What exactly does the Basic supertype mean besides “you can have any number of this card in your deck”? I’m curious why cards like Rat Colony can’t just be basic creatures, as well as what it might look like if there ever were a basic creature card.

The basic supertype isn’t what allows you to have more than four Plains, Islands, Swamps, Mountains, or Forests in your deck. The deck construction rules do that. It’s a marker so cards can care about the subset.

Can we please see the Nezumi (black rat race from Kamigawa) again? I would love it rats was a tribe that could be played without relentless rats or rat colony.

Any one else want to see more rat people?

Could we see a complete cycle for rat colony and persistent petitioners over the course of the next few sets?

I think we’ll let every color get a “you can have as many of these as you want” eventually, but it’s not a cycle and it isn’t on any schedule to happen.