SQUIRRELED AWAY. the finished list.

Opening hands

Seven cards from this build. Commanders start in the command zone. In multiplayer Commander, the first mulligan is free. For later mulligans, draw seven again; once you keep, put one card on the bottom for each mulligan beyond the free one.

KeepShow the seven

• Forest
• Swamp
• Command Tower
• Birds of Paradise
• Pitiless Plunderer
• Bastion of Remembrance
• Veil of Summer

T1 Birds; T2 commander if safe; T3 choose Bastion for bodies/payoff or Plunderer for the engine. Preserve a black mana and seed Squirrel before attempting the commander outlet.

BorderlineShow the seven

• Forest
• Swamp
• Talisman of Resilience
• Demonic Tutor
• Warren Soultrader
• Blood Artist
• Heroic Intervention

T2 Talisman develops both colors; land three and a seed body still matter. Tutor for what the current board lacks rather than assuming Soultrader plus commander is already lethal.

MulliganShow the seven

• Swamp
• Pitiless Plunderer
• Earthcraft
• Squirrel Nest
• Doubling Season
• Craterhoof Behemoth
• Triumph of the Hordes

One black land cannot develop green spells or the commander. Several combo pieces without seed bodies or castable mana are a mulligan.

Chatterfang, Squirrel General strategy guide

Pace and examples. Turn windows below are author estimates and illustrative sequences, not measured multiplayer results or guarantees. A first opponent eliminated is not a whole-table win. In multiplayer the first mulligan is free; later mulligans follow the London procedure. The commander starts in the command zone, outside the seven-card examples.

Squirreled Away runs Chatterfang, Squirrel General ({2}{G}), and every line of his text box is load-bearing. The token clause reads: “If one or more tokens would be created under your control, those tokens plus that many 1/1 green Squirrel creature tokens are created instead.” And {B}, sacrifice X Squirrels, is a one-mana sac outletAn effect that lets you sacrifice your own creatures at will, turning each death into triggers. stapled to removal, since +X/-X kills anything with toughness X or less. Forestwalk is a real clock once Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth is down: every land becomes a Forest, so every opponent controls one and Chatterfang is permanently unblockable. Do not grow him with his own ability: the pump is +X/-X, so past two Squirrels it kills him, and Swarmyard cannot regenerate a creature with zero toughness. The commander-damage growth all comes from outside his own text box: Oran-Rief, the Vastwood banks a permanent counter the turn he lands, and Craterhoof Behemoth or Triumph of the Hordes is the one-shot pump that turns forestwalk into a kill.

The engine

Token makers, doublers, and the sacrifice payoffs that turn each death into damage.

Every token event in the deck runs through that stack. One Warren Soultrader Treasure or Black Market Connections trigger becomes a Clue, a Food, and a Treasure under Academy Manufactor, the doublers multiply the pile, and Chatterfang mirrors all of it in Squirrels, so the ordinary value spells arrive with an army attached. Urza’s Saga’s Construct is a token event on the same stack, so every Construct you pay for after chapter two arrives with a Squirrel beside it.

The four engines

Four combo families are described below. Each has different seed, payoff and resource requirements; the listed variants are not an exhaustive mathematical inventory. Mirkwood Bats can convert token creation directly, while death payoffs need creatures to die and sacrifice payoffs need actual sacrifices.

Wincon 1 · Soultrader plus Chatterfang, and the commander is half of it

Warren Soultrader plus Chatterfang plus any drain. Soultrader reads “Pay 1 life, Sacrifice another creature: Create a Treasure token.” Sacrifice a Squirrel token, the Treasure is created, and Chatterfang’s replacement puts a fresh Squirrel onto the battlefield beside it, so the body you spent comes straight back and a Treasure stays behind. There is no mana in the cost, no tap symbol and no sorcery clause, so it runs at instant speed, it runs the turn Soultrader lands, and the Squirrel it just made is legal fuel the moment it arrives.

This is one route that uses command-zone access. Soultrader needs the commander, a seed body and a way to sustain its life payment. Plunderer also works with Chatterfang’s own outlet, described below; either route can begin with one specifically found card from the 99, plus its stated support.

