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Lord Skitter, Sewer King

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Lord Skitter, Sewer King

At a glance

  • Commander: Lord Skitter, Sewer King
  • Colors: Mono-Black
  • Archetype: Rat tribal go-wide aggro with graveyard hate
  • Power tier: mid

Cards

The Commander’s REAL printed text (verified via CLI)

Whenever another Rat you control enters, exile up to one target card from an opponent’s graveyard. At the beginning of combat on your turn, create a 1/1 black Rat creature token with “This token can’t block.”

Two relevant points vs. the scout paraphrase:

  1. The free Rat is made at the beginning of combat on your turn — not “every combat” generically. It is a 1/1 that can’t block, so it’s purely offensive fodder.
  2. The graveyard-exile trigger is “exile up to one target card from an opponent’s graveyard” — it is optional (“up to one”) and only ever hits opponents’ yards, so it never eats your own graveyard. It is soft, incidental graveyard hate, not a hard lock. Build accordingly: we lean on the swarm + aristocrat drains as the actual wincon, and treat the GY exile as free value.

Gameplan

Flood the board with cheap Rats and token fodder, then convert that width into life loss two ways at once: combat damage (a swelling team plus Rat-count beaters) and aristocrat drains that trigger as the expendable Rats die or as tokens are created/sacrificed. Lord Skitter himself adds a free non-blocking Rat every combat, which both grows the swarm and (when other Rats enter from spells) chips opponents’ graveyards.

The deck is proactive beatdown with an aristocrat backbone — it does not durdle. Removal and edicts clear blockers and problem creatures so the swarm gets through; the drain effects mean even a board wipe against us pings the table on the way out.

Explicit win condition

Go-wide Rat combat damage, closed out by aristocrat drain triggers. Primary drains: Falkenrath Noble (every death pings), Mirkwood Bats (every token create/sac), Nadier’s Nightblade (every token leaves), Spirit of Malevolence / Tattered Mummy / Blistergrub / Nocturnal Feeder / Etched Familiar / Brotherhood Patriarch (unconditional death drains). Two free repeatable sac outlets — Viscera Seer (scry) and Carrion Feeder (Zombie, grows itself) — let you machine-gun those death triggers at instant speed, especially in response to a wrath. The mass finishers Gruesome Fate and Stronghold Discipline turn a full board into a one-shot drain of 8–15+ to each opponent. Pestilence Rats / Swarm of Rats / Rat Colony scale their power off the Rat count for raw beatdown.

Role breakdown (counts)

  • Lands: 36 — 30 Swamp + Vault of Whispers, Piranha Marsh, Bojuka Bog (incidental GY hate), Witch’s Cottage, Polluted Mire, Barren Moor (cycling lands for flood insurance).
  • Ramp: 9 — Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Charcoal Diamond, Mind Stone, Commander’s Sphere, Leaden Myr, Infernal Idol, Pristine Talisman, Undercity Scrounger. (Kept lean — no over-ramp.)
  • Card advantage: 9 — Sign in Blood, Night’s Whisper, Read the Bones, Syphon Mind, Village Rites, Altar’s Reap, Deadly Dispute, plus Burglar Rat / Ravenous Rats / Nezumi Informant as hand-attack value. (Sac-draw doubles as aristocrat fuel.)
  • Spot removal / interaction: 9 — Cruel Edict, Diabolic Edict, Devour Flesh, Geth’s Verdict, Innocent Blood, Fleshbag Marauder, Murder, Bake into a Pie, Ichor Slick.
  • Mass / pseudo-wipe: 3 — Drown in Sorrow (-2/-2 sweep), Crypt Rats (repeatable Pestilence-style X to everything), and Gruesome Fate as a board-in-a-can finisher. Note: Drown in Sorrow / Crypt Rats are symmetric, so fire them when behind or when your own board is mostly dispensable fodder that triggers drains on death.

