The official Squirreled Away preconstructed deck from the Bloomburrow expansion introduces a unique twist to the Golgari (Black-Green) color identity. Shifting away from standard graveyard reanimation, this deck is a dedicated, high-synergy token-multiplying powerhouse. At the absolute center of this strategy stands its face commander: Hazel of the Rootbloom.
Hazel completely rewrites the rules of resource economy on the battlefield:
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The Absolute Engine: Her tapping ability allows you to pay 1 life and tap X untapped tokens you control to add X mana in any combination of Black and Green. This turns your entire army of small tokens into an explosive, hyper-efficient mana network.
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The Perfect Host: At the beginning of your end step, she creates a token that’s a copy of a token you control. If that token happens to be a Squirrel, you create two copies of it instead, multiplying your threats exponentially.
In this PreconForge Guide, we will analyze the official out-of-the-box product, sweep away the slower non-synergistic clutter, and pinpoint the best upgrades to turn Hazel into an unstoppable token engine.
The Strategy: Exploiting Board Flood Value
Out of the box, Squirreled Away is a beautifully constructed shell packed with premier archetype pieces like Chatterfang, Squirrel General, Chitterspitter, and Beastmaster Ascension. However, because it is a multiplayer precon, it still dedicates several slots to individual low-impact creatures and slow, theme-diluting cards that don’t directly feed into Hazel’s token multiplication.
When optimizing strictly for Hazel of the Rootbloom, your goal is to speed up the clock and flood the board with high-value tokens. You want to consistently drop explosive token generators, maximize multipliers, and ride a furry tidal wave of Squirrels to victory.
Top 5 Cards to Cut from the Official Precon
To optimize your deck’s velocity and focus entirely on a lethal token-swarm strategy, remove these five lower-synergy cards from the official default list:
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Woe Strider: While a solid aristocrat card in general vacuum, escaping it takes away resources, and its single 0/1 Goat token doesn’t help our aggressive Squirrel synergy.
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Gourmand’s Talent: This Class card focuses heavily on Food tokens and life gain synergy. While Hazel can tap Food for mana, this card is too slow and takes up a slot that should go to pure creature/Squirrel token production.
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Chittering Witch: For 4 mana, it only gives you Rat tokens based on the number of opponents you have. Since Hazel specifically rewards you with double tokens if they are Squirrels, this witch is an over-costed inclusion.
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Evolving Wilds: Entering the battlefield tapped slows down your engine. An optimized build requires untapped, ready mana to consistently drop your defenses and commanders exactly on curve.
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Terramorphic Expanse: Just like Evolving Wilds, this budget land is too slow for an optimized Golgari setup. We need our mana available immediately to react to opponents‘ threats.
Budget Upgrades (Under $3 per card)
These highly affordable additions allow you to exploit Hazel’s abilities to fuel your board and trigger devastating token chains.
The Token Multipliers & Payoffs
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Nadier’s Nightblade: An absolute must-have for any black token strategy. Whenever a token you control leaves the battlefield, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life. This turns your entire token army into a lethal minefield.
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Poison-Tip Archer: With a board full of small 1/1 tokens, combat trades happen often. This creature ensures that whenever any creature dies, every opponent loses 1 life, punishing blocks and board wipes heavily.
Dynamic Squirrel Synergy
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Squirrel Sovereign: A simple, elegant 2-mana lord that gives all your other Squirrels +1/+1. It instantly spikes the combat danger of your massive swarm for a minimal investment.
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Drey Keeper: An excellent budget card that fits the theme perfectly. It creates two Squirrel tokens on entry, and its activated ability can pump your entire army with +1/+0 and Menace to close out games.
Premium Upgrades (The Sovereign Accoutrements)
If you want to inject high-end competitive tools, unstoppable combat modifiers, and foolproof protection cards into your deck, prioritize these premier assets:
Elite Token Doublers & Engines
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Parallel Lives: The gold standard for green token decks. If an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many instead. With this on the field, Hazel’s end step copy ability suddenly drops four copies of a Squirrel instead of two.
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Camellia, the Seedmiser: A phenomenal upgrade from the main Bloomburrow set. She gives all your Squirrels Menace, generates more tokens whenever you sacrifice Food, and lets you pump your entire board via Foraging.
Unconditional Protection & Win Conditions
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Heroic Intervention: The absolute best defensive spell in Green. If your opponents attempt to cast a mass-destruction spell or a board wipe that targets your nonland permanents, this grants your entire battlefield Hexproof and Indestructible until the end of the turn.
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Deranged Hermit: The classic ultimate green Squirrel card. It brings four Squirrel tokens with it upon entering the battlefield and acts as a built-in lord giving your Squirrels +1/+1. Copying a token or the Hermit itself with Hazel leads to an instant mathematical blowout.
PreconForge Verdict: Is it worth it?
The official Squirreled Away precon is an absolute treasure trove for tribal and token fans, offering incredible high-value centerpieces like Chatterfang, Squirrel General and Beastmaster Ascension straight out of the box. By cutting out the slower non-Squirrel token creators, dropping your mana curve, and focusing heavily on pure tribal synergy and protection, you transform this deck into a beautifully optimized Golgari powerhouse under Hazel of the Rootbloom.
Stoke the fires of the forge, maximize your token-multiplying loops, and let us know in the comments below how many Squirrels you managed to amass in a single game!
Are you keeping your Squirreled Away build strictly focused on aggressive Squirrel tokens, or are you introducing heavy sacrifice aristocrat tools to bleed out the table? Let’s keep the strategy discussion moving forward!
