Bloomburrow releases on August 2nd and with it comes four new commander preconstructed decks. As Card Kingdom’s resident rodent lover, I’m very excited to take a look at the Golgari Squirreled Away deck. This deck looks to generate tons of tokens and mana to overwhelm your opponent. In this article I’m going to review the deck’s contents and suggest some upgrades.
THE COMMANDERS:
As usual, the Bloomburrow precons contain two potential commanders. One of these is the face Commander – Hazel of the Rootbloom. The other is The Odd Acorn Gang. Both of these cards look like powerhouses.
Hazel’s activated ability to tap tokens and turn them into mana can result in an insane mana boost. Notably, she doesn’t care what kind of tokens they are. In an ideal world they are Squirrel tokens so they can combo with her other ability, but she also lets you tap Food, Treasure, and any other kind of creature or noncreature token.
Her triggered ability makes sure you’ll have plenty of tokens too, as she makes a copy of one of them during your end step. If you choose to copy a Squirrel, she gives you two copies, meaning you’ll have even more mana on your next turn.
While Hazel is great at generating mana and tokens and grinding out the game, The Odd Acorn Gang is more about beating down with Squirrels. Not only does it have impressive stats and keywords for it’s cost, it allows all of your squirrels to buff squirrels, and draws you cards when your Squirrels hit your opponent.
In the end, I think Hazel is the more powerful option. She lets you go wide with squirrels and generate insane mana all on her own.
NEW CARD REVIEW
In addition to the two new legendary Squirrels, the deck contains 8 other brand new cards that look to support Hazel’s mission of generating a ton of tokens and getting extra value out of Squirrels.
Sword of the Squeak is probably my favorite new card in the set. It is some pretty silly Sword of the Meek wordplay, and it offers some support to all the rodent creature types. In this deck it’s also going to offer a massive boost to whatever it gets attached to since you’re likely to have Squirrels and other 1/1 tokens running amok.
Swarmyard Massacre might be the most powerful of the new cards in this precon. This is because it will often amount to being a one-sided board wipe. On it’s own it will only do -2/-2, but it’s usually going to wipe the board and let you keep all of your Squirrels. Your opponents will not have an easy time recovering from that.
Note by the way, that even though both of these cards use typal coupling that includes Squirrels and Rats, the other two creature types are not the same.
These two cards don’t give you a Squirrel payoff, but they both give you Squirrel tokens. Rootcast Apprenticeship is a really sweet modal spell. One that I think could make an impact in Commander more broadly. Making copies of tokens and generating squirrel tokens are what has the most value in this particular deck, but it can also go after opposing artifacts and put +1/+1 counters on your board.
Scurry of Squirrels has double myriad, so any time you attack with it there are suddenly going to be tons of 2/2 squirrel tokens on the board, and they are likely to grow your creatures because it isn’t like your opponent can account for all of them. It is a little bit of a bummer, though, that Hazel can’t make copies of the Scurry of Squirrels tokens. This is because they get exiled at the end of combat, and Hazel can only copy a token at the end of your turn.
Squirrels really love food, so it should come as no surprise that the deck also features some food payoffs. After all, Hazel can tap Food tokens for mana just as easily as she can tap Squirrel tokens.
Insatiable Frugivore has the potential to give you a ton of Food tokens all on it’s own, provided you have enough cards in your graveyard. Furthermore, it can buff your whole board – something that’s pretty scary when you have a squirrel army.
Similarly, Hazel’s Brewmaster likes to exile cards from graveyards and generate food. She also has the weird ability to give all of your food the activated abilities of all the cards it has exiled. That can be pretty powerful, especially if you have a lot of food.
Gourmand’s Talent is a Class that initially makes all of your artifacts into Food. If you sink mana into it to level them up, it becomes a pretty nice life gain payoff. This card actually seems sort of out of place in this deck, as it would certainly be better in a more dedicated life gain or Food deck than it is in a deck that likes tokens more broadly.
