Bloomburrow Set Review - Red | Commander's Herald

Emberheart Charger
by Chris Rahn

White | Blue | Black | Red | Green | Artifacts/Lands | Allied Colors/Shards | Enemy Colors/Wedges | cEDH | Reprints | Pauper/Budget

Hello, faithful Commander's Herald readers! It's me, Jeff from Legends Legends, and today we're taking a look at Bloomburrow's best red cards.

Bloomburrow's red cards feature Otters, Raccoons, Lizards, and a Mouse or two. They have access to the new expend, offspring, gift, and Valiant mechanics, and red has some of the most exciting new cards in the set! Let's take a look at what makes red special in Bloomburrow and its Commander decks!

Mythics

Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest

is the first and only Bird Dragon creature in Magic: The Gathering. It's a flying 5/5 for , and its ability triggers when it enters or attacks, making it effective for immediate damage and a huge flying threat to deal with later. I think Dragonhawk might be one of the first cards that deals damage based on leaving the cards you've "impulse drawn" in exile. That makes it both exciting as a commander, since we'll get some value off Dragonhawk even if our opponents manage to kill it, and as a card in the 99 of our The Ur-Dragon

decks.

Dragonhawk's effectiveness will ultimately depend on how many creatures with power four or greater we can play before turn five (or earlier if we're ramping well).

There's also already a precedent for "power four or greater matters" cards, as recently as Outlaws of Thunder Junction (remember that was only last month?). An entire clan's theme from Khans of Tarkir keyworded this effect as Formidable, and tons of Formidable cards still see play across formats, Temur Battle Rage

being my favorite. Furious Rise

's printing in Commander Masters solidified its place as a staple in red decks built around creatures.

I don't think Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest

is the best for the command zone, just given its limited color identity and the fact that so many more "power > 4" cards are green as well. It's definitely going in the 99 of my General Marhault Elsdragon

deck, though!

Season of the Bold

Bloomburrow's cycle of Season sorceries are all modal spells with a new twist: instead of choosing a certain number of options, you're allotted some "paw prints" to spend on any number of the modes until you run out. Red's entry, Season of the Bold

, does a number of very red things. It can create Treasure tokens, impulse draw you through your library, or deal some middling damage to creatures as you cast spells.

The combination of choices for Season of the Bold

give it a lot of utility. Will you spend all five paws on creating Treasure tokens, paying five mana to get five mana and another tick on the storm counter? Or do you need to dig for more spells to cast?

One of the best parts of Season of the Bold

's last two modes are that they last until the end of your next turn, unlike the "end of this turn" stipulation on similar cards, like Glimpse the Impossible

Season of the Bold

's effectiveness will come down to your own threat analysis and knowledge of what you may draw into to determine which modes you should choose in any given moment.

Stormsplitter

The Otters of Bloomburrow have a strong focus on spellslinging and storming off, as much as MaRo lets us do that in a Standard set these days. Stormsplitter

's easily one of the most exciting storm-adjacent creatures we've ever seen. Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery while this four-drop 1/4 is on the field, it'll create a copy of itself, with that same ability. So, what happens if we cast another instant or sorcery? Well, each copy will make a copy of itself, so now we've got four Stormsplitter

s. What happens if we cast another? And so on and so forth.

Even though we lose those tokens at the end of the turn, in a pseudo-Splinter Twin

fashion, Stormsplitter

has haste, so we can attack that turn with all those tokens. Plus, we can always use those tokens as surprise blockers on an opponent's attack phase, dropping a Lightning Bolt

or two before blocking with some surprisingly hearty Otters. Finally, if we can storm out infinitely, or even near infinitely, Stormsplitter

is basically a combat-based Grapeshot

Rares

Artist's Talent

Looting, reducing the cost, and adding damage to our noncreature spells gives the new Class Artist's Talent

three very useful abilities for a fairly cheap cost. A good loot off of any of our noncreature spells means things like the humble Shock

can help us filter our way through our library.

At two mana to play and three mana for each level, Artist's Talent

is a little on the expensive side compared to the only other mono-red class we'd seen before this, Barbarian Class

, and as a rare I would've liked to see the level-ups costed more aggressively.

