Squirreled Away Upgrade Guide: Fun Additions

Hello, fellow Squirrel enthusiast! Are you looking for how to improve your Squirreled Away precon? In that case, keep on reading, as I’m about to tell you which card suck (and should be thrown out never to be seen again) and which ones you should add.

I’ll assume you aren’t the most cutthroat player. While you do want to win, you also want to have fun while doing so, and keeping the deck on theme. Thus, you won’t find generic good stuff recommendations, but cards that will enable exciting and unique play patterns, while making the general game play smoother.

With that said, let’s dive deep into the Squirreled Away Upgrade Guide.

Top 3 Additions

First up, here are three cards, that I’d want to add first. These will give you a lot of impact, and are a great way to start a small upgrade. Perfect if you don’t want to completely change the deck right away.

Springheart Nantuko

First up, here’s a relatively new card from Modern Horizons 3, that can do wonders in this deck. The basic idea is to put it on a non-legendary Squirrel, play a land, and copy it. So, on your end step Hazel of the Rootbloom.

That won’t be too hard to achieve, plus even putting it on non-Squirrels can be good. Imagine creating multiple copies of Deep Forest Hermit; now that’s a lot of Squirrels.

On top of that, Springheart Nantuko is steadily climbing in price since its release. Most likely, it’ll become a green staple, so now is a good time to acquire it before price increases even further.

Parallel Lives

Okay, this card is your bread and butter staple for green token decks, but it just makes them not only more powerful, but also more fun. You know how the saying goes: “Double the tokens, double the fun.”

With this enchantment in play, it’s much easier to control a bunch of tokens in play, making Hazel of the Rootbloom stronger.

Scurry Oak

If you’re a newer player, this card might seem perfectly fair to you. You can actually play it as such, and it’s going to be good enough in most play groups. It’s a three drop that grows, and makes Squirrels while doing so. Perfectly fine for this deck.

On top of that, it’s also a part of a combo, but more about that in the next sections.

Cards to Add

What follows are some cards that you might want to add to your deck. You don’t necessarily need to include all of them, as these are mostly ideas. They’re grouped together based on different themes, so choose the ones you enjoy the most.

Squirrel Cards

If there’s one thing this deck did amazingly well is that it included a lot of the strongest Squirrel cards. However, there are still a few missing. If you want to further enhance the synergies, these are the ones you might want to add.

First up, Squirrel Mob, which is just a potentially very large Squirrel. Interesting thing to note is that this is an older design, and thus counts all Squirrels on the battlefield. So, it’s going to be even better if you expect a Squirrel mirror. (Or perhaps some changelings.)

Nut Collector can buff all of your Squirrels, and make more of them. It isn’t the most efficient card at six mana, but it’s certainly a fun one.

You can ignore the whole background mechanic, and just playCloakwood Hermit as a three mana enchantment that creates two Squirrels on each of your turns. Of course, provided its conditions are met, but that probably shouldn’t be too hard to achieve.

Finally, there’s an uncommon from the Bloomburrow main set, Curious Forager. Sure, it’s not as good as Eternal Witness for example, but it’s a Squirrel, so it works with your synergies.

Token Support

Next step on our Squirreled Away upgrade journey is the improvement of token synergies.

Jaheira, Friend of the Forest allows you to tap your tokens for mana. Your 1/1 Squirrel tokens now become Llanowar Elves. You don’t need to sacrifice Treasures for mana. Even your Food can now ramp you. In most scenarios, you’ll be able to play Jaheira and immediately get more than three mana from your tokens. As such, this is a card that you really want in this type of deck.

Next up, two cards from the Lord of the Rings Magic set. Both Peregrin Took and Mirkwood Bats work great here. Hobbit will make additional Food tokens, while the Bats will make all of your opponents lose life whenever you create or sacrifice tokens.

Warren Soultrader can also enable some powerful play patterns, by turning your creatures into Treasures. Even against wraths you at least get to turn your board into more mana.

