The Ultimate Bloomburrow Limited Set Review

Last updated on October 11, 2025

Sword of Fire and Ice | Illustration by Volkan Baǵa

It’s finally time for Bloomburrow! I’ve been unrealistically excited about this MTG set since it was first announced. The adorable idea of a Magic plane inhabited by cute anthropomorphic animals grabbed my attention right away, and it’s my absolute pleasure to talk about it. Today, we look at every card that you can find in Bloomburrow Play boosters and analyze them for Sealed deck and booster Draft.

As always, I want to remind you that this is a review based on my initial impressions of Bloomburrow‘s cards. It’s hard to figure out how these cards play out without knowing things like the speed of the format or the relative power levels of the colors and archetypes. My reviews are largely based on the card’s quality in a vacuum or assuming that its specific archetype is playable.

I use a comparative rating system on a scale of 0-10. Here’s a rough guide to what each rating means:

10: The absolute best of the best. 10s make a meaningful impact on any game, especially when playing from behind, and they’re extremely tough to beat. Cards like Railway Brawler or Bonny Pall, Clearcutter.

8-9: Extremely good cards, usually game-winning bombs and the most efficient removal spells, though not quite good enough to be a 10/10. Could also be Bloomburrow‘s best uncommon for Draft or Sealed (though these are harder to predict). Cards like Colossal Rattlewurm or Stoic Sphinx.

5-7: Important role-players. These are typically great uncommons that really drive you towards playing a particular color, like build-arounds and good removal, as well as very powerful commons. Cards like Outcaster Greenblade or Spinewoods Armadillo.

2-4: The average Limited card. Most commons end up in this range, and most of your Limited decks are made up mostly of these. Cards like Ambush Gigapede or Holy Cow.

1: These cards aren’t playable in your main deck, usually because they’re too situational, but they could be useful out of the sideboard or might be the last card to be added. Cards like Sterling Hound or Fleeting Reflection.

B: Absolutely awful cards. Virtually unplayable in every scenario, and you should never put these cards in your main deck. Cards like Greed's Gambit or Tinybones Joins Up.

Set Mechanics

Hop to It | Illustration by Eelis Kyttanen

Bloomburrow is a Magic set where the creature types are the focus. Each of the ten 2-color pairs have an adorable creature type associated with it, including rabbits, otters, raccoons, and Magic’s fan favorite mainstay, squirrels. There are also some brand new mechanics as well as a familiar returning one.

Expend

Expend is the raccoon mechanic in the Bloomburrow set. Each expend ability cares about you spending a certain amount of mana in the same turn. For example, it could be a triggered ability that triggers once you’ve spent 4 mana casting spells. All expend abilities, with the exception on one rare, care about spending 4 mana, so 4-drops and higher sound like they’ll be particularly important to pick up for a deck with this mechanic in it. Two-drops are also incredibly important, as you can satisfy this by double-spelling, too.

Yes, you could still do this with a pair of 3s or something like that, but it’s much easier with a pair of 2s or a 4 right off the bat.

Forage

Forage is a wonderfully thematic mechanic for squirrels. Forage is a keyword action that instructs you to either sacrifice a food or to exile three cards from your graveyard. This flexibility means you could build a deck around filling your graveyard, getting food into play or a bit of both. Whichever way, you need to make sure you’re feeding your squirrels to bring out the best in them.

Gift

Gift is a particularly weird mechanic where you can promise your opponent a gift as you cast a spell to gain a bonus effect. The gift is either be a tapped 1/1 Fish token, a Food token, or a free card.

Of course, giving your opponent a free bonus isn’t something you ever want to actually do, so you’d better be getting something worthwhile in exchange. Each of the cards that use this mechanic still do something if you don’t promise the gift, so I’ll analyze how they look whether you promise it or not.

Offspring

Perhaps the cutest mechanic in Magic’s history, offspring is an additional cost for creatures which gives you an additional copy of the creature if you pay the cost, except it’s a 1/1 child version of the creature. Offspring is a great mechanic. We’ve seen time and time again that creatures coming with an additional token when they enter are exceptional. Even better when those tokens come with strong abilities that they inherit from their parents.

Threshold

I guess you can’t beat a classic. We’ve seen some reworks on threshold over the years, including descend and delirium, but now we’re back to the mechanic that started it all.

This is the mechanic for rats in Bloomburrow, so it should be simple. You just need ways to fill your graveyard and enable these abilities. Fortunately, the black from rats overlaps with the black in squirrels and both want to fill their graveyards, so not only should there be plenty of ways to enable this, but there should also be a good Sultai () deck available to draft which combines these mechanics in some way.

Valiant

The mouse mechanic is valiant, a rework of Theros’s heroic. Valiant abilities trigger whenever the creature becomes the target of any spell or ability, but it only triggers once each turn.

Heroic was incredibly powerful last time around, so I have high hopes for valiant. It only triggers once each turn, but it’s much easier to get going, as triggers, equipment, and so on all work with it. Keep an eye out for anything that targets your own creatures, especially if you can do so repeatedly.

Draft Archetypes

Like most modern Limited sets, Bloomburrow follows the structure of having draftable archetypes for each of its 2-color pairs. Each 2-color pair features one of the ten main creature types that the set focuses on, but it also has a mechanical archetype. Here’s what we’re looking at:

• Azorius (): Birds + Creatures without Flying
• Dimir (): Rats + Threshold
• Rakdos (): Lizards + Opponents losing life
• Gruul (): Raccoons + Expend
• Selesnya (): Rabbits + Tokens
• Orzhov (): Bats + Lifegain and Life Loss
• Golgari (): Squirrels + Foraging
• Simic (): Frogs + Enter Triggers and Flicker
• Izzet (): Otters + Noncreature spells
• Boros (): Mice + Valiant

White

Banishing Light

Rating: 6/10

Banishing Light has always been a great removal spell for Limited. You risk your opponent getting their card back if they have removal for it, but that’s not enough of a drawback when you consider that this white enchantment exiles any target you need to get rid of.

Beza, the Bounding Spring

Rating: 10/10

One of the keys to a great Limited card is being good when you’re falling behind in a game. Beza, the Bounding Spring is phenomenal when you’re behind.

Aside from the Treasure token, any of these rewards by themselves makes Beza, the Bounding Spring a strong card, but the fact that you could get multiple rewards or all of them really puts this over the top. I haven’t even gotten to the fact that this is nothing more than a simple enters trigger, so you can even flicker it, return it from the graveyard, and all that good stuff to keep getting this trigger. Beza, the Bounding Spring just looks beyond powerful and should always try to play when you see it.

Brave-Kin Duo

Rating: 3/10

Brave-Kin Duo is the first duo card. There are ten of these, two in each color, and they help the typal themes of the set by acting as a bridge between two of the creature types in their respective colors. We’ve seen versions of this effect in the past that have been very strong, but sorcery speed does make it a lot weaker. It does have the redeeming feature that it triggers valiant abilities, so this will probably be quite desirable.

Brightblade Stoat

Rating: 4/10

A 2/2 with first strike and lifelink is incredibly strong. Brightblade Stoat’s hard to get into combat with and even harder to race. This weasel soldier is held back a little by not having a relevant creature type, but it should still be strong enough to earn a spot in most white decks.

Builder’s Talent

Rating: 1/10

This isn’t a set built around “noncreature, nonland permanents”. It’s not worth paying 2 mana for a 0/4 with defender and the only extra bonus you get isn’t going to trigger very often. Sure, there are Food tokens to help this, but I think that ways of triggering Builder's Talent are too few and far between to be worth going for.

Caretaker’s Talent

Rating: 7/10

It’s very hard to play a 3-mana enchantment that doesn’t affect the board right away. However, Caretaker's Talent has more than enough upside to keep us interested. Firstly, it’s more like a 4-drop, since it’s worth going straight to level 2 to create a token and draw a card right away. Assuming you have a deck with a lot of token makers, this also has the potential to draw you quite a few extra cards and the late game mode of becoming a huge anthem for your tokens is a great payoff to get to.

Carrot Cake

Rating: 2/10

Four mana total to get two Rabbit tokens, 3 life, and a pair of scries isn’t a bad deal overall. It’s nice that you can split Carrot Cake up over two shots, but this white artifact doesn’t look like something I’d go out of my way to pick up.

Crumb and Get It

Rating: 3/10

Name: 10/10

The punny names in Bloomburrow are absolutely incredible. It’s like we’re back in Wilds of Eldraine.

Crumb and Get It is a fine white instant. A mediocre combat trick that gets much better when you need it is just what some decks want, especially when it only costs 1 mana.

Dawn’s Truce

Rating: 1/10

This isn’t a Limited card at all. It’s a way to cheaply protect against board wipes, yet you’re unlikely to be hit by one in Limited. Dawn's Truce‘s best use in Limited is as a 2-mana hexproof trick to protect something against a removal spell, but that’s not good enough to make your main deck.

Dewdrop Cure

Rating: 3/10

Reanimating a pair of 2-drops is a good way to catch back up on the board, but it’s relatively hard to set up. As such, reanimating three creatures at once seems like it’ll almost never come up, though it’s a nice mode to have access to. Overall, Dewdrop Cure is fine, but likely a little too clunky to be a card I’d be prioritizing in a draft.

Driftgloom Coyote

Rating: 7/10

It’s not often that we get a 5-drop Banisher Priest, but it’s definitely welcome. Especially when there are so many tokens and you can eat one of them for no downside (other than the moral dilemma of wanting to “eat” a creature’s offspring) and pick up a free +1/+1 counter in the process. These cards are always powerful, and I see no reason to suggest Driftgloom Coyote won’t be.

Essence Channeler

Rating: 8/10

Ajani's Pridemate has always been a pretty solid card, and Essence Channeler is so much better. Flying, vigilance and effectively modular are great, synergistic abilities to add on here. Gaining life isn’t all that good, so those decks really need good payoffs, and this is absolutely one of the best you’re going to come across.

Feather of Flight

Rating: 4/10

Since Feather of Flight draws you a card, assuming you can find a window to safely resolve it, this’ll never be a bad card to play. Auras are often awful because they open you up for two-for-one swings, but this one doesn’t. I quite like this, especially since it triggers valiant abilities. It might just help your mouse and rabbit decks to keep up with the fliers from the birds and bats.

Flowerfoot Swordmaster

Rating: 6/10

Three mana for a 1/2 and a 1/1, both with significant abilities, is a really strong play. Even if you just play Flowerfoot Swordmaster as a 1-drop, this’ll often be a 2/2 if you can reliably trigger valiant, while also boosting your team of mice. Every way you can play this is excellent and picking this up early is a great way to lead you into drafting white.

Harvestrite Host

Rating: 5/10

Harvestrite Host is an interesting card that does a lot of things. It triggers valiant when it enters. Then, you need two rabbits to enter in the same turn to gain a free card, which should be pretty easy for a dedicated rabbits deck to accomplish a few times. Offspring triggers it, as do the many ways we have to create multiple 1/1 tokens. It’s still not a trivial matter to get this to trigger, but the reward is absolutely worth attempting.

