Awww, such a cute little bunny. Oh, wait, no it isn't. It's a massive 6/6.
Welcome to the plane of Bloomburrow, a world of anthropomorphic animals and no humans! Although there are some planeswalkers that have slipped in, they have been given a Fursona. This means we get Otter Ral, Fox Jace, Rabbit Lillina and Frog Nissa. We get even more from the Courageous Critters and a Secret Lair, but I won't show and spoil them here.
Although this is the first time we have visited Bloomburrow, it isn't the first time we have seen its inhabitants. Back in 2020, we had Commander Legends and a whole host of Legendary Creatures. Including Kwain, Itinerant Meddler and Archlos, Lagoon Mystic. Both of these have been confirmed as inhabitants of Bloomburrow.
In case you haven’t read any of my previous blogs. I do budget upgrades for the 4 commander decks that are released with the sets. In this case, it is Squirreled Away, Animated Army, Peace Offering, and Family Matters. In keeping with the tiny theme of this set the budget is also small. I have £10 to upgrade each deck with 10 new cards. Although at the end of each blog, I will also include some extra cards that might not be budget friendly, but are excellent additions.
I will point out that these decks have been on point. Making the necessary cuts to each of these decks has been harder than all of the previous Commander decks. Overall, the synergy for the decks is far higher. Even going to the secondary commanders working well and complementing the face commander. Rather than giving an alternative route for the deck. This also extends to the land bases being far better and having less basics in them. While far from perfect there are still some great budget options for them to add over what is chosen. It is a step in the right direction. I hope to see this continue in the future Commander decks.
In this blog, I will be talking about Squirreled Away. This is led by Hazel of the Rootbloom.
This is very much a Kindred deck that is all about Squirrels. Hazel is a strong commander. If Gaea’s Cradle and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx had a baby, Hazel is it. Letting you get insane amounts of mana while always having access to her. This will let you power out some of my suggested cards far sooner than expected. On top of this, you have Hazels’ last ability. Doubling up any token or tripling if it happens to be a Squirrel. This can get pretty crazy if you can get some good tokens. It's a shame Hazel isn’t blue, as there are so many token clone cards. If you're ready to get nutty, we will dive right into it.
Table of Contents
Budget Upgrades
Upgrade 1
The first card I am adding uses the frankly ridiculous amount of mana that Hazel can generate. This is Exsanguinate. It also has its bigger brother and my honourable mention. Torment of Hailfire:
I will be cheeky here and include the cousins of these cards - Consume Spirit, Suffer the Past and The Meathook Massacre. Although all of these come with more downsides compared to Torment or Exsanguinate. The reason why I went for Exsanguinate over Torment, is, frankly, the budget. Torment at the time of writing is nearly £7. Exsanguinate is very much a finisher card, just nuking life totals. It can be used in a pinch to help sustain yourself as you can just chunk everyone's life totals as you will gain all the life lost.
Moonstone Eulogist isn't a squirrel. While it does synergise with some other cards in the deck, making an artifact to sacrifice isn’t where I’m trying to take the deck. This can be a backup finisher, being a base 4/4 flyer. I want to move into pure Squirrels. Make this a sugar glider, and I’m all for it, but as it's a Bat, it’s got to go.
Upgrade 2
Tribal Unity is another one of my hidden tech Kindred cards. As you can tell by the name, it's an older card, as it was from when Kindred was Tribal. This is very much a final win condition, potentially leading to some huge blowout as it can buff your entire board +5/+5 at instant speed. Being a hidden Beastmaster Ascension can really mess with people. Suddenly, those little 1/1s that you left unblocked are now killing you.
Maskwood is on the chopping block. While this is a nice reprint to help keep cost low and helps the other random typed cards, overall I’m streamlining the deck to be Squirrel focused and paying 3 mana for a 2/2 isn’t where I want to be.
Upgrade 3/4
I did want to include Hermit Druid, but being a reserve list card that is way out of budget. Also, with Deep Forest Hermit already being in the deck, we moved to my 3rd pick, Tendershoot Dryad. While taking a bit more work to get the buff, I don’t think it's that hard in this deck. It is also a +2/+2 buff. The only downside is the tokens it makes aren't squirrels. But it does make these on each upkeep, so you can easily amass an army of 3/3.
Another card that also requires some work to get a +2/+2 buff is Nut Collector. I am surprised not to see this already in the list. While it is quite expensive at 6 mana, I thought getting a free squirrel on your turn and being on point in terms of flavour meant it was a shoehorn for the deck. But I guess I was wrong, so I will add it here.
I'm cutting one of each Land, Swamp and Forest. As per usual, Wizards have overstuffed the land slot getting 38 lands in this deck. With Hazel's ability to generate mana, I don't think you are going to struggle to cast the few 6+ mana cards.
