Commander blueprint · Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

How to build Rat King, Verminister

Rat King, Verminister returns every card in your graveyard that shares a name with the one he targets, and only two Rats in Magic may appear in a Commander deck more than once. This build plays fifteen copies of the better of them, Rat Colony, so one activation brings back the whole pile, the three Colonies sacrificed to pay for it included.

Art by Miklós Ligeti

Rat Colony beats Relentless Rats here because it counts every Rat

Two Rats carry the line that lets a Commander deck run more than one copy, Rat Colony and Relentless Rats. Shadowborn Apostle and Nazgûl are the only other black creatures allowed in multiples, and neither is a Rat, since one is a Human Cleric and the other a Wraith Knight. Verminister could return a stack of either but could never sacrifice them to pay for the return.

Between the two Rats the choice is not close for this commander. Relentless Rats costs and grows only from other creatures named Relentless Rats. Rat Colony costs and gets +1/+0 for every other Rat you control, so the token Verminister makes each turn, the tokens from Marrow-Gnawer and Lord Skitter, Sewer King, the copies Pack Rat makes and the two changelings all make every Colony bigger. Relentless Rats is cheaper to buy, $4.13 against $5.31 for the cheapest paper Colony, and that is the only argument for it. Splitting the pile between them is worse than either, because one activation returns one name.

Fifteen copies put a Colony in your opening seven about seven times in ten, and in the nine cards you have seen by your third turn on the play close to four times in five. The other Rats come as singles that make the Colonies hit harder. Persistent Marshstalker is a Colony with its own way back from the graveyard. Pack Rat counts every Rat for its power and its toughness. Karumonix, the Rat King gives them all toxic 1 and looks five cards deep for more of them, and Ratcatcher fetches a Rat card from the library in each of your upkeeps, Rat Colony included.

The first Colony has to reach the graveyard on its own

The order of play matters here. When you activate Verminister you choose the target first and pay the cost after, so the creature card you target must already be in your graveyard before any Rat is sacrificed. The three you sacrifice cannot be that target. What they can be is part of the return, because the ability looks for other cards with the target's name only as it resolves, and by then the three are in the graveyard too. With one Colony already there, sacrificing three more brings back four. With none there, the same three sacrifices return whatever else you could target, and the Colonies stay where they are.

So part of the list exists to put the first Colony in the graveyard on purpose. Skullclamp does it best. A Colony has a printed toughness of 1, so equipping the Clamp for kills it on the spot and draws two cards. Buried Alive puts three creature cards from your library straight into the graveyard, and three Colonies is the usual pick. Pack Rat copies itself for and a discarded card, and a spare Colony is the card to discard. Altar of Dementia sacrifices a creature and mills a player for its power, and aimed at yourself it turns a large Colony into a dig for more of them. Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm can mill four at your end step, Takenuma, Abandoned Mire mills three when you channel it, and a Colony that dies blocking or trading in combat does the job for nothing.

Swing with the Colonies, then sacrifice three of the attackers

Verminister taps to activate, so he stays home. The Colonies do not have to. Attack with them, let the damage land, and in your second main phase sacrifice three of the tapped attackers. They return tapped, which costs nothing because they were tapped already, and any Colony that died in the combat comes back with them. Doing it before your end step begins also settles his other ability, which checks as that step starts whether a permanent of yours has left the battlefield during the turn. Wait until the end step itself and the sacrifice is too late to count.

The payoff cards are there to multiply those three deaths. Each activation means three triggers from Blood Artist, three life from each opponent off Zulaport Cutthroat, three cards and 3 damage to you from Midnight Reaper, three Treasures from Pitiless Plunderer, and three creatures each opponent must sacrifice under Grave Pact. Rat King, Pale Piper makes a 1/1 Rat whenever a nontoken creature of yours leaves the battlefield, so the three Colonies come back and leave three tokens behind them, which is the next activation already paid for. Those tokens are also what Skullclamp and Pale Piper's own draw ability are happiest to spend.

