Topic: squirrel deck help!

Hi everyone! Thanks to the awesome traders here, I have gotten my squirrel deck cards smile  NOW I need help making the deck work. Any suggestions would be very helpful! I want to make it fun, but not a total pushover deck.

This is the year of the squirrel!

http://deckbox.org/sets/358107

Last edited by Blaze (2013-04-09 17:34:21)

Re: squirrel deck help!

Selesnya cards with populate seem like they'd be a good choice. Basic lands are probably good as well. And that's without bumping the other cards you have less than 4 of to 4.

Mainly just to make it more playable and the cards seem to be primarily ways to get squirrel tokens out.

If you're playing more friendly games rather than official ones, there are two other squirrel cards you can add in (squirrel farm and form of the squirrel).

Re: squirrel deck help!

So are you aiming for this to be a casual deck or legal in competitive formats?  The reason I ask is because Earthcraft is banned in legacy, but in casual play, it creates a nice infinite squirrel loop with Squirrel Nest.

For some more general thoughts. 

Personally, I'm not as big of a fan of Krosan Beast, Squirrel Wrangler, Acorn Catapult and even to some degree Nut Collector. Consider that both Acorn Harvest and Chatter of the Squirrel have flashback.  So when would you have seven cards in your yard to trigger Threshold?  Squirrel Wrangler requires you to sack lands - typically not a good idea if you're only getting two 1/1 squirrels.  Perhaps he could be useful late game, but I'm not seeing it.  Lastly, I can see keeping 1-2x Nut Collector for the repeated squirrel production, but beyond that, they're just awfully expensive for little reward (especially when a single point of damage can wipe the collector out).

You're going to want more ways to pump the fuzzies.  This can be done a variety of ways, but I'm personally a fan of Beastmaster Ascension (BA) and Adaptive Automaton.  Since you're going to be attacking with the squirrels like nuts anyway (see what I did there wink ), BA will set off rather quickly and then all the fuzzies are at least 6/6 creatures.  Similarly, with the automatons, just name squirrel and they're all getting an anthem effect.

Some other cards to consider:  Overrun; Garruk Wildspeaker - untapping two squirrel nests is always fun; Parallel Lives - if one squirrel is good, two is even better; Druid's Call and Lure - pair those two on a squirrel when you have Swarmyard in play and BAM, you're pumping out squirrels equal to the total amount of damage the opponents' creatures can deal.

Lastly, you need to keep in mind that a squirrel deck will have some glaring weaknesses - the largest of which is weakness against flyers.  You can combat this pretty easily with either Spidersilk Armor to give all of them reach or Gravity Well to prevent anyone from being able to swing with flying.

I have a squirrel deck myself that my GF loves to play.  It can be all sorts of fun, although you have to acknowledge the limitations of the deck (although you cannot beat the flavor).  You're welcome to look it over for ideas at http://deckbox.org/sets/133527

One final suggestion, if you go with any of the suggestions I've given above (especially with multiple copies of Parallel Lives), I'd suggest keeping a calculator nearby, as you're going to be generating a LOT of squirrels.

Good luck.

Re: squirrel deck help!

I wanted to get a form of the squirrel, But i could never play unhinged/unglued in a tournament. 

Well, Casual and competitive lol. I can always sideboard to swap them out. I wanted to run this one Friday at fnm.
And we have thought of the exact same problems with the flashback.
Reading your post we have thought of many of the same things, But i never even thought of Garruk big_smile He is going in for sure.  I need to get the druids call....Did not think of that card. Beastmasters i have 4 of. But the gravity well Is a nice touch. I was going to add in deadly Recluse, But I like the well idea better!

Alright, I'm going to make these changes, I will post the deck when im done, Thanks for the feedback!

Re: squirrel deck help!

Most places seem to just use Standard for FNM, at least they do around here. And this deck is really anything but a standard deck. For the most part it seems more of one for casual play anyway.

Re: squirrel deck help!

my place does legacy every Friday. but the town over is standard/ modern.
that being said, this week i cannot attend because of work. next week is fair game though big_smile

Re: squirrel deck help!

I would consider adding Parallel Lives and Crucible of Worlds to the deck.  The Crucible would allow you to sacrifice a land to the Squirrel Wrangler on a turn that you don't draw a land and still allow you to play that land on that turn and not mess up your mana curve. Parallel Lives should be obvious tongue

Last edited by the_wizard_666 (2013-04-10 17:12:45)

Re: squirrel deck help!

Yeah i think i might take the wrangler out of the deck. He was not my favorite card to have in there, I just had 4 of him lol. I thought i had parallel lives but i cant seem to find it..... Hmm.

Re: squirrel deck help!

Blaze wrote:

Yeah i think i might take the wrangler out of the deck. He was not my favorite card to have in there, I just had 4 of him lol. I thought i had parallel lives but i cant seem to find it..... Hmm.

If you have any Doubling Seasons you can use that in it's place, but it costs one more mana than Parallel Lives does, not to mention being far more expensive to buy.  Since you don't really have a need for counters, the extra mana and monetary costs aren't worth it, but yeah, if you have any, they'll fill the slot until you can swap them out.