Magic: The Gathering Squirrel Deck: Getting Squirrelly in Bloomburrow Limited

Hello, wafflers of the internet. It’s Vale, Mystic Waffle’s own Magic obsessive and hardcore spike. I’d like to talk today about Bloomburrow limited, which I think I’ve been enjoying quite a bit more than most people. More specifically, I want to talk about why I’ve been drafting so much green-black in the format, and why you should too. So without further ado, let’s get squirrely!

In case you don’t know, Bloomburrow is currently Magic’s most recent expansion. It’s set in a land called Valley, inhabited by tiny creatures of all kinds, from mice to bats to, yes, squirrels. Each two-color pair represents a different type of Animalfolk, and they all have something unique they want to be doing in limited. Mice, for example, have the keyword Valiant, allowing you to gain bonuses when you target them with spells. Birds, most of which have Flying, look to grant bonuses to your non-flying critters to attack beside them in battle. And squirrels, our beloved, use the mechanic Forage, which allows you to sacrifice a Food or exile three cards from your graveyard to get an effect. As such, their main focus is on filling the graveyard and generating Food to grind out the late game with Forage value, while sometimes gaining a copious amount of life.

Bloomburrow is a fairly fast format, with two of the best three decks in my opinion, Rabbits and Mice, being low-to-the-ground creature aggro. It’s very important to establish an early board position, something that durdly decks like frogs can have trouble with. What sets squirrels apart and allows them to compete is that their two—and three—drops are very well-sized, with cards like Vinereap Mentor and Daggerfang Duo fully capable of tangling in combat while still providing sizeable chunks of value.

In order to draft a functional squirrels deck, you want a good balance of enablers and payoffs for foraging. Effectively, you both want ways to make Food/fill your graveyard and cards that say “Forage” on them. Cache Grab is an all star in the former regard, often getting three cards in your graveyard while making a Food. This effectively equates to being able to Forage twice, and it draws you a card in the process! I’ve liked Savor quite a bit here as well—due to the speed of the format, it’s a very necessary early removal spell, and nobody can use the Food it makes better than Squirrels can. Meanwhile, creatures like Daggerfang Duo, Bakersbane Duo, and Vinereap Mentor all provide fuel for foraging while adding to the board in their own right, making them the core of any squirrels deck and cards you should take highly.

In terms of “foragers”, there are three at common and uncommon that I’ve found to be more than adequate payoffs for all your hard work. Corpseberry Cultivator can become an oversized body by itself, but gets even better with other foragers, growing without needing you to do any other work. Treetop Sentries is a great midgame defensive body that is also a great late game top deck—I’d play 4 mana 2/4 draw a card any day, and that’s effectively what this card is in squirrels. Bushy Bodyguard, meanwhile, is just straight up busted—more than half the time, it’ll be 4 mana for 7/6 worth of stats. This is one of the best uncommons in the format and definitely worth waiting to offspring.

In terms of removal in squirrels, my opinions are influenced less by the fact that I’m drafting squirrels and more by the fact that removal is much less powerful in this format than it would be otherwise. This is due to the fast nature of the format often forcing you to trade down on mana when casting removal (for example casting a 3 mana removal spell on a 2 drop). Removal is often just too slow. That said, I’ve already praised Savor in the enablers section, and I think 2 mana removal is still very good in this format. Fell is about on the same level as Savor, and I’ve liked Feed the Cycle quite a bit due to its flexibility. Consumed by Greed, on the other hand, is a card I’ve liked less and less as I’ve continued drafting the format. It’s very important to recognize that it doesn’t just say “destroy target creature” like the other two—while most of the time, it’ll take out your opponent’s best threat, there are many situations in which they can sacrifice a worse creature with the same power, or their biggest creature is simply not the one you need to remove. I’ve found the late game modality to be almost throwaway text—you simply don’t need this to get ahead in most games that go long, and it doesn’t come close to making up for the difficult mana cost. It’s certainly playable, but I take it much lower than Savor, Fell, and Feed the Cycle.

Bloomburrow, as most sets are nowadays, is full of busted rares, and green and black have some of the best around. Cards like Lumra, Bellow of the Woods and Season of Loss are slam-dunks regardless of what your deck is doing, but here I want to focus on some of the rares that can be just as powerful, they just take a little work to get there. Squirrels is the deck best poised to take advantage of Camellia, the Seedmiser, Rottenmouth Viper, and Scavenger’s Talent. The most ridiculous of these is likely Camellia, which can create a massive army of Squirrel tokens practically at the click of a button, just as long as you have plenty of support for foraging. Funnily enough, Camellia is also a rare that doesn’t fit anywhere but squirrels. Rottenmouth Viper, on the other hand, is exceedingly strong in any black deck even when cast at 6 mana, but squirrels’ ability to dump out Food tokens onto the battlefield early makes it castable at 4 or 5 mana most games, making it an early must-answer threat that will dominate the game. Don’t be afraid to sacrifice quite a bit of your board to cast an early Viper—even if they do remove it, squirrels is a deck that can recover from behind quite well. The last, and strangest, of these rares, is Scavenger’s Talent. Even at its baseline, the one-mana enchantment would be solid in squirrels, as a repetitive way to make Food and enable Forage as you trade off your creatures in combat. Once you level it up all the way, though, it’s a legitimate wincon, allowing you to loop ETB (enters the battlefield) triggers and create a stockpile of Food as you quickly mill your opponent out. Don’t sleep on this one, even though other people certainly will.

That’ll about do it for my rundown on squirrels in Bloomburrow limited. I’ve been enjoying this format quite a bit, and while you can occasionally get run over by aggro, drafting squirrels is a great way to avoid that for the most part. Of course, you should always draft what’s open, and I would never fault anybody for just playing mice—I’ve gotten plenty of trophies myself with red-white. But keep an eye out for good squirrel cards going late, and you may just end up with some sick grindy green-black decks.