Well isn’t this a nice change of pace? From murder mysteries and outlaws, we’ve finally arrived on a nice calm plane. A plane of fuzzy little woodland creatures, where large elemental predators bring destruction and the changing of the seasons. Welcome to Bloomburrow, Magic’s latest mainline set where everyone looks like they belong more to The Wind in the Willows or Peter Rabbit. Come hop along as we take our latest look into Magic in our Bloomburrow review.
Bloomburrow Review – The Plane
This is our first time on Bloomburrow, a plane that is inhabited by nothing but little woodland creatures. Mice, frogs, raccoons, birds and more can be found here. No humans, no goblins, no elves, merfolk, zombies, angels or dragons here. The only predators are known as Calamity Beasts. Calamity Beasts are large Elementals in the shape of other creatures like a wolf, an owl, a bear and a large cat just to name a few. Bloomburrow itself has no natural seasons to speak of but instead, the seasons come with the migration of the Calamity Beasts which change the temperature and environment. There is one other predator though, the Dragonhawk, a beast that mysteriously appeared on Bloomburrow one day but isn’t an Elemental, so it can’t be a Calamity Beast.
As Bloomburrow is the first set in the Dragonstorm Arc, I think something fishy is going down on the Dragon-controlled plane of Tarkir. Something else unique with this plane is that anyone who sets foot in it will turn into a creature befitting the plane. This is something we’ve only seen one other time as there is a plane where everything is on a 1:100 scale so everything is tiny meaning that any Planeswalkers who go there are shrunk down to size. In Bloomburrow’s case, we have Planeswalkers turning into animals. This can be seen in the main set as the Planeswalker Ral Zarek turns into an otter.
These can also be seen in the special cards “Imagine: Courageous Critters” a sort of “what if” scenario if these creatures and Planeswalkers came to Bloomburrow. It sees the likes of Jace turning into a fox, Nissa a frog, Liliana a squirrel and Karn… well Karn becomes a tree. But we’ll get more into these cards later.
Bloomburrow Review – What’s In The Set?
Bloomburrow is Magic’s 101st expansion and contains 281 cards in the main set. The basic lands in the set are similar to that of Zendikar sets as they’re all full art. The unique thing about the lands this time is that they’re all the same art but feature different seasons on each one. Though some seasons are easier to find (Spring 40%, Summer 30%, Autumn 20%, Winter 10%) but you’ll still be able to find them in every pack you open. Speaking of packs, we’ve got a new type of pack only available at big chain stores. Value Boosters are a more budget way to crack packs, containing fewer cards and lower rarity, you’re not even guaranteed to pull a rare from them. These boosters will only be available at places like Walmart, Target and Big W.
Apart from that the set contains the usual four Commander decks, a bundle and a starter kit plus the usual assortment of special guest and showcase cards.
Bloomburrow Review – New and Returning Mechanics.
This set is positively bursting with new mechanics so let’s start with…
Offspring
This new ability lets you double up on creatures. When you cast a creature with Offspring, you can pay an additional cost and you will create a 1/1 creature token that is a copy of the original creature. While yes a 1/1 isn’t going to make much of a difference damage wise, it’ll be the static effects that come with the creature that’s the real bonus. The best part is each creature with Offspring has a corresponding token that looks like a cute little kid version of them.
Valiant
This is actually a tweaked version of a previous mechanic called Heroic. When the creature is targeted by a spell or an ability an effect will happen, but only once each turn. Where Valiant differs from Heroic is that Heroic didn’t trigger off abilities and you could do it as many times in a turn as you wanted. Valiant is also the mechanic specifically for the Mouse creature type.
Forage
We’re back again with a mechanic that wants you to exile your graveyard. Forage asks you to either exile 3 cards from your Graveyard or sacrifice a food token, giving it a little more versatility over mechanics like Collect Evidence and Delve. It’s also the mechanic specific to the Squirrel creature type.
Expend
This mechanic is specific to the Raccoons and asks you to count exactly how much mana you’ve spent to cast spells during your turn. For example, if a creature has Expend 4, an effect will happen once you’ve used your 4th mana to cast a spell.
Gift
Who doesn’t love a gift? Gift is a mechanic that asks you to give your opponent something in return for an extra effect. A couple of the gifts include giving them a 1/1 fish token or letting them draw a card.
Threshold
The only main returning mechanic and it’s a doozy. Threshold originally made its debut in Odyssey block back in 2001! And this is the first time it’s been used in a mainline set since. The mechanic takes effect if you have 7 or more cards in your Graveyard and is used specifically with the Rat creature type in Bloomburrow.
