The 31 Best Squirrels in Magic Ranked

Last updated on December 5, 2025

Acornelia, Fashionable Filcher | Illustration by Bram Sels

Whether you’re a country mouse or a city mouse, you probably have a very different perspective on squirrels. I sure was surprised the first time I saw jet-black squirrels (there’s a band name for you). Your opinion probably also changes depending on whether you have a bird feeder. Or a highly distractible canine….

But in Magic, squirrels are one of the most fun creature types you can play. While many of our more recent squirrel cards are actually playable, squirrels used to belong to a more casual, dare I say… nuttier design space. But how do our tournament-legal squirrel cards compare to their silver-bordered and acorn-stamped cousins?

Let’s get squirrely!

What Are Squirrels in MTG?

Chitterspitter | Illustration by Jason Felix

Squirrels in Magic are creatures with the squirrel subtype. They’re usually representations of the chittering rodents of our out-of-game world, though sometimes they get a bit more beastly.

Squirrel tokens were introduced in Weatherlight, with nontoken squirrels following in Odyssey with Squirrel Mob and Krosan Beast.

Squirrels are usually green creatures, with black as a secondary color. Helica Glider and Prairie Dog are our only white squirrels.

Squirrels generally have a focus on typal synergies. The creature type got a lot of love in Bloomburrow, both as the Golgari () archetype for BLB’s Limited environment and the theme of the Squirreled Away Commander precon.

Prelude: Un-set Squirrels

I debated how to handle all these squirrel cards that Magic gave us through Un-sets. They’ve tended to come with jokey mechanics, and they aren’t tournament-legal, but there are some that are close enough to “normal” that it’s hard to argue against them aside from the fact that they’re silver-bordered, especially when it comes to Unstable cards whose only “weirdness” is dice rolls.

• Acornelia, Fashionable Filcher
• Earl of Squirrel
• Half-Squirrel, Half-
• Snickering Squirrel
• Steel Squirrel

If anything, I’d consider Snickering Squirrel if I needed a 1-drop in my Mr. House, President and CEO deck. Earl of Squirrel is just so fun that I should honestly grab a copy to have as a 1-card sideboard for my squirrel Commander deck. If I did slot these into the regular list, Earl of Squirrel would be ranked very highly.

Prelude: Arena-Only Squirrels

Chittering Skullspeaker, and Euru, Acorn Scrounger are resourceful squirrels, and barely contained by Arena from their Alchemy entrance, but go figure, they are good in squirrel decks.

Chittering Illuminator is one of the best to help non-squirrel decks with a cast off the top of the library effect.

#31. Frog-Squirrels

One of several of Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s hybrid animal creatures have a name that is pretty much their type, Frog-Squirrels are simple on the surface, but the two creature types are quite relevant thanks to Bloomburrow‘s strong showing of frogs. Then there's that meme about 15 squirrels beating Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, at least Frog-Squirrels can reach Emrakul.

#30. Prairie Dog

I love our real life prairie dogs, not so much our Magic Prairie Dogs. The activated ability just seems too expensive for my liking. Besides! No squirrel synergies.

#29. Helica Glider

Helica Glider ain’t a helluva squirrel, I’ll tell you that much. At best, it belongs in a blink deck that can use keyword counters somehow?

#28. Treetop Sentries

Treetop Sentries is made to be played with Bonecache Overseer and other Bloomburrow foraging squirrels. This archer has reach to give that archetype a way to deal with fliers apart from fight or bite spells. Can you ever just be “whelmed?”

#27. Daggerfang Duo

I get that self-milling when Daggerfang Duo enters can be useful in some decks. Milling a permanent is descending, cards in the graveyard are ripe for collecting evidence or foraging… it’s designed well enough to play in its Standard and Limited environments, but my Commander-focused brain shall look elsewhere for my squirrels.

#26. Bonebind Orator

Bonebind Orator exists as creature recursion, although it needs to be in your graveyard to even be useful in that regard. It brings the creature back to your hand, so it’ll be useful if you’re reusing something with a good enters ability. Better still if you have ways to cheat creatures onto the board from that zone.

#25. Xenosquirrels

Our Dungeons & Dragons Magic sets have given us a bunch of tournament-legal cards with dice-rolling abilities, so it makes sense that the Un-set that follows them gave us more dice-rolling cards we can actually use. Xenosquirrels uses its +1/+1 counters to tweak dice rolls in your favor. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come with many ways to gain counters apart from its enters ability. It’s plenty viable for a few of the Unfinity commanders like The Most Dangerous Gamer, and you could do worse than sticking it into your Mr. House, President and CEO deck.