Hop to It

Rating: 6/10

Hordeling Outburst was a great card, even when the double red in its cost held it back a fair bit. This version has no such drawback and is in a color that is expressly focused on going as wide as possible, which makes me think Hop to It has to be one of the cards you most want to see if you’re drafting the rabbits deck.

Intrepid Rabbit

Rating: 4/10

Playing this white creature as your 3-drop doesn’t sound particularly enticing. However, as a 4-drop this rabbit looks incredible. Four mana for a 3/2 and a 1/1 is great value, plus you get two hits of this enters trigger, giving one creature +2/+2 or maybe even +1/+1 to each of two creatures. This not only adds two creatures to the board, but it also lets you push through a bunch of combat damage on the turn you play it.

Jackdaw Savior

Rating: 6/10

Assuming you can trade off a 2-drop early, Jackdaw Savior should always be an impressive creature. A 3-power flier can be aggressive while also able to effectively trade with a lot of opposing creatures while maintaining your board presence. It’s a little hard to set up, so I don’t think you’re going to get the same kind of value that you might get with Scrap Trawler, but you don’t need it to continually trigger to still be a very solid card.

Jolly Gerbils

Rating: 6/10

A lot of the gifts in Bloomburrow give you a reward that’s roughly on par with what you give your opponent. With these gerbils out, suddenly every gift is worth promising. Drawing an extra card is among the strongest payoffs for any build-around card in Magic, so seeing Jolly Gerbils here makes me think there could be a good deck to build with it.

Lifecreed Duo

Rating: 3/10

This duo looks a fair bit stronger with bats than birds. Bats care about gaining life, and this is a very easy way to start triggering those effects early. Outside of that, Lifecreed Duo is still useful, especially if you can gain a lot of life because of all the rabbits you’re creating, but it really shines in the bat deck above all else.

Mabel’s Mettle

Rating: 3/10

Combat tricks that can buff two targets don’t tend to perform much better than the usual single target spells. Dauntless Onslaught in Theros was fine, but not particularly exciting. The trick of course, as it was back then, is to double-trigger valiant abilities with just one card, but Mabel's Mettle itself isn’t even that good. While it has the potential to pick up a two-for-one, it should be an exceptionally rare thing to happen.

Mouse Trapper

Rating: 5/10

I don’t quite get why Mouse Trapper has flash. I guess it’s so you can flash it in to tap an attacker as a surprise, but you also need a way to trigger it. Anyway, I really like Mouse Trapper as a way of aggressively tapping down blockers, but also having the option to tap attackers if you have some repeatable ways of triggering this at instant speed. This feels like it’ll probably be one of the better valiant payoffs you can pick up.

Nettle Guard

Rating: 4/10

A 2-mana 3/1 is already a card that your aggressive mouse decks are going to want to play, but Nettle Guard should do so much more than that. It’s really hard to block since it can randomly become a 3/3, and I wouldn’t want to chance it. Plus, it can destroy artifacts and remove enchantments wherever necessary. This is just very solid and a key common for aggressive white decks.

Parting Gust

Rating: 1/10

Parting Gust is just awful, which makes me sad because it’s such a wonderful piece of art. It’s effectively a split card where one side says exile a creature and replace it with a tapped 1/1 Fish and the other side flickers your own creature and has it come back with a +1/+1 counter. Neither of those modes are particularly good, but worse yet, this costs double white, which is just far too prohibitive to make this functional.

Pileated Provisioner

Rating: 3/10

Pileated Provisioner is a fine way to top out your curve, and while the ability can’t target everything, it still targets enough things and particularly helps by triggering valiant. It’s probably nice in mouse decks, but it might fall short of the mark in others.

Rabbit Response

Rating: 2/10

Inspired Charge is always a welcome sight in Limited. If you’re going wide, having a copy of Rabbit Response in your deck is a great way to close out a game. With white/green rabbits looking to do exactly that, I can see this being something I want to pick up for it.

Repel Calamity

Rating: 4/10

This is likely the set where an effect like Repel Calamity is the least useful. The point of this is that it can kill any of the calamity beasts, which are the biggest creatures in the set, but it can’t hit any of the small critters that the set is full of. I think there are enough targets to play this in a main deck, but I probably wouldn’t want a second copy, though it would be great to sideboard it.

Salvation Swan

Rating: 8/10

There’s a lot to like here. A big flying creature with flash is excellent at ambushing attackers. Flickering a creature helps to reuse triggered abilities, and Salvation Swan will likely be an excellent splash in the blue/green frogs deck. You can also just use this bird cleric to save a creature of yours from a removal spell. That’s a lot of options to consider, which makes this highly desirable.

Season of the Burrow

Rating: 7/10

These season cards are essentially the Magic version of those internet memes you see that say, “You have $50 to build a team, who do you buy?” alongside a bunch of superheroes, sportspeople, or whatever with various costs next them based on how strong they are.

There are all sorts of combinations of abilities that you can put together with Season of the Burrow, but the most important one to me is creating five bunnies. Five 1/1 bunnies for 5 mana is an excellent start to a card, but it then has a lot of extra functionality for different situations.

Seasoned Warrenguard

Rating: 4/10

Assuming you have plenty of token makers in your deck, this is basically just a 3/2 for 1 mana, which is incredibly aggressive. Not to mention Seasoned Warrenguard triggers off of any token, so even Food tokens that overlap from the squirrels deck will help this.

Shrike Force

Rating: 4/10

Flying, double strike, and vigilance is a nasty combination of abilities. Shrike Force is still quite small, so it’s hardly the most dangerous creature around, but it picks up buffs really nicely and holds off armies of 1/1s while effectively pecking away at the opponent’s life total each turn.

Sonar Strike

Rating: 5/10

This is one of the most flexible white removal spells we’ve ever seen at common rarity. Four direct damage kills most things you need, and the added ability to target tapped creatures gives you a lot more windows to get to use this white instant. Gaining life is the best part here, not only helping you to race aggro decks effectively, but also giving you yet another way to enable the lifegain synergies of the bats.

Star Charter

Rating: 6/10

Getting to Impulse for a creature each turn sounds pretty great to me. Gaining or losing life on your turn looks reasonably well supported, so Star Charter should be fairly easy to enable. One toughness is likely a big downside in this format, especially for a 4-drop, but assuming you’re likely to hit a creature right away, this is always worth playing in a deck that can support it.

Starfall Invocation

Rating: 9/10

Starfall Invocation is one of the better board wipes I’ve ever seen in Limited.

Five mana to clear the board is fine, though not too exciting. Still worthy of a 6 or 7/10. The gift mode is what pushes this white sorcery right over the top.

By promising the gift, you give your opponent a free card, but you get to keep your best creature. Better yet, it reenters, allowing you to trigger it all over again if you have something with a great ability.

Starfall Invocation gives me flashbacks to Sunfall, which was one of the strongest cards in March of the Machine. It’s not quite as good, but it doesn’t look too far off.

Thistledown Players

Rating: 3/10

The most interesting thing this mouse bard can do isn’t to untap something, but rather to trigger a valiant ability on another mouse. On its own, Thistledown Players is basically a 3/3 vigilance for 3, which isn’t exciting at all, but triggering valiant reliably sounds good enough to want Thistledown Players in my mouse decks.

Valley Questcaller

Rating: 8/10

We’ve really come a long way with typal lords. The ability to buff all the white creature types is fantastic, and we get to scry on top. While Valley Questcaller of course works best in rabbits thanks to all the bunny tokens you can create, it’s just great in any white deck.

Warren Elder

Rating: 4/10

Warren Elder activated ability is something that has often cost 5 mana in the past. Four is a lot better than 5, plus this is on a much better creature than we usually see. On top of that, with offspring and bunny tokens lying around, this feels incredibly well supported and is probably a very dangerous 2-drop that you’ll always want to pick up if you have enough support.

Warren Warleader

Rating: 9/10

Paying 6 mana to make two Warren Warleader and mass-pump your board by +2/+2 when you attack sounds utterly ridiculous. Especially when you consider how wide Bloomburrow is allowing you to go.

Even playing Warren Warleader as your 4-drop and getting to create a bunny right away sounds like a way to run away with the game very quickly. This rabbit knight‘s a pretty obscene bomb, and my only issue is that while it’s great at pressing your advantage and breaking board stalls, it gets a lot worse when you’re falling behind.

Wax-Wane Witness

Rating: 4/10

Wax-Wane Witness looks pretty damn close to a common Serra Angel for 1 mana cheaper. It shouldn’t be that difficult to trigger this at least once each turn to get in for a good amount of damage while also holding off a lot of offense from your opponent. I have a feeling this could end up punching well above its weight in Bloomburrow, so be sure to keep an eye out for it.

Whiskervale Forerunner

Rating: 8/10

Whiskervale Forerunner is quite a lot of text to figure out, but it basically amounts to letting you dig five cards deep to find a 3-drop whenever you trigger valiant on it. If it’s your turn, you get that creature straight into play instead of just going to your hand. Mice are already all about cheap creatures, so I have to imagine that most of your deck will be creatures that cost 3 or less, making this a pretty absurd thing to keep triggering turn after turn.

Blue

Azure Beastbinder

Rating: 6/10

It’s hard to know what to make of a card like this. The unblockable text makes it so that it’s incredibly hard to kill in combat. You’ll have to multi-block with a few 1/1s to get it gone, otherwise it’s sticking around. Then, this blue creature keeps turning off the abilities of the best thing on the board each turn. Since Azure Beastbinder has vigilance, if it targets a creature, it can also block that creature on the following turn. With only 1 power, this isn’t likely to dominate a game, but it’s going to be incredibly annoying at the very least.

Bellowing Crier

Rating: 3/10

We’ll get to Pond Prophet, which is a much better card, but that doesn’t take anything away from Bellowing Crier. This is very passable as a 2-drop, and while the frog deck is the one looking for good enters triggers, I can see this being okay in any deck.

Calamitous Tide

Rating: 3/10

Bouncing two creatures with one spell is an incredibly powerful tempo swing. However, 6-mana sorceries are pretty hard to fit into most decks, so Calamitous Tide is hardly going to be a high pick.

Still, given that the otters care about casting noncreature spells, I can definitely see this blue sorcery doing some work with the right setup.

Daring Waverider

Rating: 6/10

Naturally, the best spells you can flashback with this otter wizard are removal, turning this into a build-your-own Flametongue Kavu. Daring Waverider is the 6-drop I want at the top of my curve in an otters deck, but it just requires a little bit of work to get going.

Dazzling Denial

Rating: 4/10

Lofty Denial was always a pretty powerful counterspell, so I have to assume Dazzling Denial will be even better. Quench variants in the last few sets have overperformed compared to their predecessors, and I expect this blue instant to keep up the trend. Of course, you’d like to have some birds in your deck to enable it, but it’s still functional without them.

Dire Downdraft

Rating: 4/10

Dire Downdraft feels like the spiritual successor to Bury in Books, one of my favorite blue removal spells in recent years. Three mana is a lot better than the 4 that this usually costs, enough better in fact to make this look closer to premium removal than a weak card that might not even make the cut.

