Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #577: Squirrels

Episode Date: October 5, 2018

In this podcast, I examine the history of Squirrels in Magic.

I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for us to drive to work. Okay guys, I got a good topic today. Today we're talking squirrels! Okay, so for those that don't know, I've been intricately linked with squirrels and magic. So today, I'm going to talk you through the whole story from the very beginning to modern day. Okay, so this story goes all the way back to Mirage. So for those that don't know the timeline, I started to work on Magic. I came in the middle of Alliances. So Mirage would be the first set that I worked on from beginning to end on the development

team. I was not yet doing design. But like Alliances, I was there. It was a giant team. I was involved and I did things. But Mirage is the first time where it was a smaller developed team. I think there was four of us. And so I played a much, much bigger role. So anyway, our story begins with a card called Waiting in the Weeds.

So it was a sorcery in Mirage. It cost one green green, three mana total, two of which were green, and it said, each player creates one one green cat creature token for each untapped force they control. But here's the secret. The original plan we made the card

was it made squirrels. Now, I don't think I made the original card. I think the original card was made by the team that made Mirage. So, Bill Rose, Joel Mick, Howard Kallenberg, Elliot Siegel, Don Felice, Charlie Coutinho. I think I named everybody. Anyway, but it was my suggestion that they be squirrels. Now, I'm not sure why I suggested squirrels,

but the image I liked a lot was, well, I liked the idea. One of the things I found funny is, and I've always thought is a really good, sort of green sense of humor, is the idea that things that seem innocuous can be dangerous. And so I recommended making this a squirrel card, and everybody was all on board. So the art director at the time was a woman named Sue Ann Harkey, very good art director. The art description that got written,

I'm not sure whether we wrote this or she wrote it, I forget, but the art description that got written was, it was called Waiting in the Weeds and you were seeing all these eyes in the brush and you couldn't make out what it was just all these sort of sinister eyes that were peeking through the brush.

And we didn't bother, like, the art description didn't specifically say squirrels, but the card said squirrels and she had seen the card. And we're like, okay, well, you can't see the creature, so it doesn't really matter that she hasn't specified it. And then when we came back,

Susan Van Camp, I think, is the artist. The artist drew cats in the picture. Even though the art description was you can't see them, the artist just drew cats. And so in the end, we're like, oh know, even though the art description was you can't see them, the artist just drew cats. And so in the end we're like, oh, well, can't make squirrels. The art literally shows cats. So we ended up making them cats

and not squirrels. But that definitely fueled my desire to find a place for squirrels. And I was excited. I was excited to find a place to put squirrels. But not and I was, I was excited. I was excited to find a place to put squirrels, but, uh, not, not that easy, you know. Um, so I always kept an eye out for a place we could do squirrels. Um, and what happened was, uh, my first opportunity would come at a very interesting time. Um,

would come at a very interesting time. So, during Urza's block, I don't remember the exact reason, but I ended up doing the card concepting for Urza's Legacy, which is the middle set. And what that means is, I was the person that figured out what the card represented and wrote the art description.

Now, I don't know why I did that. I forget why. I mean, I obviously had a background, is I was the person that figured out what the card represented and wrote the art description. Now, I don't know why I did that. I forget why. I mean, I obviously had a background, a creative background. It's one of those things where somebody wasn't available or something. And so anyway, I stepped up and I wrote them. And I did two things because I got to write it. I got do two things. One is, there was a card called Might of Oaks. So Might of Oaks was an instant, costs three and a green, so four mana,

one of which is green, target creature goes plus seven until end of turn. And one of my pet peeves in general about giant growth effects had been that a lot of the early giant growth effects never did scale. So they would show something that was in theory giant because it was giant growth. But you didn't know it was big. You know what I'm saying? Like one of the early ones like showed an insect, but there was no

context. You didn't see other things in the picture. So one of the things I wanted to do is, okay, if something's gonna become plus seven plus seven, that's a truly, truly giant growth. I wanted you to understand that this thing is just bigger than it's supposed to be. And I love squirrels. So I felt like a squirrel was a good thing to, you know, if you could see a squirrel towering over a forest, well, that, that's a big squirrel. You know a squirrel's not supposed to be bigger than a forest. So I made that art description. And there was a card that I had made

called Squirrel Farm. I'm sorry, called Squirrel Ring. No, what did I make? It was called... It was in Urza's Legacy. Deranged Hermit, sorry. So I made a card called Deranged Hermit. And Deranged Hermit...

