Squirrel Nest

The whole engine sits on the cheapest possible delivery vehicle: rather than printing a creature that makes Squirrels, this grants the ability to a land you already control, which changes what an opponent has to do to stop it. A removal-heavy deck can kill the tokens as they arrive, but few decks pack disruption for an Aura quietly riding a basic, and that gap is the point. The output is deliberately slow, one 1/1 per turn at the cost of a tap, but the engine never runs dry and never asks for another card after it resolves. That made it a natural partner for anything that doubles tokens, cares about creature count, or wants an endless stream of bodies to feed a sacrifice outlet. Green has always wanted a permanent that manufactures fodder over time, and granting the ability to a land hides the source one step removed from board wipes: a sweeper clears the Squirrels and you start refilling next turn, while the Aura keeps printing. The Squirrel as a creature type carries its own quiet following, and this early design built that identity rather than borrowing it. The template has recurred since: a permanent that drips out expendable creatures on a resource the opponent would rather not spend removal disrupting.