Grixis Rats & Snail | Wick, the Whorled Mind $100 Budget EDH Deck Tech

Wick, the Whorled Mind

| Illustrated by Andrea Piparo

Snail

| Illustrated by Steven Russell Black

Hey, nerds! In this week's article, I wanted to tackle one of my favorite commanders from Bloomburrow, Wick, the Whorled Mind

The Rats!

First and foremost, Wick is a Rat-focused commander. We don't get the Snail unless Wick or other Rats enter. Creatures like Vren, the Relentless

The Fake Rats!

Much like amass, Wick's ability checks if there is already a Snail in play. By the way, if you're wondering how many Snails there are in Magic, the answer is one. Skullcap Snail is the only pure Snail. However, changelings, like Taurean Mauler

The Rat Combo!

The other option is just turning all of our creatures into Snails or Rats with Arcane Adaptation

Let me explain. If you have Wick and Arcane Adaptation, naming Rats, in play, when a Rat enters, we get a Snail, so when the Snail enters, it is also a Rat, triggering Wick. With Wick's ability on the stack, you sacrifice the Snail to Ashnod's Altar for colorless mana, Goblin Bombardment for damage, or Altar of Dementia for mill, then since there are no Snails in play we get a new Snail token, which then triggers Wick again. Now we sac the token again, and so on. Any sac outlet works with this combo, but if your sac outlet doesn't let you win, Impact Tremors and Mirkwood Bats can just end the game. If you do include this combo, I'd just pick sac outlets that let you win on the spot. Notably, this combo doesn't work with Maskwood Nexus since it turns everything a Snail and Rat, so you don't get a Snail token.

However, Maskwood Nexus with a card like Cauldron of Souls provides incredible board wipe protection, and since your creatures would come back with a -1/-1 counter, then Wick would let you put a +1/+1 counter on them, removing the -1/-1 counter.

Prolife-a-rats & Infectious Rats

Aside from the combos and Rats, there are a few other cards we could add to Wick. If you want to lean into the +1/+1 counters, you could go with a proliferation theme with cards like Inexorable Tide, Contagion Engine, and Contagion Clasp. If you do go this route, you can also lean into infect with Karumonix, the Rat King and Ichor Rats. You might get some heat for this, but do what you think is fun!

Blinking Rats

The other option, which I think is much more realistic, is a blink package. Panharmonicon and Virtue of Knowledge, while not blink cards, are great at doubling up Wick's trigger. Conjurer's Closet, Thassa, Deep-Dwelling, and a weird card, Mirror of Life Trapping, are repeatable ways to blink our Rats. Also, Vren and Mirror of Life Tapping is a cute interaction.

And if you decide to add blink spells, like Ghostly Flicker, Teferi's Time Twist, or Planar Incision, consider adding Orvar, the All-Form. They are technically a Snail, and they'll let you make token copies of your creatures. The same is true if you run cards like Not Dead After All, Feign Death, and Malakir Rebirth. I think this might be a little too niche, but I just wanted to point this out.

Fun Ideas

There is one card I want to talk about with the disclaimer: it's probably not good in the deck, but Spike Cannibal steals all +1/+1 counters, so if you can make this a Snail somehow, it instantly becomes a huge beater that can be sacrificed to Wick.

If you wanted to build a Gyruda, Doom of Depths companion Rat deck, there are 49 even mana value Rats for you to include. Personally, I'd avoid this, but it is something you can do.

#Winning

So how do we win with the deck? Like I said at the start, since Wick deals the damage, Tainted Strike, Phyresis, and Glistening Oil can one-shot the table. I'm only going to be adding Tainted Strike to the deck since it is such a cheap trick. Also, the combos mentioned earlier are great ways to close out the game, granted they require a little setup. Twisted Sewer-Witch will give all of our Rats Wicked Role Auras, that will ping the table when they hit the graveyard. Bastion of Remembrance is always a good option if you're going to be sacrificing creatures.