Secret Rat Colony in Standard!

Before you get excited and buy out all the foil Colony Rats – here’s my official disclaimer to the deck:

1. Lost Legacy isn’t played much right now so I think this is a plausible idea
2. Ixalan’s Binding is not played in high numbers so I think this is a plausible idea
3. Don’t run this deck in a PPTQ but if you want to, let me know how it works out!

Rat Colony is the second coming of its first printed brother, Relentless Rats. Both had the same mechanic of having any number of these in your deck. The upside of Relentless Rats is that each other copy also boosts its toughness, as compared to Rat Colony where only power is given the boost. The upside of Rat Colony on the other hand is that its 1 black mana cheaper and get pumped with other rats and not just Rat Colony (which doesn’t matter because there are no rat lords printed yet… M19 please be kind to us).

Because Rat Colony costs cheaper, it scales really well when played together with Bontu’s Monument. For every single black mana, you can cast a Rat Colony and drain the opponent for one. It’s like giving your rats pseudo-haste because you reduce your opponent’s like total the moment you cast them.

24 is the magic number I ended up with because I always wanted to draw a Rat at least every other turn.

Goblin Chainwhirler is going to be the bane of this deck, much like how this goblin slices and dices the other X/1 creatures in the format like Siphoner, Khenra, Bomats, Saprolings, Champion of Wits and Thopters.

The answer? CHAAAARRRGGGEEE!!! This spell is both anti-chainwhirler or a burn spell for our creatures to deal those last point of damage in an alpha strike (can you call three 4/1 rats alpha striking?) No one will ever think that 1 untapped white land can keep our rats alive!

We will play 4 Bontu’s Monument to make sure we get the drains early and make playing less lands less painful. And 3 Throne of the God-Pharaoh. We want our opponent to bleed constantly inside and outside of combat. Playing Rats drains for one and attacking drains for even more.

If you’re wondering what happens if we are out of cards and we need a fresh new grip of 7 cards to deal the last point of damage. Well, we will use a 10 cent rare from Aether Revolt called Secret Salvage. Its like a reversed Lost Legacy where we exile one of our rats in the graveyard and fetch all the possible rats we want from our library into our hand. With a lot of swamps and a Cabal Stronghold in hand – we will have the mana to cast this and still have left over mana to cast the rats in the same turn. With Bontu’s Monument out, we can also drain our opponent for 1 life for each rat we fetched and cast with Secret Salvage!

Decklist:

Creatures: 24

24 Rat Colony

Spells: 7

4 Charge

3 Secret Salvage

Artifacts: 7

4 Bontu’s Monument

3 Throne of the God-Pharaoh

Lands: 22

14 Swamps

4 Isolated Chapel

2 Concealed Courtyard

1 Cabal Stronghold

1 Plains

Sideboard: 15

4 Fatal Push

4 Duress

4 Cast Down

3 Demystify

Demystify is our specific answer to Ixalan’s Binding. Though it is not longer played a lot, we can use Demystify to remove an unsuspecting Seal Away sitting on one of our Rat Colony. If the opponent thought he will survive after declaring no blocks, and suddenly you Demystify their Seal Away to bring back the exiled Rat to pump your entire army 1 more power PER rat, the opponent might suddenly turn from alive to dead. It’s also a great answer to History of Benalia, Authority of the Consuls and the likes.

Our Anti-Settle/Fumigate card. We normally cast this once our opponent has 4 or 5 mana free. With Settle the Wreckage, it’s easier to play around this since our rats are already huge so swinging in for 2 rats can deal 8 damage on their own. Fumigate is the more problematic card so I like to reserve Duress before my opponent’s turn 5.

Cast Down is for threats we can’t deal with early like Steel Leaf Champion or a Rekindling Phoenix. Together with Fatal Push, these cards come in against decks that play a lot of creatures that attempt to block our rats and prevent us from getting to c-rat-ical mass!

Now that you’ve read this – think twice before leaving your Rat Colonies on the store table after picking up the rares from your Dominaria Packs.

Have an awesome weekend, guys!

Vanson