I try to remember when I made it, whether or not it originally had to do with squirrels, or when I did the card concepting, I realized I could make it be squirrels. But the fact that I made the card and I made the art description meant that I was able to do something that I had not done before, which was guarantee a card that made squirrels actually make squirrels. So the card cost three green green.

So it was five mana total, two of which green green. So it was five mana total, two of which was green. It was an elf. It had echo, meaning you had to pay three green green both the turn you played it and the next turn in order to keep it.

When it entered the battlefield, you made four 1-1 green squirrel creature tokens and it gave squirrels plus one plus one. So the first time I got a squirrel made, I in fact made a squirrel lord. So the very first time I managed to get a squirrel into magic, it was a squirrel lord. But not only did it make squirrels,

it enhanced squirrels. Now at the time, there were no other squirrels. So the fact that it boosted squirrels really only mattered for this card. But I was thinking ahead. I was like, okay, I want to make more squirrels. And so I made a card. And Deranged Hermit ended up being a really good card.

In fact, Aaron Forsythe, my boss, the director, the senior director of Magic R&D, he actually made the U.S. national team based on his deck that was centered around Derange Herman. And that allowed him to go to the world championship as part of the U.S. team. And the U.S. won that year. So Aaron became a world champion. His teammates, well, the winner of that year, the U.S. champion was John Finkel.

The winner of that year, the U.S. champion, was John Finkel. And then Chris Benefell and the fourth person I'm blanking on right now. He was the least, he had the least acclaim of the four members of the team. Anyway, the card was pretty good. And the brand team got a little mad at me because they felt that squirrels were a little off-brand, that they were a little silly. And I said, well, you know, like one of the fun things about magic is there are a lot of different kinds of things. But anyway, so I make Deranged Hermit. Deranged Hermit's really good and for the first time we're seeing squirrels not just in magic but in the tournaments.

squirrels, not just in magic, but in the tournaments. Okay, so we managed to make the rage tournament. Then, shortly thereafter, I am making the very first unset, which was unglued. And I decided that I wanted

to make token creatures. At the time, there were no token creatures. They weren't a thing yet. And I decided I wanted to make some to put into Unglue. And I really wanted to make a squirrel token because I thought it would be fun

for Deranged Hermit to have a token, but I didn't feel I could justify it since there was only one card that made squirrel tokens. So I decided to make a squirrel token in Unglued. So the card was called Squirrel Farm. It is actually one of my favorite cards in Unglued. So Squirrel Farm is an enchantment. It costs two and a green to cast. So you pay one and a green. You reveal a card in your hand covering the artist credit,

and then target opponent guesses the artist. If they guess wrong, you create a one one green squirrel token. So I, in fact, when Unglute came out, I made a squirrel farm deck. And the idea was, I made sure that every card in the deck, other than the four squirrel farms, had different artists on it. So there were always different artists. And even when I used the same card, I would try to get different artists on it. And my lands were all unique lands, each with a different artist. I think it was a mono green deck. But the idea was, I was going to kill you with squirrel farm. And to do that, I was going to show you cards and make you guess the artist.

And what I found was, most people didn't know the artist. But the fun part of Squirrel Farm was you showed them the artist after, who is this, they don't know, okay, it's this person. Then the challenge was showing a mix of cards so that when you showed them the same card again, that they didn't remember the artist. And there was a real interesting sort of play pattern and skill to it of trying to gauge when the opponent wouldn't remember the artist.

And part of that was constantly showing different artists, having the same card of different artists. Like sometimes what I would do is show them a card, and then I wouldn't show it for a couple turns, and then show them again, but I had a second copy of the card, and the second copy had a different artist. Anyway,

really what the deck was all about was, if you get done this thing, if you're able to, for one in the green, make a 1-1 token and do that on any regularity, you will overrun them with creatures. The deck obviously had Squirrel Wrangler. I think I had four Squirrel Wranglers and four Squirrel Far farms as my squirrel makers.

