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Rat King, Pale Piper

Legendary Creature — Rat Avatar

Menace
Whenever Rat King or another nontoken creature you control leaves the battlefield, create a 1/1 black Rat creature token.
{2}, Sacrifice a token: Draw a card.

CMC
4
Mana cost
{3}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
rare
Set
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Eternal
Price
$0.34
EDHREC rank
#12331
Buy on TCGplayer
Rat King, Pale Piper card art
Rat King, Pale Piper turns every rat death into a recursive threat — tap it to return a rat from any graveyard to the battlefield, and pair it with Nether Traitor for a loop that never runs dry. The cost is a four-mana legendary that does nothing the turn it enters, so it earns its slot only in decks that can protect it and already want the graveyard axis.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Rat King, Verminister

Rat King, Verminister

52.2% of decks · synergy 0.48

Rat King, Verminister is the natural home — Rat King, Pale Piper feeds directly into the pack-scaling engine, and recurring rats from any graveyard means even opponents' removal becomes fuel.

02
Totentanz, Swarm Piper

Totentanz, Swarm Piper

38.8% of decks · synergy 0.39

Totentanz, Swarm Piper triggers off non-token creatures dying, so Rat King, Pale Piper's recursion keeps those triggers firing while rebuilding the board after a wipe.

04
Karumonix, the Rat King

Karumonix, the Rat King

25.6% of decks · synergy 0.21

Karumonix, the Rat King stacks poison counters on the number of rats in play, so Rat King, Pale Piper's ability to refill the board after disruption directly translates to more poison pressure.

05
Marrow-Gnawer

Marrow-Gnawer

24.0% of decks · synergy 0.20

Marrow-Gnawer turns rats into exponential tokens at combat, and Rat King, Pale Piper ensures the original rats that enable that explosion keep coming back to do it again.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern not legal
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Commander is the format Rat King, Pale Piper was built for — 100-card singleton rat tribal decks have enough critical mass to exploit the recursion, and multiplayer games run long enough that a four-mana engine piece pays off. In Legacy and Vintage, it is technically legal but sees no meaningful play; the formats move too fast for a tapped-activation legendary to survive a full turn rotation, and better graveyard engines exist at lower cost. Oathbreaker shares Commander's casual multiplayer DNA, and rat-focused builds there can use Rat King, Pale Piper effectively, though the tighter 60-card constraint makes consistency harder.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.34 bulk tier

At $0.34, Rat King, Pale Piper sits firmly in bulk territory, making it a zero-barrier pickup for any rat deck. Bulk rares with tribal specificity tend to stay cheap unless a breakout deck pushes demand, so don't expect movement — just buy the copy you need and move on.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

← All cards

Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.