A board wipe stocks the graveyard Verminister reads

Most go-wide decks lose the game to a wrath. This one loses a turn. Every Colony that dies goes where the ability looks, so the only question after a wipe is how quickly you can show Verminister three Rats. He costs plus the tax from the command zone, and Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots lets him tap the turn he arrives rather than the turn after. Revenge of the Rats makes a tapped 1/1 Rat for each creature card in your graveyard, tapped is fine for a sacrifice, and after a wipe that is usually three Rats and plenty more. Changeling Outcast and Universal Automaton cost one mana each and are Rats by changeling. Swarmyard can regenerate a Rat, which saves it from most destroy effects, though not from exile, a -X/-X sweeper or a wrath that forbids regeneration.

The two sweepers in the list are the ones that leave the pile standing. Kindred Dominance destroys every creature that is not of the type you choose, and the type here is Rat, which keeps Verminister, the Colonies and both changelings. Swarmyard Massacre makes two Squirrels and then gives every creature that is not an Insect, Rat, Spider or Squirrel -1/-1 for each of those you control, so with six Rats out it is -8/-8 to everything else. Both take your own non-Rats with them, Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat among them, and both still pay out on the way, Blood Artist for every creature that dies and Zulaport Cutthroat for each one of yours. Choose Rat on Herald's Horn and Door of Destinies too. The Horn takes off every Colony you cast and the Door grows every Rat you control each time you cast one.

Three cards answer to the name Rat King, and this list plays all three

Search for Rat King and three cards come up. Verminister is the two-mana commander from the main Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set. Rat King, Pale Piper is a four-mana Rat with menace from the Turtle Power! precon, and Karumonix, the Rat King is a Phyrexian Rat from Phyrexia: All Will Be One. No two of them share a full name, so the legend rule never touches them and all three can share one battlefield at the same time. Pale Piper is the one that changes how this deck plays, because its token trigger reads every nontoken creature of yours that leaves the battlefield, and that is every Colony Verminister ever sacrifices.

Karumonix, the Rat King earns its slot on two counts. When it enters it looks at the top five cards and puts every Rat among them in your hand, which in this list is usually a Colony or two. It also gives every other Rat you control toxic 1, so each Rat that deals combat damage to a player hands that player a poison counter as well, and ten poison counters end a game whatever the life total. Under Marrow-Gnawer's fear a board of ten Rats can poison out a player who has gained a lot of life back from their own deck, which is the one opponent a pile of Colonies otherwise struggles to finish.

Marrow-Gnawer gives the pile fear, and Gray Merchant counts its pips

A Colony keeps a toughness of 1 however much power it gains, so the pile needs help getting past blockers, and two cards supply most of it. Marrow-Gnawer gives every Rat fear, so only black and artifact creatures can block them, and taps to sacrifice a Rat for as many 1/1 Rats as you control once it is gone. Each of those tokens adds +1/+0 to every Colony on the battlefield. It will sacrifice a Colony as readily as a token, too, and on a turn when the graveyard holds no Colony yet that is the cheapest way to put one there before Verminister activates. Coat of Arms works from another angle, giving each creature +1/+1 for every other creature that shares a type with it. Look across the table before you cast it, because it pumps an opposing typal board just as hard.

The quieter finisher is Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Each Colony has a black pip in its cost, so ten Colonies, Verminister and the Merchant's own two pips drain each opponent for 13 when it enters. Once it has drained, feed it to Viscera Seer or Carrion Feeder, then sacrifice three Rats and target it with Verminister, and it drains again. Bolas's Citadel ends games another way. Sacrificing ten nonland permanents costs each opponent 10 life, and a board of Rat tokens is mostly nonland permanents you were happy to lose.

The core list

Fifteen of these 99 cards are the same card, so Rat Colony carries a 15 in the list below and everything else is a single. Rest the pointer on a name to see the card.

Load into the deck builder Copy decklist

“Load into the deck builder” opens this list in your account, ready to edit or save. “Copy decklist” gives you plain text for Moxfield, Archidekt or Arena, with no account needed.

Buy this deck on TCGplayer Buy this deck on Card Kingdom

Both open all 100 cards in the store’s own deck tool, where you choose the printings. TCGplayer links are affiliate links, so we may earn a commission on purchases.

