Picnic (Golgari Squirrel, Artifact Infinite Turns) (Modern) [Révision 42]

~Strategy: Create artifact tokens and generate squirrels off of those. Win with squirrels (a lot, big, and/or imbued with deathtouch) or infinite turns.~

*Most recent edit (5/26/22): Friends have been upgrading their favorite decks to keep up with this one, and have given me a couple of fun cards to play around with - I'm testing out the new changes.
Kaya, Geist Hunter is super promising, and I've been eyeing Bootlegger's Stash since it was first previewed.
Downside: mana average is no longer that sexy 2.16.
Rebalancing lands for cheaper alternatives until I get fed up and just get the good ones.

Witch's Oven and Cauldron Familiar are the main food engine, and Gilded Goose, Cauldron Familiar and Ravenous Squirrel (gets 2 +1/+1 counters for every cat oven cycle, growing massive really quickly in this deck) provide the same role plus a few extra features. We ideally want either a cat/oven combo and/or a couple of 1 drop spells + Trail of Crumbs and 2-3 lands in the first hand so that we can get our food production, sacrificing, and draw mechanic beginning asap with the goal of playing Chatterfang, Squirrel General next to turn Food production into squirrels. Then with Academy Manufactor (ideally a couple), turn each Food token into Clue and Treasure tokens, then Chatterfang creates squirrels off of those tokens. Buff them up with Chitterspitter for an army of very big, hungry squirrels, and/or sacrifice them to Witch's Oven for 2 Food tokens at once, once they reach 4/4 for double engine fuel.
Kaya, Geist Hunter gives all squirrels deathtouch, making even the little ones much more effective at board control.
Trail of Crumbs works off of all the food sacrificing that this deck does to scry and draw through a third + of the deck in no time, fishing out the best cards asap
Tamiyo's Journal is just broken in this deck, and can provide whatever card you need most, frequently the turn that it's played (and you don't have to show the tutored card, which throws the opponent through a loop after getting to see the crumb cards from before)

~Infinite Turns~: Time Sieve allows a win condition of actual infinite turns if you can get to the point of being able to consistently generate 6 artifact tokens (Food, Clue, and Treasure) a turn, which is reliably achieved and most easily accomplished with a minimum of: 1 Academy Manufactor and a total of 2 of Cauldron Familiar/Witch's Oven, Gilded Goose or Tamiyo's Journal on the board.
Pay for the island cost with a treasure token or with the second ability of Gilded Goose; no splash needed, and no point in playing Time Sieve before you can buy a turn immediately since it's such a high-value target. As long as they can't cripple your time engine, which hasn't happened to met yet, you're good to go.
This deck provides enough draw that even if your opponent makes you play out those turns to prove that they're infinite, you can do so, and easily kill them with your squirrels.
In an excellent game, Time Sieve can be activated, and infinite turns produced, on turn 4.

~Additional Strategies: ~
~Artifact tokens are mainly used as currency in this deck, but worst case scenario you can use them for their intended purpose and still get great value out of them.
~Chatterfang, Squirrel General has forestwalk and his activated ability allows you to goad the enemy into losing valuable high-powered critters during attack or defense at minimal expense to yourself (especially if a buffed up Ravenous Squirrel is involved), or just remove them outright.
Recently used it to take out an opponent's card that was interrupting my cat/oven combo for 1 mana and 4 of my 13 squirrels, and was able to win the match.
~Use the Witch's Oven during defense to sac your blocking creature before combat damage is dealt, or your attacking creature if you're wanting to goad the opponent into blocking you for a turn, for maximum effectiveness.
Use it during combat phase when Venom Connoisseur is on the board, with Cauldron Familiar (then bring it back immediately with a food token) to activate first or second phase of her ability (depending on number of creatures cast this turn) to give her and/or all of your creatures death touch, as a surprise maneuver.
Sacrifice squirrels to it once they reach 4/4 for 2 food tokens a pop, which, if you have 1 Academy Manufactor and Chatterfang, Squirrel General on the board, makes 2 food, 2 clue, 2 treasure and 6 +4+/4(+) squirrel tokens.
~Play everything you can on the opponent's turn to mess with them if you're feeling nasty, and to reduce summoning sickness for your Cauldron Familiar (tricks taught to me by a friend who builds decks that focus exclusively on mechanics)
~Purchase 3 foil Unstable Squirrel Tokens and use those as your first squirrels on the battlefield - distract your opponent with the shiny cuteness (surprisingly effective at reducing aggro - helped save a match with a friend when he was severely mana-screwed and refused a restart)
~Chitterspitter isn't a card I tutor for since I'd rather have an Academy Manufactor or Chatterfang, but when it's on the board it pulls everything together beautifully - sacrifice a food token to its first ability and trigger Trail of Crumbs, create a squirrel every turn, buff up all of your squirrels, including the forestwalking Chatterfang, and the already beastly Ravenous Squirrel, have it eat its own squirrels for more buffs if no other tokens are available, etc.
Best played early-mid game. All around excellent synergy card.
~Bone Shards is best used mid-late game when you either have Cauldron Familiar/extra squirrel tokens to sac, or an extra Chatterfang, etc. in your hand.
~Save Second Harvest until the last second for your side of the board to become nightmarish (see formula below)
~Mulligan aggressively for a solid start, then just let the deck do its thing - make food, build an army, relax, cast THE WORLD and win JoJo style.

~Notes:~

WINS: In an excellent game, can activate Time Sieve on turn 4 and win with infinite turns. Reliably wins by turns 6-8 via Time Sieve or squirrels, and almost always by or before turn 10 with either, even when key pieces are removed.

4 copies are the cards I want in my beginning hand, + 3 lands, ideally.
3 copies are the cards I want to draw immediately after
2 copies are the cards I need mid-late game

Made 90 squirrels on turn 6 with 30 each of Food, Clue and Treasure tokens recently.

Absolutely my favorite deck
Please feel free to try it yourself - it's a lot of fun to watch and play and can be played at and against a wide range of skill levels and strategies and I'd love to hear how it performs in your games; I play it in paper.

This deck is broken, resilient and flexible, though it really doesn't look like it at first.
That scene from Shrek 2 when Snow White helped the princesses invade the castle gives you an excellent idea of how this deck plays - it's a bit slow to start, and looks really innocent at first, until it pops off and goes out of control disgustingly fast. I'm finding that it doesn't look like much to other people until they see it getting played >XD

Legacy and Flavor Wishlist: Spidersilk Armor (have already in my paper sideboard to play against my legacy friends), Vraska, Golgari Queen and Cyberdrive Awakener (make all those tokens beefy flying critters)
Haven't used the sideboard yet Edit: purchased sideboard to take to local game nights, since the deck has been playing really well

Flavortext of the deck: "Net Gains"
If it helps, think of it like setting up an economy and civilization where you're both king and banker. It's glorious.

I MADE THIS MEME - the MTG subreddit doesn't allow memes, so here it is!
For all of you new artifact token players: https://imgflip.com/i/6ez6w9

~FORMULA FOR Second Harvest/Kaya, Geist Hunter with Chatterfang, Squirrel General and Academy Manufactor
Number of tokens initially created to trigger ability = T
Number of manufactors under your control = m
Number of squirrel tokens initially created as Second Harvest resolves = S
                T x 3^m + S 

Total result equals number of squirrels created by Chatterfang, Squirrel General as a result of the initial triggering action resolving,
Divide total by 3 to get number of each type of artifact token created.