Two things get said out loud, because both decide games. It reads another creature, so it needs one spare body to prime it, and priming it on Chatterfang does not work: the sacrifice is a cost, the Treasure is created on resolution, and the replacement effect is already gone by then, so you get a bare Treasure and no Squirrel. Any third creature starts it, and the Squirrel it makes sustains it from there. Two drains bring their own seed. Bastion of Remembrance’s enter trigger makes a Soldier token, and Marionette Apprentice’s fabricate 1 can make a 1/1 Servo instead of a +1/+1 counter; Chatterfang adds a Squirrel to either token event. Bastion is the one of the two that also hands the life back.

And the life is a real cost, not a drawback you can play around. With no lifegain the loop stops one pass short of your life total rather than at it: paying the last point puts you at 0, and state-based actions end the game before the Treasure is ever created. Five cards in the ninety-nine hand that life straight back and make it unbounded: Zulaport Cutthroat, Bastion of Remembrance, Nadier’s Nightblade, Cauldron of Essence, and Blood Artist. Even behind those it is unbounded from 2 life up and not from 1, because the payment is a cost and the refund is a trigger that resolves afterwards. Blood Artist is the one that has to pick a seat, since it reads target player; aimed at yourself it gives back exactly what it took and the pass still costs 1.

Academy Manufactor lifts the ceiling with no drain at all. The Treasure becomes a Clue, a Food, and a Treasure, Chatterfang answers those three tokens with three Squirrels, and a Food reads “{2}, {T}, Sacrifice this token: You gain 3 life,” paid out of the Treasures the loop is already banking. Two other honest notes on the count: one Treasure a pass is the bare version, and Pitiless Plunderer, Parallel Lives, or Doubling Season all make the pass bigger, and the board is level only in Squirrels, since the Treasures pile up either way.

Wincon 2 · Nest plus Earthcraft, on a basic

Squirrel Nest plus Earthcraft, and the Nest must sit on a basic land: Earthcraft reads “Untap target basic land,” so a Nest on anything else never loops. Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth does not help here. It grants every land the Forest land type, not the Basic supertype, so it creates no new legal Earthcraft target. Nor does Gaea’s Cradle, and the reason is worth getting right: Squirrel Nest reads only “Enchant land,” so the Nest may legally sit on the Cradle. The restriction lives on Earthcraft, which untaps a basic land, and the Cradle is nonbasic. The Nest belongs on one of the six Forests or six Swamps. Tap the enchanted basic for a Squirrel, two with Chatterfang out; Earthcraft taps a fresh Squirrel to untap that basic; repeat for arbitrarily many Squirrels. Every step is an activated ability, so the whole line runs at instant speed. The kill wants the right payoff: Mirkwood Bats drains on every token created, so with it the loop is lethal on the spot. The death-triggered drains never fire off creation alone, so with those the line also needs a sacrifice outlet: Viscera Seer, either Altar, Warren Soultrader, or Yawgmoth. The Sackville-Bagginses reads sacrifices rather than deaths, so it wants that outlet too and never fires off creation alone. The fresh Squirrels are summoning sick, so without a payoff the loop is a next-turn army, not a same-turn swing. Two riders come free: with the loop running, {B} and X Squirrels to Chatterfang’s ability kills any creature at any size, once per black mana; and with Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu and Jaheira, Friend of the Forest out, every fresh Squirrel taps for {G} the moment it arrives, so the loop makes arbitrarily large green mana too.

Wincon 3 · Plunderer plus Chatterfang, commander outlet and alternatives

Chatterfang is already the outlet. With Plunderer, one Squirrel and one black mana, choose X=1 and target the Squirrel you will sacrifice; then pay B and sacrifice it. Plunderer creates a Treasure and a replacement Squirrel before Chatterfang’s targeted ability fails for lack of a legal target. Spend the Treasure to repeat: net-zero mana, repeated deaths and sacrifices, lethal with a suitable drain. Targeting is chosen before costs, and losing that target does not undo the paid cost or death trigger.