The budget rung keeps all fifteen Colonies, and bracket 4 buys a second activation

Rat Colony's cheapest paper copy is $5.31, so fifteen of them cost $79.65, the largest line in a $433.32 list and more than Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth at $52.03. That is why the budget rung does not touch them. The Colonies are the commander's text, and a Verminister list without them is a mono-black Rat deck whose commander returns one card at a time. Eleven swaps bring the total down to $186.60, all of them from the cards around the pile, and the fifteen Colonies are now nearly 43 percent of the bill. Necropotence and Bolas's Citadel, the two Game Changers, become Night's Whisper and Read the Bones, and with both gone nothing on the rung sets a bracket floor. Urborg, Cabal Coffers, Phyrexian Tower and Takenuma, Abandoned Mire give way to Cabal Pit, Ifnir Deadlands, Terramorphic Expanse and Myriad Landscape, four lands that can each sacrifice themselves, which is one more way to switch on the end-step Rat. Altar of Dementia is the swap that hurts. Bloodthrone Vampire keeps the free sacrifice and loses the self-mill, so the first Colony has to reach the graveyard through Skullclamp, Buried Alive or Pack Rat, and Bone Shards helps, since discarding a Colony is one way to pay its extra cost. Twisted Sewer-Witch stands in for Coat of Arms by hanging a Wicked Role on every Rat you control, +1/+1 each and a point of life from every opponent when the Role goes to the graveyard, which happens every time Verminister sacrifices one.

For bracket 4 the list changes only six cards and spends $139.53 more, for $572.85 in all. Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor take the Game Changer count to four, more than bracket 3 allows, and they fetch whichever piece the turn is missing, usually Buried Alive, Skullclamp or Grave Pact. Thousand-Year Elixir replaces Swiftfoot Boots, and it does more than the Boots did. It lets every creature you control use a tap ability the turn it arrives, Verminister and Marrow-Gnawer included, and for it untaps Verminister after his first activation so the pile can come back twice in one turn. Ashnod's Altar turns each Colony into two colorless mana. Sacrifice the board to it, cast what that pays for, and let Verminister return the Colonies afterwards. Dark Ritual and Snuff Out are about speed, and Snuff Out costs 4 life rather than mana while you control a Swamp. None of the six makes a loop that wins by itself. The rung plays the same game faster and twice a turn, and a bracket 3 table will notice both tutors.

FAQ

Can Rat King, Verminister bring back the Rats you sacrificed to activate him?

Yes, if they share a name with the card you target. You choose the target before you pay the cost, so that card has to be in your graveyard already. The ability then returns every other card with its name as it resolves, and by then the three sacrificed Rats are in the graveyard as well. With one Rat Colony already there, sacrificing three Colonies brings all four back.

How many Rat Colonies should a Rat King, Verminister deck run?

This build runs fifteen, which puts at least one in an opening hand about 70 percent of the time and leaves 84 slots for the cards that use them. Rat Colony makes the better pile than Relentless Rats here because it gets +1/+0 from every Rat you control, the tokens Verminister makes included, while Relentless Rats only counts copies of itself.

Does Rat King, Verminister's Disappear ability trigger more than once a turn?

No. It checks once, as your end step begins, and makes one Rat and one +1/+1 counter if any permanent you controlled left the battlefield earlier in the turn. Three sacrifices count the same as one. A sacrifice made during the end step is too late for that turn, so activate him in your second main phase.

What bracket is a Rat King, Verminister deck?

Bracket 3 as this list is built, because Necropotence and Bolas's Citadel are both Game Changers and bracket 3 allows up to three. The budget rung swaps both out and runs no Game Changers at all. The bracket 4 rung adds Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor, and four Game Changers is more than bracket 3 permits.

How much does this Rat King, Verminister deck cost?

$433.32 for the core list, buying every card in its cheapest paper printing, and $79.65 of that is fifteen Rat Colonies at $5.31 each. The budget rung is $186.60 and keeps all fifteen. The bracket 4 rung is $572.85.

What is the difference between Rat King, Verminister and Rat King, Pale Piper?

Verminister costs two mana, makes a Rat at your end step after a permanent of yours leaves the battlefield, and taps with three Rats to return a creature card and every card that shares its name. Pale Piper costs four, has menace, makes a Rat whenever a nontoken creature of yours leaves the battlefield, and draws a card for two mana and a token. Their names differ, so both fit in one deck, and this list plays Pale Piper in the 99.

Do changelings count as Rats for Rat King, Verminister?

Yes. A changeling is every creature type at once, so Changeling Outcast, Universal Automaton and the Shapeshifter tokens from Black Market Connections can be sacrificed to pay for his ability, and each one adds +1/+0 to every Rat Colony while it is on the battlefield.