All 6 Squirrel Commanders in Magic Ranked

Camellia, the Seedmiser | Illustration by Steve Prescott

Commanders come in all shapes and sizes, but today it’s all about one specific type of lil’ guy. Time to get squirrely.

There aren’t many squirrel commanders in Magic, but man do the good ones pack a punch. Most squirrel commanders have abilities that lend themselves to being typal commanders, but they get more powerful when you focus on everything else that they can do. Mild spoiler: If you’re a Squirrel token, be ready to give your life for the cause.

Let’s crack this nut!

What Are Squirrel Commanders in MTG?

Chatterfang, Squirrel General | Illustration by Milivoj Ceran

Most squirrel commanders are legendary squirrel creatures that have been printed through Magic’s history, but there’s also that one background from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate that generates Squirrel tokens.

Squirrels have a few typal lords to draw from, and some token generators too. Squirrel commanders are almost all in Golgari colors () and lend themselves nicely to sacrifice-based strategies.

Honorable Mention: The Non-Squirrels

While researching, I came across some commanders that aren’t squirrels in their type line, but work as squirrel commanders if you build them in a highly specific way. Ygra, Eater of All has the most decks, which… yeah, we’ll get to that later.

Both partner with commander pairings from the LTC Food and Fellowship precon work. Abzan () means you have access to all the main squirrel payoffs, and you can add in some token doublers and efficient removal available in white. Besides, you need to think outside the box if you want to include Helica Glider or Prairie Dog in your squirrel deck.

Not Ranked: Emrakul and Chatterfang

This one’s for the ancient meme enjoyers. Emrakul and Chatterfang is a non-legal card that comes to us from Unknown Event at MagicCon Minneapolis in 2023. It’s a playtest card, so Rule 0 discussions apply if you want to run it. The card itself is a reference to a meme of Emrakul being taken down by 15 squirrels. Do you think it’s got enough evasion abilities?

Not Ranked: Euru, Acorn Scrounger

Euru, Acorn Scrounger is only available as a commander in Brawl, a format with a much smaller card pool than Commander. Being an Alchemy: Bloomburrow card lets it use a digital-only mechanic, conjure. It basically creates one of the best squirrel payoffs in the game (Chitterspitter), and you get two token sacrifice outlets for 4 mana if your commander sticks. Not too shabby!

Not Ranked: Acornelia, Fashionable Filcher

A silver border prevents Acornelia, Fashionable Filcher from being your commander unless you have a Rule 0 conversation with your play group, but you could ignore the art-matters text to make that discussion easier. Aside from that, you can kind of see where a certain other squirrel commander’s activated ability might come from.

#6. Cloakwood Hermit

The only time Cloakwood Hermit is a commander is when you use it as a background with an eligible partner from Baldur’s Gate. This legendary enchantment is fairly slow: It wants creature cards to go to your graveyard, but it only gives you two Squirrel tokens on your end step.

Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar and Sivriss, Nightmare Speaker are in the right colors for the other squirrel commanders to slot into the deck, and they both offer sacrifice outlets to help you get tokens.

#5. The Odd Acorn Gang

The Odd Acorn Gang suffers from having the highest mana value among squirrel commanders. It has good keywords for both offense and defense, though, and it gives you almost the same card draw that Toski does. The ability it grants your squirrels reminds me of that trope in animation when you aggro a bunch of lil’ guys, and they band together to form one big guy. I’m thinking of the gnomes in Gravity Falls, but there’re lots of examples.

#4. Toski, Bearer of Secrets

Fun fact: In senior year, Toski was voted “Least Likely to be a Typal Commander.”

An indestructible, uncounterable commander is already really good, and the fact that it has to attack each turn means that it rewards you if you pile it high with auras, equipment, etc. Trample helps Toski, Bearer of Secrets give you some card draw, but you can see how that saboteur ability improves in a deck that builds a wider board, right?

#3. Camellia, the Seedmiser

Camellia, the Seedmiser kind of wants to be a food commander as well as a squirrel commander, which makes sense given the forage mechanic that Golgari () squirrels had in Bloomburrow Limited.

It gets really cracked when you include Ygra, Eater of All: These two go infinite with any free sacrifice outlet to make infinite enters, sacrifice, and death triggers. Then you look at cards like Pitiless Plunderer, Vengeful Bloodwitch, Mirkwood Bats, Peregrin Took, Chatterfang, Squirrel General…. Golgari has plenty of cards that make a loop like this end the game.

#2. Hazel of the Rootbloom

Straight out of Bloomburrow Commander’s Squirreled Away precon, the power here lies in Hazel of the Rootbloom’s mana generation. Its  ability allows you to tap your Treasure tokens rather than sac them, gives your Food tokens extra utility, and essentially turns all your Squirrel tokens into mana dorks. Mana generation really helps to keep you consistently casting cards, and it makes the deck more forgiving if you’re the type who plays too few lands. Me, I’m talking about me.

#1. Chatterfang, Squirrel General

This shouldn’t really be a surprise. It’s the squirrel commander that’s both cheapest and easiest to cast, with just 1 green mana pip and 2 generic ones. It’s unblockable against almost any deck that runs green. It’s a token doubler in the command zone, it sacrifices its own tokens to buff one of your own creatures or shrink your opponents’ into oblivion, and that ability gets around indestructible. Chatterfang, Squirrel General does it all, and Bloomburrow gave it a lot of new friends to recruit into its squirrel army.

Speaking of Bloomburrow, we don’t actually know which plane Chatterfang comes from. Hopefully a future set answers that, whether by visiting Chatterfang’s home turf or gaining additional insight from flavor text or something. It’s hard for me to imagine another Chatterfang card that would rival the original, but I’d like to see a card that shows Chatterfang as an elderly squirrel in an advisor role. “Chatterfang, Strategist Emeritus,” or “Chatterfang, Chittering Mentor,” or something along those lines. I will say this, though: It’s a good thing Chatterfang isn’t from Ravnica, because a March of the Machine team-up card called “Chatterfang and Krenko” would make for a busted Jund commander ().

Commanding Conclusion

Acornelia, Fashionable Filcher | Illustration by Bram Sels

Squirrels might not be the most developed creature type or have the most legendary creatures, but man, do their commanders pack a punch. They may all go in very similar directions, but you can adjust the sliders of your squirrel deck however you want.

Which squirrel commanders do you run? Which cards do you think are underrated payoffs for squirrel decks? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord.

Until next time, happy foraging!