While that’s it for mechanics, I wanted to talk about 2 more card types. We’re getting a new set of modal cards in this set that use paw prints as “currency”. The Season cards will give you 5 paw prints to start and ask you to choose from a number of options, each one costing a different amount. Good news is you can choose the same option more than once so you can either go with a bunch of small effects or one big one.
Additionally, I want to talk about the return of the Class Enchantments. These Enchantments were first seen in the set Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms where they were named after the character classes of D&D. These new Classes though focus on innkeepers, blacksmiths and other job types found in the village. They come with a level up mechanic where you can pay mana into it to get increasingly better buffs.
Bloomburrow Review – Showcase Art and Courageous Critters
As with each set we get our usual selection of showcase art. The showcase cards for Bloomburrow have a unique card frame that looks right out of a children’s book. Not quite fairytale-esc like Eldraine, but still gives off a sense of whimsy. However the Calamity Beasts do get their own special treatment. You can find special art of the Calamity Beasts straight out of a research journal. Also known as “Fieldnotes” cards, they appear as sketched versions of someone studying them. Finally, much like with the basic lands there is a legendary land in the set called Three Tree Village and it gets given the seasonal treatment too as you can find versions of it with features from all seasons.
As I mentioned before there’s some unique showcase cards that feature other Planeswalkers and creatures from the magic multiverse reimagined as if they stepped into Bloomburrow. It should be noted though these aren’t considered “canon” visits, more of a “what if” scenario. There are 20 cards to the Imagine: Courageous Critters that can be found exclusively in Collector Boosters along with 4 Planeswalkers that are exclusive to the Commander decks (1 per deck) making for a total of 24 different cards. However if you want to get technical, and if you’re really up for a treasure hunt, there are 4 of those cards that are given the anime treatment in their art and are much harder to find. These are Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Liliana of the Dark Realms, Nissa Who Shakes the World and Chatterfang, Squirrel General. You can find both their normal versions and anime versions in Collector Boosters. It should be noted that none of these are Standard legal and can be identified as they use the Bloomburrow Commander symbol instead of the set symbol.
Bloomburrow Review – Commander Decks and Starter Kit
Next up we have the 4 commander decks for the set.
Animated Army
A red/green deck with probably the best description/tagline for a deck helmed by a raccoon “Make Trash, Do Smash”. This deck likes to play aggressively, playing cards from exile and creating tokens. Its main playstyle is to turn artifacts and enchantments into creatures and swing in. Just remember, one critter’s trash is another’s treasure.
Family Matters
This red/white/blue deck is focused on making tokens with a very specific focus on the new Offspring mechanic. The lead commander even gives all the creatures you cast Offspring even if they don’t have it. For this deck, you want to be low to the ground and go wide to overrun your opponents with children.
Peace Offering
This green/white/blue deck is what’s known as a “group hug” deck. You’re looking to help the table out while slowly progressing your board until you can take the win out of nowhere. Nobody would hurt you though, right? You’re innocent! You’re just helping out the table~ just pay no attention to the +1/+1 counters you’re putting on your creatures.
Squirreled Away
If you couldn’t tell by the name, this green/black deck has a major focus on squirrels but more than that it has a focus on tokens. So many tokens! Generate an army of tokens and watch as the table becomes consumed by them as you and your army march forth to victory. It’s nuts.
To round out this section let’s talk about the Starter Kit. For those who don’t remember, the Starter Kit contains 2 complete 60-card decks that are supposed to be shuffled up and played together. It’s the perfect way to teach new players to the game.
The first deck in the kit is a green/white deck called Hare Raising which, by the name, is a deck focused around rabbits and making them big with +1/+1 counters. The second deck is a blue/red deck called Otter Limits. This one is a more aggressive deck, using cheap spells to get an early game lead on your opponent and closing out the game in as fewer turns as possible while also having a subtheme of otters.
Bloomburrow Review – Conclusion
Personally, I really like Bloomburrow. It’s a nice change of pace to just have some cute woodland creatures and no overly dramatic villains to deal with. Also, I’m a sucker for birds and this set brings the support bird decks have needed for a long time. So thank you Wizards, for giving this crazy bird person some new cardboard to play with. And as always, thank you for also sending us some product to help us review the set.
A review pack was kindly provided by Wizards of the Coast for our Bloomburrow review. If you enjoyed this review, continue down the burrow into more of our Magic the Gathering reviews and join us on the Qualbert Discord to chat all things Magic!
