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Moxonomy

Pestilence Rats

Creature — Rat2 generic manaBlack mana

A lord effect turned inward: where most "scales with your creatures" designs pump the whole team, this one hoards the bonus into a single body, its power swinging with every other Rat on the battlefield while the toughness stays nailed to 3. That decoupling is the whole math problem. The fixed 3 means the toughness never carries the card; it grows teeth only as the swarm fills out, which makes it a payoff that needs the deck built around it rather than a card that builds the deck. It counts itself out, too: with no other Rats in play it is a 0/3 wall, a deliberate floor that punishes drawing it before the board is set. The conceit traces back to the old common Plague Rats, where each copy grew with every other Rat including its own namesakes, and the gimmick is unchanged: a tribe whose members are worthless alone and lethal in numbers. The flavor and the arithmetic are the same gesture. One rat is nothing; a plague of them ends the board.

Pestilence Rats (ice)
ICE · #157common
Pricing
Normal: $0.32
Foil:
Oracle Text

Rules text

Pestilence Rats's power is equal to the number of other Rats on the battlefield. (For example, as long as there are two other Rats on the battlefield, Pestilence Rats's power and toughness are 2/3.)
Legalities

Format Status

Standard
N/A
Pioneer
N/A
Modern
N/A
Legacy
Legal
Vintage
Legal
Commander
Legal
Pauper
Legal
Brawl
N/A
Historic
N/A
Alchemy
N/A
Timeless
N/A
Standard Brawl
N/A
More formats
Old School
N/A
Premodern
Legal
PreDH
Legal
Pauper Commander
Legal
Oathbreaker
Legal
Gladiator
N/A
Penny Dreadful
N/A
Duel Commander
Legal
Future Standard
N/A
COMPETITIVEBRAWL
N/A
TLR
Legal
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