For positive mana, start with two Squirrels. Choose X=2, target one of them, and sacrifice both. Two Plunderer triggers restore two Squirrels and create two Treasures. Each repeat spends one Treasure and banks the other. No toughness assumption is needed; sacrifices work through buffs. State a finite repetition count and leave response windows. Graveyard replacement effects or removal of Chatterfang/Plunderer can break the route.

Alternatively, Pitiless Plunderer plus Chatterfang plus another repeatable outlet that turns a Squirrel into a death trigger, plus any drain. Five cards do that job, which is why this is the engine with the most ways in. Four of them sacrifice: Ashnod’s Altar, Phyrexian Altar, and Viscera Seer for nothing at all, and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician for 1 life a pass. The fifth, Skullclamp, sacrifices nothing, and the difference matters at the table: the equipped Squirrel hits 0 toughness and dies to a state-based action. Sacrifice a Squirrel; Plunderer turns the death into a Treasure, and Chatterfang’s replacement puts a fresh Squirrel onto the battlefield alongside it, so every pass returns the body it spent and puts a death trigger on the stack, banking the Treasure in four of the five builds and spending it on the next equip in the Skullclamp one.

Three of the five run forever. The Altars add their own mana on top and Viscera Seer adds a scry, so nothing in those versions ever runs out. The other two draw, so they are capped by the library rather than truly infinite, and the disclosure says so out loud: Skullclamp equips a 1/1 Squirrel for {1}, the +1/-1 kills it and draws two, and the Treasure that pass just made pays the next equip; Yawgmoth costs 1 life and a sacrifice and draws one, so behind a lifegain drain he stops at the library and without one he stops at your life total. Neither is unbounded. For Blood Artist alone, budget enough deaths for the sum of opposing life totals; a payoff hitting each opponent needs the highest opposing life total instead. Multiply by cards drawn per death, and compare that with the library and your life before starting.

Warren Soultrader is a further repeatable outlet sitting in the ninety-nine, and he is counted on his own engine rather than here, because he makes the Treasure himself and the Plunderer is not required beside him. Plunderer plus Soultrader is that engine with a second Treasure on top, not a separate plan.

Any of the eight drains bleeds the table out while the mana piles up: Zulaport Cutthroat, Bastion of Remembrance, Nadier’s Nightblade, Cauldron of Essence, Blood Artist, Marionette Apprentice, Mirkwood Bats, or The Sackville-Bagginses. Built on Viscera Seer or Yawgmoth every piece is a creature, so the whole engine runs under artifact removal.

Wincon 4 · Squirrel Girl going wide

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl’s activated ability reads: “{1}{G}{G}{G}: Create X 1/1 green Squirrel creature tokens, where X is the number of Squirrels you control.” X is taken as the ability resolves, tapped Squirrels count, she counts herself, and Chatterfang’s replacement turns X tokens into 2X, so each activation more than doubles the board. Four ways to sustain it, off five cards in the ninety-nine. Earthcraft needs only a single basic Forest: tap a fresh Squirrel, summoning sick or not, to untap it, tap it again for {G} and float the mana, and four passes rebuild the whole {1}{G}{G}{G} with the generic paid in green. Four mana off one Forest means three Earthcraft activations, so it needs three untapped bodies beside the land: with Chatterfang out, the two Squirrels her enter trigger makes join her and the commander, and those four are enough to start it. Jaheira, Friend of the Forest plus Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu is the landless version: Jaheira gives every token “{T}: Add {G},” Shang-Chi lets them tap the turn they arrive, and from four Squirrels the new tokens pay for the next activation on their own, two with Chatterfang out. And Phyrexian Altar pays the cost with four sacrifices per activation, each one a death trigger, which is the version that kills on the spot through Zulaport Cutthroat and the other death drains. The threshold counts the Squirrels on the battlefield before the activation: six to break even with Chatterfang out, where it already loops forever at four deaths a pass, and seven to grow; without him the board goes 2N minus 8 rather than 3N minus 12, so it takes eight. Warren Soultrader is the fourth sustain and the one Ashnod’s Altar could not be. A Treasure taps for one mana of any color where the Altar adds only colorless, and the activation wants three green. With Chatterfang out each Soultrader pass hands the sacrificed Squirrel straight back, so four passes buy the whole {1}{G}{G}{G} for 4 life and no net bodies, and there is no Squirrel threshold at all. The Altar is still no substitute on its own. Every step is an activated ability at instant speed; the creation-only versions want Mirkwood Bats or a sacrifice outlet, Viscera Seer being the cheapest, for the same-turn kill, exactly like the Nest line.