Upgrade 5
To keep adding to the value, we have Peregrin Took. This Halfling, like all the others, loves his food. So, alongside any Tokens you make, he brings a Food. To add the gravy, you can sacrifice 3 food to draw a card. So every 3 instances of Token creation, you get to draw a card. You can even use the food normally and gain 3 life points if you are really getting squeezed. However, with the way Peregrin Took is worded, it doesn't matter how many tokens you make in an instance; it's just that you are. So Hazel making you 2 squirrel tokens won’t make you 2 food, unfortunately. Peregrin also synergises nicely with Gourmand's Talent, allowing you to gain 3 life and a 3/3 Racoon every turn for 2 mana. Not a bad deal. You can also stockpile the food for Insatiable Frugivore to go for an alpha strike.
Tireless Provisioner fills a role similar to Peregrin Took. However, in this deck, you don’t have many ways to get extra triggers. While being able to choose Treasure or Food is nice. I like the card draw, and the chance to get more triggers off Took more.
Upgrade 6/7
Another pair of cards to add. Scurry Oak is the weaker of the two, as it's hard to get the counters on it to generate the tokens by itself. But when combined with Ivy Lane Denizen, you get an infinite amount of squirrels and an infinitely large Scurry Oak. Ivy Lane is better, as it works as a sudo Lord, giving the +1/+1 counters. You could even stack these on Hazel of the Rootbloom as a backup if you need to win through commander damage.
The pair I’m cutting are Nested Shambler and Ogre Slumlord.
While I see the links for these cards, I don’t rate Nested Shambler in Squirreled Away. This doesn’t have any Zombie buff, so outside of some random pump spells, you are only going to get 1 squirrel out of it. I would much rather use Scurry Oak, as this can easily make 2 or 3 and then has the potential to combo. Ogre Slumlord is here because they tend to group Squirrels with a few other creature types, including Rats. See Swarmyard. But again, I’m focusing this more on Kindred Squirrels instead and really hoping for my non token creatures to stay alive.
Upgrade 8
Lich-Knight’s Conquest gives you mass recursion with all the tokens you can generate, and you can exchange your tokens for all the creatures that have previously died. Getting it for as little as 5 mana is worth it, as usually, mass recursion to the battlefield is getting to 8+ mana.
Chatterstorm is one I don’t want to lose, as I love this card. I play this as one of my Pauper decks on Arena, as you get to play Storm there, and this is the win condition. I am dropping this as I am not sure how many spells you are going to be able to chain to build your storm count. While Chatterstorm can be used as a value card generating 3-6 tokens, I would rather have a card with a higher floor. If you top deck this, you will get a 1/1 squirrel for 2 mana.
Upgrade 9
I’m cutting Cache Grab. While having the recursion and the ability to dig for a card is nice, I don't think this deck is as reliant on a single card, except for the commander. All of the cards fit nicely together, and nothing stands out as a must protect card.
While I might be wrong about cutting this card, I need to make room for Mirkwood Bats. They do seem to be a recurring card I want to add. But it is like that for a reason. It's a good card and one I would consider a staple card. While not using the sacrifice half as much, just being able to drain for creating all the tokens is great. There are a number of flipped versions of this card, like Nadier’s Nightblade or Blood Artist. This is in addition to the Zulaport Cutthroat already in the deck. Getting the ping on the creatures dying instead. I prefer Mirkwood Bats over all of these as it is on creation. They can’t just kill it first before getting rid of your board.
Upgrade 10
Speaking of board wipes, Fresh Meat is the final card I'm adding. This will allow you to replace all the creatures into 3/3 beasts. This is just a backup for wide removal (i.e. 'wrath effects' or 'sweepers'). As you have a large token army it's very much going to be a target for being 'wrathed'. So, the Fresh Meat is the answer to allow you to swing back.
The final card I am cutting is Wolfwillow Haven; while this does cut into the turn 3 cast Hazel, I don’t think you need to do this consistently. This is because the mana ability requires a board presence, and the second ability requires tokens. If you are casting her turn 2, you are likely to have spent turn 2 getting out a mana rock. So then, at turn 3, Hazel does nothing but opens her up to removal. The mana off Wolfwillow Haven isn’t needed as much after Hazel, and the Wolf doesn’t synergise with any of the other cards.
Final Thoughts
Hazel has the potential to do some broken things. Being able to output a large amount of mana can lead to some powerful places. I think this is the Squirrel commander that people have been wanting. Initial sales show this, making it one of the more popular Commander decks in the group. Being Black and Green gives you access to all of them, combined with strong abilities.
I do think Wizards missed adding in Acorn Catapult. It would have been a nice call back to the original Commander decks while also being a flavour win. While I don’t think it's a good card, it just fits so well.
Another direction I will quickly discuss is the token sacrifice route. Being able to generate 2 squirrels a turn cycle through Hazel repeatedly. You can use cards like Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos to lock people off the board. If you're killing off your tokens, you can force everyone else to do the same. This can be a very effective strategy, but it is not always fun for your opponents, which is why I stayed away from recommending cards like these. I hope to see you in part 2, and if not, remember, good luck and have fun.
PS. All the card prices were accurate at the time of writing.
Non Budget Upgrades
Looking for more upgrades? Here are 10 more suggestions that break our £10 budget requirement:
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