Uncommon Applications: Rat Cartography

This is a deck from my Uncommon Applications series of decks to showcase how to use certain low-rarity Battle Lines in Throne. The primary Battle Lines cards in this deck are Rift Siphon and Lantern's Map, although Enraged Drone also makes an appearance as a 2-of (although it originally wasn't on my list of cards to try).

This is a Rat Cage deck built around using it to enable Rift Siphon and Lantern's Map, but both also enable Cabal Scavenger, which can get seriously out of hand in the presence of Rift Siphon.

I also explored a sacrifice subtheme thanks to Shrine to Karvet, have a couple relic weapons as interaction that also enables the deck's relic synergies, and runs a Condemn market with cards like Kindling Carver as a mid-late game value engine, Furyblade as interaction that also triggers our relic synergies, and other sorts of interaction for your deck.

Enraged Drone has been a card that seriously surprised me in the deck, as being a unit that creates a relic makes it very useful for both halves of the deck. I wouldn't run more than 2 copies, but the 2 copies already in the deck have given me a couple Firehoney lethals, which is a couple more than I would have expected.

Problems:

This deck barely has enough units to support its sacrifice package, and is a bit reliant on either drawing Rat Cage or Star-Reader Severin to use a lot of them. Combust might be preferred in the market, or the deck might want another source of market access over Condemn as another unit.

The powerbase is also kind of awful since SS doesn't have any marks, which are the largest contributors to a good powerbase in Throne right now. You run Insignia and Painting, but then the next best cards you have are Banners, Seats, Sigils, and a 2-of Cylix.

Improvements:

Running a Skycragg tempo deck with Lantern's Map as refill might be an alternative way of using it. Skycragg doesn't have relic synergies the same way Stonescar does, but it does have more aggressive early units and a better power base thanks to Marks.

Rating: 7/10

This deck gets a lot of mileage out of the cards it has and can either beat down the opponent quickly or win in the later stages of the game with all the card draw it has, but it also has severe bricked hands when it has Devour and/or Combust with no units on the field.