Dour Port-Mage

Rating: 3/10

Drawing a card whenever you flicker or bounce one of your creatures is great, but really slow. I don’t think this format will be slow enough to accommodate a build-around like Dour Port-Mage, but I hope I’m wrong.

Eddymurk Crab

Rating: 6/10

Tolarian Terror was one of my favorite cards to draft in Dominaria United, and now it’s back with a vengeance! Unlike many creatures with a built-in cost reduction, this is still playable even when it only costs 1 or 2 mana less. Tapping down two creatures on your opponent’s turn is huge and sometimes wins you the game by itself. If Eddymurk Crab ever gets to cost just 2 mana, then it’ll lead to some pretty disgusting turns.

Eluge, the Shoreless Sea

Rating: 3/10

I don’t know what to make of Eluge, the Shoreless Sea. It looks like a great Constructed card, but triple blue is difficult to accommodate in Limited. The prospect of getting to cast some free spells is very enticing, if only this were easier to actually get into play.

Finch Formation

Rating: 3/10

I like Wind Drakes with an upside. Finch Formation’s offspring ability is a little on the expensive side, but 6 mana to give two creatures flying could be a big swing to hit in the late game.

Gossip’s Talent

Rating: 1/10

You just can’t afford to spend your time, mana, and cards on something that’s not going to affect the board. Once you get to level 2 or 3, it does start to become more relevant, but I don’t think it’s worth the investment.

Into the Flood Maw

Rating: 3/10

It baffles me that a bounce spell in this set can’t target your own creatures. Still, I don’t think it’ll be worth it to offer the gift very often. Into the Flood Maw’s fine as a weaker Unsummon, but I don’t think it’s much better than that.

Kitnap

Rating: 8/10

Even if Kitnap comes with a sizable disadvantage, a Control Magic is still a Control Magic. It not only takes the best creature off of your opponent’s board, but you steal it and add it to yours. I’m not sure if it's going to be better to give your opponent the card or to take the stun counters with this blue enchantment, but I’m sure the situation will dictate it.

Kitsa, Otterball Elite

Rating: 7/10

I guess Kitsa, Otterball Elite is a decent way to design a mythic Merfolk Looter. Thanks to how the stack works, the condition of Kitsa needing 3 power to copy something will be satisfied by its second prowess trigger, which you can resolve, then use on that second spell you’ve cast if you wish. I don’t know how likely you are to be able to set this up, but at least being able to loot each turn helps you to craft your hand and make it happen. Even without doing that, looters are great and the combination of prowess, vigilance, and a looter is even better.

Knightfisher

Rating: 7/10

A 4/5 flier for 5 mana is just huge. Air Elemental was the gold standard for a long time, and this is so much better. You don’t even need to get any tokens off the trigger for Knightfisher to be a solid play, but anything you can get for free just pushes it over the edge.

Lightshell Duo

Rating: 3/10

The rat/otter duo is pretty good for supporting both of their respective themes. Surveilling can help to fill your graveyard while a 3/4 with prowess is a really good deal for just 4 mana. Lightshell Duo is never going to be that great but serves as a nice little role-player.

Long River Lurker

Rating: 5/10

I do love Flickering creatures, and Long River Lurker is a really novel way of doing it. There are a lot of strong triggers to take advantage of in Bloomburrow, and this is a great way of doing that. It shouldn’t be too hard, but you need a critical mass of them because it doesn’t quite cut it if this is only making something unblockable for one turn.

Long River’s Pull

Rating: 1/10

Essence Scatter is a great card in Limited and has been the best blue common in many sets in the past. However, costing is a huge drawback that frankly makes Long River's Pull close to unusable, as you have no guarantee that you’ll be able to cast it early in the game. Promising the gift to turn this into Counterspell isn’t a good trade off at all. I don’t see this seeing any play. It’s just bad.

Mind Spiral

Rating: 2/10

The classic draw three for 5 mana is a little hit or miss, but it has actually been performing well in the last few sets. Getting to also tap something down can be used aggressively or can help slow down your opponent’s onslaught while you refill. Mind Spiral is a nice card, but it’s just not likely to be that good unless the speed of the format is on the slow side.

Mindwhisker

Rating: 6/10

The static ability giving opposing creatures -1/-0 is surprisingly powerful. We saw this play out with cards like Haunter of Nightveil and Dampening Pulse. It makes combat so much harder for your opponent and can be absolutely debilitating for decks like rabbits that are built around having lots of small creatures. You need to enable threshold, but Mindwhisker‘s payoff is well worth working towards.

Mockingbird

Rating: 8/10

Clones are usually pretty good, and Mockingbird definitely looks powerful. You can just run it out as a 1/1 flier on turn 1 if you want to, but at any point in the game it can be played as a flying copy of anything. With the high number of enters triggers in Bloomburrow, there are going to be so many sweet plays with this that it just has to be great.

Nightwhorl Hermit

Rating: 2/10

Nightwhorl Hermit isn’t ever going to be an exciting creature to run, but it’s fine if you need one last card to round out your deck. It gets more enticing if you have a lot of ways to fuel your graveyard, but most of the time it’ll just be subpar.

Otterball Antics

Rating: 5/10

A 1/1 prowess for 2 and a 2/2 prowess for 4 are very much below rate, but getting both of these in one card does sound appealing. We saw in Strixhaven just how valuable it can be to have spells that create good creatures to bolster your noncreature spell-themed decks. Better yet, surveilling Otterball Antics into the graveyard nets you an extra spell for free, which is basically like drawing a card. I think the whole package here is great, and it’ll be a very important card for the otter decks to come together.

Pearl of Wisdom

Rating: 4/10

Divination has gotten worse over the years, but the variants that sometimes cost 2 mana have been fairly good. Controlling an otter isn’t too difficult of a condition to satisfy, and I imagine otter decks will be happy playing any number of Pearl of Wisdom.

Plumecreed Escort

Rating: 6/10

What a great card. A 2/1 flier for 2 mana is great on rate. You can play Plumecreed Escort early and get aggressive or sandbag it in your hand to protect one of your creatures from removal in the late game. Either way, you’ve got a good deal.

Portent of Calamity

Rating: 0/10

Limited decks usually have an average of around 15 creatures and 17 lands, meaning 80% of your deck is typically just two card types. Even if you put a lot of mana into this, the odds of getting more than two or three cards out of it, let alone the four you’d need to get your mana back. It’s not like it won’t ever happen, but putting 7 or 8 mana into a spell to only get two or three cards back sounds disastrous.

Run Away Together

Rating: 4/10

Bouncing one of your creatures along with one of theirs is great. With so many good enters triggers to go with it, Run Away Together is likely one of blue’s more important commons, and a lot of decks are going to want to pick it up.

Season of Weaving

Rating: 9/10

I really love Bloomburrow‘s pawprint seasons. There are so many combinations that sound great. Double clone plus draw a card, clone plus draw three, Evacuation plus a clone or a draw two and even a straight up draw five. Any one of these would probably be a decent card, but with Season of Weaving, you actually get all of them at once and get to pick the one that’s best for the scenario. Six mana sorceries need a lot of help in Limited and this one definitely meets my expectations.

Shore Up

Rating: 1/10

We saw Shore Up once before in Dominaria United. It was pretty terrible then, and I doubt anything has changed.

Shoreline Looter

Rating: 7/10

I really didn’t expect Looter il-Kor to get a functional reprint, but here we are. Shoreline Looter is incredible. You can craft a good hand and fuel your graveyard in the early game, hen it later just starts giving you free card advantage every turn. On top of that, it just keeps pecking away and can only be stopped by removal. What a card!

Skyskipper Duo

Rating: 2/10

You’ll of course try to enable this by having nice enters triggers in your deck, but Flickering a creature at sorcery speed isn’t something that’s guaranteed to be worth doing. If you’re in a very dedicated frogs deck and most of your creatures synergize with Skyskipper Duo, then it’ll be worth playing, but I wouldn’t play it otherwise.

Spellgyre

Rating: 4/10

The classic “draw go” decks of early Magic’s years benefitted from being able to leave open their mana and have the choice of either countering a dangerous play or resolving a draw spell if nothing good was played. While 4 mana might be a little too much to pay for either of these modes, combining them into the same card absolutely makes Spellgyre a playable card, one that I’d be happy to play in most slow blue decks.

Splash Lasher

Rating: 5/10

We’ve seen Frost Lynx variants work at 3 mana and 5, so surely they’re still good at 4. Better yet, you get to pump 6 mana into it and double up the trigger. These effects are great on both offense and defense, which should make Splash Lasher good in most blue decks.

Splash Portal

Rating: 4/10

Flickering a creature at sorcery speed removes the ability to save it in response to removal, which is a lot of what we usually use them for. On the other hand, Splash Portal only costs 1 mana and often draws you a card, so it still looks like it has enough going for it. There’s also a whole theme built around flickering in blue/green, so I’m sure this’ll be a valuable card to pick up.

Stormchaser’s Talent

Rating: 6/10

I love the design of this class enchantment. The first two levels pretty much equate to a build-your-own Archaeomancer, while the final level gives you a mini-Shark Typhoon to close the game out. Stormchaser's Talent‘s level costs are pretty high, but given that the start is a 1-mana noncreature spell that affects the board in a meaningful way, that’s a pretty fair tradeoff.

Sugar Coat

Rating: 5/10

The card names in Bloomburrow really are something else. These cards are usually mediocre, but since the enchanted permanent is no longer a creature, the ways your opponent can normally use to counter it (bounce, flicker, etc…) probably can’t target it anymore, making Sugar Coat a lot more resilient.

Thought Shucker

Rating: 1/10

If you have threshold, Thought Shucker is clearly good. But that’s all it is. This is completely useless any other time, and I don’t think it’s worth playing a card that’s unplayable until you hit the late game.

Thundertrap Trainer

Rating: 1/10

Even when you have a lot of noncreature spells in your deck, there are going to be so many misses that Thundertrap Trainer is just too inconsistent. Missing on this trigger is devastating, and I’d never want to open myself up to doing that and being left with a pretty useless creature.

Valley Floodcaller

Rating: 5/10

The flash ability isn’t all that impressive, but a super prowess ability that buffs most of your team definitely is. Just having Valley Floodcaller on board with all your mana open makes it virtually impossible for your opponent to brawl with your team, and it helps you close out games incredibly quickly.

Waterspout Warden

Rating: 3/10

Even in blue, most decks in this format should be pretty good at playing creatures each turn, meaning Waterspout Warden will have flying most of the time. The frog decks probably want better payoffs than this, but it can function as a nice, aggressive flier at the very least.

Wishing Well

Rating: 0/10

While Wishing Well is a cool design, there are a lot of moving pieces that have to go right for this blue artifact to be worth it. Not only do you need plenty of instants and sorceries, but their mana values need to line up for it to work. If you put the third counter on and don’t have a 3-mana spell to cast, that’s a lot of wasted advantage. I’m not saying this’ll never happen, but rather the number of times that this doesn’t come together will outweigh the times it does.

