TWO upgrades for Squirreled Away / Bloomburrow Commander Precon deck / Magic: The Gathering

[@Angelisian]

Squirrels are just fun creatures types in Magic and I love that they have given us several routes for building a squirrel deck with basically all of the squirrels commanders being powerful and interesting to build. Best kindred creature for commander hands down.

[@mtgspecs]

Yes! So many squirrel options now, especially as they have had lots of joke cards in the Un sets. We went from 9 legal Golgari squirrels to 28. My favourite kindred team is frogs at the moment - we get good ones every set.

[@unanon_user]

My upgrade path for this deck? Archetype of endurance, karumonix and scute swarm. The last two of these upgrades suggestions combined with the ogre slumlord and maskwood creates so many deathtouchers with poison. Hundreds, if not thousands. And even better, they are also considered squirrels, not just rats.

[@mtgspecs]

Finally, a use for the five Karumonix cards I pulled - I like this direction, pure evil. Squirrels not so cuddly now, eh?

[@unanon_user]

@@mtgspecs which is why I suggested adding archetype of endurance. Because you want better hex proofing. Maybe go step further and add in dark steel foundry and mycroid laytice to make everything indestructible. You're welcome

[@Raven1024]

Sad thing for me so far with this deck is that I find it has little protection for Hazel so she rarely gets to stay on the field long enough to actually do anything for me. I'm probably going to drop something like Woe Strider to add some protection for her. She got instantly removed 4 times in my first game and 3 in the second.

[@mtgspecs]

Woah, your opponents have respect for the power of Hazel clearly. Is this your playgroup or random players? It becomes a meta call then; I played Hazel on stream the other day against the other precons and she only got taken out once. There is some consideration of when to cast a commander; I've talked about commanders being a one off sorcery in the zone, where you have to carefully time it's casting - hope you get Hazel to stick!

[@Raven1024]

@@mtgspecs It's just a friend playgroup. They are terrified of her ramp so Swiftfoot Boots are probably in order to give her haste and hexproof. Mainly they've been trying to make sure I can't use the tap. It's two blue decks and a red with a lot of removal so figuring a safe cast time has been a challenge.

[@mtgspecs]

@@Raven1024 that's a tough pod. Any thoughts on switching to lots of refundancy for the deck? Cryptolith Rite, Elven Chorus, Jaheira, Inspiring Statuary, Krark Clan Ironworks - all can produce insane mana with the right tokens. Then Hazel has back up. Or you go Saryth the Vipers Fang, spells like Malakir Rebirth, Veil of Summer and go in on protection. I prefer the former as taking up slots with protection can dilute the rest of the deck. The first part supports your goals.

[@chopperisnotawarcriminal]

I would really try and buy this precon...if it didn't cost almost double as the other ones...

[@mtgspecs]

I had no idea it had gone up in price so much. It's £85 as apposed to the £35 for the others. Quite shocked by that.

[@chopperisnotawarcriminal]

@@mtgspecs I never found it that low even at release. It was already close to 80€. Such a shame...

[@MF_Dicedealer]

Chatterfang likes nested shambler, sacing squirrels to pump the power and make a fresh pile of ~twice the number of squirrels.

[@mtgspecs]

That's AWESOME. This is new information. Just another reason why the upgrade guide ended 30 seconds after it started 😉 Cheers for the info.

[@MF_Dicedealer]

Chatterfang, Slimefoot, Ghave what is it with GBx token commanders going infinite with no effort?

[@mtgspecs]

@@MF_Dicedealer ha yeah! It's not my preferred way of winning. We have someone in our play group who was rocking an infinite and we made sure to say, 'that's fine but don't expect us to be impressed' haha

[@unanon_user]

So this deck is not a big deal. Really, if you let this that crush you? It is your own damn fault. Because, you'll see it coming a mile away. It isn't like animated army, that is actually very difficult to deal with. But, this deck is powerful though. Make no mistake about that. Someone got 90 plus tokens out on the field. My poor little indestructible creature was reduced to nothingness.

[@mtgspecs]

It's the ability to rebuild with tokens that often poses the problem. I was happily casting my high mana value stuff and all these small parts are building or rebuilding in this tsunami of value.

[@unanon_user]

@@mtgspecs I have seen animated and squirrel away. The real issues for both decks are as follows. Squirrel away requires so many more upg rade as compared to animated army. Animated army needs it's mana base upgraded and badly too. The guy running it had been complaining about its mana base and how it doesn't generate enough to pay the steep casting costs of those creatures, artifacts and enchantments. And this is even given the fact that animated armies focused around you cheaping stuff in. The commander is also a big problem in that, take it out and your whole strategy amounts to nothing. Which is, bring stuff to life and send it at your opponents. We had so many problems drawing removal to deal with that deck. I think to keep the Commander protected, you definitely want good hexproofing or shroud that can stay around. Not something like the swiftfoot boots or lightning greaves. The reason I don't really like basic hexproofing or shroud is because it is so easy to remove. The squirrel deck basically needs token doublers and many of them, in addition to a few additions that'll make your tokens even deadlier. But that's only if you have maskwood Nexus on the field. Like animated army, the lynchpin strategy doesn't really work out so well. So, I might apply some better type unification redundancies. But even if you have those upgrades all taken care of, I still reiterate that you can see the squirrel that coming a mile away. So, you can kind of take your time with it? That isn't quite so with animated army. Animated army is a threat from the very beginning of the game. That is my belief as someone who has seen it when and lose. Squirrel away is too much of a problem. The face commander kind of sucks? That's always a bad thing when the face commander sucks. I wouldn't even use the backup commander. You're basically using one of the other legendaries to achieve your goal which were included.