And also the Drain Sherman also was a squirrel. It made all my squirrels 2-2. Anyway, or three, three to four, four squirrel wranglers I had. Anyway, that was a card close to my heart. But anyway, I was determined to make more squirrels. So I'd made a squirrel. I made a silver made a squirrel, I'd made a silver board of squirrel and we had a black board of squirrel but I was just beginning

okay so in Weatherlight there's a card called Liege of the Hollows two green green, it's a spirit it's a creature, when Liege of Hollow dies each player may pay any amount of mana, then each player creates a number of 1-1 green squirrel creature tokens equal to the amount of mana they paid. And it's a 3-4.

So this was a theme that was in Weatherlight. It was a graveyard set. I did not make this card, but in development I did argue to make this card squirrels. I made tokens and one of the things about the card

in general was at the time, the main token we had made was we had made phallid tokens and we made sapling tokens. But both of those are kind of artificially made plant creatures. And this card really sort of said, I call forth animals from the forest. And so I made the argument like,

well, like a sapling or a phallid, you know, doesn't really work here. What we want is a real creature. And then I convinced them to let me do squirrels. So at this point, every single squirrel that existed in magic, even in art, was my responsibility. But I was not done yet. Okay, so next comes Odyssey. But I was not done yet.

Okay, so next comes Odyssey. So what happened was between... So the set before Odyssey was Invasion. Invasion, Planeship, and Apocalypse. And during the Invasion block, our entire creative team left for various reasons. And we were in the process of getting a new team. And so Bill came to me, Bill Rose, VP of R&D. I'm not sure if he was VP yet. He probably was VP. Bill came to me and said, well, he might not have been VP yet. Anyway, Bill came to me and said, Mark, we don't have a creative team. I need somebody to oversee the creative elements,

which would be name, flavor text, and card concepting for this. I think Pete Ventures was still there. So there was someone to do the art direction. I wasn't doing art direction, but I had to do names and flavor text. And along with names and flavor text came creature types. That was the responsibility of names and flavor text, was also to do the art direction. I wasn't doing art direction, but I had to do names and flavor text. So I said, along with names and flavor text came creature types. That was the responsibility

of names and flavor text was also to do creature types. And the way it works is, basically, names and flavor text worked with art to do card concepts. Like, I did the card concept,

but I didn't do the art descriptions. The art descriptions were done, I think, by Pete Venters. But anyway, I was the lead of the set, and I was in charge of creature types because I was in charge of names and flavor text. So one of my ideas for the Odyssey block was to change it

up a little bit and use some creature types that hadn't been used much before. So instead of goblin, we used dwarf. Instead of merfolk, we used, what did we use? Well, instead of Goblin, we used Dwarf. Instead of Merfolk, we used, what did we use? We made the Cephalids, but the idea was, let's change it up a little bit. Instead of Elves, let's use Centaurs. Let's use other stuff. And so I was

trying to sort of mix things up, and I decided what I would really like for the set was, I wanted the 1-1 creature token, because Green I wanted the 1-1 creature token, because green often makes a 1-1 creature token. I wanted it to be squirrels. And so I worked hard in Odyssey to have some squirrels. So let's talk about the squirrels of Odyssey, because there's a lot of them.

Okay, first off, there were two actual cards with squirrel creature reps. They weren't token makers. One was Crrosan Beast. So that was three and a green for a 1-1 creature that at threshold, meaning when you had seven more cards in your graveyard, got plus seven, plus seven. So it was a 1-1 that turned into an 8-8. So we ended up making a squirrel beast.

I love the idea that it was a little tiny squirrel, but when it mutated, it became a giant beast. I thought that was very funny. Also, we have squirrel... but when it mutated it became a giant beast. I thought that was very funny. Also, we have Squirrel... Where is it? Squirrel... Was it Squirrel Mob? Hold on. Squirrel Mob.

Squirrel Mob was one green green for a 2-2 creature and it gets plus one plus one for each other squirrel on the battlefield. So that was the card that served all the tokens in the set made squirrels. So the card kind of said, I'm a 2-2, but I get bigger

for every other token you make, which are squirrel tokens. Okay, other cards in Odyssey. Squirrel Wrangler. So it was two green, green for a 2-2 human druid. One and a green, sacrifice a land, create two 1-1 green squirrelid. One and a green, sacrifice a land, create two 1-1 green squirrel tokens. One and a green, sacrifice a land.