Black

Agate-Blade Assassin

Rating: 3/10

Agate-Blade Assassin is a solid 2-drop that fills a couple of different roles. Having 3 toughness means it’s not likely to die in combat in the early game, which is great for allowing it to attack and trigger. It just needs to attack, and it guarantees enabling both the lizard and bat mechanics, making it a good role-player for both of those decks.

Bandit’s Talent

Rating: 3/10

There’s a lot to like on the surface of this black enchantment. Once you go down to fewer than two cards in hand, it’s very hard to get back up again without simply not playing anything, which means Bandit's Talent should be fairly easy to enable. That said, this is still a card that doesn’t affect the board, and it’ll be hard to find room to play it without a specific archetype.

Bonebind Orator

Rating: 4/10

This is a really nice design for a card. A vanilla 2/2 for 2 is hardly exciting, but Bonebind Orator should be able to trade off nicely enough if you need to run it out. The activated ability really shines in the late game, especially if you got to self-mill this black creature for value instead of having to cast it.

Bonecache Overseer

Rating: 5/10

This warlock is a decent build-around for squirrels. Even if you’re not foraging on a turn, you can just crack a Food token with its own ability to enable it. I wish Bonecache Overseer were better than a measly 1/1, but the payoff is clearly there.

Coiling Rebirth

Rating: 3/10

Zombify effects keep popping up in recent sets, and while this is one of the stronger ones we’ve seen, they’re just not that good in the first place. If you’re spending 5 mana and reanimating a 3-drop, Coiling Rebirth just worthless. There aren’t many creatures in Bloomburrow that are even worth reanimating for this much mana, even if you opt to get their offspring. Still, there could be the right deck for this card, but it just requires too much set up.

Consumed by Greed

Rating: 7/10

Three mana to kill off the biggest creature on your opponent’s board is fine, but I’m really interested in gifting this black instant whenever possible. On average, giving your opponent a random card from their deck while you Raise Dead something will be a great trade for you, so it’s going to be worth saving Consumed by Greed until you have something powerful to get back and swing a game.

Cruelclaw’s Heist

Rating: 3/10

Cruelclaw's Heist is another card that I’d be happy to promise the gift with. Giving your opponent a random card on average isn’t as much value as getting to cast the card you exile from their hand. That said, this is still just a hard-to-cast Thoughtseize, which is going to miss often enough that it might not be worth playing.

Daggerfang Duo

Rating: 3/10

Would it really have been too broken for this to mill three cards instead of two? At least then you’d get a whole forage from it. Well, Daggerfang Duo is still a great card. Fills your curve nicely, enables the graveyard theme of both creature types, what’s not to like?

Darkstar Augur

Rating: 9/10

A flying Dark Confidant with offspring wasn’t on my bingo card for this MTG set, but here we go!

Bob is one of the most powerful cards in Magic’s history, and it should still be good even now. Not only that, but Darkstar Augur plays right into the bat theme of losing life during your turn. You do want to make sure your curve isn’t too high so that you won’t lose too much life, but playing Darkstar Augur with offspring and getting to draw two extra cards every turn should be enough to close out any game in short order.

Diresight

Rating: 4/10

Read the Bones was a great card in its day, and I have every confidence that this upgrade will be good, too. Surveilling can help to fill your graveyard for the various decks that care about it, losing life plays well with the bat theme, and all decks enjoy drawing more cards. Diresight looks like a good role-player, but it’s also just a great card that I’d be happy to put in most decks.

Downwind Ambusher

Rating: 5/10

Thanks to the existence of bunnies and offspring tokens, there are a lot of 1-toughness creatures in this MTG set, which makes Downwind Ambusher probably the best version of this card that we’ve seen in a long time. Finishing off any large creature but also straight up killing off anything small should give this plenty of time to shine.

Early Winter

Rating: 1/10

We’ve come a long way in the last few years, and 5-mana removal is no longer good enough. Early Winter can still make the cut every so often, but it’s really not going to be something you prioritize. Cheap creatures look good in Bloomburrow, and attacking them with 5-mana spells isn’t going to get the job done at all.

Feed the Cycle

Rating: 6/10

Five mana might be too much for a removal spell, but 2 mana is infinitely better. Three is still fine, so you don’t need to be able to forage for Feed the Cycle to be a high pick. Still, any deck should be able to exile three cards from the graveyard for an easy discount, making this black’s best removal spell in the set.

Fell

Rating: 6/10

Two mana to kill any creature is nice and clean. You need to be able to kill creatures, and this black sorcery is a really easy way to do that. Feed the Cycle gets a slight edge due to being an instant, but Fell is still fantastic.

Glidedive Duo

Rating: 3/10

Yet another duo that nicely plays into both archetypes. Vampire Sovereign is one hell of a card, and while Glidedive Duo is a fair bit weaker than that, a decent flier that drains the opponent right away is still a great way to top your curve.

Hazel’s Nocturne

Rating: 4/10

Spells that can grab two creatures back from your graveyard tend to get mixed results. In some sets, they’re among the best black cards, and in others they’re too slow. I like the added life drain, and I think that’ll definitely help this to stay relevant in the format. But if the format is fast and aggressive, Hazel's Nocturne’s value will shoot way down.

Huskburster Swarm

Rating: 6/10

Huskburster Swarm not have a relevant creature type, but it’ll easily cost closer to the 4 or 5 mana mark in your average deck, and it might cost less if you fuel your graveyard. If you ever get to pay this for just 1 mana, it’ll feel like cheating. Menace and deathtouch is a dangerous combination that means this’ll always trade in combat for at least two creatures, no matter their sizes, but as a 6/6 it’s also incredibly difficult to even do that.

Iridescent Vinelasher

Rating: 6/10

Iridescent Vinelasher seems like a very weak 1-drop, but a really exceptional 3-drop. Three mana for a 1/2 and a 1/1 is decent, but now every land drop hits your opponent for 2 damage. Not only does that help to enable the lizard mechanic, but it really starts to add up over time and take some pressure off of your aggro push.

Maha, Its Feathers Night

Rating: 9/10

Maha, Its Feathers Night has all the elements you’d expect to see in a silly bomb rare. 6/5 with flying and trample is obviously great. Its ward ability guarantees that removing it forces your opponent into a two-for-one, which is always welcome. Naturally, it’s this other static ability that needs the most attention. Turning all your opponent’s creatures into X/1s make them much easier to kill, particularly in combat. I just don’t know how much value you can put on an effect like that. Just be careful that you don’t line up favorable blocks only to have Maha, Its Feathers Night killed before damage and you end up losing out.

Moonstone Harbinger

Rating: 5/10

Giving deathtouch to all your bats could be really nasty. If Moonstone Harbinger is in play and you have just one or two bats, is your opponent ever going to be able to block you? Triggering this at instant speed can catch your opponents off guard if they don't block with deathtouch in mind. Anything that puts opponents into precarious situations like that is absolutely worth playing.

Nocturnal Hunger

Rating: 5/10

Three mana to destroy a target creature is great, and that’s all there is to it. You just have to pick your own downside with Nocturnal Hunger. Either you lose 2 life or your opponent gains 3. It’s impossible to know which is better in a vacuum, but it should be clear which you would prefer based on the situation you’re in.

Osteomancer Adept

Rating: 7/10

Let’s get one thing clear. I’d always play a 2/2 deathtouch for 2 mana, so Osteomancer Adept is never a bad card. Foraging away cards from your graveyard to cast other creatures runs dry pretty quickly, so to make full use of this you’re really going to need Food tokens to pay these forage costs. It’s still fine if you can’t make Food, but the Food tokens push this from a fairly average card to a really potent threat in the late game.

Persistent Marshstalker

Rating: 7/10

What an absurd card! Right away it’s a solid 2-drop with no downsides. It starts as a 3/1 but could easily become a 4/1 or 5/1 before it attacks, so your opponent is going to have to throw something in front of it. Late game, when you’ve enabled threshold, Persistent Marshstalker can keep coming back to the battlefield time and time again, posing a very real threat each time. You can even mill or surveil it away for some great value. This looks like the kind of payoff that I want to be building around in the rats deck.

Psychic Whorl

Rating: 2/10

Even with a minor upside tacked on like Psychic Whorl’s, a Mind Rot is still a Mind Rot. This kind of card is sometimes playable, but it’s often relegated to sideboard duty, where it can come in to mess up a control player’s day from time to time.

Ravine Raider

Rating: 3/10

Have you noticed what’s missing from Ravine Raider? Anybody? There’s no once per turn restriction on its ability. If you have nothing to spend your mana on, you can just turn this into a 4/4 or a 5/5 in a later turn. I’d say that’s pretty nice given that this is a 1-drop. That’s not really enough to sell me on it, but a 1/1 with menace for 1 mana in an archetype that needs its opponents to lose life to enable its best cards sounds very appealing.

Rottenmouth Viper

Rating: 9/10

Oh my, this is a big card. I don’t think you can afford to reduce Rottenmouth Viper‘s cost by much, but given that it’s still powerful on 6 mana, you don’t need to worry about that too much.

This elemental snake‘s triggered ability is what we really care about. The fact that it scales up each time it triggers means that if it ever gets to attack for a second time, your opponent likely can’t come back from it. Rottenmouth Viper is a must-kill threat that’ll devastate any game where it’s allowed to get into combat.

Why is it not a 10/10? Well, your opponent will easily survive the first trigger and the removal in Bloomburrow is cheap and plentiful, so if they kill it right away, it didn’t end up doing much. But it’s still a very powerful card that you should take early and expect to win games with.

Ruthless Negotiation

Rating: 2/10

I kinda love Ruthless Negotiation, even though it’s not that good. I never really want to cast it for 1 mana, but milling it getting to flash it back at some point sounds pretty great. It’s a lot of mana to spend, but free value is always nice to have around for the late game, assuming your deck can afford the slot.

Savor

Rating: 4/10

-2/-2 spells are always good to have around. They’re nice, efficient answers to small creatures that can also help to bring down bigger creatures if you use them in combat. Picking up a food is just the icing on the cake.

Scales of Shale

Rating: 3/10

Three mana is a lot to pay for a combat trick of this quality, so I don’t think I’d want to play it if I didn’t have plenty of lizards. However, if you can get this costing 1 or 2 mana, it’s going to be very effective at swinging damage races in your favor.

Scavenger’s Talent

Rating: 0/10

I’m just not seeing it here. You don’t get your card back in value until you reach level 3 of Scavenger's Talent, and even then, reanimating a creature comes with a hefty cost attached. I get that sacrificing three permanents will trigger this, but I don’t see this coming together all that often. I like that the level 2 ability can target opponents, turning into a win condition of sorts, but it’s still far too slow to accomplish that.

Season of Loss

Rating: 7/10

Unlike the other seasons, Season of Loss doesn’t really have a good default mode that you can always fall back on. Rather, all three choices are pretty situational. That said, each player sacrificing five creatures is pretty close to a Damnation, and you can splice in some of the other modes to help give you some extra bonuses depending on the situation. It’s still very good, just a little harder to play than the others.