Choose the line by turn three

The tutors are the scarce resource, and the four engines want different setups, so the choice gets made by turn three: the tutor fires on turn four, the attempt comes on turn five.

The Soultrader line is the default, because it is one of the two lines a single tutor finishes, and the cheaper card to resolve. Chatterfang is always available, so Warren Soultrader is the only card that has to be found, at three mana where Pitiless Plunderer is four, and the drain that makes it unbounded is a card the deck wanted anyway. Chord of Calling finds him at X equals three on an opponent’s end step, which is the version of this plan the board pays for rather than your lands. Plunderer with the commander as outlet is the other single-tutor route, and it pays no life a pass where this one pays 1. Point the first any-card tutor here unless the board says otherwise, and count your life before you start: you need a lifegain drain on the battlefield, or Academy Manufactor, or enough life to spend.

Nest plus Earthcraft is the faster line. Two cards, and it fires at instant speed with the mana open and the stack empty, which is the better target against counter-heavy or wrath-heavy tables.

The Plunderer engine is the grindier line, and the most likely to be half-built already. Every piece is a card the deck wanted anyway, and six outlets finish it, the commander’s own ability and five cards, so a partial board still plays a fair aristocrats game. Against removal-heavy attrition tables it is the better home for the tutors, because the pieces trade and rebuild where an enchantment pair just dies. Against an artifact-hate seat, pick an all-creature outlet: Viscera Seer is the cheap one at a single black mana and Worldly Tutor, Finale of Devastation, and Chord of Calling at X equals one all find it, while Yawgmoth wants double black and a lifegain drain but answers a hatebear one counter at a time on the way.

The Squirrel Girl engine is the green tutors’ line. Squirrel Girl, Jaheira, and Shang-Chi are all green creature cards, so Green Sun’s Zenith and Natural Order assemble it without touching the any-card tutors the other loops need, and a half-built version is a token engine the deck wanted anyway. Worldly Tutor, Finale of Devastation, and Chord of Calling reach further, since none of the three carries a color clause: they find Pitiless Plunderer and Viscera Seer as readily as they find Squirrel Girl.

Sequencing

The drains

The fair finish

Not every game needs a loop. Natural Order sacrifices one Squirrel and puts Craterhoof Behemoth onto the battlefield for four mana, ending the game through a wide board on the spot; Green Sun’s Zenith at X equals eight does the same a turn later, and Finale of Devastation does it out of the graveyard as well as the library, or at X equals ten arrives as its own Craterhoof, handing the whole team +10/+10 and haste on top of the creature it fetches. Chord of Calling at X equals eight is a fifth delivery and the only one at instant speed: eleven mana on paper, most of it convoked off the very board the Craterhoof is about to pump. Reanimate is the cheapest delivery of the five at a single black mana, with two conditions attached: the Craterhoof has to be in a graveyard already, and the life you pay is its mana value, so that one is 8. Triumph of the Hordes is the answer to the seat you cannot out-drain: it gives the team trample and infect, and infect ignores life totals entirely, so a table sitting behind heavy lifegain still dies to ten poison. Getting through is trample’s job, off Craterhoof Behemoth or Triumph of the Hordes, since the Squirrel tokens have no evasion of their own.

Survival of the Fittest is the cheapest Craterhoof delivery in the deck. With the Hoof in hand it is two mana: one green discards him and finds whatever the board actually needs, then Reanimate brings him back for one black and 8 life. If Survival has to find the Hoof first it is three mana and a second creature card to discard, and Reanimate has to be in hand either way, since Survival finds creature cards only. Watch the life, and watch the order: Deathrite Shaman’s creature-exile mode and a Bojuka Bog you fetched both eat your own target, so reanimate first and point the graveyard hate afterwards.