Squirrels get plus one plus one until end of turn. So this both made squirrels and enhanced squirrels. Chatter of the squirrel. Two, oh sorry, just a single green. Sorcery, create a 1-1 green squirrel creature token with flashback 1 and a green. Originally, by the way, we had... Oh, yeah. This is part of the cycle of flashback token makers

because flashback can only go to instances of sorceries. But we like the idea of having some flashback creatures so we make token makers. And this is the little one. They made a little 1-1 and then you can make another 1-1. Okay, squirrel nest. One green green, enchant land, tap, make a 1-1 squirrel. Oh, by the way, so this is the picture that shows a squirrel gathering its nuts.

But instead of a nut, it's a human eyeball. So let me explain. There's a funny story behind this. So I had made Drain Sherman and Drain Sherman did really well in tournaments I made Bran a little nervous

because they thought it was a little it wasn't I think now we're a little more willing to embrace kind of the fun side of magic

at the time Bran really wanted things to be badass they called it at the time and they were worried when I came to the Odyssey and said that I wanted to make squirrels the token,

they were like, oh, we don't know. No, no, no, don't worry. They'll be badass squirrels. So like squirrel, that's the idea of the squirrel, but instead of a nut, it's harvesting a human eyeball. We're like, oh, these are mean squirrels, you know. One of the things, by the way, is obviously people know that I love squirrels.

And as I'll talk about, squirrels have drifted away from at least standard legal sets. And there's a lot of squirrel fans, a lot of squirrel fans out there. So whenever there's an article about somebody like a jogger being attacked by squirrels or something, people always send me the article. Because one of the things that I've been always ongoing fighting for squirrels to be in just normal magic. I think they're a fun part of the game. I think magic deserves to have a combination of things. I think it's green sense of humor.

A little tiny creature that seems so innocent and cute can beat you up. I also believe if we're going to have rats in the game, squirrels are just rats with better PR, as far as I'm concerned. So, like, if squirrels make—I'm sorry, if rats make sense, if I can have a horde of rats, I can have a horde of squirrels. A horde of squirrels can do anything a horde of rats can do. Just look cuter doing it. Anyway, that is why Squirrel Nest has a little eyeball. Okay, next, we have Druid's Call.

So, Druid's Call costs one and a green. It's an enchant creature. Whenever enchanted creatures dealt damage, its controller creates that many 1-1 squirrel creature tokens. So the idea is you put this on your creature, and then when it takes damage, it makes squirrels. So the idea is you could put this on a wall or something, something that's going to survive, but every time it blocks, it starts generating creatures. Okay, Nantuko Shrine. One green green, it's an enchantment.

Whenever a player casts a spell that player creates X, one, one green squirrel creature tokens where X is the number of cards in all graveyards with the same name as that spell. So the shrines was a cycle and all the shrines cared about cards that you've already cast and they did different things with it. But this one made tokens.

And because it's green, it made squirrel tokens. Nut Collector. Five and a green. One, one human druid. At the beginning of your upkeep, you may create a one, one green squirrel creature token. And then at threshold, squirrel creatures get plus two, plus two. So whenever you have seven or more cards in your graveyard. So you'll notice a lot of themes of what I'm doing here is

I'm making a lot of squirrel making, a lot of token making that are squirrels, and then a lot of boosting where you can boost your squirrels. And my dream here, and once Odyssey came out, this became possible, which was to make a squirrel deck. Because squirrels, pretty much their identity is you tend to make a lot of tokens with them, and you can boost them. So it's like getting a lot of squirrels out,

and your squirrel army just gets more and more and more powerful. Okay, so that was for Odyssey. So that was probably the biggest explosion of squirrels we ever had, was Odyssey. Like I said, there was Squirrel Mob, Nut Collector, Nantuko Shrine, Crowson Bee, Squirrel Nest, Squirrel Wrangler, Chatter of the Squirrel, and Druid's Call.

So that's eight squirrels. That is the most squirrels anyone said has ever had. Unstable, we'll have a bunch. Not quite eight. Okay. Next, so Torment was, it was Odyssey, Torment, Odyssey, Torment, Judgment. So Torment, because it was... It was Odyssey, Torment... Odyssey, Torment, Judgment. So, Torment, because it was in the same block.

