Bloomburrow Set Review - Budget
Stargaze by Serena Maylon
White | Blue | Black | Red | Green | Artifacts/Lands | Allied Colors/Shards | Enemy Colors/Wedges | cEDH | Reprints | Pauper/Budget
I Never Planned on Playing Mouse Kindred, But I Think I Might Now!
How's it going y'all? Just a month after Assassin's Creed, we've already got a new set, and if you're into tiny, cute creatures, this is the set for you. Bloomburrow is entirely populated by animals, and even if a humanoid planewalks here, they receive a fursona. Just looking at the art, it's clear that this set is a banger thematically, but how does it do gameplay wise?
Multicolored
Lilysplash Mentor
If I understand the flavor correctly, this Frog is hella good at jumping. That's what he's teaching, right? Leaping high, and coming down with a splash? Whatever it is, this ability will make a splash on any game. Yeah, three mana isn't an incredible rate for a blink, but you can do it any number of times, allowing you to create engines and value every turn without relying on single-use cards, like Ghostly Flicker. Roon of the Hidden Realm proved himself to be a strong commander, and he only blinked one card a turn. With Lilysplash Mentor on the board, you can blink till you run out of mana.
But what if you don't run out of mana? With a creature that creates more than three mana upon entering the battlefield, *cough cough, Peregrine Drake* you can make infinite mana. The utility of this Frog makes it a potent piece in blink decks, even though it may appear poorly costed.
Stormcatch Mentor
This one's pretty easy to evaluate. Is Goblin Electromancer a good card? Why, yes it is. A mana off every single instant or sorcery can lead to heaps of mana saved over the course of the game. When a deck's built right, that little reduction can really let a player storm off, casting upwards of ten spells on a good turn, and thanks to the addition of prowess on Stormcatch Mentor, there's a pretty big payoff for casting a lot of spells. It's not often that you see what's essentially a mana dork swinging in for big damage, but I think you'll see this card doing that often.
Fireglass Mentor
This little Lizard is almost like another Dark Confidant. Some might say it's better? As long as you can deal damage before your second main phase, a trivial task in Rakdos colors, this guy will grab you two cards off the top of your deck, and you get to choose the best one. He slots flawlessly into plenty of decks, like Rakdos, Lord of Riots, that are already trying to deal damage and would kill for some extra card advantage. And, of course, I have to mention Prosper, Tome-Bound, who wants anything that says "exile" on it.
White
Parting Gust
Ooh, a card that can be a blink spell or a removal spell? Anyone who's read my articles knows I love modal spells, and this spell has so many different ways to use it. Need a troublesome creature out of there? It's an exile spell, and don't be fooled into thinking that the gifted fish has to go to the owner of the exiled creature. You can give it to the player who's flooding out! Not that the fish matters, floating around in a format of 160 total life points. Need an extra trigger out of Sun Titan? Opt not to promise the fish, and your creature can take a big leap, coming down with an impact. You can even use this card to protect an important creature, just like blinking a creature with Ephemerate to fizzle a Feed the Swarm. Drawing a card like this is like drawing three thanks to the amount of situations it prepares you for.
Crumb and Get It
As someone who runs a lot of Voltron decks, I'm always happy to see a card I can use to protect my Commander from removal. However, in comparison to the protection given by Gods Willing, indestructible isn't particularly potent. It does absolutely nothing against two extremely common removal spells: Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile. The upside to playing this spell is, of course, the ability to give +2/+2. But here's another flaw: if I'm protecting my commander, why would I need +2/+2? If I'm trying to push a bit of extra damage, why do I need indestructible? The modes of this card can be played together, but will never complement each other. And on their own, they're far too mediocre to outclass anything else. However, I think this card is going to see play, just for the pun.
Carrot Cake
Um, is that what a carrot cake looks like? Usually, I think, the icing goes on on the outside, and the carrots go on the inside. But to each their own, I guess. The card itself is absolutely playable. Ichor Wellspring and Mephitic Draught are artifacts played to be sacrificed , and this fits perfectly alongside them, even though it doesn't draw cards. The Rabbits are actually really handy, cause the deck playing this card is absolutely looking for more things to sacrifice. And while it won't be used much, the ability to sacrifice itself can be life saving in the right situation. If your deck just needs stuff to put through the Krark-Clan Ironworks, this might be the right card.
