Bloomburrow is now out and players simply can't get enough of it! Stores are selling out of events, running low on product to sell, you name it! The set is a massive hit and it shows. The Redwall-like setting is attracting all sorts of players, even those who have never touched a Magic card before in their life. As with most sets these days, Bloomburrow is boasting a mighty four Commander preconstructed decks and I definitely want to talk about how to upgrade them!

This week, I'm talking all about the Squirreled Away precon and ways to boost it up. First, though, I'd like to take a little step back in time to when I first started back with a little set called Urza's Legacy. At this time, there weren't many squirrels in the game. Liege of the Hollows was the only previous black bordered card that referenced the creature type and Squirrel Farm made a showing in Unglued. But then we got two particularly memorable cards in this famously powerful set:

These two cards are permanently etched in my brain. I'd see them all the time growing up when flipping through copies of Scrye and Inquest as my 9-year old eyes would stare at them in awe. Deranged Hermit was a major contender back in the day for competitive play, thanks to how Gaea's Cradle made the echo cost trivial, leaving you with a big army of deadly squirrels. As for Might of Oaks...well it was a massive power buff - the kind that attracts new players - on a card featuring adorably epic artwork.

From there, we'd get squirrels a few more times in sets like Prophecy, Odyssey, and Torment, but then they were phased out of the main game. They were deemed too silly and were instead left for Un-Sets like Unhinged's Form of the Squirrel and Unstable's Earl of Squirrel. It wasn't until recent years that they lightened up on this policy and started giving them to us in more mainline releases like Modern Horizons 2 and now, naturally, Bloomburrow. It's been quite a bumpy ride but it sure seems like squirrels are here to stay, especially when there's a whole Commander precon being built around them!

Hazel of the Rootbloom headlines the deck, providing you no shortage of squirrel tokens in the process to set up your game plan! So how does the rest of the list look? Well, let's dive in and check it out before we go into the actual upgrades!

Squirreled Away Precon | Commander

• Commander (1)
• 1 Hazel of the Rootbloom

• Creatures (29)
• 1 Academy Manufactor
• 1 Arasta of the Endless Web
• 1 Beledros Witherbloom
• 1 Chatterfang, Squirrel General
• 1 Chittering Witch
• 1 Deep Forest Hermit
• 1 End-Raze Forerunners
• 1 Gilded Goose
• 1 Haywire Mite
• 1 Hazel's Brewmaster
• 1 Honored Dreyleader
• 1 Insatiable Frugivore
• 1 Moonstone Eulogist
• 1 Morbid Opportunist
• 1 Nadier's Nightblade
• 1 Nested Shambler
• 1 Ogre Slumlord
• 1 Plaguecrafter
• 1 Poison-Tip Archer
• 1 Prosperous Innkeeper
• 1 Ravenous Squirrel
• 1 Scurry of Squirrels
• 1 Skyfisher Spider
• 1 Squirrel Sovereign
• 1 The Odd Acorn Gang
• 1 Tireless Provisioner
• 1 Toski, Bearer of Secrets
• 1 Woe Strider
• 1 Zulaport Cutthroat

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Garruk, Cursed Huntsman

• Instants (8)
• 1 Cache Grab
• 1 Deadly Dispute
• 1 Plumb the Forbidden
• 1 Putrefy
• 1 Saw in Half
• 1 Second Harvest
• 1 Tear Asunder
• 1 Windgrace's Judgment

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Casualties of War
• 1 Chatterstorm
• 1 Decree of Pain
• 1 Maelstrom Pulse
• 1 Rootcast Apprenticeship
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Swarmyard Massacre

• Enchantments (7)
• 1 Bastion of Remembrance
• 1 Beastmaster Ascension
• 1 Binding the Old Gods
• 1 Gourmand's Talent
• 1 Moldervine Reclamation
• 1 Squirrel Nest
• 1 Wolfwillow Haven

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Chitterspitter
• 1 Golgari Signet
• 1 Idol of Oblivion
• 1 Maskwood Nexus
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Sword of the Squeak
• 1 Talisman of Resilience

• Lands (38)
• 8 Swamp
• 9 Forest
• 1 Barren Moor
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Golgari Rot Farm
• 1 Grim Backwoods
• 1 Haunted Mire
• 1 Jungle Hollow
• 1 Llanowar Wastes
• 1 Necroblossom Snarl
• 1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Swarmyard
• 1 Tainted Wood
• 1 Temple of Malady
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Tranquil Thicket
• 1 Twilight Mire
• 1 Viridescent Bog
• 1 Woodland Cemetery

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Reading through this list is actually quite interesting. You might not think so by the name of the deck, but this deck isn't quite so squirrel focused as you may be led to believe. In fact, by my count, there are only nine actual squirrels in the deck. If you also count cards that make squirrel tokens, there's an additional seven cards. That means in a whole squirrel focused Commander deck, only 15 of the 100 cards are actually squirrel related. So, uh, where are all the squirrels?

The simple answer here is that there simply aren't that many that exist in the first place. I took a look at Scryfall to check for all cards that either refer to squirrels in their text box (usually to make tokens) or were squirrel creatures themselves. With those parameters, the Golgari color identity only contains a nice 69 cards - many of which are Un-set cards not viable in typical Commander games. Excluding the silver border and acorn cards, we're left with a mighty 58 total cards, meaning there's simply not a ton to work with.

Consider the era several of these cards were made in also. Cards like Chatter of the Squirrel, Acorn Harvest, and Krosan Beast may have had their place in 60-card Magic at the time, but they don't particularly serve a casual Commander setting well. Many of the newer squirrels are somewhat similar, with cards like Bakersbane Duo and Daggerfang Duo being solid for Limited, but not so much elsewhere. All of this is to say that there's just not a whole lot of squirrels right now. However, "right now" is the key term there, and it's certainly a great reason I like how this deck is crafted.