Now, be aware that once we get to Urza's Leg... Not Urza's Leg, sorry. Once we get to Torment, I only oversaw the names and flavor text for Odyssey. Once we get to Torment, I had hired some other people to be on the creative team. Or, I don't know if I hired them. But I helped train them. I guess I didn't hire them, but I trained them, and they started doing names and flavor text. So you'll notice the amount of squirrels drops off a little bit after Odyssey, because I'm not directly doing it. But Torment,

which did play into the themes of Odyssey, has Acorn Harvest, which is a sorcery. You create two 1-1 green scroll tokens and flashback one and a green pay three life. You can flashback. This is part of what's it called? Probe. The card that

lets you draw cards. I'm blanking on the name. It has Probe in its name. This is, there's a blue card that lets you draw cards that you pay life as part of the castback cost. It has probe in its name. This is... There's a blue card that lets you draw cards that you pay life as part of the cashback cost. That's a super powerful card. Damn, it starts with an A, and it has probe in its name.

You guys know what card I'm talking about. Anyway, this is part of that cycle. There's a cycle which is a flashback cycle that you could pay life, that the flashback cost was less than the original cost, but there was a life payment to do it. Okay. At that point,

Squirrel started becoming... I probably overdid the Squirrel thing a little bit in my looking back on things. There really was a push. After I sort of went hog wild with Squirrels and Odyssey, there was a big pushback partly brand, partly the creative team more brand originally later the creative team would take up the gauntlet

of the no blackboard of Squirrels so Squirrels were kind of not allowed for a while at all, but finally Unhinged came along and I'm like okay, we're in Silver Border, we break the rules, I'm going to make more Squirrels so I actually only made one Squirrel in Unhinged came along. And I'm like, okay, we're in Silver Border. We break the rules. I'm going to make more squirrels.

So I actually only made one squirrel in Unhinged. It's funny. Unglued has one squirrel. Unhinged has one squirrel. In retrospect, I wish I'd made a little more than that. But anyway. So form of the squirrel costs green. It's an enchantment.

As form of the squirrel enters the battlefield, create a 1-1 green squirrel creature token. You lose the game when that creature leaves the battlefield. Creatures can't attack you. You have Shroud. You can't cast spells. So the idea was, this was a riff off of Form of the Dragon,

where you, the capture of the spell, became a dragon. And I thought it was funny to make you make the form of the squirrel. I thought it was funny that you become a squirrel. We spent a lot of time and energy figuring out what this is. In the end, this card isn't...

This card ended up becoming what I call an Uber Johnny or Jenny card, where it's really hard to use, and you've got to figure out how to win with it. Essentially what happens is, of all the cards in Unhinged, this is the card that took the longest to template, and probably, if we had to do it again, we would have templated differently.

When I first made the card, I think the way I templated it was, put a squirrel creature token onto the battlefield. That's you. And then like the parenthesis says, if it dies, you lose the game, whatever. But it didn't... Anyway, we ended up going through a lot. The idea essentially is that once you sort of play this, they can't attack you anymore,

and you can't get targeted by things, but that if they ever get rid of this creature, this little squirrel token, which is you, then you lose. This is one of my squirrel cards. I look back and go, I could have done better. This card... I like the joke of form of a squirrel, I guess.

I like that, but the execution of this is not quite as good. Okay, so the next time squirrels show up... So interestingly, Brady Dommermuth was the creative director for many years. And Brady was one of the ones that really spearheaded no squirrels. So, the next card... So, the first card, interestingly enough, that I was not...

The first squirrel card that I was not responsible for it being squirrels was actually made... It was suggested by Brady, I think. So, what happens is they made a Swarm Yard. So Swarm Yard is a land tapped for one colorless mana and tapped to regenerate target insect, rat, spider, or squirrel. I think originally it didn't say squirrel. This was in Time Spiral. And Brady came back and said, well, come on.

It's a Swarm Yard. Okay, it should say squirrel. And Brady was's a Swarm Yard. Okay, it should say Squirrel. And Brady was the one that actually recommended we put Squirrel on it. Now, given the card doesn't show a Squirrel and there's other types, you know, it's pretty minor. But Brady was the one, and I saw this as an olive branch of, saw an opportunity, you know, wasn't high profile. And so anyway, I think Swarm Yard was the last squirrel to appear in a standard legal set. The next time squirrels appeared... So I now gain an ally in my squirrel fight.

