RATS!!! (not relentless though... NINJAS!)

[Malachorn]

I love silly theme decks in multiplayer and one of my favourite "bad decks" to bring out is RAT NINJAS! Is it a great deck? Nope. But it's actually fairly solid and I've found it doesn't draw an insane amount of fire. Actually, I've been able to play pretty good politics with the deck and often make friends with the deck. To me, that's the fun of multiplayer and getting a deck that gives you a chance to manipulate the game ending in your favour is what it's all about.

The decklist:

4 Phyrexian Furnace
4 Zodiac Rat
2 Scrabbling Claws
4 Nezumi Cutthroat
4 Nezumi Graverobber
4 Big Game Hunter
1 Jalum Tome
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Undead Gladiator
3 Erratic Portal
4 Throat Slitter
1 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
1 Marrow-Gnawer
1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
1 Patron of the Nezumi
6 Swamp
4 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Swarmyard
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Leechridden Swamp
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Urborg
1 Dust Bowl
1 High Market
1 Volrath's Stronghold


First, there's enough single inclusions that I have to fight my desire to at least throw in some kind of tutor. Why no demonic tutor (which most all of my multiplayer black decks have)? Because they're scary and this deck doesn't want to be scary at all. You're playing stupid ninja rats! No one cares too much about you (except for guy who has a graveyard-based deck and the rest of the table loves you for keeping him in check) and you use that. Whenever a deck playes a demonic tutor then it better be a decent deck in multiplayer because everyone becomes instantly afraid that you're going to be capable of getting that one card you need with your tutors... or you already just got it. Yes, I think that's true even when you're playing a silly rat ninja deck or whatever.

Second, ninjas suck. They do. Sometimes it works and it's kinda cool. But ninjas suck pretty hard, to be honest. It's okay here though. Your clunky ninjas are silly and they are silly... and, again, they actually let you get away with sitting at the table and not being screwed with too much.

Third, the snow-covered lands are because I have a friend that is obsessed with Wake of Destruction and because of this many of my multiplayer decks mix in snow-covered lands. That's the only reason really for 'em.

So here is how the deck seems to be successful for me:

Nezumi Graverobber
Nezumi Graverobber is the reason the deck wins most of the games that it wins. Pure and simple on that point, but I think the rest of the rats and the silly ninjas seem to keep the guy under the radar some. If the deck was obviously built around the guy (though it really kinda is) then he'd never be allowed to work. But under the disguise of him being a minor subtheme, people tend to let him go too often when they most definitely should not. Thanks to Swarmyard, it's not as simple as everyone being able to deal with the guy anyways... and the deck that is able to do something about him too often lets him go with an idea that it will deal with him later... but later it has to deal with other things because you played proper politics (we hope).

Patron of the Nezumi
If I get him then he is almost always amazing. The only thing is is that it's about the only lightning rod in the deck and I hate to throw it out early. I remember having a Throat Slitter on the table one game (due to ninjitsu) and got attacked by a Blastoderm and could totally have paid the 2 mana and rat offered my Patron into play to block. I was more scared of putting out the Patron early than I was of taking the 5 damage or chump blocking and didn't. I won that game later in large part to putting out the Patron of the Nezumi in response to someone slipping in an Armageddon.

Jalum Tome
Yeah, crappy ol' Jalum Tome. Big Game Hunter is one of my favourite mulitplayer cards the Jalum Tome in the deck seeming so awesome might have more to do with that. But if I draw my one crappy Jalum Tome then it always seems amazing. Almost makes me want to put more in... but I don't and probably won't... mostly because Undead Gladiator is kinda my second Jalum Tome in the deck.

Zodiac Rat
Always seems to play much better than Nezumi Cutthroat for trying to slip in the Ninja guys and this is almost certainly in no small part to the fact that most of the multiplayer groups I've been a part of always seem to have a lot of other decks that also try to play Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

Erratic Portal
Again, the Ninjas are pretty clunky and I tend to try to make friends with this deck. The Portals actually are allowed to stick on the table far too often. There's been more than a couple games where I ended up with one or two Erratic Portals and some other yahoo plays something like a Winter Orb or an Armageddon and the Erratic Portal tears it up against whoever I need to (and often is still not seen as a huge threat when land denial happens because it costs me mana to activate). Once again, however, I've found that a major key to using the Portal is to NOT bounce opponents' creatures "just because you can."

Fleshbag Marauder
Thanks to Nezumi Graverobber or sometimes Volrath's Stronghold, there have been far too many games where ol' Fleshbag has created amazing situations. More than a few games where I didn't care for him and he ended up discarded to Tome or Gladiator and never got used... but I loves him in the deck and wouldn't dare get rid of him completely.

[Belzebozo]

So, are you looking for feedback or are you just sharing something cool?
/nothing wrong with either
_________________
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom--go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!"
--Samuel Adams

"We are all just food for rust"

[Malachorn]

[Belzebozo]

Well, given this is a MP deck I think you have too many graveyard removal cards that don't do anything else for you; namely Scrabbling Claws. 4 Furnaces and 4 Graverobbers ought to be enough.

Since there is a subtheme of stealing other people's creatures, maybe a card like Ritual of the Machine might fit.

Your creatures are mostly small and easy to destroy so another Volrath's Stronghold would make more sense to me than Dust Bowl, which I don't know how that assists you.

You've got some consistency but then the deck just warps into a bunch of 1-ofs, so I'd be looking to increase those with more copies of Okiba-Gang, Marrow-Gnawer or Ink-Eyes.

The Gladiator, Marauder and Hunter, as interesting as they are, don't play nice with the Patron so in the interest of increasing your deck's synergies, you might look for alternatives to those, or taking out the Patron for something that affects the board in a similar way but plays nicer with your own deck. Maybe that's Damnation, maybe it's Corrupt or a card like Urborg Syphon-Mage.

Anyway, that's some of the things I see.
_________________
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom--go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!"
--Samuel Adams

"We are all just food for rust"