The refuel is thinner than it was. Sylvan Library, Black Market Connections, Skullclamp, and The One Ring are the repeatable draw now, and three of those four want your own turn, so a wrath costs a turn of cards as well as the board.

The tutor tree

Demonic Tutor finds anything. Vampiric Tutor and Worldly Tutor both go on an end step and must be cast last in any sequence: Green Sun’s Zenith, Crop Rotation, Natural Order, Finale of Devastation, Chord of Calling, Survival of the Fittest, Urza’s Saga’s third chapter, and the fetch lands all shuffle, and a shuffle scatters whatever either one just placed on top.

Emeritus of Woe is a second Demonic Tutor on a body: it enters prepared, so the turn it lands it is a 5/4 with a Demonic Tutor you may cast from exile for its own {1}{B}, six mana for both. While prepared you cast that copy to find any card. It re-prepares at your end step whenever two or more creatures died that turn, which is most turns here.

Survival of the Fittest is one of the two repeatable tutors. Emeritus of Woe above is the other, and it wants two creature deaths in the turn; Survival asks for none. {G} and a discarded creature card find any creature card in the library and put it in your hand, as often as you can pay for it, at instant speed, off an enchantment that stays on the battlefield to do it again. Three things follow. It costs a card to find a card, so it is a filter rather than card advantage, and on a wide board the mana is never the limit, the cards in hand are. It finds creature cards only, so it never reaches Demonic Tutor, an Altar, or a land. And the discard is a cost paid on activation, so the creature is in the graveyard before you look at the library, which is what makes it the front half of the Reanimate line. One thing it does not do: discarding is not dying, so no drain in the deck sees you pay for it.

Eleven tutors total: Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Diabolic Intent, and Emeritus of Woe find any card; Worldly Tutor, Chord of Calling, Green Sun’s Zenith, Natural Order, Finale of Devastation, and Survival of the Fittest find creatures; Crop Rotation finds a land. Urza’s Saga is a twelfth search sitting on a land, and Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse search too, though only for a basic.

Green Sun’s Zenith finds green creature cards only, so it never finds Pitiless Plunderer, which is black. It does find the whole Squirrel Girl engine: Shang-Chi at X equals two, Jaheira at three, Squirrel Girl at four. Small X for an engine body early; X equals eight puts Craterhoof Behemoth onto the battlefield late.

Worldly Tutor is one of twelve Game Changers, and the cheapest of the deck’s three instant-speed creature searches: one green mana with no other cost, where Chord of Calling wants a board to convoke and Survival of the Fittest bills a card out of hand. One green mana on the end step before your turn puts Craterhoof Behemoth, Viscera Seer, or the missing Squirrel Girl piece on top, and your draw step collects it. It carries no color clause, so unlike the Zenith it reaches Pitiless Plunderer, Warren Soultrader, and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician.

Chord of Calling is the search the board pays for. {X}{G}{G}{G} at instant speed searches your library for a creature card with mana value X or less and puts it straight onto the battlefield, and convoke is what makes that affordable: tapping a creature while you cast it pays a generic pip, or a colored pip of that creature’s own color. Tapping for convoke is not an activated ability, so a Squirrel made this turn pays as readily as one that has been there a while, and the Squirrels are green, so a swarm covers the {G}{G}{G} as well as the X without tapping a single land. Its job here is the half-engine a single card finishes: X equals three is Warren Soultrader, X equals four is Pitiless Plunderer, and either one arrives on an opponent’s end step instead of on your own main phase. Three limits get said at the table. X is announced before you tap anything, so you commit to the size of the target first and count bodies second. A creature that is not green pays only the generic part, so the black half of the deck helps with X and never with the three green pips. And a Squirrel that has already tapped for Jaheira, Friend of the Forest’s mana, or to untap a land under Earthcraft, is tapped and cannot also convoke; Gaea’s Cradle is the exception, since it taps only itself and counts the board without tapping it.

Finale of Devastation is the Zenith with both restrictions lifted. {X}{G}{G} searches your library and/or your graveyard for any creature card with mana value X or less and puts it onto the battlefield, so it buys back a Pitiless Plunderer that removal or a wrath already took. It only shuffles if you searched the library, so a graveyard-only Finale is safe to cast after a tutor has set the top of your deck. At X equals ten it stops being a tutor and becomes the finisher itself: the creature arrives and the whole team gets +10/+10 and haste.