Sinister Monolith

Rating: 4/10

I’m really not a fan of cards like Sinister Monolith. In my opinion, Ill-Gotten Inheritance is one of the most overrated cards in the history of this game. This new version looks quite a bit better, though. You can always cash it in right away to just draw two cards. Better yet, if you play it in your first main phase, you get a life drain trigger that same turn and can then sacrifice it in the second main phase. This black artifact triggers both the gain and life loss needed for some of the bat cards, which I’m sure is where Sinister Monolith is likely to shine.

Stargaze

Rating: 3/10

There’s a lot to like about X spells that draw you cards in a slow format, but a lot has to go right to accommodate them. I like that Stargaze helps to fill the graveyard, but I think that I’d pretty much always prefer to pick up a Diresight over this.

Starlit Soothsayer

Rating: 2/10

It’s not the most exciting payoff in the world, but Wind Drakes with upside aren’t exactly terrible. Starlit Soothsayer isn’t great, but it’ll make the cut every now and again and be fine.

Starscape Cleric

Rating: 5/10

Not being able to block is a hefty drawback and one that near enough rules out playing Starscape Cleric in any slow decks. However, it’s a very aggressive card that plays well with a lot of the set’s themes, it’s great early and even better late.

Thornplate Intimidator

Rating: 3/10

Any of these “torment” modes are good for you since they come as a free upside. I’d be very happy running Thornplate Intimidator out on turn 4 to advance the board, and getting to double trigger it thanks to offspring in the late game allows it to stay relevant for much longer.

Thought-Stalker Warlock

Rating: 6/10

A simple Ravenous Rats would do me fine, but elevating Thought-Stalker Warlock into a Grief simply by having your opponent lose some life is pretty amazing. This is a very real payoff for the lizard theme, and something that makes me want to prioritize all the cheap ways to deal damage on early turns.

Valley Rotcaller

Rating: 5/10

This is an interesting payoff that I’ve had to have a debate to try to figure out. Valley Rotcaller’s fine when you play it early, helping you to enable some of black’s typal themes. It’s terrible in the mid game since it won’t be able to attack much, if at all. In the late game, it becomes a very dangerous threat. If all it has to do is declare an attack to drain your opponent for about 5 or 6 life, it turns into something your opponent absolutely has to deal with.

Wick, the Whorled Mind

Rating: 5/10

If it were easier to access three colors of mana in this set without being green, I think we’d be having a very different conversation about Wick, the Whorled Mind. I don’t think this will amount to much more than a good creature with its first ability. If you can amass enough rats to go along with it, it definitely gets better, and I’d put some red sources in my blue/black rats deck to try enabling it. But it feels like a card that’ll fall short a lot of the time.

Wick’s Patrol

Rating: 6/10

Wick's Patrol reminds me a fair bit of Blight-Breath Catoblepas, a card that looked weak to many at first, but then it evolved into a powerhouse common as Theros Beyond Death’s format developed. Six mana is a lot to pay for a kill spell on a stick, but it should still be pretty effective, and you’ll take strong two-for-ones wherever you can get them.

Red

Agate Assault

Rating: 4/10

Three mana for 4 damage is perfectly reasonable in modern day Limited sets. There are virtually no good artifacts in Bloomburrow, so I’m not putting any stock into the second mode. Agate Assault is just solid removal that you’ll take for your deck because you need to kill things.

Alania’s Pathmaker

Rating: 2/10

While it’s nice that you can play the exiled card in your next turn, 4 mana for this effect on a weak body doesn’t sound very good to me. Alania's Pathmaker is definitely playable, but not a red creature I’d actively want to put into my deck.

Artist’s Talent

Rating: 0/10

At no point do you get a whole card’s worth of value out of this red enchantment. Once casting Artist's Talent, you’ll always be down a card and you really can’t afford to be doing that.

Blacksmith’s Talent

Rating: 0/10

There’s basically no equipment in Bloomburrow, so why is this even here? I think WotC knew how good equipment would be at triggering valiant abilities and made sure not to include much of that in the set. I was hoping we’d get a Short Sword or something, but 2 mana to equip for such a minor buff isn’t worth it, and the rest of the card is even less relevant.

Blooming Blast

Rating: 4/10

Blooming Blast dealing 2 to a creature and 3 to their controller is somewhat reasonable, especially when you’re looking to close out a game. Given that you can’t always afford to gift a Treasure until you get to the late game, this red instant might be a little too clunky, but it’s a nice option to have in your back pocket.

Brambleguard Captain

Rating: 4/10

I still remember the days of Battle-Rattle Shaman and how annoying that card could be. Brambleguard Captain is very similar, though we also have the context of valiant triggers for this to work with, so I think it’ll also perform well. It can also target itself, so at the very least it gets to attack as a 4/3.

Brazen Collector

Rating: 5/10

A red mana dork like this is very nice to see. A turn 2 Brazen Collector is very likely to be able to attack on turn 3, giving you the ability to play a 4-drop on turn 3. Even later in the game, a 2-power first strike creature stays relevant for quite a while, so this should be a strong card in any deck and especially in raccoons.

Byway Barterer

Rating: 4/10

This is a weird combination of abilities. Discarding your hand to draw two cards is something you only really want to do once you’ve used up everything else in your hand, but then you need to cast something to reach that expend 4. Still, a 3/3 menace is pretty good until that point, so it ends up great if you get even a little bit of extra advantage from Byway Barterer.

Conduct Electricity

Rating: 2/10

I thought this was supposed to be a cutesy set. Why do we have a card that can kill a creature and its offspring in one go? I guess we’ll just have to suck it up. Five mana for a removal spell like Conduct Electricity isn’t really what we’re in for with Bloomburrow, but at least it does have the potential to remove two creatures when you need it.

Coruscation Mage

Rating: 4/10

Paying the offspring cost on Coruscation Mage is where it’s at. Four mana total for a pair of creatures and getting to hit your opponent for 2 damage with every spell is a great deal. As a 2-drop it’s far less impactful, but it’s still fine if you need something to do on turn 2.

Dragonhawk, Fate’s Tempest

Rating: 10/10

It may not be Bonehoard Dracosaur, but Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest is still great.

On its own or on a board of creatures, you should get a lot of value from this red bird dragon. On an empty board, it draws you a card and you’ll probably end up not playing it and hitting your opponent for 2 instead. Then each turn you get to see a new card with all your mana available. If you happen to have any additional 4-power creatures out, Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest snowballs out of control with just a couple of triggers. Like many 5-drop mythic dragons, Dragonhawk is simply a must-kill threat that’ll run away with any game it’s a part of.

Emberheart Challenger

Rating: 5/10

A 2/2 haste prowess is pretty great and Emberheart Challenger comes with a very powerful valiant trigger. This is the kind of trigger you want to actively hit as often as possible. Once you get this for your Bloomburrow draft deck, you should start prioritizing any ways you can find to trigger it every turn and you’ll bury your opponent in card advantage.

Festival of Embers

Rating: 0/10

While it’s cool to see a spiritual successor to Past in Flames, I just don’t see a world where Festival of Embers is worth playing in Limited.

Flamecache Gecko

Rating: 3/10

Of course, it’s easy to imagine the nut draws where you play a 1-drop, attack, and play two or three copies of Flamecache Gecko plus another 2-drop on turn 2, but that’s just not going to happen most of the time. It’s easy enough to enable, so there’s no worries there, but I don’t think this is ever likely to be more than simply a 2-drop that helps you to trade excess lands for real cards in the late game.

Frilled Sparkshooter

Rating: 3/10

We’ve seen quite a few ways for lizards to enable their signature mechanic, so Frilled Sparkshooter is more often going to be a 4/4, rather than a 3/3, assuming you build towards it. That’s not bad, but also only good enough to make it a solid curve-filler and not much more.

Harnesser of Storms

Rating: 6/10

You’re going to want a lot of cheap noncreature spells in your deck to take full advantage of Harnesser of Storms, but that also goes for all the otter cards. The cheaper the spell you cast, the more mana you’ll have to play the card you exile. Of course, you should try to remember not to play a land before triggering this, since you might hit a free one.

Heartfire Hero

Rating: 4/10

Once again, assuming you can find some good, repeatable ways of triggering valiant each turn, Heartfire Hero is going to be fantastic. Once it starts ticking up to a 3/3, 4/4, or bigger, it’s become well worth the mana investment, but you need those ways to target it for it to be worth it.

Hearthborn Battler

Rating: 5/10

Hearthborn Battler is a little on the small side, but it does a good job of punishing your opponent for double spelling in a turn. The fact that it also triggers whenever you double spell is also nice, helping you to enable lizard synergies while also doing quite a lot of damage over the course of a game. It’s really bad when you draw it later on, but I think it’s good enough early that that shouldn’t matter too much.

Hired Claw

Rating: 8/10

Hired Claw reminds me a lot of Knight of the Ebon Legion. Back in the day, the knight would dominate games from the very start so long as you made sure it triggered every turn. Hired Claw does this, but it’s a lot easier to grow with +1/+1 counters. Run it out turn 1 and on turn 2 you can attack, pay the 2 mana and hit for 3 damage in total. You don’t even need other creatures. I doubt there’s a better 1-drop in the set, and I’m terrified to play against it.

Hoarder’s Overflow

Rating: 0/10

I’m sure we’re all thinking the same here. Wouldn’t it be great to draw seven cards with this? That would be nice, but first you have to play Hoarder's Overflow, then wait several turns with no guarantee that you can even expend 4 that often. That’s far too much work with a card that doesn’t affect the board for all that time.

Kindlespark Duo

Rating: 4/10

I’ve always been a fan of cards like this. Thermo-Alchemist, Brimstone Trebuchet, and others have been powerful mainstays of Limited for a long time. Kindlespark Duo is perfect for both lizards and otters, acting as an enabler for the former and a payoff for the latter. Don’t sleep on this, because it can become very dangerous if left alone for too long, especially if you end up in a board stall.

Manifold Mouse

Rating: 6/10

We’ve seen a lot of good valiant abilities that we really want to trigger every turn, so it’s great to see a powerful enabler for that. Better yet, Manifold Mouse’s two targeting abilities in one card. I’d try to hold out for the offspring cost, because getting to trigger two valiants each turn sounds like the perfect way to take over a game, not to mention that you’re just giving your mice double strike to help them in combat.

Might of the Meek

Rating: 4/10

Wow, I’m giving this high of a grade to a weak combat trick? Yes, I am! Might of the Meek is 1 mana to give a minor buff, trigger valiant, and draw a card, which sounds amazing to me.

Playful Shove

Rating: 5/10

I really like Playful Shove. I was always a fan of Zap. There are quite a few 1-toughness creatures in Bloomburrow thanks to all the bunnies and offspring tokens, so it’s not impossible to find a good target. It’s also just a good cantrip spell for otters and can be used to trigger valiant with upside. This red sorcery does a lot, and I expect it to see a lot of play.

