Skip to content
Moxonomy

Ruin Rat

Creature — Rat1 generic manaBlack mana

Two small jobs bolted into one body, and the death trigger is what welds them together. The graveyard exile fires when this creature dies, which means the card is written to want its own death: it wants to trade in combat, block and die, or eat a removal spell, because any of those events resolves the same disruptive effect. That is the wrinkle worth dwelling on, because the deathtouch and the exile clause actually pull against each other. Deathtouch is normally a body an opponent routes around: nobody blocks a 1/1 with deathtouch if they can help it, and few will attack into it, so it tends to sit and threaten a trade rather than force one. But the death trigger reframes that stalemate. A creature the opponent politely ignores is a creature that still has to die eventually, whether through a chump you decide to make, a sacrifice outlet, or your own attack into a blocker, and the exile follows. Because the effect names a single card rather than sweeping the yard, it points at one thing (a flashback spell, a reanimation target, a delve fuel pile) instead of scattering, which keeps the disruption surgical and the mana cheap. What you get is attrition-resistant graveyard disruption riding on a combat piece: most exile-from-graveyard effects resolve once off an instant, but this one attaches itself to an event you can always arrange, since dying on schedule is the entire point of the design.

Ruin Rat (plst)
PLST · #HOU-75common
Pricing
Normal: $0.32
Foil:
Oracle Text

Rules text

Deathtouch When this creature dies, exile target card from an opponent's graveyard.
Legalities

Format Status

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

Other printings

2 sets
Quick navigation
move selectesc close