re too strong or are giving your opponent an advantage with its effect. Forforced sacrifice, it’s best used when each opponent has a creatureso that Vren will create three Rat tokens.
It’s best to wait to start forcing your opponents to sacrifice creatures once Vren is on the battlefield. While you can do it without, they won’t have enough impact to be worth it.
Generally, you want to useinstant speed removal spellson your opponents' turn, since so long as Vren sticks around for the end step, you’ll still make tokens. Theone exception would be if one creature is shutting down your ability to deal a large burst of damage.
The deck is a biton the slow side since Dimir struggles to efficiently ramp. Once you have multiple mana rocks and lands on the battlefield, you can quickly snowball. However, there aren’t many ways to start setting up defenses early, sodon’t be afraid to use your removal if you’re getting targeted early.
Thewin condition of the deck is winning through combat. This is accomplished by amassing an army of Rat tokens generated by Vren so they have massive stats with how many Rats you’ll have, and then swing in at your opponents for large amounts of damage while removing any hurdles with removal.
