One thing that makes Commander enjoyable to a wide audience is the variety of different archetypes to choose from. No matter what you’re a fan of, there’s something for everyone. There are even build-arounds that encourage overlapping multiple archetypes together, like Rat King, Pale Piper. Combining Tokens, Aristocrats, and typal shells together, this Commander is surprisingly abuseable with the right support.
MTG Rat King, Pale Piper
The first step to maximizing what Rat King has to offer is to make sure you can reliably trigger its second ability. Any sacrifice outlets like Phyrexian Altar and Ashnod’s Altar go a long way towards ensuring you can keep the Rats flowing, especially when paired with recursive creatures like Bloodghast. Alternatively, Conjurer’s Closet and similar blink effects can trigger Rat King without setting you behind on board.
Once you have your Rat engine rolling, having extra ways to take advantage of the token production is vital. This includes draining your opponent with Mirkwood Bats or converting your Rats into card advantage with Skullclamp. Going wide and abusing sacrifice outlets also makes it easier to maximize traditional Aristocrats payoffs like Zulaport Cutthroat and Black Market.
Of course, even with no other sacrifice synergies on board, your Commander is capable of turning your measly 1/1s into fresh cards. While this can be somewhat expensive, cards like Pitiless Plunderer and Heartstone make things more manageable.
Notably, beyond using your Rats as generic sacrifice fodder, you can also choose to keep them around to feed Rat-themed synergies. Typal payoffs like Piper of the Swarm and Marrow-Gnawer synergize perfectly with Rat King. With a big enough board, you can even use Coat of Arms to set up lethal attacks out of nowhere.
Infinite Mana, Card Draw, and More
While Rat King makes for a solid value engine, it becomes even more appealing when you incorporate infinite combos. The strongest combo this Commander enables allows you to make infinite mana and draw your deck. To get things going, you just need to land Rat King, Nether Traitor, and Phyrexian Altar.
After these cards are in play, sacrifice Nether Traitor to Altar to make a black mana and a Rat token. From there, sacrificing the new token to generate another mana will trigger Nether’s ability, allowing you to replay it for one black. Since you can then sacrifice Nether again, you can loop this combo infinitely, gaining infinite mana alongside endless enters and dies triggers.
Eventually, after making infinite mana, you can choose to start sacrificing your Rat tokens to Rat King instead of Altar in the loop above. By drawing tons of cards, you should have no problem finding a Blood Artist effect to close things out.
Notably, for added redundancy, you can also set up an infinite combo using Ozox, the Clattering King with Rat King, and Phyrexian Altar. While this combo won’t get you infinite mana or card draw, you can still easily win with a Blood Artist effect.
Cheap and Underplayed
Admittedly, while it can be fun, Rat King, Pale Piper is a fun card, but it isn’t the best Commander in MTG. Hitting multiple archetypes can give this card some resiliency, but it’s not the best in slot for any of these. As such, you might be better off playing a different Commander if you want a more competitive option.
Still, if you don’t care about having the most optimized deck, Rat King, Pale Piper is still a compelling Commander option. Curious, despite its potential, there are incredibly few decks actually using this card at the helm. According to EDHREC, there are just 69 Rat King lists, although that may have something to do with how recently it was released.
Nonetheless, this minuscule play rate likely stems more from the card’s precon origins, rather than its power level. The good news, at least, is that Rat King’s minimal demand has kept its price low. Valued at only $0.34, it’s easy to pick up a copy to try out without breaking the bank.
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