#24. Bushy Bodyguard

To me, Bushy Bodyguard is more useful when you have more mana to pump into it and its offspring. Four mana and two forages to get a 4/3 and a 3/3 is a good deal, a strong way to catch up or get ahead with your board presence.

#23. Squirrel Squatters

Non. Je refuse. I am not explaining the laws of attractions today.

Squirrel Squatters can pump out a bunch of Squirrel tokens for those of you who do want to mess around with attractions. I especially like the squirrel mugging for the camera in the bottom left corner of this card’s artwork.

#22. Bakersbane Duo

Bakersbane Duo pairs squirrels with raccoons, giving you a Food to fuel your foraging and gaining power when you expend. Generally, this’ll be a 2/2 for 2 that attacks as a 3/3 if you do enough stuff during your first main phase.

#21. Corpseberry Cultivator

While it’s nice that Corpseberry Cultivator has a lot of growth potential, you specifically need to forage to get there. Not so bad in a Bloomburrow Draft and other MTG formats where you can run multiples, but Commander limits you a bit. Still useful in the curve of a Camellia, the Seedmiser deck, but the other squirrel commanders are likely to pass this one up.

#20. Curious Forager

Your Curious Forager costs 3 mana and a forage to act as recursion + body. It’s a decent little role-player, especially since 3 mana usually nets you one or the other.

#19. Krosan Beast

While I’ve mostly been weighing these cards based on Commander, I have to give a little extra respect to Krosan Beast for being one of the first squirrels ever printed. In metas where graveyard decks have been prevalent, it’s a 4-mana 8/8 that you can have in multiples. And it’s not like you have to pump mana into it to make it big either, unlike if you had multiple copies of a creature with monstrosity.

#18. Scurrid Colony

Strixhaven’s Scurrid Colony gets better in the late game, but it’s definitely one for the casual decks. At best, it’ll be a 4/4 with reach, plus any other typal buffs you’ve got going. Solid as a budget card, but it’s a slot you’ll want to upgrade to give your deck more pop.

#17. Bonecache Overseer

Anyone looking to improve their mana curve should be on the lookout for 1-drop creatures, and Bonecache Overseer is an interesting one for food decks.

If you’ve foraged this turn, you just need to tap this squirrel warlock, pay 1 life, and you get to draw a card. It’s not restricted to sorcery speed, so you can activate this ability by cracking a food on an opponent's turn, too. The other text that cares about cards leaving your graveyard makes this situational, but there are more and more decks that reanimate, recur, or exile cards from your graveyard these days.

#16. Vinereap Mentor

A 2-mana 3/2 that gives you a Food token when it enters and when it dies? The Golgari color identity is good for squirrels and food, so Vinereap Mentor will always have a home in Commander. In non-singleton formats, its power/toughness are good for its mana value, and they get better if you’ve got one or two of these down before playing one of your squirrel typal lords.

#15. Osteomancer Adept

Osteomancer Adept’s activated ability costs no mana, and it’ll let you trade in food artifacts for reanimation. Not bad, though I’m always a little turned off by finality counters.

#14. Scurry of Squirrels

Scurry of Squirrels is a combat-focused card that’ll really benefit you if you’re looking to attack with your squirrels. Some squirrel decks hang back and wait to assemble their combos, but a double helping of myriad really points toward turning a bunch of cardboard sideways. Be sure to brush up on your myriad rules.

#13. Bloodroot Apothecary

Naturally for a creature named Bloodroot Apothecary, this squirrel druid plays around with poison. Toxic 2 is enough to make this a problem when it’s attacking, but it’s the stax effect that poisons anyone who sacrifices noncreature tokens. That shuts down Treasure tokens, Clue tokens, Food, Blood tokens, and many more, not just as utility, but as combo pieces. This is the kind of card that’s going to attract removal, but I’m never opposed to some good removal bait.

#12. The Odd Acorn Gang

Between its mana value and what it does, I personally see The Odd Acorn Gang more as a support piece than as a Golgari commander. Keyword salad commanders are always enticing (I see you, Zetalpa, Primal Dawn fans), and I really like how it gives your squirrels abilities that remind me of saddling mounts in Outlaws of Thunder Junction and March of the Machine‘s backup ability.