Speaking of powerful play patterns, I probably need to mention Doubling Season. More expensive (both in mana and in dollars) than Parallel Lives, it also works with all kinds of counters. If you want to double your token production further, this is the way to go.

Finally, For the Common Good can also make a bunch of tokens and gain you a lot of life. The card’s power level changes depending on what you copy. What if there’s a way to copy…

Bigger Tokens

I’ve talked about making tokens of actual creatures with Springheart Nantuko and then copying them with Hazel of the Rootbloom. You always have access to your commander, but you don’t always draw Nantuko.

Thus, if you like this strategy, you should also include the following three cards:

• God-Pharaoh’s Gift
• Mimic Vat
• Nexus of Becoming

Each one of them works differently and therefore comes with contrasting pros and cons. But essentially they all allow you to create tokens from your creature cards, which you’ll then be able to copy with Hazel.

Combo Squirrels

But perhaps you want to go even a step further and include an infinite combo or two. That’s also possibly with Squirrels.

Squirrel Nest is already included in the deck. If you add Earthcraft to your deck, you get a two card combo, as long as Nest enchants a basic land. Tap the enchanted land, make a Squirrel. Tap the Squirrel, to activate Earthcraft’s ability, untap the land. Repeat as many times as you want, for as many Squirrels as you’d like.

Even without the combo, Earthcraft is a pretty solid card all on its own. You are making a bunch of tokens, which you can than use to generate that much mana, as long as you have a basic lands in play. The only downside is that this enchantment is on the Reserved List, which means its price is quite high.

For a much cheaper one, you’ll want to use the aforementioned Scurry Oak and pair it with Ivy Lane Denizen. What do you need to do when you have both cards in play? Either put a +1/+1 counter on Oak, or play a green creature. So a Squirrel is created, which triggers Denzien, you put a counter on Oak, get a Squirrel, and repeat this process for a ton of Squirrels.

Pretty neat, right?

Mana Base

One of the worst feelings in Magic is holding a bunch of cool cards, unable to play them due to bad mana base. This deck comes with a passable mana for a precon, but it can certainly be improved.

For starters, you can add some of the following mana fixing lands:

• Deathcap Glade
• Fabled Passage
• Overgrown Tomb
• Undergrowth Stadium
• Verdant Catacombs

Of course, there’s no shortage of various utility lands. For this deck, I really like the of from Bloomburrow main set, Three Tree City. Once you have a bunch of Squirrels in play, it can generate you a ton of mana.

Furthermore, The Shire comes with no real downside, but with a relevant upside. I’t easy to find use for Food tokens in this deck.

Oakhollow Village can buff your Squirrels, plus it also comes into play untapped. Plus, it’s quite a flavorful addition, akin to Mudflat Village.

You can even offset them being occasionally colorless by including Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth.

Cards to Remove

Deciding which cards to remove is often a daunting task nowadays. For basically every card in the deck, you can find a scenario where it would be useful. Thus, I’d recommend you cut cards that are either playing towards another theme, or are simply too weak.

For starters, here are some card that I’d personally remove first:

• Chittering Witch
• Haunted Mire
• Insatiable Frugivore
• Jungle Hollow
• Moonstone Eulogist
• Ogre Slumlord
• Skyfisher Spider
• Wolfwillow Haven

Squirreled Away Upgraded Decklist Example

So, here’s just one of the many possibly builds that you could use for this deck. Note that this is only an example, so add the cards that you like, remove the ones you don’t, and really make the deck your own. After all, that’s what Commander is all about.

Conclusion

That’s it for our Squirreled Away Upgrade Guide. As always, if you think I missed a key card, please let me and our readers know in the comments below. With tens of thousands of Magic cards, there’s bound to be a lot of stuff that could come in handy.

If you’re already looking towards the future, don’t forget to check Duskmourn Commander precons. These couldn’t be more different from the Bloomburoow ones. Instead of adorable creatures, you can expect ominous horrors.

Until next time, have fun, and enjoy playing your upgraded Squirrel Commander deck.