Looking to take this deck to a FNM for some fun. It's still in it's early stages and I'm having a rough time cutting cards out. The sideboard cards are cards still in considering (why it's over 15). It'll work best pre-rotation but I think it can still survive Post-Rotation.

Essentially looking for advice on how to improve before and after Rotation. Some casual (out of standard) advice is welcome but I allowed have a deck focused on Swarm of Rats, Pestilence Rats, and Pack Rats, so straying away from there is a must.

First time posting btw, tell me if I messed up

I think the deck can still be fun, but use a more contemporary shell and include the ogre slumlord and pack-rat pieces.

I would suggest to B/W human tokens, and include the pack rat and ogre slumlord to help out for fun and flavor. You really want a sac outlet to help the slumlord generate tokens. Cards like xathrid necromancer, doomed traveler, cartel aristocrats, blood artist, maybe even some champion of the parish.

I like the unburial rites as a 2 of. You could potentially get value off it in the deck. I think immortal servitude while it looks good on the surface isn't the card you need for this deck to make it go. I think lingering souls can go too, there's a lot of graveyard hate and you're focusing too much on getting value out of the yard. Also, it won't fuel ogre slumlord or xathrid necromancer if you choose to include it.

Root born defenses can help you when packrat comes online, but really the strength of packrat is that you can create another. Liliana and underworld connections synergy well with this plan, you can fetch swamps to discard and draw some more.

Let me suggest this build and see what you think.


4 Blood Artist
4 Cartel Aristocrat
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Doomed Traveler
3 Ogre Slumlord
3 Pack Rat
4 Xathrid Necromancer

1 Doom Blade
1 Murder
2 Orzhov Charm

2 Underworld Connections
2 Liliana of the Dark Realms

2 Unburial Rites

1 Cavern of Souls
4 Godless Shrine
4 Isolated Chapel
1 Orzhov Guild Gate
2 Vault of the Archangel
6 Plains
6 Swamp


Sideboard:
4 Sin Collector
4 Intangible Virtue
2 Obzedat, Ghost Council
2 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Murder
1 Doomblade

This gives you a "proven" human/token aggro shell, with your own brand of flavor for the deck. It gives you some of the maindeck removal options you wanted and a larger more synergized creature base. A splash of draw and filter with liliana/UC and just enough recursion with unburial to keep your threats alive after a board wipe or removal. You'll find the lifegain/loss provided by blood artist to be very relevant to the deck and the sideboard of obzedat/bloodbaron/sin collector help a lot with control. Sorin and intangible virtue would come in against opposing agro decks to make your guys bigger than theirs.

I actually really like your idea and all, but I should have mentioned I'm tight on money. XD While I do happen to own 2 Sorins and 4 Blood Artists (I just ran a Tribal Vamps at FNM =D), I'm empty on Isolated Chapels, Blood Barons, Obzedat, Champion of the Parish, Xathrid Necromancer and even Godless Shrines (But I'm working hard to trade for these).

I have to ask why you think Immortal Servitude won't work out? I designed the deck to have quite a few 2 drops so when someone clears the board I can bring all my Packrats back. I know graveyard hate exists, but at my local meta the only one I saw was a Deathrite and I dealt with him quickly. Of course I'm moving cities for the time being so I need to scout out the new meta.

I also feel like if I was to run this deck, wouldn't it be wiser for me to drop Pack Rat and Ogre for Gather the Townsfolk and Increasing Devotion?

But I actually do REALLY like the outlook to this deck. I've been contemplating making an Orzhovie deck (which accidently sparked this rat deck) and find a place to use my Sorins. I'm just getting into Standard so maybe after a while I can eventually build this deck.

The only thing that concerns me is my friend already runs a BW sacrifice deck centered around Blood Artist and Cartel Aristocrat. I just have this personal thing about "stepping on other people's toes" and try to avoid decks my friends make. But I need to get over this anyways.

People have tried and tried to make immortal servitude work, and it just never does. It looks really good on paper. Most times it will be just a dead card in your hand, or you'll only get back a couple creatures, which is okay, but i'd rather have the option of getting anything with unburuial. Try it for yourself. You'll see :)

You're right it might work better with gather the town's folk and maybe increasing devotion, but it wouldn't be a packrat deck without pack rat ;) I was attempting to provide a more stable shell that might deliver a better matchup and you might be able to pull off the packrat win occasionally. The thing about the original deck is rats kinda suck. lets be honest. At least this way if you stick a ogre slumlord _ packrat and get to start making trades /sacing stuff on a full board you get value out of the rats/pack rat.

A good concept is a good concept, no reason not to put wheels on your car because someone else has them :P

The thing about tokens and blood artist is you can get damage through with the aristocrat and if you resolve an artist you start to get value off it pretty quick. You could go red for faulkenrath or green for varolz to change it up a bit. *shrug*

Budget is a factor. Not a lot you can do there, but you can proxy up the cards and test with it. Chapels will rotate soon so you might be able to do without those. Champions are important to the deck to make it work, the necro too. blood baron and obzedat are good for a year, so picking those up would probably be a good idea.

Yea Isolated Chapels have been extremely low priority for me because of rotation. But I really do appreciate the help. I know Rats suck but I don't mind (Rats being one of my favorite animals) I'm willing to lose at FNM with a fun deck, as long as I'm having fun.

I really learn a lot when I playtest, sometimes I'll force bad-cards into a deck just to playtest them. I haven't had any time to playtest yet though (all my magic friends I've met at college) but maybe you'll be right about Immortal Servitude. The way I see it, it costs the same as Unburial Rites (If I'm getting 2cmc) and can get me more to boot.

I'll second everything elpablo is throwing out there... but if you're still convinced that the rats are the way to go, I'd suggest going B/G rather than B/W... I put together a shell of a build a while back that you can see at http://deckbox.org/sets/260195. Obviously this isn't much of a deck at the moment, but it's something to run with. Varolz offers some nice options and, to be honest, you could deal with the few pieces of yard hate if that's the biggest problem. I just like the idea that Jarad's Orders would give you another four shots at hitting Pack Rat (then again, we see how much tutoring is being played right now).

I'll think on the deck a bit more and can propose a different build a bit later after I have a chance to think on it some more. Rats might suck... but it's different, and different is good in my books!