Your squirrels really support each other when The Odd Acorn Gang is around, but it can start to have diminishing returns if you’ve got enough lords and anthems on the field, not to mention if you’ve pumped enough mana into Camellia’s activated ability.

#11. Thornvault Forager

Utility with a capital “U.” Thornvault Forager is primarily a mana dork, and foraging more than doubles its effectiveness considering you’re getting 2 color-fixed mana rather than simply . You can sink 4 mana into it and tap it to tutor a squirrel from your library to your hand, which can add a lot of consistency to your game.

#10. Honored Dreyleader

Squirrels have a neat mix of go-wide and go-tall options, and they play well together since most of the go-tall options care about how wide you go with your squirrels. It’s like poetry.

As with other go-tall options, Honored Dreyleader can be a win condition if you’ve already gone wide. I’d favor unblockable effects and haste enablers over fight and bite spells, since haste and unblockable enablers are useful even when your win conditions aren’t around, but bite spells are less effective when you’ve mostly got tokens (deathtouch notwithstanding).

#9. Hazel’s Brewmaster

Graveyard hate is more and more prevalent in our games these days, especially graveyard hate that you get to turn into an advantage. Hazel's Brewmaster reminds me of Deathbonnet Sprout / Deathbonnet Hulk’s back side, though it’s an attack trigger that makes Food tokens instead of an upkeep trigger. This squirrel warlock also gives your foods the activated abilities of cards exiled with it, which makes the mana fixing from your Pitiless Plunderer’s Treasure or your Thornvault Forager that much more important.

#8. Valley Rotcaller

Decks like Chatterfang, Squirrel General look at Valley Rotcaller and see “win condition.” Any deck that pumps out a bunch of Squirrel tokens tends to be able to do so in bunches. Drop Valley Rotcaller with a haste enabler like Swiftfoot Boots and an army of squirrels, and you’re set.

#7. Camellia, the Seedmiser

If you’re looking for a squirrel commander, Camellia, the Seedmiser is a rather straight-forward option. Menace makes your squirrels a lot better on offense, and you’ve got built-in, synergistic abilities that make you squirrels and buff them. You just need other sources of food or cards that you’re willing to exile from your graveyard to fuel that forage cost, but come on. I’m sure you’ve got a token squirreled away somewhere.

Note the timing: Since you forage as part of the cost to activate Camellia’s ability, if you sac a food to do it, you get to create a Squirrel token before that ability resolves.

#6. Hazel of the Rootbloom

Has someone come up with “squirrelball” yet? We have elfball, and we talk about how decks snowball out of control…. Anywho.

Hazel of the Rootbloom is the face commander of the Squirreled Away EDH precon, and while that deck needs some tweaking out of the box, Hazel is a neat and interesting way to breathe fresh air into your matches if you’re a dedicated squirrel player (I had a friend who mainly runs Chatterfang test out my mildly souped-up precon and she enjoyed it, for what that’s worth).

Your end steps can become really silly depending on what you have out. “Hazel copies my token, but it’s a Squirrel, so I get two. But Chatterfang is out, so I make another two squirrels. But I have Doubling Season on the field, so….”

#5. Toski, Bearer of Secrets

Despite lacking the creature type, this is a beast of a card. Toski, Bearer of Secrets is uncounterable and indestructible. You can only be forced to sacrifice it, or it can have its toughness reduced with a Tragic Slip or -1/-1 counters, or it can be exiled… but not much else. Makes for a fine Voltron commander if you so choose, but it’s a solid role-player in countless other decks, especially other decks that also care about dealing combat damage to a player like Felix Five-Boots.

#4. Squirrel Mob

Squirrel Mob is mandatory for your squirrel strategy. It can become incredibly tall when you’ve got a bunch of tokens, tall enough to be a finisher if you surround it properly. Camellia’s menace might help, but a Rogue's Passage or other unblockable effect is better.

#3. Squirrel Sovereign

While I’ve mostly been looking at these cards from a Commander perspective, I can see how absolutely bananas, crackers, and nuts a deck with multiple copies of Squirrel Sovereign can get.

Running a squirrel deck? You need this 2-drop noble. End of story.