The Casual Play Design team seems to have gone with the approach of making the primary Commander a bit less focused on squirrels and more on tokens. Yes, Hazel makes squirrel tokens, but that's irrelevant. It could've been any creature type and it'd still be the same type of deck in the end: a token one. This is why you end up with a mix of other token generators like Arasta of the Endless Web, Beledros Witherbloom, Chittering Witch, Ogre Slumlord, and Tireless Provisioner. The deck likes doing things with squirrels, but it prefers to take advantage of any token making card it can to maximize value in a broad sense.

If anything, it feels like the secondary commander card, The Odd Acorn Gang, is much more designed to be the true squirrel commander card. Given that, it feels very much like this deck was built for current considerations, but also future proofs things by giving you a solid squirrel option as more squirrels trickle into the game. Now that we've seen squirrels perform well as solid options in both Modern Horizons 2 and Bloomburrow, combined with their long historical context, I think it's highly likely we'll see more squirrels as time goes on. That means there will almost certainly be a ton of ways to build the more dedicated deck that some players would no doubt have hoped for here.

So, given all of that, are there any squirrels that are actually worth adding into the mix here? I think there are a few! Let's start by looking at some more classic options. I'm not going to sit here and suggest Liege of the Hollows or Deranged Hermit - both of which are on the reserved list and thus go for stupid amounts of money - but there are a couple cool cards from the Odyssey era and beyond.

Consider something like Druid's Call, which spits out tons of squirrel tokens turn after turn if put on the right creature. Additionally, both Nut Collector and Squirrel Mob are classic examples of great casual squirrel cards that saw recent reprints in Dominaria Remastered and Modern Horizons 2, respectively. The recent Bloomburrow hype spiked their prices a little, but not enough to make them hard to come by. Also, while squirrels weren't typically revisited in black border releases for several years, we did get the oddball Acorn Catapult in Commander 2011 that spits out squirrels in a fairly comical manner.

Beyond those classic cards, most of the good stuff in Modern Horizons 2 already shows up in this deck. You could maybe sneak in a copy of Scurry Oak or even Underworld Hermit if you're feeling bold, but the deck works fine without them. Cloakwood Hermit and Animal Friend make for some cute additions as one-offs from more Commander exclusive releases, but those too are more just fine than serious contenders.

As such, the real meat and potatoes is what we're going to find in Bloomburrow proper. Most of the aforementioned cards are all good at making you a bunch of squirrel tokens. What they're not good at, though, is actually doing something with those squirrels. Valley Rotcaller and Camellia, the Seedmiser are both excellent ways of buffing up your team of squirrels, or at least making them dish out huge amounts of damage. While both of those take advantage of going wide, you can also use Valley Mightcaller to go tall from all of the squirrels you have hitting the battlefield. Additionally, Osteomancer Adept and Thornvault Forager are both excellent value additions that benefit the creature type package at the same time.

So, by now I've gone in depth about the squirrels aspect. I imagine most people buying this precon want to be doing more squirrel stuff and that's the best way to do it, barring cards like Maskwood Nexus (which is already in the deck) and Conspiracy. Changelings work too, but with those your only really good options are things like Chameleon Colossus and maybe Realmwalker. Not exactly a ton to work with. Given that, let's instead move on and take a look at the other aspect of the deck: tokens.

There are a million different ways to add to the token aspect of this deck. In fact, it's almost easier to talk about what non-token stuff you can do just because of how broad the possibilities of token strategies have become over the years. You can get some of the real obvious baseline stuff out of the way pretty quickly, primarily the fact that cards like Parallel Lives, Doubling Season, and Primal Vigor are all great additions. They're still pricey for the most part, but have come down quite a bit thanks to Wilds of Eldraine and are evergreen enough to be worth the pickup if you really want them.

Past that, adding in a copy of Mirkwood Bats is an extremely obvious boost for a deck like this. Wizards obviously couldn't include it due to weird Universes Beyond IP nonsense, but it's quite affordable and easy to slot in here. With how many tokens you can make, it goes haywire fast. Jaheira, Friend of the Forest works in a very similar vein, being a difficult inclusion because of the Dungeons & Dragons property overlap, but turning all of your tokens into mana dorks really enables you to make some incredibly splashy plays. Creakwood Liege is also a great addition, as not only will it regularly make tokens on its own, but it will also buff all those squirrels you're making at the same time.

These are merely a small sampling of options for what you might want to explore. The reality is that token support is everywhere. You can probably just sift through your bulk bin or flip through pages of your binders and you'll easily find some great stuff you have lying around that can work well for this angle. Even if you haven't, Wizards already included a ton of great options. There's plenty of staple ways to make a variety of tokens and you also get a couple Blood Artist effects in the form of Bastion of Remembrance and Zulaport Cutthroat to make good long term use out of them. Find what works best for you here and go nuts!

At the end of the day, if you're picking up this deck looking for a decent squirrel deck, you're probably not going to have the best time right out of the gate. While the deck does some squirrely things, it's not actually the main aspect of the deck, and as such, if that's truly the route you want to go down, you'll need to do a lot of upgrading. Instead, what this feels like is a deck that gives you a great starting point that you can build off of in the coming years as more and more squirrels show up, while providing different avenues by which you can upgrade. No matter how you upgrade, though, make sure you have a great time at your next Commander night!

Just be sure to pack a few extra acorns for all your little rodent friends.

Paige Smith

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