Quaketusk Boar

Rating: 7/10

Seven years ago, Ixalan brought us Charging Monstrosaur. It proved to be the set’s mythic uncommon and was so good you’d even splash for it. I even did so during the sealed portion of GP Liverpool in 2017. The card was absolutely nuts. This set looks quite a bit stronger than Ixalan and Quaketusk Boar does have a double of small downsides (it’s not splashable and has no relevant creature type), but a 5/5 with haste and trample is still a ridiculous card that swings races in your favor.

Rabid Gnaw

Rating: 5/10

We’ve gotten very familiar with bite spells over the last few years. Picking up a +1/+0 bonus is always nice, and Rabid Gnaw is cheap enough to be a premium removal spell in the set. Plus, it’s a removal spell that triggers valiant for you, so that’s great.

Raccoon Rallier

Rating: 3/10

There’s a lot to like about Raccoon Rallier. Giving each creature you play haste is a great way to keep applying pressure when you’re trying to race, but this also lets you trigger valiant turn after turn. It’s almost weird that it’s not a mouse given how much better it’ll be in mouse decks, but there we go.

Reptilian Recruiter

Rating: 1/10

Given the lack of ways to sacrifice creatures, I don’t think Threaten on a creature is very good. It’s not even a good size for a creature, so you’re barely adding anything relevant to the board. I’m going to pass and presumably just die to Reptilian Recruiter whenever my opponents inevitably play it against me.

Roughshod Duo

Rating: 3/10

Roughshod Duo isn’t the most reliable way to trigger valiant, but it’s also not the worst. Assuming you can keep casting things on curve, this should be pretty good at not only enabling those abilities but also pushing through a lot of extra damage.

Sazacap’s Brew

Rating: 3/10

What on earth is Sazacap's Brew? I mean, sure, it’s just a Thrill of Possibility and that’ll be very welcome in the otters deck. But I can give a measly +2/+0 in exchange for giving my opponent a free creature? Unless this is literally dealing the final 2 points of damage, it’ll never be worth promising the gift.

Season of the Bold

Rating: 3/10

Season of the Bold  is by far the worst season in the cycle. It’s hard to see what the best combination of modes will be, but I’d assume it’s to “draw” four cards and create a tapped Treasure, yet you don’t even get the benefits of this combination until your next turn, since you already spent all your mana. The three paws mode is very powerful, but only if you can then cast multiple spells afterwards, which is very hard to set up. As a big draw spell, this is fine, but very disappointing for a mythic.

Steampath Charger

Rating: 2/10

I think I prefer Steampath Charger as a 2-drop as opposed to a 4. Even then, it’s a weak creature that simply guarantees a point of damage for enabling lizard synergies on turn 3. I’m sure it’ll make the cut a few times, but I think there are much better 2s.

Stormsplitter

Rating: 5/10

I’m pretty high on Stormsplitter. You need the right build of otters, but any card that gets exponentially stronger is worth paying attention to. Each copy of Stormsplitter also triggers, meaning that just five spells give you a board of 32. Five does seem hard to do, but even just three or four is good enough to do a significant amount of damage. I’d be interested in taking this early and picking up as many cheap draw spells as I could find. Then I’d build up to one big turn where this is my win condition. I don’t know how often it’ll work, but it sounds hilarious.

Sunspine Lynx

Rating: 3/10

There are very few nonbasic lands in this format, so the trigger is definitely intended for Constructed. At best, Sunspine Lynx is a big vanilla creature and the negating life loss ability is somewhat relevant, but it doesn’t do much of anything else.

Take Out the Trash

Rating: 5/10

You always need removal to deal with annoying threats, and this is how red does it best. Three damage for 2 mana is perfectly reasonable, and you even get a nice bonus if you have a raccoon, though you don’t need the raccoon for Take Out the Trash to be good.

Teapot Slinger

Rating: 4/10

Teapot Slinger is a much more aggressive slant on the cards we’ve seen in a lot of recent sets like Iron-Fist Pulverizer, letting you hit for some consistent damage while you sit back and wait. I like that it lets you get in and attack a little more often, while naturally triggering from you playing your spells on curve. Two damage adds up quickly over time and expend 4 isn’t that hard to accomplish, so I’d keep an eye on this.

Valley Flamecaller

Rating: 6/10

There are so many instances of red’s creature types dealing damage in small increments that Valley Flamecaller often feels like it’s doubling your damage. It’s a lot less relevant with the raccoons, but we’ve seen a lot of otters, lizards, and mice that keep dealing 1 damage and boosting that to 2 is a really big game.

Valley Rally

Rating: 1/10

When you’re pushing through for the final points of damage, gifting your opponent 3 life for a mostly irrelevant bonus just isn’t going to cut it. Still, Valley Rally is just a Trumpet Blast, and some decks will presumably want a copy of it.

War Squeak

Rating: 3/10

The last time we saw Hammerhand, I was really high on it, but it ended up fizzling into nothingness. But DMU was one of the slowest we’ve seen in recent years. Bloomburrow looks very aggressive, and we even have valiant triggers to care about, so War Squeak looks like something you definitely shouldn’t sleep on.

Whiskerquill Scribe

Rating: 2/10

It looks like there are much easier ways to rummage through your cards in this MTG set than Whiskerquill Scribe. This isn’t the kind of valiant trigger I’ll be looking to pick up. In fact, it’s not even that good at attacking, and the mouse deck looks extremely aggressive, so I don’t think this even has a good home.

Wildfire Howl

Rating: 4/10

Gifting a card just to get 1 extra point of damage feels awful. I’m sure there’ll come times when it’s worth doing, since killing an extra creature in exchange for a card is probably fine. Still, Wildfire Howl is a Pyroclasm in a set with a lot of potential for the aggressive decks to go wide, so I’m sure it’ll perform well.

Green

Bakersbane Duo

Rating: 4/10

Bakersbane Duo is a pretty damn good 2-drop. Creating a Food obviously enables the squirrel foraging. I love these duo cards, and this green creature looks like one of the better ones to me.

Bark-Knuckle Boxer

Rating: 5/10

Expend 4 doesn’t look too hard to enable, and this is a really nasty ability to be triggering. Bark-Knuckle Boxer is a nice, aggressive creature that should be very difficult to get into combat. If it hasn’t triggered and you have mana open, can your opponent actually block and run the risk of you having an instant? I doubt it.

Brambleguard Veteran

Rating: 6/10

Now this is a proper payoff. I’ve already said this a few times, but expend 4 seems fairly easy to enable and this is a very real payoff. You can curve a 2-drop raccoon perfectly into Brambleguard Veteran on turn 3 and a 4-drop on turn 4, getting in for a ton of damage in the meantime. Plus, vigilance means your opponent can’t exactly attack you back.

Bushy Bodyguard

Rating: 5/10

Assuming you can forage twice, Bushy Bodyguard is essentially a 4/3 and a 3/3 for 4 mana, which is an absurdly good deal. Even without offspring, a 2-drop 4/3 is well above rate. This isn’t anything more than a very good rate of return for your mana, but I’ll take that any day.

Cache Grab

Rating: 4/10

We just saw how busted Malevolent Rumble was in Modern Horizons 3, and Cache Grab honestly looks extremely similar. It isn’t accelerating you, but this green instant is getting you a good permanent from the top four while putting a total of four cards into the graveyard and hopefully getting you a Food token, setting you up for two forages. This is exactly the kind of card you want to be enabling this mechanic, and I could see this being among green’s best commons if this deck is good in the metagame.

Clifftop Lookout

Rating: 6/10

You may not get to choose which land you’re getting as you can with Farhaven Elf, but that doesn’t matter too much. Clifftop Lookout is excellent mana acceleration and a great way to open your curve in the frogs deck, or frankly any green deck that isn’t incredibly aggressive.

Curious Forager

Rating: 6/10

This druid is essentially Eternal Witness in squirrel form, which I’m sure you’ll agree is incredibly good. This and other cards in the set make me want to prioritize sacrificing Food tokens when I forage so that I have more options to get back, so that’s worth noting.

Curious Forager card is fantastic. Easy two-for-one on card advantage and should be right at home in any squirrel deck, plus a very reasonable inclusion in other green decks.

Druid of the Spade

Rating: 3/10

I like Druid of the Spade, but I’m scared of not controlling a token. Without a token, this is unplayable garbage, so you really need to be heavy on tokens. Fortunately, rabbits are awash with token makers, so it shouldn’t be too hard to see this attacking as a 4/3 most of the time.

Fecund Greenshell

Rating: 8/10

There’s a surprising number of creatures that randomly have toughness greater than their power and turning them all into Coiling Oracles is definitely an ability I can get behind. Getting up to ten lands sounds impossible, but if we have any amount of mana acceleration or a lot of creatures to trigger Fecund Greenshell, suddenly it sounds very doable. Even without all that, this is a huge 5-drop that draws you a card when it enters, and that would go in any green deck.

For the Common Good

Rating: 0/10

This looks really cool for Constructed, but the most common tokens in Bloomburrow are 1/1s or Food, so I don’t see this working too well. It also targets one of your tokens and won’t resolve if that token is killed in response. Ultimately, you need to spend too much mana for not enough return and too much risk.

Galewind Moose

Rating: 7/10

If I’m accelerating my mana, Galewind Moose is absolutely the thing I most want to cast. Flash and reach allow it to ambush virtually anything in combat, and as a 6/6 it’ll always be bigger than what it blocks. Vigilance and trample combine to give this elemental elk a brutal offense while never dropping your defense.

Hazardroot Herbalist

Rating: 3/10

I’m not a big fan of Hazardroot Herbalist. +1/+0 isn’t a bonus that we care about, so you really need the deathtouch to be the star, yet it can only buff one creature each combat. You’ll definitely play this in a rabbits deck, but I think it’s far from being something you’d be excited to see when you draft.

Heaped Harvest

Rating: 3/10

Heaped Harvest is a pretty slow way to accelerate your mana, but if you want to be doing it, this green artifact still does the job. I think the best use for Heaped Harvest is a squirrel deck that’s looking to splash a color, perhaps for some overlapping rat synergies. You can use forage to sacrifice this for value, so that definitely seems like it would be worth doing.

High Stride

Rating: 2/10

I don’t like combat tricks in general. High Stride is fine if you want this kind of effect, especially because it only costs 1 mana, but it’s not exactly a high priority to pick up.

Hivespine Wolverine

Rating: 6/10

It’s pretty devastating that Hivespine Wolverine essentially eats a child when it enters. This is a good design with some powerful though situational modes available to it with the default mode of picking up a +1/+1 counter in case you need it. It’s a great card and would be welcome in any green deck.

Honored Dreyleader

Rating: 5/10

It’s probably obvious that Honored Dreyleader has to go in a squirrel deck to be good. You need a deck with a high enough density of squirrels and food to make sure that it’s never a 1/1 for 3 mana. If you can, and it looks closer to a 5/5 or a 6/6, and then you’re definitely on to a winner.

Hunter’s Talent

Rating: 7/10

Finally! A talent that’s absolutely worth playing!

