Squee, the Immortal is a perfect card for Commander. It’s legendary, very innocuous, and leaves a lot of room for interpretation. It’s just completely non-prescriptive (a space that is being increasingly crowded out with the last few years worth of legendary creature offerings) and does a great job of re-contextualizing a lot of cards that go overlooked nowadays. Thus, perfect.
When you break down the rules text, Squee is essentially asking you to do two very broad and simple things: put him into the graveyard or exile and then recast him from wherever you put him. In terms of getting him into the graveyard, sacrifice outlets like Altar of Dementia, Phyrexian Altar, Spawning Pit, and Goblin Bombardment come immediately to mind — few cards put Squee into the graveyard with as much panache or combo potential. Or maybe you have a City of Shadows lying around because it’s really awful under any other circumstance, and at least with Squee can rise to the level of Good Enough™ and allow you to play with a cool expensive card.
Casting Squee back out of the graveyard, while really it’s own reward, dovetails really nicely into a lot of cards that pay you off simply for casting creatures — things like Hazoret’s/Bontu’s/Oketra’s Monument are the low hanging fruit here, but there are some other really cool paths to tread. Since you’re casting him out of your graveyard, Desecrated Tomb might be something you want to take advantage of because you have a lot of unused bat tokens lying around. The simple fact that Squee is your commander also adds new dimensions to cards like Flamekin Herald and Skyfire Phoenix, and really kicks them into overdrive. The most gratifying aspect through all of this is that you are using Squee as the enabler for a large and eclectic suite of cards, rather than the other way around. It’s almost like a Reverse-Voltron (patent pending), and makes for a really refreshing way to approach the format.
So here’s my primer. Step one, find a sacrifice outlet. Step two, find something for Squee to trigger when you cast him from the graveyard. Step three, sacrifice and recast Squee every turn, as many times as you can. Pick whatever cards you want that help you do those things. It’s the perfect crime. Just a cavalcade of nonsense that can, all of the sudden, come together to sometimes accidentally win the game, but more commonly draw the ire and suspicions of the other players who gang up on you because there’s no way you’re…not…up to no good. What are some of the ways you can be up to no good? Follow me!
- Combining Sensei’s Divining Top with Altar of Dementia lets you use Squee to reset the top of your deck as you need to. On a scale of “Not Suspicious” to “Suspicious,” this sort of thing is VERY suspicious. Doing this will alert your opponents that you are up to no good.
- Casting Gamble for Skyfire Phoenix is oftentimes a “correct” play, but is ALLtimes a very suspicious play. Skyfire Phoenix, to the average opponent, is a bad card. “Why would anyone want to tutor for bad card?” your opponents will certainly ask themselves. This line of thought will certainly result in suspicion towards you and what you may or may not be up to (you will certainly be up to no good).
- Vicious Shadows. This is a red enchantment that costs seven mana so nobody plays it or knows what it does. Use that to your advantage.
Those are the first three thoughts off the top of my head. Take a deep dive and see what things can work for you in this space! For me personally, I like to play a grindy midrange game until I can assemble an infinite loop, requiring any card that reduces the cost of Squee by one generic mana, any card that does a thing when you cast Squee, Skyfire Phoenix, and Phyrexian Altar. I cast my Squee, get my Phoenix, sacrifice both for two red mana from the altar, recast Squee, get the Phoenix back, etc. Then you just “do the thing.” Do it as much as you want. No matter what it is, it’ll be awesome.
If that’s not quite your speed, totally cool. Ignore everything you just read and focus up. You can just run tons of equipment and beat people down instead, because Squee bypasses having to pay commander tax when your Voltron gets wrecked. As we all know, there is nothing more depressing than not having the mana to recast your Voltron commander for the gazillionth time. There you go, free deck idea on the house. Go nuts.
So yeah, as we come to a close here, I hope you have learned at least one new thing about Squee, the Immortal today. Go forth and apply that knowledge, dear reader. Make Squee proud of the ways you can find to exploit him. Throw him in the meat grinder and see what oozes out the other side.
commander, dear reader 