One of the brand managers, a guy named Mark Purvis. You guys might know Mark Purvis. He's been on the show a couple times. is a guy named Mark Purvis. You guys might know Mark Purvis. He's been on the show a couple times. He is part of the Council of Marks, one of the key people that got Unstable made. And Mark is a lover of squirrels.

In fact, if you, in Unstable, Earl of Squirrel has an alternate version, which was like a promo. I'm not sure if it was a game day promo, but it was a promo we made. That art was actually done by Matt Cavada as a birthday present for Mark, commissioned from Matt, from Mark's wife. And when we needed to get a promo card,

they asked Matt and Mark if they could use that art for the promo card. And so anyway, anyway, little things. So anyway, the next squirrel card comes from Mark Purvis. So it ends up in Commander 2011. And the idea was,

you know, okay, we're not going to do squirrels in standard, but maybe we do squirrels in non-standard products. So Mark made the following card. Artifact costs four, one in tap. Acorn catapult deals one damage to any target. That permanent controller or that player

creates a 1-1 green squirrel token. And the idea here was you were kind of shooting squirrels at people. Or I guess, sorry, you were shooting acorns at them, but the acorns made squirrels gather to get the acorns, I guess gather to get the acorns.

I guess that's technically what the flavor is. So that was in Commander 2011. It wasn't a standard legal product. And it kind of established this idea of maybe from time to time we could do squirrels as long as they're not in a Black Border set or not in a standard legal set. That was Black Border. Okay, so now, the last batch of squirrels,

it takes a while. You can see squirrels kind of only show up in drips and drabs for a long time, was in Unstable. In Unstable, one of my goals was to really give you the pieces to make a good squirrel deck.

A lot of the pieces were there. If you had all the previous squirrel cards I've talked about, you could make a squirrel deck. But one of the things I really wanted to do was make a squirrel lord. Now, obviously, Deranged Hermit had some squirrel lordness to it, but I just wanted to make its own squirrel lord. One of the things that's funny about this is Earl of Squirrel. So Earl of Squirrel costs four green green. It's a squirrel advisor.

Four four. It's got squirrel link. So any damage dealt by this creature also causes you to create that many one one green squirrel creature tokens. So it's like a life link, but instead of gaining life, you made squirrels. We could do this in real non-blackboard. We wouldn't

call it squirrel link, but it's really written out we could do. Creature tokens you control are squirrels in addition to their other creature types. And other squirrels you control get plus one, plus one. So the idea was I wanted you to be able to make a squirrel deck. I did the token thing because the idea was

well, if you can't get enough squirrels, a lot of the other squirrel cards are pretty old at this point. You could just use a lot of token-making cards. And I was trying to make it viable. I mean, I wanted... The reason I didn't make this card legendary, a lot of people wanted it legendary, is it would have made a good commander, but it's the kind of card that if you're making a squirrel deck,

you do want to get four of them into play. And so I didn't want to make it legendary for that purpose. In retrospect, I don't know, maybe I was supposed to make it legendary, but have a special ability that means you can have four of them play. Maybe Silver Border can have a legendary creature that has an ability that undoes the

legendary ability. Maybe that would have been funny. I don't know. Anyway, there's a lot of people that wanted a legendary squirrel. That's something I'll have to put on the bucket list. I'll eventually make a Legendary Squirrel. I might have to wait for... I am trying really hard, by the way, to get Squirrels back into the game.

I have some allies. I'm not quite sure why it's been so hard, but we're working on it. I actually think that... I am more optimistic of getting Squirrels into Standard Legal Magic than I have been in a while. And so it's not a done deal yet or anything, but it is something where I start to see chinks in the armor. Anyway, squirrel-sized chinks.

Okay, so Unstable had a bunch of squirrel cards. Okay, so it had Snickering Squirrel. Oh, one of the things that I did in Unstable is whenever I'm trying to make a viable tribal thing, I tend to like to be in two colors. It just gives you more choices of how to build the deck. So I ended up putting squirrels in black and green. The flavor we played around with, in fact this card was originally a Snickering Squirrel. So Snickering Squirrel costs a single black mana, it's a squirrel advisor to 1-1. You may tap Snickering Squirrel to increase the result of any die roll by one.

