I came up with this deck on accident when I was researching if it was possible to brew a Tribal Squirrel deck in EDH (spoilers: at the time, not enough support). While searching Scryfall for any card with the text "Squirrel" on it, I discovered Nantuko Shrine. The effect struck me as incredibly niche for EDH, and while I was vaguely aware of Shadowborn Apostle-type cards that broke deck construction rules, I had always dismissed it as a boring, one-dimensional strategy. I was intrigued and loved the card (great art, from Odyssey which I have the most nostalgia for, squirrels), so I dug deeper into some sort of combo involving putting mass quantities of the same card into the graveyard to make n+1 Squirrel Tokens.

I found Bloodbond March and Secret Salvage, which make it possible to grab large amounts of copies of a card at once and "storm off." What started off as a meme deck I built as a thought exercise has become one of my favorite decks to play, especially in new playgroups as the reaction is generally always positive. Izoni in the command zone is a great backup plan, and often times is actually the primary plan. Fill the graveyard, make tokens, grind out value, combo off. I have limited myself to only having four decks built in paper at a time to make sure I actually play them all, so I'm quite picky about what decks get to go in the box, and I think Izoni will be sticking around for a long time.

Once you assemble a boardstate where you have a Nantuko Shrine and are casting multiple Rat Colony copies, win conditions include:
-pinging everyone to death with Blood Artist
-milling everyone out with Altar of Dementia
-sacrificing a board of huge Rat Colony to Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
-exiling everyone's libraries with Bitter Ordeal
-gnawing the table to death with an army of squirrels, insects, and rats

Est. 2020

>5/24/2021 Update

Alright, gotten some decent games under my belt with the current iteration of the deck. I initially liked Species Specialist because the deck is relatively tribal, but boardstates can quickly shift and making the wrong call on what kind of tokens I'm going to be massing can be catastrophic. Moldervine Reclamation, while a little higher on the curve and a non-creature (doesn't play as well with Izoni), is non-conditional draw when any of my creatures die, and the incidental lifegain is definitely consequential as well.

I thought Bontu's Monument would be excellent as a cost-reducer for Rat Colony, but it actually requires a very specific, almost magical Christmasland boardstate to really be good. Cutting this for more utility/consistency is fine. Savra, Queen of the Golgari plays well with my tokens (especially Izoni's Insects) and serves to give me breathing room, either through lifegain or keeping the board clear. Requires some setup, so not quite as oppressive as Grave Pact which I am so far trying to avoid. Plus she's super Golgari in flavor and abilities.

Realmwalker suffers the same problems as Species Specialist, but worse. I added it because I loved the art, but it just is not good. There are not enough Rats in the deck to justify the inclusion. Chittering Witch provides some relevant bodies (Rats) and provides a decent enough sac outlet that can help remove opposing creatures.

Out | In
Species Specialist | Moldervine Reclamation
Bontu's Monument | Savra, Queen of the Golgari
Realmwalker | Chittering Witch