Paul's Squirrel Squad
Would you rather fight one Paul Bunyan-sized squirrel or 100 squirrel-sized Paul Bunyan's?
How do I play it?
Paul’s Squirrel Squad is a super fun and straight forward beastie blitz perfect for beginners and ripe for some competitive tweaks. We call on the some forest friend’s for the build and the mighty power of the Black Squirrel on Lincoln County. Getting as many squirrels out as quickly as possible will enable you to roll the board and inflict some major tribal boosted damage on your opponent.
Relying on boosts from low cost beasties like Gumberoo and Flittericks, your squirrels will be buffed to terrifying levels while you utilize all of your Forest spells and Wood Devil’s abilities to draw from spellbook consistently. While the squirrels gnaw away at the early game, Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox will help swing things mid-game hopefully coming in at lower cost than face value.
A few spooky spirit’s up your sleeve like Fetish Artifact, Morpheus, and Ghost Forest will make your opponent wish they never entered this haunted forest to laugh at your squirrel spellbook.
Beastie Breakdown
Black Squirrel of Lincoln County is the star of this show. Don’t underestimate this one cost beastie at first look. The 25LP/20HP profile doesn’t mean much with seven per spellbook and tribal boost ability, these feisty friends gain +10LP/10LP for every other squirrel in the area with buffs going even beyond those seven, which we will get to in a moment. Another quick note on the Black Squirrel is they can be contracted for Dark aura as well, which doesn’t benefit us here, but opens a ton a dual aura deck ideas with their quick stack ability.
Another small, but mighty beastie featured here is Flittericks, the flying Fearsome Critter. This guy is special for a few reasons, first is it’s abilities with flying and convert driving even faster ramp, second is their ability to boost both Fearsome Critter & Squirrel tribes since they are considered part of both tribes, and last, as if it couldn’t get better with acorn being a 4th wall item this beastie is also Spellproof. All that for one aura…. Sheesh. We threw in a few Gumberoo to help out early game and bounce opponents beasties from the board to help avoid attacks on your growing squirrel squad.
Wood Devil will help mill through your squirrels and attack tough beasties, while Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox come in to help out their forest friends and swing momentum against bigger opponent beasties. With the potential to get Paul Buyan out quicker thanks to Germinate, meaning you can contract Babe for one less aura as well means getting those heavy hitters out quicker than anticipated by opponents.
Spell & Potion Breakdown
While the beastie profile is pretty straightforward, the spells are some of the secret sauce thanks for Spirit’s abilities. Rely on Growth and Germinate to get the cards you need and get those beasties out quicker, while putting to sleep annoying opponents with Morpheus.
The kicker here is the less known Ghost Forest which will act as an insurance policy against your lower LP beasties. Ghost Forest can be contracted at any time and for optimal damage will be held until just after and opponent has wiped out a handful of your beasties. Ghost Forest for only two cost will the create 30LP/30HP token for each beastie destroyed this turn. The icing on the cake is the spell then turns into a special Forest terra in the area which will boost essentially any of your beasties remaining.
Artifact, Aura, & Terra Breakdown
The last potentially unexpected surprise lies in your Fetish Artifacts which will help out early game if your not able to assemble your squirrels and can devastate things late game with some big momentum swings.
Old Book’s Crying Tree plays perfectly as an Artifact Essence on this Forest/Spirit build along with two Prism Aura and an equal amount of Forest & Spirit Aura. The Forest Terra is nice to have with boosts to basically all beasties, plus Paul Bunyan’s ability, but isn’t integral due to the inclusion of Ghost Forest.
4th Wall Items
- Bansai Tree
- Acorn
- Black Pelt
Weaknesses / Archive Options
This deck honestly was made as kind of a joke with my kids, but after a few games with low expectations, it was crazy fun and simple to play and won a few quick scoops with some boosted up squirrels. With that being said, there are some pretty easy counters for killing off your low cost beasties and if you can’t get them synchronized can lead to tough games before you can get your spells out to full potential.
The inclusion of Paul/Babe was purely for a fun and engagement perspective. I’ve been searching and actively creating decks to include Paul Bunyan, but honestly he’s not super feasible in the current meta. In the end if just felt right to have Paul and Babe their to back up their Forest friends🤣.
To push this deck to a more competitive place I would probably scrap Paul and Gumberoo and try to work in more Spirit beasties like White Stag, who we will feature in it’s own Forest/Spirit build, Familiar to help play Spirit/Dark spells for less, Walking Sam to play copycat, or even Stikini Owl, who is one of my daughter’s favorites and often ends up in her Squirrel Spellbook.
Budget Options
This deck was built as a budget deck from conception given I primarily wanted an exciting, easy, and cheap deck for my kids to play when they don’t want to think through their own builds.
Similair to a lot of these other dual aura builds the most costly cards will be your pair of Prism Auras, but those costs can easily be avoided by just adding in an additional Forest and Spirit Aura. Aside from those pricey pages, this deck is built of primarily common and non-holo available pages and is super easy to put together a version for yourself or anyone staring out wanting something a little more customized than a sealed Theme or Release Event Deck
Card List (40 Cards Total)
Beasties
- Black Squirrel of Lincoln County x7
- Flittericks x4
- Gumberoo x2
- Wood Devil of Coos Country x1
- Babe the Blue Ox x1
- Paul Bunyan x1
Spell / Potion
- Powerup Red x1
- New Beginnings x1
- Bookmark x2
- Growth x1
- Germinate x2
- Ghost Forest x2
- Morpheus x2
Artifact / Aura / Terra
- Old Book's Crying Tree x1
- Fetish Artifact x2
- Prism Aura x2
- Forest Aura x4
- Spirit Aura x4
- Forest Terra x1
