mark cerqueira well-rounded nerd

Professional Rat Colony Deck

04 May 2018

With the recent release of Dominaria, we’re blessed with new cards to ogle and new decks to construct. Today, I bring you what will undoubtly be a deck you’ll see at a Pro Tour in the future: the Professional Rat Colony Deck.

The 60 card main deck has 20 of the same card:

Rat Colony is unassuming but as you get more and more on the board, each colony grows more and more fearsome. With 20 Rat Colonies and 20 Swamps, we have 20 slots left to work with.

  • 4 Cast Down, 4 Vicious Offering - These cards offer some cheap removal to keep you alive while you mass up rats.
  • 4 Bontu’s Monument - You can only have one of these on the board at a time but we add 4 so you have a higher chance of getting one. With this artifact on the field your Rat Colonies become 1 drops!
  • 4 Cabal Stronghold - Once you get into the mid-game this land will let your mana pool bloom allowing you to play additional Rat Colonies, removal spells, and any expensive bombs you have to round out your mana curve.
  • 4 Torgaar, Famine Incarnate - With some luck (and no compassion for the Rat Colonies on your board) it’s possible to get Torgaar (a beefy 7/6 creature) out on turn 4. If your rats haven’t won you the game by now, Torgaar can help you wrap things up.

This deck is amazing on its own and really needs no sideboard but it’s always good to be prepared.

  • 2 Dire Fleet Poisoner - Dire Fleet Poisoner is my pick as the best card in Rivals of Ixalan because the card is just full of value. Easy sideboard pick every time.
  • 6 Rat Colony - You might’ve thought 20 Rat Colonies is more than enough, but just in case you need more we casually slipped 6 more into our sideboard just in case.
  • 4 Dread Shade - Dread Shade won’t benefit from Bontu’s Monument but can be beefed up to incredible power with Cabal Stronghold.
  • 2 Phyrexian Scriptures - This card would’ve been main-decked if it let you save all of one creature type. Alas, it’s a great card to pump up one of your Rat Colonies and clear the board. Also it gives your deck some Saga sugar.
  • 1 Contract Killing - The best card in all of Magic. With an effective mana cost of 3, any serious deck needs at least one of these in it.

Check out this deck on MTG Goldfish. For $55 (5 tix) you can rock the deck that will most certainly take the world by storm. Good luck!

Major thanks to Jeff and Mlex who helped me put this deck together. They didn’t come up with the (genius, courageous) idea of going mass Rat Colony but they did help fill out the rest of the deck with cards. These cards were not really needed for this deck to be a stomper (it already was) but purely to give the deck some flavor. Thanks!