Pilot notes

  • Sequencing the GY trigger: Lord Skitter’s exile only triggers off another Rat entering, so cast Rats while he’s out to strip recursion targets. Token Rats from Rat Out / Lab Rats / Voracious Vermin also count.
  • Lab Rats with buyback is your mana sink — repeatable Rats late, each feeding the swarm and the GY trigger.
  • Aristocrat timing: Hold Village Rites / Altar’s Reap as combat tricks — sac a blocked/dying Rat in response to removal to draw two AND fire Falkenrath Noble / Spirit of Malevolence.
  • Free sac outlets: Viscera Seer and Carrion Feeder are your repeatable sacrifice engines — in response to a board wipe, sac your whole team to them to drain the table via Falkenrath Noble / Brotherhood Patriarch / the death-trigger Rats before the wipe resolves. Carrion Feeder grows into a real threat and counts as a Zombie.
  • Finisher line: With ~8+ Rats out, Gruesome Fate or Stronghold Discipline is often lethal across the table; Mirkwood Bats + a token spell does the same incrementally.
  • Don’t over-extend into wraths you can’t recoup — but Lord Skitter rebuilds a Rat every combat, and your drains punish their wrath too.

Weaknesses

  • Board wipes hurt a go-wide deck; mitigated by the cheap, recurring nature of the swarm (Lord Skitter, Lab Rats, token spells) and by drains that profit off mass death.
  • Mono-black has no true symmetric-free board wipe at common — we lean on edicts + inevitability instead, per the control caveat. Against a single huge threat we have plenty of edicts and -X/-X.
  • Lifegain decks can outrace the drain plan; prioritize combat damage and Marauding-style pressure there.
  • Graveyard exile is soft — do not rely on Lord Skitter to lock a reanimator deck; bring Bojuka Bog / Ruin Rat / Skullsnatcher for that and race instead.

Full decklist

Commander (1): Lord Skitter, Sewer King

Ramp (9): Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Charcoal Diamond, Mind Stone, Commander’s Sphere, Leaden Myr, Infernal Idol, Pristine Talisman, Undercity Scrounger

Rats & swarm (creatures/tokens): Lab Rats, Rat Out, Voracious Vermin, Burglar Rat, Ravenous Rats, Nezumi Informant, Ruin Rat, Daggerfang Duo, Typhoid Rats, Rancid Rats, Swarm of Rats, Rat Colony, Pestilence Rats, Gnat Miser, Undercity Dire Rat, Dire Fleet Hoarder, Thornplate Intimidator, Ossuary Rats, Skullsnatcher, Okiba-Gang Shinobi, Disease Carriers

Aristocrat drains / payoffs: Tattered Mummy, Spirit of Malevolence, Blistergrub, Etched Familiar, Nocturnal Feeder, Falkenrath Noble, Mirkwood Bats, Nadier’s Nightblade, Bile Urchin, Brotherhood Patriarch, Mortician Beetle, Gruesome Fate, Stronghold Discipline

Free sac outlets: Viscera Seer (Sacrifice a creature: Scry 1), Carrion Feeder (Sacrifice a creature: +1/+1 counter; also a Zombie). These let the death-trigger drains fire reliably and at instant speed rather than relying on combat or one-shot sac spells.

Removal / edicts (9): Innocent Blood, Cruel Edict, Diabolic Edict, Devour Flesh, Geth’s Verdict, Fleshbag Marauder, Murder, Bake into a Pie, Ichor Slick

Sweepers (3): Drown in Sorrow, Crypt Rats, (Gruesome Fate counted above as finisher)

Card draw (9): Village Rites, Deadly Dispute, Altar’s Reap, Night’s Whisper, Read the Bones, Sign in Blood, Syphon Mind (+ Burglar Rat / Ravenous Rats / Nezumi Informant hand attack)

Lands (36): 30 Swamp, Vault of Whispers, Piranha Marsh, Bojuka Bog, Witch’s Cottage, Polluted Mire, Barren Moor

Validated: PASS — 100 cards (1 commander + 99 commons, all within mono-black identity).

Decklist

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