Commander Corner: Jarad’s Dumpster Rats
Relentless Rats | Art by Thomas M. Baxa
There is a funny story to where today’s Commander Corner decklist came from. When I moved into my fourth college apartment two years ago, my roommate told me that he found a buttload of Magic stuff someone had thrown out by the dumpster. There were three binders, hundreds of sleeves, two playmats, a couple of deckboxes, plenty of foreign cards, several foil cards... I FREAKED. I had hit the motherload! Granted that there was nothing that was worth a vast amount (how about this signed Peter Mohrbacher print, “Kushiel, the Rigid One”?), you can only imagine the excitement that came on the face of a budget Magic player (aka a poor college student). I even ran back to the dumpster to scavenge for anything else that might be valuable (I remember I found a Legends Urborg); a lot of the stuff I found needed to be cleaned, with gunk like dumpster grime and spaghetti sauce on them. I regret not having taken any pictures of all the things I found to show you guys, but then again, I tend to document my experiences in words rather than images. One of the most notable finds of that day was a proxied EDH deck that I’m calling Jarad’s Dumpster Rats.
Sleeved in purple Ultra Pros, this deck piqued my interest for multiple reasons. The original owner had printed out paper proxies with color ink and sleeved them up with basic lands (there was a random Simic Ragworm among them). I chuckled at the fact that the guy even printed out Unhinged basic Swamps and Forests for the deck. The only real card that was not proxied was the commander--Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, which I thought was actually a very clever choice, given the theme of the deck. While I have since unsleeved the deck (I wanted to use the purple Ultra Pros for my Cromat’s Lucky Charms), I have kept the list intact without any changes for your enjoyment.
Because a deck can have any number of copies of Relentless Rats, ours runs a total of 39, which almost speak for themselves as the Plan A aggro strategy of the deck. Drop a Relentless Rats on turn three, and turn four, and turn five, and then two on turn six, and so on and so forth until your opponents are dead to your Rat army. Jarad plays an interesting role by offering a great end-game play: when you have large-enough Rats, you can start flinging them at your opponents’ faces with Jarad’s first activated ability. Jarad’s BG color identity also opens the door to more preventive measures to persevere through boardwipes, compared to the options other Rat Tribal commanders like Marrow-Gnawer have to scrounge around for.
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord | Art by Eric Deschamps
With a list like this, it is much easier for me to discuss the other spells in the deck with brevity. What I love about this list is that because of the Relentless Rats theme, you will find cards here that will never see play in EDH anywhere else, which tempts me to write a Second-in-Command article with Relentless Rats as the “commander” for a card like Thrumming Stone, which, btw, is by far the DUMBEST card in the deck.
Actually, let me devote a whole paragraph to this card. Featuring a mechanic many of you may not have heard of, Thrumming Stone is a five-mana Legendary Artifact that gives all your spells ripple 4. Let’s take a closer look at the reminder text for this mechanic:
(Whenever you cast a spell, you may reveal the top four cards of your library. You may cast any revealed cards with the same name as the spell without paying their mana costs. Put the rest on the bottom of your library.)
In any other singleton EDH deck, Thrumming Stone is nothing but a dead rock. However, because we are running 39 copies of Relentless Rats, it is quite possible to chain one Rats into the rest. That’s right--even the spells you cast for free off Thrumming Stone have ripple 4, so they too will go searching for more Rats. Talk about DUMB.
Now, enough all that, let’s go through each of other 25 spells. I will be grouping similarly functioning cards together for the sake of brevity.
Pack Rat, Marrow-Gnawer, Ogre Slumlord, Ratcatcher
These are the four Rats-matter cards. Pack Rat is not as strong as it was in Return to Ravnica Limited or Mono-Black Devotion in Theros Standard, but it still comes down a turn earlier than Relentless Rats, and it feeds our mass reanimator spells in the late game. Marrow-Gnawer gives all our Rats fear and makes plenty of smaller ones for our Overrun effects. Ogre Slumlord gives all our Rats deathtouch and replaces them with smaller ones when they die, and Ratcatcher draws us an additional Rat at our upkeep.
Nantuko Shrine, Bloodbond March, Doubling Chant
These are the other three cards beside Thrumming Stone that can only be played in a Relentless Rats EDH deck (Shadowborn Apostle decks aside). While it doesn’t generate Rats, Nantuko Shrine gives us more cute and cuddly critters in the form of Squirrel tokens when we cast our Rats. Bloodbond March is perfect for RR decks, as it allows us to rebuild our board after a wipe, whereas Doubling Chant multiplies the number of RR we already have for some nice win-more action.
Descendants’ Path, Coat of Arms, Patriarch’s Bidding
Staple cards for Tribal decks. Descendants’ Path, like Thrumming Stone lets us put out Rats for free, while Coat of Arms buffs our Rats even more than they already do, making math enough of a headache than it is. Patriarch’s Bidding, like Bloodbond March, recoups from our fallen Rats, raising up to do battle once more.
Triumph of the Hordes; Overrun; Overwhelming Stampede; Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
Our Overrun effects. While the first three only provide a temporary pump, we plan to cast those when the time is right and we can win instantly. Mikaeus, on the other hand, not only acts as an anthem effect, but also gives our Rats undying--as if they were relentless enough.
Thrumming Stone | Art by Rob Alexander
Sol Ring, Golgari Signet, Kodama’s Reach
Our ramp package. Sol Ring doesn’t help too much with casting Relentless Rats, but it’s so ubiquitous that my guess was that the original creator of the deck assumed it was an auto-include (like with every EDH deck). Don’t know why he didn’t include Cultivate alongside his Kodama’s Reach, since they are functionally the same.
Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Eternal Witness
Our tutor package. I’ve included E-Wit here, since she “tutors” from our graveyard. The other tutors help grab the cards from our deck that don’t rhyme with Welentless Wats.
Krosan Grip, Maelstrom Pulse, Pernicious Deed
Our three removal spells. I realized after playing with the deck that it has very few answers to opposing strategies, so these are more important than you might think. Adding to the deck, I’d cut a few copies of RR to include cards like Putrefy and Gaze of Granite.
Garruk Wildspeaker; Garruk, Caller of Beasts
Last but not least, we have two planeswalker cards. Garruk Wildspeaker can untap our lands to ramp on mana while also being another Overrun with his ultimate. Garruk, Caller of Beasts will mostly be played for its first loyalty ability, putting tons of Rats into our hand from the top of our library. I’d look to include the other two Garruk planeswalker cards as well as Vraska the Unseen, just because they are all BG and offer great card advantage over time.
As for our lands, I’d honestly lose the fetches, since I don’t see them as incredibly necessary, even for the slight deck-thinning they are believed to offer. Swarmyard is apparently missing from the list, as I would argue that it is an auto-include in any Relentless Rats deck. Other utility lands I’d add are Tainted Wood; Mortuary Mire; Grim Backwoods; Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx; and the Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth package.
This deck might be a difficult list to put together IRL, as obtaining 39 copies of Relentless Rats might be more expensive than most budget players will shoot for, so I suggest trying this deck out on Cockatrice or Untap.in. Until next time, may your Rats be evermore Relentless!
Ratcatcher | Art by Dan Scott
Read the previous Commander Corner article on Daghatar Block Constructed here!
Got some suggestions for brewing EDH/Commander decklists with restrictions? Whether those rules are for flavor or for gimmick, send them our way by dropping an ask in our inbox! Thanks for reading!