So one of the things, this was called Lab Squirrel originally. The flavor in the world was that it was mad scientist world, but the mad scientists had done so much mad experimentation that they had killed off all the white rats, that they ran out of white rats. And so the idea is in this world, since they've run out of white rats, the next closest thing they had was squirrels. thing they had was squirrels. So squirrels are kind of the laboratory creature of of

of of Ablovia, which is the name of the unstable world. The other thing I did is I wanted to give them a mechanical identity beyond just hey, they make tokens and there's a lot of them. So I tied

them to dice rolling. So for example, there's another card called Squirrel Power. Right, Squirrel Power? There's a card that doesn't make squirrels, doesn't even refer to squirrels, but has squirrel in its name. And it is the other black card that allows you to increase die rolls. So this one, Snickering Squirrel,

lets you tap to increase one die roll by one, and the other card increases all die rolls by two. So those are the two squirrel-related dice cards in Actual Squirrels. The other one doesn't particularly make

squirrels, but it has a squirrel theme to it so that you can put it in your squirrel deck. One of the things also is there's cards in unsets that care about names. So having squirrels show up in the name can actually matter. Okay, next. Chittering Doom. So Chittering Doom is three and a green

for enchantment. Whenever you roll a four or higher on a die, create a one, one green squirrel creature token. Well, obviously here's some synergy. I have my black squirrel card that lets you make your die rolls higher, and the green squirrel card, one of the green squirrel cards,

it wants you to have a high dice roll, and when it does that, it makes squirrels. So you're searching the synergy here that the squirrels help you with your die rolling, and the die rolling helps you get more squirrels. Then we have Earl's Squirrel, obviously, which is the die rolling helps you get more squirrels. Then we have Earl Squirrel, obviously, which is the squirrel lord to help make your squirrels better.

Then we have Squirrel Dealer. So it costs a single green mana. It's a raccoon lizard bird. And when Squirrel Dealer enters the battlefield, ask a person outside the game, do you like squirrels? If they do, create a 1-1 green squirrel creature token. So the idea here was we had this cycle of common outside assistance cards

where you have to go get help from somebody outside your game. And I liked the idea of this one making a squirrel. And so I went around and in the end I thought it was funny to ask people just do you like squirrels. The idea is in order to get a squirrel token you had to find someone that admit they like squirrels. And there's a little meta game among magic players is if someone says do you like squirrels you know that yes is helping them and no is not helping them. And so it becomes very clear when you play in unstable events, you now understand when someone asks, do you like squirrels, the context of

what that means for the game. The final squirrel that's in the set is Steel Squirrel. So Steel Squirrel is an artifact creature. So it costs two. It's an artifact creature squirrel. Whenever you roll five or higher on a die, Steel Squirrel

gets plus X plus X until end of turn where X is the result. And for six you get a re-roll six-sided die. So what happened originally was, I think that card was made not necessarily being a squirrel but then I realized oh, it likes high

dice roll and it makes itself better when you do and it lets you roll dice and there's squirrel cards that care about dice roll. So I'm like, oh, well it kind of plays into you do, and it lets you roll dice, and there's squirrel cards that care about dice roll, so I'm like, oh, well it kind of plays into what it is, and it's kind of funny. I mean, it's an artifact creature, so it's going to be some kind of construct. Like, oh, it could be a squirrel construct. We never had a squirrel construct

before. That seemed funny to me. And I remember when we started building the deck, I realized that I had built just enough squirrels that you could build a squirrel deck just with Unstable that you could

build a squirrel. You didn't need necessarily to go back. Now, if you go back to older Magic, especially Odyssey and or Drain Shaman, there's a lot of good tools in the past to really build your squirrel deck, but I wanted to give you stuff that you could build a squirrel deck now.

In retrospect, I actually put squirrels in a weird place, which was they are kind of just out of reach of draft. I did them at low enough as fan that unless you get really lucky, it's hard to make the squirrels work. Now, if you open up an Earl of Squirrel and you just take every squirrel you see, it's possible to do. If you watch me at the pre-pre-release for Unstable, I didn't open an Earl of Squirrel.