Artist's Talent

will slot best into those burn-based red decks, like Ashling the Pilgrim

and Judith, Carnage Connoisseur

Byway Barterer

's a cute Raccoon that'll refill your hand quickly whenever you can expend 4. The best use case for Byway Barterer

comes when that fourth mana will empty your hand, generating nothing but value as you discard nothing and draw two cards. All this on top of being a 3/3 with menace for three mana makes Byway Barterer

great in Limited and Constructed environments, but maybe a tad bit slow in Commander.

Emberheart Challenger

Valiant is sort of a "fixed" version of Theros's Heroic mechanic. I call it "fixed" because it's both reworded to include abilities, and costed much more aggressively, albeit only triggering the first time its targeted each turn. Emberheart Challenger

is a prime example of this: it's a 2/2 with haste and prowess for two mana, already a great deal, and then also an advantage-generating accelerant. Compared to Satyr Hoplite

or Akroan Crusader

, Emberheart Challenger

is a huge upgrade on this type of effect. This little Mouse Warrior is begging to be the target of your Brute Force

Festival of Embers

Maybe my algorithms are messed up, but I feel like I didn't see anyone clamoring about Festival of Embers

, and that's a shame. I love a good Past in Flames

, or maybe Underworld Breach

would be a better comparison. Festival of Embers

is the perfect way to cast every instant or sorcery in your graveyard one more time, with the caveat that anything else going to the graveyard will be exiled (including those recurred spells as they leave the stack). Luckily, you won't run the risk of locking yourself out of your graveyard, because you can sacrifice Festival of Embers

at any time for two mana. At five mana, it's significantly more expensive than Underworld Breach

, so I don't think we'll see it catching a ban in nearly as many formats.

Hearthborn Battler

At three mana, a 2/3 with haste is about on-rate for what we've come to expect from rares. Hearthborn Battler

's real value lies in its triggered effect. While our gut reaction to this Lizard is to run it as a pseudo-Guttersnipe

for our storm decks, where it'll really shine is as a punishment for your opponents who try to cast too many spells each turn. Even though it only triggers once (only on the second spell), that damage will add up over time, especially if we're also focused on casting two per turn and swinging in with our 2/3 in the early game.

Hired Claw

I'm really excited about Hired Claw

. One-drops with a guaranteed way to damage an opponent and an option to grow and stay relevant in the late game are my favorite. Obviously, Hired Claw

wants you to run a lot of Lizards alongside it, and cheap ones that can hit the ground running will be our best friends. I can't wait to see some ridiculous Lizard decks built around Scorch Spitter

s and Steampath Charger

Manifold Mouse

The option to grant double strike or trample to an allied Mouse makes Manifold Mouse

fairly valuable for a two-drop, and the two extra mana to make an offspring copy of it means you can grant both double strike and trample to a creature. While the Manifold Mouse

and its associated baby aren't the best targets for their own abilities, a number of other Mice in Bloomburrow are. Take, for example, Emberheart Challenger

, which'll trigger its Valiant effect twice and possibly ramp you into some more spells to target it with, further increasing its prowess.

Sunspine Lynx

is an interesting hoser versus lifegain and multicolor decks, and could arguably make it into the mainboard of a Red Deck Wins style deck. 5/4 for four mana is a good rate! It's too bad there aren't more Cat synergies in Bloomburrow, otherwise I'd say this card could really cook.

Valley Flamecaller

is an essential synergy in any deck running any red creatures from Bloomburrow. By touching on all the major creature types in red, Valley Flamecaller

is a direct upgrade for the damage your creatures can put out. Played on turn three after a Hired Blade

or two and you're looking at an exponential increase in damage on the board.

Uncommons and Commons

Coruscation Mage
dares to ask the question, "what if we had two Firebrand Archer
s?" Well, the answer has finally come, and it turns out it's good. The option to get one or two Coruscation Mage
s means it's good both in the early game and the mid-game as an early pinger for your burn spells or a Guttersnipe
for one you're up and running. Also, it'll take two removal spells before this effect leaves the field, making it a pain to deal with if we aren't swinging it into combat.

Heartfire Hero
has the same deal as Satyr Hoplite
going on, with the added bonus of Fling
-ing itself at each opponent when it dies. Anyone who remembers Atog
's legality in Pauper knows how strong a Fling
can be, and getting access to one for one mana makes easy to start building up.

Quaketusk Boar
is the red entry into the cycle of uncommon keyword soup creatures in Bloomburrow. These cards are all-stars in Bloomburrow's Limited formats, being top-end beaters with a ton of value, but they'll catch removal very quickly in any constructed format.