Starting off with a removal spell is more than enough to get me interested in this green enchantment, then you get a lot of value when you start leveling up your Hunter's Talent.

Level three is a little expensive to get to, but if the result is getting to draw an extra card every turn while the board is stalled, Hunter's Talent is absolutely worth it.

Innkeeper’s Talent

Rating: 10/10

We’ve now seen enough cards with this line of text to know how good Innkeeper's Talent is. Luminarch Aspirant, Ornery Tumblewagg, Siege Veteran. All were among the best cards in their respective formats.

This time we have an enchantment, so Innkeeper's Talent has the downside of not affecting the board by itself, but with the upside of being a lot harder to remove. I can see playing a 2-drop on turn 2 then running Innkeeper's Talent out and immediately bumping it to level 2 on turn 3. It’s suddenly going to be very hard for an opponent to keep up with it.

Later in the game, level 3 doubles the counters you place and really swings a board stall in your favor. This would be my early pick for best green card in the set.

Keen-Eyed Curator

Rating: 6/10

Double green isn’t the easiest casting cost to satisfy, but the effect is worth it even if it comes down on a later turn. I’d play Keen-Eyed Curator in my main decks no matter what, since it’s very good at spending extra mana, but it’s worth pointing out how this’ll particularly shine against rats and squirrels, since you can keep their graveyards in check and shut down their ability to use it.

Longstalk Brawl

Rating: 4/10

Prey Upon hasn’t been good enough for quite some time, so having access to the ability to gift a fish is probably going to come up more than you realize. Of course, you don’t want to be giving them a creature in exchange for killing one of their others, but it’s nice to have the option.

Lumra, Bellow of the Woods

Rating: 5/10

Given that Lumra, Bellow of the Woods is a mythic rare, I expect more from it. Sadly, it amounts to little more than a very large vanilla creature with a bit of self-mill synergy. I’ll take it, but this elemental bear dies to most removal spells and can even be chump-blocked since it doesn’t have trample. I’m not impressed.

Mistbreath Elder

Rating: 7/10

A 2/2 for 1 mana and no downsides is pretty awesome. That allows this to function as a nice, aggressive play for the frog deck while also offering a ton of synergy with the deck’s theme. You can pick up your enters triggers while growing Mistbreath Elder, and you can even use this to soak up any negative effects from those triggers and then bounce it for value. I love Mistbreath Elder, and I also have my eye on it for Constructed.

Overprotect

Rating: 4/10

Overprotect is very aptly named. It’s like a bigger, worse Blossoming Defense. +3/+3 and trample make this a great combat trick while indestructible and hexproof protects a creature from nearly all removal spells. It does basically everything. I may not like combat tricks, but this is definitely one I can get behind.

Pawpatch Formation

Rating: 4/10

We finally have a Plummet that’s good enough to always make the main deck. The key mode is the third one, allowing you to draw a card and create a Food. Any deck can do that and not be upset with it, but then it has the ability to kill off some powerful bomb rares or get your creature back from Banishing Light. Pawpatch Formation is excellent, and it would take a lot for me to want to cut it from any deck.

Pawpatch Recruit

Rating: 7/10

A 2/1 trample for 1 mana or a 2/1 plus a 1/1 for 3 mana. Either mode is great already, without needing to look at the trigger. But the triggers really do sell Pawpatch Recruit for me. Having two of these on the board makes it impossible for your opponent’s removal to be effective. Even if they target one of these, the other one’ll pick up two +1/+1 counters for their trouble.

Peerless Recycling

Rating: 2/10

Rebuying permanents is an ability that hasn’t proven itself in the past. Usually, it’s something you want a little bit of extra value from. The option to get back two permanents is interesting, but gifting a free card is quite a big cost to do that. I’m not sold on Peerless Recycling, but it definitely has potential and I could end up being wrong about it.

Polliwallop

Rating: 4/10

Bite spells are always good. They are, of course, green’s natural way of removing creatures. Four mana is a lot to ask for though, even if we can reduce that cost by controlling some frogs. Polliwallop really needs to come down to around 2 mana before we’re really happy. Still, at least it’s effective and should be able to kill most creatures.

Rust-Shield Rampager

Rating: 3/10

Rust-Shield Rampager looks much more reasonable as a 4-drop than a 6-drop. A 4/4 with this pseudo-unblockability is going to be a real danger for certain decks to deal with, but a 1/1 with the same ability isn’t nearly as powerful.

Scrapshooter

Rating: 5/10

You’ll pretty much always be happy with a 4/4 reach for 3 mana, even if Scrapshooter does nothing else. Gifting a card is a big cost, but when you consider that you might destroy a Banishing Light or an Innkeeper's Talent in exchange, it definitely looks like a nice option to have.

Season of Gathering

Rating: 6/10

You’re not going to be choosing the second mode very often, so let’s look at the others. Five instances of the first mode might be the most devastating thing that Season of Gathering can do. You could put all five counters onto the same creature and really go to town with your now enormous threat. Similarly, just two counters plus drawing a ton of cards sounds really nice. It’s worth noting that this is the only season that does literally nothing when your board is empty. That’s definitely a knock on the card, but it should still be great at breaking board stalls and pressing your advantage.

Stickytongue Sentinel

Rating: 3/10

I like the idea of curving a Pond Prophet into Stickytongue Sentinel on turn 3 for some great value. Reusing your enters triggers should be the key to breaking the frog deck, and this is a really nice way of doing so without sacrificing too much board presence.

Stocking the Pantry

Rating: 0/10

Stocking the Pantry is really adorable, but that doesn’t mean anything since everything is adorable in Bloomburrow. While there are a few cards that use +1/+1 counters in this MTG set, there’s no consistent theme that cares about them, so this seems like a build-around without a home. Even then, it’s incredibly slow and doesn’t affect the board, so it might not have even been good in the first place.

Sunshower Druid

Rating: 3/10

Sunshower Druid looks like a really weak and innocuous card at first glance, but given how often the frog deck is able to bounce its own creatures, having a cheap frog with a relevant ability sounds great. As a 0/2, it can even block bunny tokens all day long. I think that’ll be an overperformer in this archetype, though you probably don’t want it anywhere else.

Tender Wildguide

Rating: 7/10

Mana dorks are always excellent, and Tender Wildguide does so much more than that. The offspring cost gives you the option of ramping from 2 to 4 or from 4 to 7, depending on what you need to be doing. Then, once you’ve ramped, it just outlasts the competition by picking up +1/+1 counters every turn.

Thornvault Forager

Rating: 8/10

I’m not sure why this MTG set needs two rare mana dorks that do remarkably similar things, but there we go. Mana dorks need ways of staying relevant in the late game and Thornvault Forager does that very easily by allowing you to tutor up any squirrel card whenever you like. It gets so much better when you have more powerful squirrels to go fetch, but even if you’re just picking up random commons, it’s welcome card advantage.

Three Tree Rootweaver

Rating: 4/10

From a pair of rare mana dorks to a common one. Even if Three Tree Rootweaver doesn’t do anything else, mana dorks are still very good and important. It sucks that this doesn’t have a relevant creature type, but that shouldn’t be enough to hold it back.

Three Tree Scribe

Rating: 4/10

This is a very powerful trigger, albeit one that’s hard to enable. You need to be a frog deck with a lot of bounce and flicker to enable Three Tree Scribe, but that does seem to be what frogs are trying to do anyway. Plus, it’s still a solid 2/3 for 2 mana, so it blocks really nicely.

Treeguard Duo

Rating: 3/10

This has the potential to be a very nasty trigger. It could end up giving as much as +5/+5 to something, though unless you have something with flying or trample, it might end up going to waste. Still, Treeguard Duo looks great in rabbits and frogs get to reuse it a bunch of times, so it’s definitely got some homes.

Treetop Sentries

Rating: 4/10

Yep, love it. Drawing a card is a very clean reward for foraging, and you can even use frog cards to bounce and replay it. Not much else to say here: Treetop Sentries’s just a solid card that should be good in a few different decks.

Valley Mightcaller

Rating: 7/10

Drawing Valley Mightcaller too late in the game will be disastrous, but the fact that this trigger has no restrictions on it really sells it for me. For example, it’ll trigger three times if you just play Hop to It or Head of the Homestead or twice if you play any offspring card. If you land Valley Mightcaller on turn 1, it’s not hard to imagine it becoming impossibly big in a very short span of time and since it can’t be chump blocked, it’s likely to be the best creature on the board.

Wear Down

Rating: 1/10

We’ve seen one or two good enchantments, but nowhere near enough to think Wear Down is worth putting in your main deck. It’s a good sideboard card and definitely has some relevance in Constructed, but that’s as far as this green sorcery goes for us.

Multicolored

Alania, Divergent Storm

Rating: 5/10

Is it worth it to have your opponent draw a card so you can copy a spell you cast? It depends on the spell I suppose. Alania, Divergent Storm puts you at parity in terms of card advantage, but a random card is going to be worse than an additional removal spell or a copy of a creature. Alania just suffers from being a touch on the weak side while you’re not copying spells, though the potential is there for some big swings.

Baylen, the Haymaker

Rating: 3/10

I really like Baylen, the Haymaker, and Baylen decks will likely be a thing in Commander, but there’s too many things holding this rabbit commander back in Limited. Three colors isn’t trivial to get in Bloomburrow, and you need quite a lot of tokens on the board for it to even do anything. On top of that, tapping your tokens means you won’t be attacking with them, which is counterintuitive to their gameplan in this set. Baylen isn’t “bad”, but it seems too hard to enable in the set and probably isn’t worth trying.

Burrowguard Mentor

Rating: 7/10

Sure, this might sometimes be a 1/1 trample for 2, but it could also be a 6/6 trample for 2. Rabbits are incredibly good at going wide, and as we saw with Regal Bunnicorn in Wilds of Eldraine, a Burrowguard Mentor should be efficient enough to really dominate the board.

Camellia, the Seedmiser

Rating: 9/10

Camellia, the Seedmiser might work with other squirrels, but it’s a game-winning package all on its own, with very little help from other cards. If you activate Camellia’s fourth ability by sacrificing a food, you’ll create the Squirrel token before it resolves, allowing that newly created token to get a +1/+1 counter. You can even do this multiple times in a turn if you have the food available.

Ideally, I’d want to play Camellia, the Seedmiser on turn 5 with a Food token out, and immediately turn that token into a 2/2 menacing squirrel. Then, each turn, I can sacrifice more food and create an army of squirrels. Camellia is amazing, and all it needs is a bunch of food makers, which you were bound to be prioritizing in the first place.

Cindering Cutthroat

Rating: 3/10

We’ve seen a lot of enablers for the lizard deck, so I’d guess Cindering Cutthroat is more likely to be a 4/3 than a 3/2. This lizard assassin looks like a solid curve filler, assuming you have those enablers for it.

Clement, the Worrywort

Rating: 8/10

Clement, the Worrywort is a really nice payoff for the frog decks with a lot of annoying combo potential. Imagine curving Sunshower Druid into Pond Prophet and then playing Clement. You can put its trigger on the stack, tap the other two frogs for mana, then bounce the prophet and replay it immediately. If you do this on turn 4, you could then also bounce the druid and replay that for even more value. Frogs looks like the most fun deck to build in this format and seeing an early Clement is probably a great indicator that you should do it.

