If you’ve ever had the opportunity to draft original Innistrad, you may have experienced how backbreaking it can be when an opponent resolves Spider Spawning. With enough effort, Spider Spawning can create a huge swarm of tokens that can easily end the game by themselves. On top of that, Spider Spawning conveniently has Flashback, so if you milled over it, you’re still in fine shape.
While MTG Foundations isn’t bringing us literal Spider Spawning, it is providing a somewhat fixed version that could enable some cool shenanigans in Standard. This card in question is none other than Revenge of the Rats. Revenge of the Rats is a really sweet design that still has the potential to serve as a potent win condition. That is, of course, if you put the right pieces around it.
Elite Self-Mill Payoff
Over the past couple of months, some players tried to make a Sultai self-mill strategy work in Standard. The idea was to use cards like Blanchwood Prowler and Gnawing Vermin to fill your graveyard. As long as your deck had a high density of creatures, this would reward you by letting you slam payoffs such as Hollow Marauder on the cheap.
The problem this deck had was that the juice simply wasn’t worth the squeeze. Milling a bunch of cards only to play a big threat that could just die to Go for the Throat was far from ideal.
This is where Revenge of the Rats comes into play. Revenge of the Rats allows you to go wide with a large swarm of creatures, making typical removal meaningless. Unlike Spider Spawning, the Flashback cost of Revenge of the Rats is only four mana. This means that you can reliably cast copies you mill over in the mid-game. Even if you don’t draw a payoff for milling, you’re bound to hit Revenge of the Rats eventually and get rewarded.
The downside, of course, is that the Rats enter tapped and don’t have Reach. As such, they aren’t as strong as a roadblock versus aggro. Luckily, huge creatures such as Urborg Lhurgoyf or Cruel Somnophage can do the trick of holding back opposing attacks.
A Rat Payoff for Commander
Revenge of the Rats also has the upside of working well in conjunction with cards that buff your Rat army. In Commander, Revenge of the Rats is a perfect inclusion in an Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm deck.
First of all, Ashcoat has the ability to pump all your Rats when they attack. The more Rats you have, the better. On top of that, though, Ashcoat also consistently mills four cards on your end step, digging for Revenge of the Rats and fueling the cause.
Besides Ashcoat, Wick, the Whorled Mind and Marrow-Gnawer also incentivize you to produce a bunch of Rats at once, which Revenge of the Rats accomplishes if you put in some work. It’s cool to see Rat decks and self-mill decks alike get a sweet new toy.
