“This World Is Changing… We Decide Into What.”
Art:Ravenous Squirrel
by Dan Scott
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Ravenous Squirrel is a sacrifice machine and a great source of supplemental card draw; having this available in the command zone and available for only one mana is crazy and gives quite the advantage in the early game. This deck is packed to the brim with a ton of sacrifice effects and payoffs and my favorite part is all of the additional mana production we get out of eldrazi scions and various tokens. Golgari is awesome in Pauper EDH and the sacrifice archetype specifically has an absolute ton of support at common which helps make this deck work. I have been looking at this one for a long time and it has taken me way too long to feature this amazing squirrel but hey the day is here! Without further adieu lets get it!
The Deck:
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Ravenous Squirrel Sacrifice!
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Why Ravenous Squirrel?
Ravenous Squirrel is a huge part of our deck, not only do we get a creature that can get out of hand pretty quickly but we get an amazing source of supplemental card draw for the deck. Since the deck sacrifices and runs through so many creatures throughout the game and when combined with cards in the deck like Fists of Ironwood
and Rancor
, we can easily commander damage kill an opponent, this is by no means the primary win condition but is a nice option to have as needed. We also have a few ways to protect Ravenous Squirrel, like Feign Death
and Supernatural Stamina
which are great ways to shut down some single-target removal.
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck! I also highlighted some of my favorite cards in the deck!
Creatures:
Mirkwood Bats
and Nadier's Nightblade
are arguably the two most important creatures in the deck since they are a great sources of noncombat damage and payoffs for all of the tokens we create and sacrifice throughout the deck. Since there are so many creatures coming and going on our board Falkenrath Noble
is another extremely strong source of noncombat damage for the deck and can put quite a bit of pressure on our opponents. Cloakwood Swarmkeeper
is another decently strong payoff that we can use to get a pretty strong attacker/blocker. Yavimaya Elder
is one of my favorite creatures to sacrifice in the deck since we get additional card draw as well as buff up our commander and trigger any of the sacrifice payoffs we have out. Bloodbriar
is another creature in the deck that can get out of hand extremely quickly and just after a few turns of being out we can have an absolutely huge creature to attack or block with. Sporemound
is one of my favorite creatures in the deck since they are a constant source of token production and give us more and more creatures to sacrifice. Some of my other favorite token producers for the deck is Eyeless Watcher
and Kozilek's Predator
which are great token producers and let us keep the sacrifice train trigger. Beyond that we have a ton of redundant creatures/sac outlets not too much to say about any of those, I really like the creature base in this deck and find it it to be quite strong.
Instants:
To start off, we have our protection spells in Feign Death, Supernatural Stamina, and Not Dead After All
, which can be used to protect our commander, used as solely buff spells as needed and are just a great way to protect our commander/creatures. The premier protection spell for the deck is Tamiyo's Safekeeping
which can protect just about anything and the lifegain can be strong if we are playing against aggressive strategies. We also have some single target removal ourselves in the form of Cast Down
, Murder
and Doom Blade
which are all cheap and can hit a variety of different creatures.
Sorceries:
As is the theme throughout a lot of this deck, we have a lot of supplemental card draw like Read the Bones
and Sign in Blood
and Night's Whisper
which are all cheap and strong source of card draw. Atraxa's Fall
is a great removal spell that can hit quite a bit and helps us kill flying creatures, which is typically one of the biggest weaknesses in our deck. Pick Your Poison
and Feed the Swarm
are strong pieces of additional removal and are perfect for all of the All That Glitters
and Armadillo Cloak
s that are running around the format. Last but certainly not least we have a trio of extremely strong recursion spells in Unearth
, Wander in Death
and Stir the Grave
which are great ways to get some of the best creatures sacrificed back.
Artifacts:
Our artifact package has mostly mana rocks, and there arent a ton to say about any of these besides Golgari Locket
which offers some card draw and Bonder's Ornament
which is also a strong source of card draw. Beyond that we have Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher
which is a great edict effect and if we craft it can be a great source of non-combat damage for the deck. Wedding Invitation
is an amazing card that I feature in nearly all of my Pauper EDH decks because the card draw and unblockable creature for a turn for only two mana is a crazy rate and allows us to make the commander damage kill quite easy to pull off.
Enchantments:
Blighted Burgeoning
is a great piece of mana ramp for the deck that also gives us a token that we can attack/block with or freely sacrifice to one of our payoffs. Beyond that we have a ton of buffs for the deck like Rancor and Snake Umbra
which are great buffs and can help us put a ton of pressure on our opponents. Talons of Wildwood
and Fists of Ironwood are both great ways to give a creature trample and allow us to hit pretty hard perfect for our commander or some of the other sacrifice payoffs in the deck.
Land Base:
Like almost all of the land bases we build for Pauper EDH, they are pretty simple and feature a lot of the same nonbasics, but hey, this landbase is still quite strong and effective. We have the on-color cycling lands like Barren Moor
and Slippery Karst
, which are cheap ways to get some extra card draw if we need it. Additionally we have the MOM draw lands as well as both on-color deserts from Amonkhet which are great sources of card draw as well. Evolving Wilds
and Terramorphic Expanse
allow us to “fetch” our basics and get all of our colors established. There is not a ton to say about the rest of our landbase, which mostly consists of basics and cards like Command Tower
. Even though we have a pretty low overall cost I find that thirty-five lands is perfect for the deck.
Strengths of the Deck:
- Our commander provides us supplemental card draw and is a strong attacker/blocker which is amazing for only one mana.
- We have a ton of sacrifice and damage payoffs which allows us to pressure our opponents with quite a bit of noncombat damage.
- We have a ton of supplemental card draw in the deck from our commander and from cards in the deck which allows us to refill our hand and because of the low overall cost and many cards that produce mana can allow us to keep casting and pressuring opponents every turn.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We are pretty weak to graveyard hate as we have multiple sources and ways to recur cards back from our graveyard.
- We only have a couple ways to protect our creatures from removal, while we have recursion if they keep killing our commander our gameplan gets actively worse.
- We have almost no way to interact on the stack and can be quite bad against more control-based strategies especially since many of our creatures are quite small.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
There are no infinite combos or loops within the deck. We win the game primarily through combat and we also have a strong source of noncombat damage through Mirkwood Bats and Nadier's Nightblade, which are two great ways to deal a ton of damage through all of the tokens we create, sacrificing these tokens also buffs up our commander and a commander damage kill is absolutely viable option for the deck. There are a ton of different ways to end the game throughout this deck.
Conclusion:
Ravenous Squirrel is a very sweet commander, I would agree that we have a quite unconventional build in this deck since we arent trying to do any combo shenanigans or chatterstorm fun but this deck is still a blast to pilot. I have really enjoyed this one and Golgari is just an awesome color combination for Pauper EDH and the sacrifice gameplan in general has a ton of cards that work perfectly for it as well as a ton of strong payoffs for the archetype as well. If you are looking for a fun deck with a ton of sacrifices, I hope you enjoyed this one. Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support!