MTG’s new Marvel set makes Krenko Mob Boss obsolete

Magic: The Gathering has plenty of powerful Commanders, but one has become the poster boy (or poster Goblin) for aggressive players. Krenko, Mob Boss is a menace, and that’s putting it politely. This four-cost 3/3 legendary Goblin Warrior taps to create X 1/1 Goblin tokens, where X is the number of Goblins you control. If you’ve ever played against a Krenko deck, you know how quickly this can get out of hand, especially if your opponent finds a way to tap Krenko more than once per turn. Look away from the game for a minute, and you’re suddenly staring down an army of hundreds of goblins ready to swarm your defenses and murder you with countless tiny cuts.

But it turns out that power creep comes for us all, even Krenko himself. And with Magic‘s new Marvel Super Heroes set, the evil geniuses at Wizards of the Coast have found a way to make Krenko even scarier: make him green instead of red.

Revealed on June 2 amid a wave of official Marvel Super Heroes spoilers, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is a four-cost 4/4 Squirrel Human Hero that creates a 1/1 green squirrel creature token when it enters the battlefield or attacks thanks to a triggered ability titled “Do You Like Squirrels?” That’s not particularly exciting, but it’s Squirrel Girl’s second ability that makes her such a potent threat.

For the same price it costs to cast her (three green and one colorless), you can use Unbeatable Squirrel Girl’s activated ability, titled “I LOVE Squirrels!” This creates X 1/1 green squirrel creature tokens, where X is the number of squirrels you control. So you’re essentially getting Krenko’s effect as a mana-activated ability that doesn’t require tapping Squirrel Girl.

Yes, this is extremely busted, even by Krenko standards. After all, if green is good at anything in Magic, it’s ramping into a ton of mana. If you play your cards right, you could be doubling your squirrels multiple times per turn to quickly overrun the rest of the table.

Image: Wizards of the Coast, Kim Dingwall

The synergies are obvious, too. Magic might not have as many squirrels as it does goblins, but there are still some good ones. Squirrel Sovereign gives all your squirrels +1/+1, while Squirrel Mob gets bigger the more squirrels you have. Deep Forest Hermit also makes a bunch of squirrels when he enters to kick things off.

Lands like Gaea’s Cradle and Evendo, Waking Haven also let you create an amount of mana equal to the number of creatures you control, which will really speed up your squirrel production. Meanwhile, cards like Supportive Parents, from the Spider-Man set, can tap creatures for mana as another way to turn your squirrels into even more squirrels. And of course, Doubling Season is a must include for true squirrel token mayhem.

I’m not sure anyone foresaw the humble squirrel creature type becoming the new goblin, but hey, it’s not quite as strange as Squirrel Girl having the same power and toughness as Thanos, the Mad Titan. Then again, Squirrel Girl’s whole thing is that she’s unbeatable thanks to the power of squirrels, so this checks out.

Honestly, I’d been planning to build a goblin deck, having missed out on the Goblin Storm Secret Lair, but since I already have the Squirreled Away precon from Bloomburrow, I may take it apart and start building a mono-green Squirrel Girl deck instead.

What do you reckon? Stick with Krenko, or take a walk on the green side? Let us know in the comments. For more on the new Marvel Super Heroes set, check out an infinite combo for Doctor Doom, and a whole host of new card reveals.