Blue
Gossip's Talent
Woah, this card does a lot. Surveilling, blinking, and making creatures unblockable? That's a ton of utility, and while the abilities don't synergize too much, they're all valuable on their own. But before we evaluate this card's maximum potential, let's make sure it does enough at its worst. A two-mana enchantment that surveils on every creature entering? That's spectacular. It counts tokens too, so a commander like Elenda and Azor, that makes a ton of them, will get full mileage out of just the first level.
Level it up once, and every turn, you can make one of your smaller creatures unblockable. That's no small deal for a commander with a combat damage trigger. And if you don't have that, the third ability gives your creatures a combat damage trigger anyways, blinking a creature when it connects. Peregrine Drake comes to mind once again. But if you don't have an ETB trigger to abuse, worry not, because your creatures surveil when entering, guaranteeing some value. I love how the card benefits itself with every one of its modes. That's some slick card design.
Into the Flood Maw
Unsummon may be worse than Pongify or Rapid Hybridization, but I still think it's a fine card and that it gets the job done when it needs to. Bouncing a creature can prevent combat damage, damage triggers, poor blocks, ETB triggers, and even save a creature you really need, something simple removal can't do. Treat Unsummon right, and Unsummon will return the favor. And now we have Into the Flood Maw, which is basically just a better version. As anyone who's played with Generous Gift knows, the tapped fish doesn't matter, and the upside you get is being able to bounce Warstorm Surge in response to Ghalta, Primal Hunger.
Shoreline Looter
I just built a deck all about looters, and after playing the deck a bit, I can definitely say that my favorite of the looters was Looter il-Kor. It loses the advantage of being able to loot whenever you want, like Merfolk Looter, that taps, but it gains the advantage of dealing combat damage and being an unblockable creature. Got a big hammer you'd like to hit someone with? Looter il-Kor and Shoreline Looter are happy to carry it while they quest for cards. Funnily enough, in the deck I built, Shoreline Looter not discarding is actually a downside, but most of the time, you'll be happy to keep all your cards in hand.
Black
Bandit's Talent
I'm much less impressed with Bandit's Talent than I was with the blue class enchantment. Discard rarely does much in commander, especially when graveyard strategies are plentiful. The only commanders that really care about discarding are Tinybones, Trinket Thief and Tergrid, God of Fright, and those commanders are known for being hated out of pods. That proves they have much better things to be playing than this. And no, you won't be able to convince your opponents that you're not playing "that Tergrid deck" just by showing them this card.
Diresight
Strictly better Read the Bones isn't something I expected to see, but yup, that's what this is. And when I say better, I mean it's better by a lot. Surveil lets you put cards in your graveyard, and assuming you can access your graveyard, this one card can get you four cards worth of card advantage. Those Frog Sorcerers are pretty powerful, huh?
Stargaze
Here's something else that's unique. Pretty much all of the "Draw X" spells are in blue, from Transcendent Message to Mind's Desire. But this one's in black, and it's really good. Digging through 20 cards when you cast this for X = 10 is going to feel like you're tutoring for ten. That's easily game-winning, if you can do it. I don't know if that's better than casting Torment of Hailfire for the same amount, but it's certainly strong. And yes, the floor of drawing one card for three mana is pretty bad, but that never stopped anyone from running Lifeblood Hydra.
Red
Blacksmith's Talent
There's one line of text on this card that really catches my eye. One thing I've learned from tormenting my pal with a busted Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist deck is that free equips are really good. Now, Blacksmith's Talent definitely isn't Ardenn, but it is still strong. The dream is equipping a Colossus Hammer for nothing, but even saving three mana to attach a Sword of Vengeance is quite good. And if you pay four more mana for level three, double strike and haste can be game-ending.