Raccoon Rallier
is, in my humble opinion, better than Viashino Lashclaw
unless you're looking specifically to synergize with the discard cost. Sorcery speed doesn't really remove much value, considering you'll be activating the Rallier after you've cast all your creature spells, and granting haste on an opponent's turn is usually useless (if you can think of a reason to do this I'd love to hear it, though!).

Teapot Slinger
, at four mana, is a fairly valuable 3/4 with menace. Once you expend your fourth mana each turn, it'll ping each opponent for two damage. Spending four mana in red is easy in Bloomburrow since many of our other red cards do impulse draws to continue giving us access to spells.

Frilled Sparkshooter
should, in most cases, enter as a 4/4 with menace and reach. Menace and reach together are sort of an anti-synergy, with one being an attack-focused mechanic and the other built for defending, but I think it's the variety of options that make this creature useful for filling out a Lizard deck.

Kindlespark Duo
is a Gelectrode
with better stats, an easier mana value, and a broader range of spells that'll untap it. That said, it can't be used for creature removal, but I've never seen someone use every activation of their Gelectrode
on anything but their opponents, so an easier-to-untap version of this card just makes sense.

Steampath Charger
brings the glory of Goblin Arsonist
onto a slightly stronger Lizard with the offspring ability. Two mana for a 2/1 isn't a great rate, and another two for a 1/1 is worse, but for four total mana you can threaten the board with five damage to throw around as you wish. Not amazing, but not bad for a common.

I foresee [/el]War Squeak[/el] as one of the main Valiant triggers in this set. For one mana, we're getting a Valiant trigger, haste, and, most likely, an unblocked attacker all at once.

Bloomburrow Commander Decks

Agate Instigator
is for sure to make a splash in the coming months. I've been joking that Agate Instigator
is effectively a Purphoros, God of the Forge
that you'll have to remove twice, and I'm almost serious at this point. Doubling up on an Impact Tremors
that sees its other copy enter the battlefield is actually nuts - don't sleep on this bad Lizard.

There are tons of red decks that run basically entirely off of Treasure tokens, so Alchemist's Talent
will be a must-have in those Prosper, Tome-Bound
and Olivia, Opulent Outlaw
Commander decks. Nothing else (to my knowledge) doubles the amount of mana each Treasure provides, and the fact that both of its first two levels can ramp you to reach the third makes this one of my favorite internally synergistic cards from the set.

Echoing Assault
is a Goblin War Drums
with the upside of making an offspring version of one of your attacking creatures each turn. This'll be best used with powerful ETBs that you want to activate again, but aren't necessarily concerned with the token surviving. I'm already planning on adding this to my Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
deck to copy my Vile Entomber
over and over to tutor up every card I need to combo off from my graveyard.

If you're looking for Treasure synergies, Rain of Riches
is your go-to. Treasure decks are known for exploding and making a ton of mana out of nowhere, then casting their hand and continuing to generate value off of using said tokens. Rain of Riches
getting you a free cascade off of whatever high-CMC spell you just used all of your Treasure on will see you flying through your library at top speed. I only wish it was an explore trigger instead, to save us from whiffing or getting some one-mana spell we don't want to cast yet, but I understand why it isn't.

Prosperous Bandit
's "create that many Treasure tokens" effect should be viewed as a threat. Remember The Reaver Cleaver
? This is a very strong mechanic that ramps red decks like nobody's business, especially if we can get a little extra power on our measly little Raccoons.

Calamity of Cinders
is a new red board wipe with convoke that hits only untapped creatures for six damage each. This is a cute way to save your board of Goblins, Lizards, or whatever go-wide creature type you like and obliterate your opponents' boards as well.

And We're Off...spring

Bloomburrow heralds a new age of Standard Magic sets: the power levels of the average rare seem to be creeping ever higher, and the same goes for the commons and uncommons. While many have criticized Bloomburrow's aesthetic as being jarringly anti-MTG, I've come to appreciate this new direction for themes with a careful optimism. I still miss the Viashino, so getting a ton of new Lizards that look sort of like them is filling the void in my heart.

What are your favorite red cards from Bloomburrow? Which will you be adding to your Commander decks? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks for reading!

Emberheart Charger by Chris Rahn