The Squirrel Deck

Pete's Log: The Squirrel Deck

Entry #3038, Fri, April 17, 2026, 23:08 CDT (Games)
(posted when I was 47 years old.)

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I've been wanting to better document the Squirrel Deck since I started tweaking it in Colorado. Back in September I wrote "I'll definitely be taking the Squirreled Away deck apart and seeing which cards might make sense in my squirrel deck." Well, Spring Break is when I finally got around to doing so. Plus I was gifted a couple cards by Tommy, got a few other squirrel cards via Bloomburrow boosters, and was silly and ordered a card online. That card arrived in the mail today, so it seems appropriate to document.

The squirrel deck is a 60-card, monogreen, casual deck. It's legal in the Legacy format and perhaps others.

The deck consists of three parts: 20 forests, 20 "foundational" cards, and 20 "flavor" cards. The deck is focused on pumping out squirrel tokens and making those squirrel tokens and their supporting cast of other squirrels as big as possible.

The foundational cards—or maybe I should call them the "engine" of my deck— are four each of the following five cards. The rules don't allow more than four of any one card, but these are the cards I most depend on:

• Chatter of the Squirrel
  A fast and cheap way to get out one or two squirrel tokens

  

• Squirrel Nest
  Turn a land into a squirrel token generator

  

• Arbor Elf
  The "Mana Dork" of my deck, but since it works via untapping forests, I can also use it to untap squirrel nests for extra squirrel token production

  

• Deranged Hermit
  The hermit is expensive, but creates four squirrel tokens and makes all squirrels stronger.

  

• Swarmyard
  Colorless mana and it can regenerate squirrels!

  

The "flavor" cards are the remaining 20 cards in the deck. I don't have more than two of any card in this group in the deck. Early versions of the deck didn't have enough proper squirrel cards to get to 60 cards, so I had to supplement with other cards, but now this is all pretty squirrely. I actually have way more than 20 cards that could fit in this role, so I have divided them up into A, B, and C teams. The A team is the cards I am pretty certain belong in the deck and the C team is the cards I'm pretty certain don't. The B team is where the most experimenting will probably happen.

A team:

• Second Harvest
  Double the tokens you have on the board. I've had this card take me from six squirrel tokens to twelve before, which is delightful. If I got my hands on a second copy, I'd probably put two in my deck, but for now I just have one.

  

• Frog-Squirrels
  One of the cards Tommy gifted me. Nothing special, but it's a squirrel so it synergizes with all the other squirrels, plus reach is nice.

  

• Squirrel Sovereign
  Make the other squirrels stronger. I've only got one, but wouldn't mind putting a second one in the deck.

  

• Sword of the Squeak
  Make one squirrel ridiculously strong

  

• Squirrel Mob
  The more squirrels you have, the stronger Squirrel Mob gets. I have two of these in the deck.

  

• Honored Dreyleader
  I have two of these in the deck. Getting counters is nice because it means Honored Dreyleader doesn't get weaker when other squirrels die. Plus trample is a bonus.

  

• Toski, Bearer of Secrets
  Toski is a legendary creature, so I can only have one on the battlefield at a time, but I've got two in the deck to increase my chances of getting one out. Haven't had the luck of getting to play Toski yet, but seems pretty epic.

  

• Acorn Harvest
  This is basically a bigger "Chatter of the Squirrel". I have two in the deck.

  

• Chitterspitter
  Artifact that can generate squirrel tokens as well as make them stronger. I only have one.

  

• Chatterstorm
  Create a squirrel token, but you get extras if you cast other spells this turn.

  

B team:

• Deep Forest Hermit
  This is sort of a nerfed Deranged Hermit and this would allow me a "fifth" hermit in the deck, but I can't decide if it's worth it.

  

• Liege of the Hollows
  This is the card that came in the mail today. Two copies actually. It seems entertaining but I'll need to try it out. The disadvantage is it lets your opponent make squirrels too.

  

• Cache Grab
  I have three of these and haven't put them in the deck yet. Creating food tokens might make the forage mechanic on other cards more useful, but it feels like it might just complicate the deck too much.

  

• Scurrid Colony
  Reach is nice, but eight or more lands doesn't feel like it happens often enough.

  

• Bakersbane Duo
  I have two copies of this one, haven't played it yet. Same concern of complicating the deck too much.

  

• Squirrel Wrangler
  I like what it can do, but I also don't like sacrificing lands unless we get far enough into the game.

  

• Treetop Sentries
  I have three of these, but the forage mechanic doesn't really work well with my deck since I rarely have anything in my graveyard (tokens don't go to the graveyard and I often use the flashback mechanic on other cards in the graveyard which ends up exiling them). Reach is nice. I've been putting one in the deck lately. I do like the art and these are supposed to be flavor cards.

  

• Bushy Bodyguard
  Another card with forage, so not sure it works for me.

  

• Rootcast Apprenticeship
  Make squirrel tokens or make them stronger... haven't played this one yet but seems useful. I have one of them.

  

• Nut Collector
  Creating squirrel tokens every upkeep is nice, but the threshold ability on here never kicks in because I never have that many cards in my graveyard. I have one of these and it is from the first round of cards I got for a squirrel deck so I want to play it just for that reason, but I'm not sure how much sense it makes, especially given how expensive it is.

  

• Preposterous Proportions
  Another gift from Tommy. I have just one of these, and I've never managed to play it despite getting it into my hand a couple times. It's just expensive. But if I ever do manage to play it, it's probably an insta-win.

  

• Oakhollow Village
  I've been debating replacing a couple forests with a couple of these, but haven't tried it yet. It can make squirrels stronger, but the disadvantage is my Arbor Elves can't untap it. I'll probably just have to try playing with it and see if it works well or not.

  

C team:

• Scurry of Squirrels
  This card is really only useful in games with more than two players, which I rarely play. So perhaps useful as a sideboard card.

  

• Krosan Beast
  Threshold isn't helpful

  

• Curious Forager
  Doubly unhelpful, because foraging isn't great with my deck and then even if I can forage, there's unlikely to be much in my graveyard

  

And as a final note, I'm now up to thirteen squirrel tokens. This is finally starting to feel like maybe enough, but I wouldn't mind having a few more...

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