The Commander
Rat offering (You may cast this spell any time you could cast an instant by sacrificing a Rat and paying the difference in mana costs between this and the sacrificed Rat. Mana cost includes color.)
Whenever a permanent is put into an opponent's graveyard, that player loses 1 life.
Guide
Gameplan
Resolve Patron of the Nezumi (ideally for free by sacrificing a Rat via Rat offering), then force opponents to dump permanents into their graveyards so each one drains a life. Mill, edicts, and forced sacrifice convert into a steady multiplayer bleed while you build a Rat board and grind value in mono-black.
Strengths
- Punishes every opponent simultaneously whenever their permanents hit the yard—mill, sacrifice, and destruction all trigger the drain
- Rat offering can deploy a 4/4 for one Rat early, dodging sorcery-speed sweepers and ramp requirements
- Mono-black gives access to the best tutors, removal, and recursion to assemble its pieces
- Doubles as a Rats tribal payoff and a kill-on-board threat
Weaknesses
- The drain only triggers on permanents going to graveyards—creatureless or graveyard-hate metas blunt it badly
- Slow and incremental; 1 life per permanent rarely closes games without amplifiers
- Vulnerable to single-target removal as a 7-mana commander, even when cheated in
- No card advantage or evasion stapled on; the body alone doesn't threaten much
Key Cards
- Bontu's Last Reckoning — Mass destruction sends a wave of permanents to opponents' graveyards for huge simultaneous drain.
- Mind Grind — Scalable X mill across all opponents turns their lands and permanents into life loss.
- Grave Pact — Every creature you lose forces each opponent to sacrifice, draining them for each permanent.
- Marrow-Gnawer — Rats payoff that floods the board, giving fodder for Rat offering and sacrifice synergies.
- Dictate of Erebos — Flash-in edict engine that keeps opponents sacrificing permanents into their graveyards.
- Smallpox — Symmetrical destruction that you can break, forcing permanents into graveyards across the table.
Upgrade Path
Lean into amplifiers that multiply graveyard events—Living Death, board wipes, and edict engines like Grave Pact/Dictate of Erebos—so each turn buries several permanents per opponent. Add reliable mill (Mind Grind, Maddening Cacophony, Sphinx's Tutelage analogs in black) and big mana with Cabal Coffers, Nykthos, and Crypt Ghast to fuel Exsanguinate or Torment of Hailfire as a closer. Round out with fast tutors and protection to land the commander and keep your sacrifice loops alive.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Incremental life drain from mass mill and forced sacrifice triggering Patron repeatedly
- ▸Wide Rat tribal swings backed by lords like Marrow-Gnawer
- ▸Classic mono-black drain finishers like Exsanguinate or Torment of Hailfire
- ▸Beating down with a recurring 4/4 plus evasion or trample anthems
Archetypes
- Mill — Decking opponents' permanents into the graveyard each triggers the drain, turning a slow plan into damage.
- Aristocrats / Edicts — Forced-sacrifice effects make opponents bin permanents repeatedly for life loss.
- Rats Tribal — Rat offering and Rat lords reward a tribal shell that fuels casting and sacrifice.
- Stax / Control — Mono-black disruption keeps the table low while incremental drain finishes them.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (B), by popularity.