Coruscation Mage
Why did I learn all the cool words I know from Magic: The Gathering? Coruscation is a fancy word for a gleam or a flash of light. From now on, I'm describing people's flare as their coruscation. Cool words aside, we've got a great card. What if I wanted a Firebrand Archer, but I wanted a Firebrand Archer so bad that I wanted two Firebrand Archers? Welp, you can't have two Firebrand Archers, but you can have two Coruscation Mages, for twice the coruscation, but more importantly, twice the damage. Sounds like a good deal to me.
Whiskerquill Scribe
Honestly, I really appreciated the appearance of the discover mechanic in Lost Caverns of Ixalan. It made cascade slightly less broken, and gave the designers way more flexibility with what the cards could do. Valiant doesn't really do any of that. Heroic was never a broken mechanic in the first place, and I don't think anyone would've really thought of it as something that needed nerfing. In fact, I think it could've stood to be a bit stronger. But Valiant is a downgrade, only triggering once a turn. Why? I don't think anyone would be breaking Whiskerquill Scribe, even if they could trigger it multiple times a turn, and yes, I'm considering the ability to equip it for zero. There aren't any zero cost equip abilities in standard, so they wouldn't be causing problems there. Maybe Wizards was trying to avoid a second Nadu, Winged Wisdom, but they haven't banned the first one in Modern. Oh, well. I guess we have to get boring mechanics every once in a while.
Green
Cache Grab
This card is neatly hidden behind some random Squirrel synergies, which you can just ignore. What it says is: Mill four, then return a permanent from among those cards to your hand. I run Mulch all the time, and this card is just better. It fits perfectly into the package of Grisly Salvage, Satyr Wayfinder, and Grapple with the Past. In fact, I think it's the best of them. I'm telling you, if you're running a graveyard deck, this is the way to get card advantage.
Heaped Harvest
Woah, I was just talking about how Carrot Cake is good for getting you a Rabbit and a scry on ETB and sacrifice, and now I find this card. It ramps you by one, just for sacrificing it? This is so much value. It's a bit unfortunate that it's in green, of course, but there are a number of artifact decks that include green, and let me tell you, they want this. This card can be looped over and over, and the player doing that will almost certainly win the game. The advantage to be gained is just insurmountable.
Wear Down
Okay, I checked this time, and I noticed that this card is a sorcery, not an instant. Therefore, it's not as good as Return to Nature. The ability to remove cards at instant speed is just too good. Catching a Legion Loyalty before it triggers can make the difference in who wins a game. Still, Wear Down is strong. Destroying two artifacts and/or enchantments for just two mana is very strong. Return to Dust is the closest comparison, and while that card definitely has times when it's better than this, there are certainly reasons to go for this as artifact/enchantment removal. At the end of the day, it's a matter of preference between Wear Down and some others, but definitely don't pick any of them over Collective Resistance.
Colorless
Patchwork Banner
First thing to note, this is a strictly better Manalith, and if you ask me, Manalith itself totally is playable, along with its million cousins. This one's got a pretty big upside for kindred decks. It's just an anthem, but that can matter a lot for those small, swarming, creature types. Maybe you're not feeling super competitive, maybe you're building Mouse kindred. If so, and you've got this card laying around, you might as well play it.
Tangle Tumbler
Vehicles weren't something I expected to see from this set, but I guess it makes sense that Racoons are getting up to these shenanigans. The card's cool and all, but I don't think the Vehicle decks are going to be able to crew it, and I don't think token decks need a random 6/6. Maybe there's a Breya, Etherium Shaper Vehicle deck that wants it, but barring that, it doesn't have much of a home. I can see it doing work in limited, though!
Alright, consider this set reviewed. My final thoughts? It's adorable, and the world is fantastically built, checking all the boxes for the book reading side of me. But the gamer side of me is pretty disappointed. The set is very clearly designed to appeal to the demographic that just wants to play cute critters. And don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against that, but it leaves everyone else a bit empty-handed. Half the cards reference such niche, specific creature types that they only go in a single deck. If you've got no interest in Mouse kindred, half this set is meaningless. That being said, I appreciate them doing a set that doesn't flip everything on its head. Despite the spoiler season coming five days after Assassin's Creed, it was a fairly relaxing spoiler season, revealing fun cards that were a joy to evaluate. What do you think about the set?