Lastly, there’s Moonstone Eulogist. Instead of Squirrel or Food tokens, he gives you Blood. He’ll make it for you any time an opposing creature dies, and also grow when you sacrifice your Food or Blood tokens. He gives you those tokens for free and you’ll get them pretty often in a 4-player game, so he does a good job of fueling Hazel’s ability to produce mana.
$50 UPGRADES
While Hazel is good with any type of token, she is undoubtedly at her best with squirrel tokens, since she can make more copies of those. This not only means she improves your board, but also makes it much easier for you to produce a ton of mana.
The first upgrades I’d like to suggest are largely focused on making this deck a little more focused on Squirrel tokens in particular.
Nut Collector can generate Squirrels every turn, but his real value comes from his Threshold ability, which is likely to add a ton of stats to the board in this deck.
Drey Keeper can also generate Squirrel tokens and offer to buff your entire board. While the Keeper doesn’t make your Squirrels quite as massive, it does make them hit harder and Menace makes it much easier to push damage through.
Squirrel Wrangler can give up lands to make Squirrel tokens or to buff all of your Squirrels, and Scurry Oak spits out a Squirrel token any time it gets a +1/+1 counter. This won’t be hard to do, since the Oak has Evolve, but keep in mind that it generates a Squirrel no matter how it gets its counter.
There are also two Squirrel payoffs from Bloomburrow that they didn’t put in the precon, but they are right at home in it. Valley Mightcaller might not be a squirrel itself, but it grows any time a Squirrel enters, and that includes tokens. This means it’s going to be a huge trampler in no time.
Valley Rotcaller is even better. This is partly because it has the Squirrel creature type and because it lets you drain life from all of your opponents. And if your board has enough squirrels on it, the advantage it gives you can be insurmountable.
The deck could also use a couple more powerful options to ramp into using all those tokens. While there are lots of great choices out there, I think going with expensive cards that also make tokens is the most sensible since the deck is so well-positioned to get extra value out of tokens.
Avenger of Zendikar is a perfect fit for the deck, not only because it’s incredibly powerful, but also because it generates tokens, too. If those tokens aren’t quite big enough to pressure your opponent, you can also tap them for even more mana.
Meanwhile, Pest infestation is a great way to destroy a ton of opposing artifacts and Enchantments and it generates a ton of Pest tokens. Importantly, it can also make those tokens, even if it doesn’t have any targets.
I removed the following cards to make room for these changes:
–Academy Manufacter
–Windgrace’s Judgment
–Gourmand’s Talent
–Shamanic Revelation
–Arasta of the Endless Web
–Skyfisher Spider
–Wolfwillow Haven
–Plaguecrafter
You can find the upgraded decklist here.
FURTHER UPGRADES
If you’re working with a bigger budget, there are some additional cards you could pick up that would improve the deck significantly.
First there are a couple of more expensive cards that can both generate Squirrel tokens and pay you off for having them. One of them is pretty old – Deranged Hermit. He makes four squirrels and is also a squirrel lord! Having both this Hermit and Deep Forest Hermit in the deck would be pretty awesome.
The other is a brand new card – Camellia, the Seedmiser. She gives all Squirrels menace, makes squirrels when you sacrifice food, and can buff all your squirrels by Foraging.
There are also a couple of premiere creatures that are incredible to ramp into. Craterhoof Behemoth and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth are super expensive staples for a reason. Casting them often wins you the game. The Behemoth buffs your whole board and makes it lethal out of nowhere, and Kozilek draws you a ton of cards and annihilates opposing permanents.
Parallel Lives and Doubling Season are token deck staples. This is because they both double the number of tokens you put into play, which this deck can very easily take advantage of.
END STEP
The Squirreled Away precon is powerful and ready to play right out of the box, and with a few small changes you can make it even better. What do you think? Are there any important upgrades I left out? Let me know over on X.
Jacob has been playing Magic for the better part of 24 years, and he especially loves playing Magic’s Limited formats. He also holds a PhD in history from the University of Oklahoma. In 2015, he started his YouTube channel, “Nizzahon Magic,” where he combines his interests with many videos covering Magic’s competitive history. When he’s not playing Magic or making Magic content, he can be found teaching college-level history courses or caring for a menagerie of pets with his wife.