MTG Salvation

Work in Progress

Relentless Rats is now been downshifted to a common in Masters 25. This is my prototype experimental jank deck using Relentless Rats as the main card. My goal is to get as many Relentless Rats out as fast as I can.
Also, feedback is appreciated.

Relentless Rats is unfortunate in that it requires the other card to be named Relentless Rats to count, and not just be a rat.

Their efficiency is pretty bad in pauper. In pauper 4/4s cost about 2 to be competive(wight of precinct 6, Myr Enforcer, Carapace Forger, werebear, etc). 1-2 mana beaters are dominant, anything over that also provides card advantage.

Getting 1 into play it is 2 power below par, two is 1 power, three is coming close to even, and only getting four on the field can you actually pull ahead.

So for Relentless Rats to work you need to be able to get one more out every turn and be resistant to disruption while you do it, or get a ton out the first turn and kill before the opponent can do anything. I think the dominaria rat is going to be better at 2 mana and able to work with rat tribal, relentless rats seems just too slow and fragile.

Peat Bog is great here. I don't think I would even try to run Dark Ritual and especially not Cabal Ritual. These cards are card disadvantage for a card that will probably die to removal, so 2-for-1ing yourself is not a good place to be.

You're running too few Rats. There, I said it. I think you want somewhere between 28-32 Relentless Rats to really be able to take advantage of their ability.

Undying Evil is a great card to play, as it will protect and pump a rat that's about to die. Unearth is great, too.

Have you considered splashing Green for Echoing Courage and Lead the Stampede? Mass pump for cheap seems nice, and drawing tons of rats seems better than Read the Bones. Elves of Deep Shadow could help you get to 1BB earlier, though it would require an untapped green source on turn 1, which is sketchy.

I think I'd start with something like this:

Quote from Upkeep »

Peat Bog is great here. I don't think I would even try to run Dark Ritual and especially not Cabal Ritual. These cards are card disadvantage for a card that will probably die to removal, so 2-for-1ing yourself is not a good place to be.

You're running too few Rats. There, I said it. I think you want somewhere between 28-32 Relentless Rats to really be able to take advantage of their ability.

Undying Evil is a great card to play, as it will protect and pump a rat that's about to die. Unearth is great, too.

Have you considered splashing Green for Echoing Courage and Lead the Stampede? Mass pump for cheap seems nice, and drawing tons of rats seems better than Read the Bones. Elves of Deep Shadow could help you get to 1BB earlier, though it would require an untapped green source on turn 1, which is sketchy.

I think I'd start with something like this:

Golgari RatsMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Creatures (30) 30 Relentless Rats Spells (10) 2 Undying Evil 4 Unearth 4 Lead the Stampede	Lands (20) 4 Peat Bog 4 Jungle Hollow 2 Golgari Guildgate 2 Mortuary Mire 8 Swamp

I'd expand on the card draw stuff a bit;



My biggest issue is that the deck has no room to sideboard and is extremely linear. Yeah, sometimes you are going to get a few rats out and they wont have an answer. other times, you are going to lose one at end of turn and watch a sweeper kill the rest and be in top deck mode for a long time.

My question would be what sweepers in this format will kill them off? Most Pauper sweepers are made to take care of 2 toughness creatures or weaker. Even Echoing Decay would only work on a single Rat unless their casting multiple. The only other thing is Swirling Sandstorm and that only sees fringe play and would work against any regular aggro deck we would play otherwise. Echoing Truth might be the biggest problem though.

I agree about the other problems you have with the deck. My main issue is that we're pretty slow to build up and don't have any of the other casual cards that are used with Relentless Rats like Thrumming Stone or the Surgical Extraction/Shelldock Isle trick.

The best route to go is with Upkeep's plan though with more card draw. Lotus Petal can be good for a second turn Rat early on, but it's somewhat dead in later turns.

Black is pretty common where I'm at. Crypt Rats and pestilence are a common sight.

if we could get swarmyard downshifted this would suddenly be a great deck. Free regeneration would make a big difference in fixing the removal issue.

Slivers isn't very good and their creatures are cheaper, more cumulative and have actual effects so it will take some new synergies for this to be decent.

How about running 6 Rat Colony as a curve-starter for the deck? They still get pumped by Relentless Rats and could potentially do as much damage.

I like rat colony more then relentless rats, something like:



The other rats protect the swarm by grinding the opponent's hand, we get very big creatures and lead the stampede nets the deck almost a full hand every time.

I like where this deck is going, actually. I would keep it mono black and focus more on early discard to get the opponent top-decking while we beat them down with powerful rats.

That looks pretty good, I'm going to make the paper one and try it out!

My online tests with the GB version found it was very weak to sweepers, but death denied can help with that.

I`m also going to give this a try.

Burglar Rat is a new Ravenous Rats, which could be interesting to have more copies of.

I've tested a few games in the "just for fun" room. Played a couple white decks. No removal means we're a bit squishy to Kor Skyfisher. Otherwise I've been able to race well. Keeping their hand empty is a huge bonus. Death Denied is really powerful and should probably be a 2-of.

I think I'll try a Dimir version with the Mnemonic Wall/ Ghostly Flicker combo for the late game hard-lock and the early game discard with Ravenous Rats/ Burglar Rat. It also opens up some options in the sideboard.

In standard U can make them unblockble or black can make them all cost 1, so pauper has some disadvantages for rats. I like the DD plan, it makes the deck recover from being fragile.

Dimir also gives you access to Mizzium Skin to stop an Echoing Decay or Electrickery postboard. You can even get counter spells for further protection.

Heh, the thought of stopping an Overload spell with an Overload spell seems funny to me...

I'm looking at something like this: