{"ops":[{"insert":"Over the course of her adventures, Shadowheart has had to make many sacrifices to her Lady Shar. But will she be able to sacrifice her most precious pet rats???\n\nThis is a rat typal/Rat Colony deck that looks to use Shadowheart to refill its hand after casting many, many rats. Rat Colony is a fantastic piece of fodder for Shadowheart's ability as a 2 mana creature that scales in power very quickly. With 3 rats in play and no other effects, we can sacrifice a rat to draw 4 cards. As for our Background, Tavern Brawler also lets us dig deeper into the deck and fits very well into our curve at 3 mana (A solid game plan for this deck is to cast a Rat Colony Turn 2, cast our background Turn 3, and cast Shadowheart Turn 4).\n\nTo help further flood the board, I've included Pack Rat, Piper of the Swarm, Lord Skitter, Marrow-Gnawere, Mad Ratter, and Ogre Chitterlord as each serve as a solid way to make repeated rat tokens. Piper of the Swarm and Marrow-Gnawer also serve as solid evasion for our fairly frail rats (most of whom will only have 1 toughness) alongside Chronicle of Victory (which also further buffs our rats power and toughness and can draw us more cards). Big Apple, 3 A.M. and Abundant Countryside can also create us more rat (or Changeling) tokens for decent mana investments.\n\nBeyond Shadowheart, Tavern Brawler, and Chronicle of Victory, we've included a package of Phyrexian Arena style effects (Phyrexian Arena, Call of the Ring, Unholy Annex, and Black Market Connections) as more consistent draw options that can keep us going if Shadowheart is removed. Black Market Connections also provides us with potential mana acceleration and makes us Changelings that further buff our Rat Colonies. In addition to that, Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest can serve as more card draw or a finisher, since our Rat Colonies can easily breach it's 4 power requirement.\n\nFor ramp, I've opted for mostly cost reduction effects that will allow us to cast Rat Colonies for a single mana. With our high density of card draw and Rat Colonies making up more than 1/4th of our deck, it becomes incredibly easy to psuedo-storm through our deck with a solid cost reduction effect. Sol Ring is also here because, well, it's Sol Ring. This isn't a deck that's too concerned with pips (outside of cost reduced Rat Colonies) and it can help us accelerate into our commander or other larger support pieces. Also of note is Bontu's Monument's ability to sap some life from our opponents and Herald's Horn's ability to find us more Rat Colonies. \n\nI included a small recursion package as both a way to recover and a way to utilize sacrificed rats. Echoing Return is a beautiful card for a deck like this, having a ceiling of picking up 27 cards from our graveyard (though that's unlikely to ever happen). Victimize trades one rat for two (even better if we're only sacrificing a token) and Lively Dirge can reanimate two Rat Colonies as well. Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm digs into the deck, but can also get sacrificed rats back. Finally, both Rat King, Vermister and Command the Dreadhorde can bring back our entire graveyard for a fairly efficient cost.\n\nOur removal package is fairly standard, using efficient and versatile targetted removal and cheap board wipes to help keep our deck low to the ground (Something that's important to do when most of our ramp focuses on reducing the cost of Rat Colony instead of accelerating us forward like a more mana rock focused package would.) Sadly, this deck's curve is too low to run Kindred Dominance as a reliable board wipe, 7 mana is just more than this deck is going to have access to for most of the game. Invasion of Fiora, another favorite board wipe of mine, also doesn't make the cut for the same reason. Blasphemous Act and Blasphemous Edict both can come down for a single mana while Toxic Deluge is always a respectible 3. As for targetted remova, Reckless Spite and Curtains' Call are genuinely underrated gems in the format, being very efficient ways to remove multiple problems at once, while our other options hit multiple card types, allowing us to solve different types of problems with a single card (Which tends to be my preference).\n\nFinally, some notable lands. As mentioned, Abundant Countryside and Big Apple, 3 A.M. can help us make rats in a pinch. Arena of Glory, and Mutavault can become a rat in a pinch. Flamekin Village, and Hanweir Battlements are all great ways to give Shadowheart haste, allowing her to activate her ability immediately and reduce her odds of being removed. Three Tree City provides the chance at some extra mana for relatively no cost while Takenuma, Abandoned Mire can help us get back an important creature. Susar Secundi, Void Alter is perhaps the most important land in our deck, effectively serving as a second copy of our commander once we've fully stationed it. And finally, Swarmyard serves as a effectively an auto-include in any rat deck.\n"}]}