Reanimate is the one-mana version of Finale’s graveyard half, and it is not a tutor: it searches nothing, so the eleven above stays eleven. {B} at sorcery speed puts any creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control and bills you life equal to that card’s mana value. That is 1 for Viscera Seer, 4 for Pitiless Plunderer or Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, and 8 for Craterhoof Behemoth. The life is lost before the creature’s enter trigger resolves, so a Craterhoof taken at 8 life or less kills you before the trample pump ever happens. It reads a graveyard rather than yours, so an opponent’s dead threat is a legal target too. Two honest limits: tokens are not cards, so nothing the loops actually sacrifice ever feeds it, and it is a sorcery, so unlike the rest of the held-up suite it wants your own main phase rather than an opponent’s end step. One thing to sequence: the Deathrite Shaman mode that exiles a creature card and the Bojuka Bog you fetch against a reanimation seat both eat your own targets as readily as theirs, so cast the Reanimate first and point the graveyard hate afterwards.

Diabolic Intent is Demonic Tutor while you are wide: the extra cost is sacrificing one token from a board of Squirrels, and the sacrifice itself feeds the death drains.

Crop Rotation is a four-mode land bullet at instant speed. Swarmyard against removal, since it regenerates a Squirrel and Chatterfang is one. Bojuka Bog against reanimation, exiling a graveyard on entry. Ancient Tomb on the combo turn, two extra colorless the turn the loop needs it, or Gaea’s Cradle once the board is wide, which taps for a green per creature you control and not merely per Squirrel. Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth to make Chatterfang unblockable: he has forestwalk, Yavimaya makes every land a Forest, so any defender sitting on a land cannot block him.

The removal suite

The count is fifteen instants against seven sorceries, and the posture follows it: this build holds its mana up rather than tapping out. The removal fires at instant speed, three of the answers, Deadly Rollick, Snuff Out, and Force of Vigor, cast for no mana under their own conditions, and the preferred win is on an opponent’s turn, since Nest plus Earthcraft and the whole Squirrel Girl engine are activated abilities that fire with the stack clear and the table tapped out. The cost is honest: Reanimate is a sorcery, and a sorcery is the one thing in the suite that cannot be held up, so it gets cast on your own main phase or not at all. Culling the Weak is not removal at all: {B} and a spare Squirrel add {B}{B}{B}{B}, a net three black at instant speed, and the sacrifice is a real one, so every death and token drain on the battlefield fires on the way.

Snuff Out is free with a Swamp on the battlefield, 4 life instead of mana, and a Swamp means the subtype: the six basic Swamps, Bayou, Overgrown Tomb, and Underground Mortuary turn it on. It destroys nonblack creatures only, so it whiffs entirely on a black threat. And the life is real: it stacks with Sylvan Library, The One Ring, Ancient Tomb, Mana Vault, Yawgmoth, Imp’s Mischief, Reanimate, Elves of Deep Shadow, Overgrown Tomb, and Nurturing Peatland among others, so track the running total before you tap.

Force of Vigor is free only when it is not your turn, exiling a green card from hand, which is exactly when the hate arrives. It destroys up to two artifacts or enchantments, the two-for-one answer to Grafdigger’s Cage, Null Rod, and Cursed Totem. Collector Ouphe is the same lock on a creature, out of its reach, which is what Abrupt Decay and Assassin’s Trophy are for.

Abrupt Decay cannot be countered and destroys any nonland permanent with mana value three or less. That ceiling covers nearly every hate piece that beats this deck, and it gets through a blue player’s protection.

Assassin’s Trophy hits any permanent an opponent controls at instant speed, lands included, and hands them a basic on the way. The basic is real tempo, so spend it on the permanent that actually stops the line, not the first scary thing.

