I have been running a five-color Kenrith Commander deck for a few months now. It goes wide with tokens, pumps them with +1/+1 counters, and wins by making a lot of small things into big things. It works. I like it. I spent real money on it.
And then Wizards of the Coast spoiled The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, and I immediately started thinking about what I could strip out and rebuild around her.
4/4 · Legendary Creature — Squirrel Human Hero · {1}{G}{G}{G} · Rare
Let me do the math for you. She costs four mana. She enters and makes a Squirrel. Now you have two Squirrels including herself. Activate her ability for 1GGG and you create two more. Next activation creates four. Then eight. Then the whole table starts staring at you like you just showed up to a children's birthday party with a flamethrower.
She is exponential growth in the command zone, in mono-green, at rare. I already own half the pieces for this deck. Here is what I am stealing from Kenrith and what the new Marvel Super Heroes cards add on top.
What I'm Stealing from Kenrith
The Kenrith deck runs a set of cards for one reason: make more tokens and make those tokens bigger. Squirrel Girl wants exactly the same things. The difference is that in five colors, those pieces compete with everything else you are trying to do. In mono-green, they are the whole plan.
The Token Doublers
Stack these and Squirrel Girl's activated ability becomes genuinely obscene. Doubling Season is the gold standard at ~$42 and doubles both tokens and +1/+1 counters. Parallel Lives does the token half for four mana instead of five at around $15. Primal Vigor is the budget option at ~$8 and also got reprinted on the Marvel Super Heroes Source Material bonus sheet, meaning you might crack your own copy from packs. All three in play at once means one Squirrel Girl attack creates eight Squirrels instead of one.
Here is a bonus interaction worth knowing: Ezuri's Predation with Doubling Season in play creates two 4/4 Beasts per opponent creature instead of one. Both tokens fight, which means you are almost guaranteed to win every single fight. Eight mana board wipe that also floods your side with 4/4s.
The Counter Engine
Hardened Scales and Branching Evolution are already in the Kenrith list and slot right in here. Every counter that lands on a creature lands extra hard. Champion of Lambholt is the quiet win condition -- every creature you create puts a counter on her, and once she is big enough your entire board becomes unblockable. Swing with everything, they cannot block, game over.
The New Marvel Super Heroes Cards
Spoiler season just started, so this is not the complete picture yet. But three MSH cards have already proven their place in this deck.
If you would put one or more counters on a permanent you control, put that many plus one of each of those kinds of counters on that permanent instead.
{T}: Add X mana of any one color, where X is Doc Samson's power.
The counter ability stacks beautifully with Hardened Scales and Branching Evolution. The tap ability means as Doc Samson grows, he becomes a mana engine that pays for Squirrel Girl's activations. The flavor text is "Go ahead, Bruce. Let out your feelings." We are absolutely letting out our feelings. In 1/1 Squirrel form.
Choose one. Destroy target noncreature artifact. Or, target creature you control deals damage equal to its power to target creature an opponent controls.
Teamwork 4 — You may choose both.
Two mana interaction that doubles as artifact hate, and your army of Squirrels pays the Teamwork cost to choose both modes. Mono-green usually struggles to find this kind of efficient removal. This is a genuine upgrade to the color's toolkit.
Doubles tokens AND +1/+1 counters. Reprinted on the Source Material bonus sheet, so you might crack one from a play booster before spending $8 on a single. Worth waiting on until after you have gone through your prerelease kit.
The Decklist
Built for casual Commander, bracket 2. The goal is to make a lot of Squirrels and punch someone with them. Every card here is mono-green legal. MSH cards are flagged in blue. All prices are approximate TCGPlayer market at time of writing.
Card links go to TCGPlayer. ManaScrewedDad is a TCGPlayer affiliate — purchases through these links support the site at no extra cost to you. Prices will shift after the June 26 release; hold off on MSH singles until supply settles post-release.
The Budget Path
If $300 is not the move right now, the three to cut first are Doubling Season (~$42), Craterhoof Behemoth (~$35), and The Great Henge (~$30). That saves over $100 and the deck still functions. Primal Vigor covers much of what Doubling Season does, Overwhelming Stampede fills in for Craterhoof, and Shamanic Revelation handles card draw just fine without the Henge. You can build a working version for under $140 and add the expensive pieces over time.
Also wait on Doc Samson and Hulk Smash pricing until after June 26. Presale prices almost always drop once packs hit the market.
What Changes When Squirrel Girl Hits the Table
The thing I keep coming back to is how much simpler this deck is than Kenrith. Five colors means constant mana management, tracking multiple strategies, and holding everything together across a long game. It is a fun puzzle but it is a lot to carry at a casual table.
Squirrel Girl in mono-green means you do one thing and you do it increasingly well until the table has to deal with it or lose.
I built Kenrith because I wanted to do everything. Squirrel Girl taught me that sometimes doing one thing really, really well is more fun. Also the one thing is nuts. Literally.
Check back around June 10 for the updated version once the full MSH green card pool is known. Prereleases start June 19 and I will be trying to crack my own Squirrel Girl from a pack before spending money on singles.
Want to build a different Commander deck around the new Marvel Super Heroes set? The Vault handles card selection and tells you what's already in the 10,000+ cards I own.
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