Squirrel Go Round

Hello fellow brewer and welcome back to Brew For Your Buck, where we swap out the top 10 most expensive cards in a deck with 10 budget cards that add a unique twist. Bloomburrow gave us the largest dump of Squirrel cards since Modern Horizons II, adding to the pool of playables for one of Magic's most popular types. What started out as an Un-set meme is clearly here to stay. But for the lovers of these fuzzy little guys, that means picking a single Commander to lead them. Or does it? I say, why not use all of them!?

That's right, today we're going to look at building a deck where you can slot in a different commander at the start of the game depending on the power level of the table, your mood, or whatever else you feel like. It's the ultimate budget deck - four in one!

For our purposes in applying the BFYB method, we do need to pick a starting point, so I picked the oldest commander of the bunch: Chatterfang. It's got the most deck entries, and even has the other three in its average list already. As you'll see, I've slotted them into the command zone on Archidekt so we can focus more clearly on the 99, just remember to shuffle whichever three you aren't using in at the start of your game. Chatterfang's average list comes in at $284.99, a price that I'm guessing used to be higher but recent reprints have helped. Let's cut out the top ten cards:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Doubling Season ($42.04)
               2. Parallel Lives ($34.63)
               3. Heroic Intervention ($9.76)
               4. Warren Soultrader ($6.18)
               5. Pitiless Plunderer ($6.06)
               6. Jaheira, Friend of the Forest ($4.98)
               7. Three Visits ($4.59)
               8. Scute Swarm ($4.23)
               9. Second Harvest ($3.49)
               10. Toski, Bearer of Secrets ($3.39)

Total Value of Cuts: $119.35

The mana base for this deck ends up being relatively expensive compared to the cards in the top ten, forcing a replacement of seven lands with basics. Doing so will lead to an additional $94.57 in savings, for a total of $213.92. That's 75% of the cost of the deck right there.

So now for the budget package. The trick will be to add cards that are commander agnostic, meaning we don't care who is in the command zone when we draw them. Looking at the four commanders, here's what I got for major themes and play patterns:

• Chatterfang: Make tokens, sacrifice them
• Hazel: Make tokens, abuse them for mana
• Camellia: Make Food, sacrifice them
• Acorn Gang: Go wide with Squirrels, then pick one to go tall

It's not shocking that tokens feature prominently with all four, but what tokens specifically? Squirrels are obvious, but Food works really well with the first three; Chatterfang and Hazel don't care what type of tokens are being made. Sacrificing all the extra cardboard lying around works well too. With all that in mind, we have a good starting point for what types of cards to look for.

Additions

Food

Even with Doubling Season and Parallel Lives gone, I'm still confident in our Squirrel production, so let's focus on Food. Academy Manufactor ($2.72) is slightly over the $2 limit I tend to impose on individual cards, but that extra $0.72 is well worth it's inclusion. Things just get completely out of hand whenever this card sticks around the battlefield, and we can easily make use of all the extra tokens. Witch's Oven ($1.29) is a simple way to turn extra Squirrels into Food, maybe even two depending on how buff they are. Old Flitterfang ($1.22) does the same, and if we get towards the end of the turn we can always just trade in another Squirrel to get a Food. Yes, our Squirrels seem to be pretty cannibalistic. We did lose Jaheira to price issues, but we can add in a pseudo-replacement for her with Night of the Sweets' Revenge ($0.30). It turns all of our Food into Mox Emeralds, and if we've got a wide board of Squirrels it's an extra win condition too.

There are a bunch more Food related cards that could be added to the mix, not a bad idea since all the commanders besides The Odd Acorn Gang (hey, they must be considered odd for a reason) synergize well with them. If you're looking to make more cuts or push things in a bit more of a focused direction, that's the way I'd go.

Lifegain

To go along with the Food theme, it turns out these Squirrels are actually pretty good at gaining life. There are a bunch of Blood Artist effects in the deck already, so triggering lifegain synergies should be relatively simple. Two witches help us take advantage: Witch of the Moors ($0.41) and Veinwitch Coven ($0.19). The former is a bit better, as we can force opponents to sacrifice creatures and we get to Raise Dead one of our own. The Coven will Raise Dead something whenever we gain life, trading unbounded triggers for a mana restriction.

Dina, Soul Steeper ($0.10) has the obvious "gain and drain" mode (and we could add more of those effects if we were so inclined) but I also really like that she functions as another sacrifice outlet, limiting the amount of pieces needed for a true game-winning engine. There is a small edge case where she is the ultimate protection for The Odd Acorn Gang. If you make the Gang gigantic and rumble in with both of them, now your opponent needs to kill both to not take a huge amount of damage. We'll also throw in Mortality Spear ($0.21) since it can be a two mana, catch-all removal spell a lot of the time. I'm of the camp that single target removal isn't great in commander, but this is nice and efficient most of the time and deals with anything you need besides lands, so it warrants an inclusion here.

Sacrifice

We already had a bunch of ways to sacrifice our rectangles, so our last section will be to add some more payoffs for doing so. Savra, Queen of the Golgari ($1.64) is an oldie but a goodie, acting like a Grave Pact or fueling more lifegain synergies. Keskit, the Flesh Sculptor ($0.06) can turn Squirrels and Food alike into card draw, something I feel like the deck is lacking a bit.

Bonus Cards!

I know, I know, it's supposed to be the top 10, but I couldn't resist adding a few lands to the mix instead of the basics. Restless Cottage ($1.39) gives us another dual land, Food production, and graveyard hate. Gingerbread Cabin ($0.20) isn't as exciting but can pop out an extra Food from time to time.

Wrap Up & Savings

Let's see what we saved:

Boom baby! We now have a deck under $100, that we can also rotate commanders for, so really it's four decks. So it's really like 300% savings, right? Right?! Anyways, I hope you liked the concept at least. There are a bunch of commanders we could try with this so let me know if you have an idea for any. In the meantime, if you've got suggestions for cards to add, commanders you'd like to see, or comments on the BFYB process, let me know in the comments and I'll see you next time when we brew for your buck!

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Please note: card prices listed in this article are accurate at the time of writing, but prices can vary over time and between locations.

Brian Cain

Brian played Magic intermittently between 2003 and 2017 when he fully embraced his love for Commander. Finding ways to maximize the value of each piece of cardboard in the deck is one of his favorite things to explore, especially if it involves putting lands in the graveyard! Outside of Magic, Brian works as a consultant in the marine industry, turning his passion for boats and ships into a career.