Heroic Intervention is the two-mana insurance policy on the combo turn. {1}{G} gives every permanent you control hexproof and indestructible until end of turn, so one card walks the board through a wrath, through spot removal aimed at Chatterfang, and through an Assassin’s Trophy pointed at a land. Know what it does not cover: hexproof and indestructible do nothing against an edict, against a sacrifice effect, against a -X/-X sweeper, or against a wrath that exiles or bounces without targeting, and it protects your permanents rather than you. Cover for the turn you go off, not a standing shield.

Veil of Summer is the one-mana answer aimed at a narrower target. Your spells cannot be countered for the turn, and you and your permanents gain hexproof from blue and from black, so a counterspell or a targeted black removal spell simply misses. It replaces itself the moment an opponent has already cast a blue or black spell that turn, which is usually the turn you needed it. Two honest limits: hexproof does not stop a sweeper that targets nothing, so a black wrath still resolves; and it reads blue and black, so white and red answers go straight around it.

The three one-drop creatures in the suite are mana first. Birds of Paradise is repeatable any-color mana, which is what covers the triple green on The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and the double black on Yawgmoth; it is a 0/1, so a single Orcish Bowmasters trigger kills it. Deathrite Shaman wants a land card in a graveyard for its mana, and the deck’s own enablers are Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, Crop Rotation, a channeled Boseiju, Nurturing Peatland sacrificing itself for a card, and Urza’s Saga sacrificing itself after its third chapter, plus every fetch land an opponent cracks. In a low-fetchland pod treat it as a one-mana body with two graveyard hate modes attached: {B} and a tap exiles an instant or sorcery to drain each opponent 2; {G} and a tap exiles a creature card to gain 2 life and blank an opposing reanimation target. Elves of Deep Shadow needs no land in a graveyard the way Deathrite does: {T} for {B} from the turn after it lands, at 1 damage to you each tap, and the damage goes to you rather than to it. It is the black source the combo turn actually wants, since Chatterfang’s own {B} ability, Viscera Seer, Dark Ritual, and Vampiric Tutor each cost a single black, but it adds no green at all, so unlike the Birds it cannot cover The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and cannot keep a Veil of Summer live. Its 1/1 body dies to the same single Orcish Bowmasters trigger the Birds does; Deathrite Shaman’s 1/2 is the only one of the three that lives through one. It is a green creature card at mana value one, which is a property all three share, so Green Sun’s Zenith at X equals one and Natural Order’s sacrifice cost reach any of them. What Elves adds is the direction of the mana, not the tutorability.

Flash interaction

The deck’s defense is instant-speed, and two pieces of it dodge counterspells outright: Boseiju’s channel is an activated ability, and Abrupt Decay cannot be countered. The rest are spells a counter can catch. Hold them, do not lead with them.

Yawgmoth and Urza’s Saga

Two slots carry a whole engine on their own, with no second card required on the battlefield.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician is a repeatable sacrifice outlet that also draws the deck. {2}{B}{B} for a 2/4 with protection from Humans, and paying 1 life to sacrifice another creature puts a -1/-1 counter on up to one target creature and draws a card. The counter is optional, which is what lets the loop run without shrinking your own board. He is an all-creature outlet on the Plunderer engine, with Viscera Seer as the cheaper one, with Pitiless Plunderer and Chatterfang, library-limited rather than infinite because every pass draws, he answers a hatebear one counter at a time, and unlike the Altars he is not turned off by artifact removal.

Urza’s Saga is a land that ends its life as a tutor. Chapter one gives it {T} for {C}, chapter two gives it {2} and a tap for a 0/0 Construct that grows with every artifact you control, and chapter three searches out an artifact whose mana cost is {0} or {1}, which in this list means Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Skullclamp, or Lotus Petal, after which the Saga sacrifices itself. It reads mana cost, not mana value, so Talisman of Resilience at {2} stays out of reach. Three consequences follow, and all three matter. The Construct is a token, so Chatterfang brings a Squirrel along with it. The Saga hitting your own graveyard is a land in a graveyard, so it is a sixth enabler for Deathrite Shaman. And chapter three shuffles, so it scatters anything Vampiric Tutor or Worldly Tutor just set on top. The cost is honest: this is a land that makes no colored mana and leaves on a three-turn clock, so it is a bad first land in a hand that needs {B} or {G} on curve.