Are Rats Worth The Play?

             Rats.... one of the forgotten archetypes. Back in the days, there was such a thing as a "Rat Deck". This Rat Deck could be made solely around rat cards, and people who used them saw great success with win rates in the high 70-80%. These decks reigned prominent in the days of "Age of Dragons" and "The Archanon War" expansions. Even a little during "Dwarves and Dinos" rat decks could be seen in the top ranks. Nowadays, in the era of "The Enchanted Grove", one sees undead, monster, and even some dragon decks reaching the top 100. Where have the rats gone? It seems as though the majority of players have forgotten about the rats, about their power in numbers. When one can make a semi-decent undead or dragon deck and reach rank 30, they may ask "Why bother with rats?" The answer to that question is: rats may still be better than decks we see in the top ranks today.
             Rat decks can easily fit into different decks. In the game, there are not many cards with the "Rat" tag at the bottom of the card, and the ones that do have the tag are factionized into pirates or ninjas. This automatically limits the choices of combos that the player may want to use if they are trying to make a rat deck. Though the player is inhibited in what he can make in order to use a rat deck, rats make up for it in their size. Not their actual stats size, but the size they take up in deck space. If one uses three copies of the essential cards for rats(Rat King, Wererat, Rat Infested Hovel),

it only takes up 12 space. This leaves room for 38 more cards in one's deck for them to do whatever they want with it. In Pir/Nin decks, the faction combo usually produces either a monster or a bounce deck. Because of taking up give or take 12 card spaces in a 50 card deck, it is easily integratable into either archetype. That is super beneficial to archetypes that may not need a lot of cards to function and still has a lot of space in a deck after they put in the essential cards. 38 cards is usually enough space to put in the cards one needs for monster, bounce, last will, and some undead decks, as well as add in some important support cards such as lumberjack or tyrannosaur; instead of adding more random good cards to support the archetype, just add in the twelve rat cards in order to get even more synergy amidst a deck. It is really hard to mix archetypes and make that deck playable, unless one is mixing a deck style with rats.
             Rats can help in many ways throughout early to late game. These cards help get quick board presence with little to no cost to oneself in the early game, especially if Rat Hovel is drawn. Though a 1/1 unit that spawns every turn is not too powerful, it is good for body-blocking to protect the castle until a bigger unit can be drawn or played. This comes in handy especially with monster decks. Sometimes it is good to hold on to a Manfish or a Kaijr instead of playing them and wait for a Kraken or Behemothra to pop into the hand so that the play of the card can help a kraken cost go down or buff a Behemothra. A swarm of 1/1 units on the field also has a scare factor to the opponent, since he or she has to deal with getting through a wall of tiny units until they can hit anything else. A mass of units, strong or weak, always looks daunting. If a blacksmith, armory, or some other type of buff is

put out onto the field, those bad stat rats can quickly become formidable. If one is playing a bounce deck(one of the preferred archetypes with Pir/Nin) then those small rats can be buffed by getting bounced into one's hand when there is a dojo in play(gain +2/2 to any unit returned to hand). Rat cards are great support for monster and bounce decks when it comes to getting board presence quickly and swarming the enemy.
            So if rat cards are so good, then why do people more often then not tend to ignore them? The reason, I believe, is because people are scared of not getting any offensive or defensive worth out of the cards, since it takes slightly longer to set up the rats to become powerful, while other cards don't take as long to become formidable. In other words, they are scared of their rats becoming a "waste of space" in their deck. They think of all the scenarios where rats could be a liability instead of a help, such as chain damage, or any type of aoe spell. Rats will get destroyed all in one go with chain from Yaarhym Giant or Ragnar the Storm King. My counter argument to that is if you're smart about it, you can easily space rats throughout the board without any of them touching each other to counter chain damage. That

includes Yaarhym Giant too. Will you not be able to put as much pressure on the enemy castle? Yes, but at least the rats create a good defensive shield. If you are not confident in your abilities to space rats and push at the same time, then just keep rats back completely and make them act like a wall to protect your castle, and push only with stronger units. Chain can be dealt with. The same goes with aoe spells: space out rats a little bit to avoid multiple units dying to one card. Now I know that this is not a fantastic defense against chain or aoe, but just remember that rats are not supposed to be the center of a deck anymore, as they were before in older expansions. They are supposed to be supporting characters. If the supporting characters die but the main character lives on, then it is worth
it. Use the rats as a distraction so that you can play that big unit, that OTK.
Let the opponent be consumed by the rats so they forget about every other
danger.
            Rats are great support cards in decks. I believe that most players overlook them because they see a small body instead of seeing the potential of swarm, of body-blocking, of distraction. The best part about rat support is that if a deck is built correctly, then one does not technically need to draw any rats to win a game. Remember, they are supposed to be incorporated into a previous archetype, such as monster or bounce decks. All rats do is add a nice "wild card" factor to a deck, since they can be played as both offense and defense. The one weakness of rats can be overcome fairly easily as long as one takes the time to think and plan out their moves. To be honest, there are not too many downsides to using these underrated cards as long as there is space for the cards inside a deck. I would love to see rats used more. I would love to watch rats on cards.tv, showing everyone the potential that the support cards have. Rat decks were great once, and they can be great again in their new form. Give them a chance; try them in your deck, and you will not be disappointed.