But I did attempt a black-green squirrel deck. And I took all the squirrels I could get my hands on. I didn't get enough. In fact, the funny thing is, I almost got Earl Squirrel. I almost got passed to it fifth, but the person who was fourth took it. And I ended up getting... What's the name of

the insect you throw that does damage when it lands on things? What is that called? Man, I'm bad on card names today. Oh, Slaying Mantis, which is a good name. But anyway, so I did attempt to do that, but I didn't. I mean, I ended up making a good black-green deck, but I was trying to make a squirrel deck,

and in the end I took all my squirrels out because I just didn't have enough to make the squirrels work. And so my deck was just much better without the squirrels. So it was a squirrel deck without the squirrels, which made me a little bit sad. Anyway, that, my friends, is the history of squirrels. So let me do a final update. I'm almost to work.

Which is, where are squirrels? What happened was, in the early days, Bran was very against squirrels. And this is the badass day of everything in Magic has to be, you know, I don't know, big and bad. And eventually Bran softened on that.

Like I said, I even have an ally in Bran right now that likes squirrels. And then for a while, it was the creative team. Brady really was a... Brady thought squirrels. And then for a while, it was the creative team. Brady really wasn't, Brady thought squirrels sort of didn't match the rest of the game, I guess. You know, it'd be an outlier. Brady wasn't as big a fan of outliers as some of us are. His concern was when you do something that's just like everything else, that's what stands out and that's what people identify the product with. I think we've gotten pretty good at making things that hit the general tone

while being a little you know i don't think fibble fit makes return to ravnica less ravnica or anything i'm i'm a big believer in having a little bit of key in things um anyway um so the creative team has changed over time so like the the biggest squirrel haters if you will aren't really there anymore brand has softened up a bit so

I'm hoping I'm hoping that we can sort of reclaim the squirrels I have a lot of allies I've been slowly building up allies so I'm hoping

I mean maybe I should have waited until I I managed to accomplish this feat but that would be a couple years from now. Even if tomorrow I accomplish it, you guys wouldn't see it for a couple years. But anyway, that is the story of Squirrels. There's probably no creature type in Magic that I've been more responsible for

the vast majority of the cards than Squirrel. There's a few other... A lot of the A-Togs I made, there's a few other ones that I had a hand in, but Squirrels was sort of a pet creature type of mine. It still is. Obviously, I just put a whole bunch more in on Stable, so

if I get to do a fourth unset, I'm sure I will put some more Squirrels in. Squirrels have definitely become one of the ongoing themes. Although, it's funny when you look back. If you asked me if there were squirrels in the first two sets, the first two unsets, I would say yes. And I'm technically correct. But they're

very low in number. Squirrel Farm at least lets you make squirrels, so you can kind of build a squirrel deck around it. But Farm the Squirrel does not. So, anyway, that, my friends, is probably more than you ever needed to know. I don't have time today.

Okay, a little bit of traffic. More than you ever needed to know about squirrels. If you've never played with squirrels, they're a lot of fun. The same reason I sort of say it's entertaining for green, I just think it's entertaining in the game. That it's fun kind of beating down with something that's supposed to be cute and not supposed to be quite as threatening. Like somehow when I attack you with beating down with something that's supposed to be cute and not supposed to be quite as threatening. Like, somehow when I attack you with a

lion or something that's supposed to be threatening, you're like, oh, that's supposed to be threatening. But when I attack you with a bunch of squirrels, it's just fun. Oh, one last thing, one little tidbit. We did a poll many, many years ago where we asked people about creature types and had them vote

on, not even vote, it was a market research where we gave them a long list of creature types and had them vote on, not even vote, it was a market research where we gave them a long list of creature types and they said whether they liked them or they didn't like them. And for each creature type, it's yes, I like them, no, I don't like them.

Like, I want this in magic, I don't want this in magic. And the number one winner was dragons. Dragons came in first. I think angels came in second. Was it either goblins or elves came in third? But anyway, fourth, I think goblins came in third.

Fourth was squirrels. Squirrels came in overall in a poll of creature types. This is many years ago. Squirrel came in fourth. And I use that poll forever to try to convince people that there's just a lot of fans of squirrels. Anyway, that didn't work, obviously. But I know there's a lot of squirrel fans out there.

I'm fighting for your squirrel fans, and I hope one day to have squirrels come back in a little higher volume than they currently exist. But anyway, I have made a lot of squirrel cards over the years that I talked about today. So there is, you can make a squirrel deck. I know in Commander, a little tighter. Well, I named squirrels. There's not quite 100. But I'll keep working at it.

So, okay, Commander players. I'm going to keep trying to make squirrels. Anyway, guys, I'm now at work. So we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.