#2. Ravenous Squirrel

Along with Squirrel Mob and Squirrel Sovereign, Ravenous Squirrel completes the trio of squirrels that you need in your squirrel deck for it to make any sense. It grows when you sacrifice your artifacts or creatures, which, if you’re dealing in Food or Treasure, you should have in spades. And it’s got a sacrifice outlet that’ll net you 1 life and one card, so this is a resourceful lil' fella that helps itself.

#1. Chatterfang, Squirrel General

This shouldn’t be all that controversial. Chatterfang, Squirrel General has the track record behind it. Players have found plenty of combos to enable with Chatterfang, whether to get them miles ahead of their opponents or to outright win the game. It pairs nicely with token generators and with death payoffs like Mirkwood Bats, Pitiless Plunderer, and Zulaport Cutthroat, and its forestwalk ability has synergies with Toski, The Odd Acorn Gang, and other creatures that care about dealing combat damage to a player. There’s multiple paths to victory, even within just one Chatterfang build.

Best Squirrel Payoffs

Squirrel payoffs can be sorted into two main categories: Squirrel token generators and squirrels-matter cards.

Cache Grab fits into the food synergies that squirrels in Bloomburrow are doing most of the time. Sword of the Squeak is a great piece of equipment for your squirrel deck, since it cares about base power and toughness, not the total after your squirrel lords are in play. Valley Mightcaller might not be a squirrel, but it’s a fantastic early game trampler for your squirrel deck, regardless of the format.

Chitterspitter is a mix of token generator and payoff. Squirrel decks often have a sacrifice or death payoff subtheme, and you use this green artifact to trigger those while growing your army of squirrels in both size and number. Swarmyard Massacre is both a token generator and a sweeper.

Rootcast Apprenticeship and Verdant Command can each give you tokens, but also a ton of other modal utility.

Chatter of the Squirrel is a cheap token generator that gets better if you’ve got Chatterfang, Squirrel General out on the field. Chatterstorm is great for similar reasons, though it’s limited to sorcery speed, so you won’t take advantage of a spellslinging opponent’s turn.

Some other token generators include Squirrel Nest, Cloakwood Hermit, Deep Forest Hermit, Scurry Oak, and Nut Collector. Nantuko Shrine also generates a bunch of tokens, but it won’t do much in a singleton format.

Swarmyard a good land for protecting your squirrel commander, while Bloomburrow gave us Oakhollow Village for additional +1/+1 counters and Mudflat Village for some recursion.

Comet, Stellar Pup is a good boy (yes, he is!), and this card can generate Squirrel tokens, but it’s in the wrong colors to be a true payoff. Same can be said for Specimen Collector.

Un-set Payoffs

There are so many squirrel payoffs from Un-sets that I figured I’d list them all here too in case you ever need that. Some of these might even squeak by during a Rule 0 conversation, like Chittering Doom in a Wyll, Blade of Frontiers + Cloakwood Hermit deck or something. I especially love Squirrel Dealer, which is literally three critters in a trench coat.

• Chittering Doom
• Form of the Squirrel
• Mistakes Were Made
• Squirrel Dealer
• Squirrel Farm
• Squirrel Stack
• Trendy Circus Pirate

Which MTG Sets Have Squirrels?

Your best bets to open squirrels in booster packs are Bloomburrow and Modern Horizons II. Unfinity also has another pair of legal squirrels (Xenosquirrels and Squirrel Squatters). Odyssey has two squirrels (Krosan Beast and Squirrel Mob), but you’re a lot less likely to find an Odyssey booster.

The following MTG sets have one squirrel each: Kaldheim, Strixhaven, Outlaws of Thunder Junction, and Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths. Odyssey, Weatherlight, Torment, and other sets also have cards that produce Squirrel tokens. Some squirrels have also been reprinted in the We Hope You Like Squirrels Secret Lair.

There are also squirrels in these Un-sets: Unhinged, Unstable, Unsanctioned.

Chittering Conclusion

Chatterstorm | Illustration by Milivoj Ceran

And that’s a wrap on squirrels in Magic! They’ve sure come a long way since the days when they were relegated to Un-sets and supplemental products, and I’m not surprised that a lot of players (myself included) gobbled up that Squirreled Away precon.

Which are your favorite squirrel cards, either for the art or how they play on the table? What do you think a Squirrel Girl Magic card would look like? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord!

Keep chasing that nut Food token!

And if you ever had a high school teacher who taught physics using a squirrel-chasing character named Cletus, please drop a comment.