Hey guys it’s Jordan again. We here at Showtime thought it would be fun to build around some of the new legends from Modern Horizons 2. So David and I as well as our friends Ford and Julian each picked a legend from the set and built around them and then recorded some gameplay footage. We made our choices before the set had been fully spoiled so our decks went through some changes before filming. In total we shot five games and I will be uploading some of them to our YouTube channel St Games and Comics
As well as publishing an article for each deck talking about the choices we made with our decks. As a note our group was made of 4 people who have CEDH decks but our goal wasn’t to make CEDH versions of the commanders. It was instead to showcase what they did as an engine. So while we could have built these decks at the highest possible power level we didn’t think that would make for content that would be enjoyed by our player base. So instead we built them at around 7-8 meaning highly optimized. In my opinion I think mine was the highest power level as I will get into here in a second.
So as soon as I saw Chatterfang spoiled I knew that was the deck I was building. I had previously constructed a commander deck with Acornelia, so I already had all the squirrel cards printed before MH2. I assembled the first version of the deck the day Chatterfang was spoiled and as more cards were spoiled the deck changed.
First and foremost I wanted Chatterfang to be the main focus of the deck. As such the deck is squirrel tribal, without including the bad squirrel cards. Making use of his token swarming ability was a key focus of mine. Cards like bitterblossom, scute swarm, and pitiless plunderer were first picks as non-squirrel cards to include. All of them easily make more squirrels just for playing the game. Scute swarm on its own is a card that wins games, quickly swarming the board with 1/1s. Pitiless Plunderer has an infinite combo with Chatterfang. All you have to do is sacrifice a squirrel to Chatterfang and the plunderer will make a treasure and a squirrel allowing you to board wipe, and if you have one of the token doublers in play, like Parallel lives or Doubling Season, You allows you to create infinite creatures and infinite mana from the treasure tokens.
Then we have the combo of Scurry Oak and Ivy Lane Denizen. It is a nutty turn three, turn four play. Scurry Oak has Evolve so when Ivy Lane enters the battlefield it triggers the evolve and creates a Squirrel which triggers Ivy Lane so you can put the counter on Scurry Oak making another Squirrel. Rinse and repeat and ...Boom infinite Squirrel army.
Next we have the aristocrats engine, Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, Pitiless Plunderer, Grave Pact, Altar of Dementia, Ashnod's Altar, Moldervine Reclamation. Pay offs for creatures dying, Punishing my opponents for killing my cute little squirrels.
Lastly, I want to talk about the game enders. Walking Ballista, Triumph of the Hordes, Revel in Riches, Craterhoof Behemoth. There are so many ways to make infinite mana in here that dropping a Walking Ballista can win you the game. Then we have the beat down strategies. Triumph and Craterhoof just let you swing and the cute fluffy squirrels can devour the enemies. Or we can just hoard treasure and win from Revel in Riches.
In general the deck is a value based deck making extra tokens for doing what the deck wants to do. It has the tutors to get you whatever you need. I have gotten to play this deck many times now and it is ridiculously consistent, winning on turn 4 of 5 consistently. There are other cards that could be played to take this deck CEDH level, but I am extremely happy at where it is at. Playing with a squirrel army is something I have wanted to do since Acornelia was released. There weren't really enough squirrels between black and silver bordered cards that were actually playable so I scrapped the deck a few weeks after I built it. I had hoped that Toski would be the squirrel commander that I had been waiting for but he was just another Mono Green Commander. Like Toski is cool, but not a squirrel tribal commander. Chatterfang was everything I had been wanting. He is so good and then has Forestwalk slapped on him just to push him overboard. This is in my current top three favorite decks I have in my case. I don't think this deck will be taken apart anytime soon.
I hope you all enjoy the deck and the game play that comes with it. Until next time guys, take it easy.