Corpseberry Cultivator

Rating: 3/10

You can only forage so many times during the course of a game, so I’d hope I never have to use Corpseberry Cultivator to forage for no value. Though picking up a +1/+1 counter whenever you forage at all makes this a really nice 3-drop for your curve.

Dreamdew Entrancer

Rating: 9/10

When you think of enters triggers, hopefully, you think of Mulldrifter. Frogs have access to plenty of small, useless creatures that’ll happily pick up stun counters in exchange for two cards. If you can blink your creatures effectively, you can then use Dreamdew Entrancer‘s subsequent triggers to put more counters on the same creature, effectively negating its downside. Then, when you’ve drawn enough cards (as if that’s even a thing) and you want to start winning the game, any additional blinks of Dreamdew Entrancer can tap down opposing blockers for several turns and help you close. This is awesome and probably the best frog in the set.

Finneas, Ace Archer

Rating: 8/10

The only downside with Finneas, Ace Archer is that a 2/2 isn’t that likely to be able to attack and not die. However, if you time it right and get a handful of counters plus a free card out of the deal, it’s hardly been bad for you. Just curving a 1-drop into Finneas on turn 2 and Hop to It on turn 3 is enough to get it going. And if you don’t draw a card with the first trigger, the second one is pretty much guaranteed to do it.

Fireglass Mentor

Rating: 7/10

The lizard mechanic is really easy to enable, and Fireglass Mentor is an incredibly strong payoff for doing it. Getting to “draw” the best card from your top two each turn puts you ahead very quickly, just so long as your curve is low enough that you actually get to play those cards. Given that lizards are a low-curve aggro deck anyway, I don’t see that being a problem.

Gev, Scaled Scorch

Rating: 8/10

Gev, Scaled Scorch looks really disgusting to me. When played on curve, every lizard you cast pings your opponent for 1 and automatically enters with a +1/+1 counter. Throughout the game, this represents a lot of free damage and a 3/2 can even brawl really well, too. Even if you don’t draw this Rakdos mercenary until later in the game, each lizard still represents a free point of damage, allowing you to close out games with relative ease. Gev will be good in Bloomburrow Limited, RB Lizards may end up being a good Standard brew, and he looks like a very solid lizard commander.

Glarb, Calamity’s Augur

Rating: 3/10

I really don’t get why Glarb, Calamity's Augur is a frog when it has nothing to do with frogs. I just don’t get why I want to do any of this. Playing lands from the top of the library is nice, but you need to stretch your mana base to make it happen and I don’t think it’s going to be worth it.

Head of the Homestead

Rating: 4/10

Head of the Homestead is one of the better hybrid mana cards in my opinion. Three creatures in one card is perfect for rabbits, and it’s even flickerable. Five mana feels like a lot in this format, and that holds it back a little bit, but you surely can’t beat that value.

Helga, Skittish Seer

Rating: 3/10

Helga, Skittish Seer seems like one of the stronger 3-color cards in the set, and may end up being one of the best commanders from Bloomburrow, but in Limited it's still not worth stretching your mana base to accommodate it. Four-cost spells don’t seem to be a good focus in Bloomburrow outside of the raccoon deck, so I don’t think it’ll even trigger that much. I have a feeling there’ll be a perfect deck for Helga at some point, but I’m not seeing it.

Hugs, Grisly Guardian

Rating: 9/10

I always liked Gadwick, the Wizened, but Gadwick never hit quite as hard as a 5/5 with trample. It’s perfectly reasonable to cast Hugs, Grisly Guardian on 4 and start attacking, but it scales up so well. No matter when you draw this badger warrior, you can sink your mana into it and get a whole slew of extra cards. The casting cost is a little prohibitive, so you won’t be playing this outside of a straight red/green deck, but seeing Hugs early is definitely a good reason to try to draft those colors.

The Infamous Cruelclaw

Rating: 8/10

Am I the only one picturing Nibbles the mouseketeer from Tom and Jerry? En garde, pussycat!

The Infamous Cruelclaw is brilliant, though a 3/3 menace isn’t that likely to connect in a format full of offspring and token generators. If you ever do, casting a free spell by simply discarding a land is going to be huge. You could even hit some expensive spell and cast it well ahead of your curve. I’d take Cruelclaw early and make sure to prioritize ways of getting them through blockers.

Junkblade Bruiser

Rating: 3/10

Junkblade Bruiser is already fine on rate as a 4/5 with trample for 5 mana. Raccoons look like they can spend their mana very effectively, so getting it to a 6/6 isn’t unreasonable. My only concern is whether creatures of this size can work in a format like this, as it looks quite aggressive and low to the ground. I guess we’ll have to find out.

Kastral, the Windcrested

Rating: 8/10

Kastral, the Windcrested is a really powerful way to top your mana curve. The best mode to choose for the trigger is probably the first one, reanimating a bird from your graveyard. But if you don’t have any cards available for that, the other modes are also very strong.

Ideally, you want to play Kastral, the Windcrested on a turn when you plan on attacking with another bird or two to get the trigger right away, but even just on its own it provide a good amount of advantage each time it hits.

Lilysplash Mentor

Rating: 6/10

We’ve talked plenty about wanting to flicker our frogs, and Lilysplash Mentor is the perfect way to do it. Three mana is quite a lot, but also not so much that you can’t imagine getting to do this multiple times in the same turn. It’s a shame this isn’t instant speed, but if you’ve ever played against Mistmeadow Witch, you’ll understand why that might be a bit too powerful.

Lunar Convocation

Rating: 5/10

Lunar Convocation looks like a pretty strong payoff for gaining life. The first trigger is incredibly weak, but the ability to create Bat tokens is definitely worth paying attention to. It has a built-in way of losing life, so as long as you can reliably gain life each turn, it shouldn’t be too hard to make some bats every now and again, all while drawing some extra cards.

Mabel, Heir to Cragflame

Rating: 8/10

The synergy between equipment and valiant is very powerful, which is why there’s very little equipment in the set. It makes a lot of sense for the legendary Mabel, Heir to Cragflame to create the strongest equipment.

On its own, it’s not all that strong, but since you’re already red/white, you probably have some mice and hopefully, you have valiant abilities. Once you add those into the mix, Mabel, Heir to Cragflame becomes a bomb rare that perfectly synergizes with what mice are trying to do.

Mind Drill Assailant

Rating: 3/10

Four-mana 2/5s have been known to do a bit of work from time to time, so I’m pretty interested in one that eventually becomes a 5/5. You should be able to sit back with Mind Drill Assailant on defense and spend your excess mana surveilling cards away, ready to enable threshold.

Moonrise Cleric

Rating: 4/10

There are a few more perfect ways of enabling the lifegain synergies that bats are trying to accomplish. Moonrise Cleric is great on turn 3 and still reasonable when you draw it late. It’s just a good, solid creature that I’d actively seek out when drafting bats.

Muerra, Trash Tactician

Rating: 6/10

Expend 4 looks pretty reasonable to enable, but expend 8 looks a lot harder. At least Muerra, Trash Tactician gives you some mana to help towards it, then once you get one trigger off, it gives you a couple of extra cards to hopefully expend 8 again. Each trigger helps enable the next in a constant cycle. But it’s hard enough to get going that I think Muerra, Trash Tactician will most often be a good mana dork that gains you some life each turn.

Plumecreed Mentor

Rating: 6/10

I’m not sure I buy into this theme of flying creatures supporting creatures without flying. Though it turns out there are very few 2-drops that actually do fly, so odds are whatever 2-drop you played will be able to pick up the counter from Plumecreed Mentor on turn 3. Your deck is bound to have a mix of fliers and non-fliers, so I’m sure this isn’t as bad as I’m making it out to be and in fact it’s probably very impressive.

Pond Prophet

Rating: 5/10

For me, Pond Prophet is among the best commons in Bloomburrow for Draft or Sealed. Two-drops that draw a card when they enter have always been great. We’ve had standouts like Spirit Companion, and Outlaw Medic serve a similar role in Outlaws of Thunder Junction. Now we have Pond Prophet, and it’s perfectly situated to do exactly what the frog decks want to do while also just being a strong card you can play in any green or blue deck.

Ral, Crackling Wit

Rating: 9/10

The big test for any planeswalker, regardless of how adorable they are, is, “Can they protect themself?”

Ral can. The Otter tokens do a fine job of chump-blocking, while the triggered ability helps you to keep Ral’s loyalty high. The -10 ability is worth looking, since it’s actually reachable if you cast enough spells. No matter how you play it, Ral, Crackling Wit is powerful, contributes to the board, and provides you with a possible win condition. It’s very good, and I expect to see plenty of it as the format develops.

Seedglaive Mentor

Rating: 7/10

Picking up a +1/+1 counter as a valiant trigger is exactly what I want with this aggressive deck. We’ve seen a lot of ways for you to reliably trigger this each turn, and Seedglaive Mentor should quickly turn into a very powerful threat.

Seedpod Squire

Rating: 3/10

We’ve seen a lot of Phantom Monster variants, and while others don’t seem to like them, I still do. There are a lot of flying creatures in this set, as all birds and bats naturally fly, but Seedpod Squire is still a good size for a 4-drop with a relevant ability that helps you to push through damage and trigger valiant abilities.

Starseer Mentor

Rating: 7/10

I’ve always wanted a Serra Angel with upside. I mean, there are plenty of them about, but it’s always nice to see another one. These payoffs seem pretty easy to trigger, so you can mostly guarantee Starseer Mentor triggers at the end of most turns that you have it out. Your opponent may get to pick the best choice for them, but a 3/5 with flying and vigilance is good no matter what advantage you get from it.

Stormcatch Mentor

Rating: 3/10

Stormcatch Mentor is honestly really disappointing. Reducing the cost of spells isn’t an ability you can put much stock in for Limited, and a 1/1 with haste and prowess is just far too weak. I’d put this in my otter decks, but it’s not something that I’d actively look to pick up in a draft.

Tempest Angler

Rating: 4/10

When this card was called Quandrix Pledgemage, it was great. I don’t see any reason why Tempest Angler won’t be just as good. Only a couple of spells are needed to grow it into a 4/4, and if it’s still too small, it picks up free counters just for you enacting your game plan.

Tidecaller Mentor

Rating: 7/10

The fact that Tidecaller Mentor is still a solid 3/3 with menace even when you don’t have threshold enabled really sells it for me. The biggest issue with threshold, when it was first used, was that so many of the cards were unplayable without it and great with it. Some like Swirling Sandstorm literally did nothing without it active. I’d definitely prefer to have threshold enabled for this, but if you need to run it out on turn 3, you could do a lot worse.

Veteran Guardmouse

Rating: 3/10

Veteran Guardmouse will probably end up being one of the most expensive mice in your deck, but probably worth it. As we’ve seen, valiant is fairly easy to enable, and turning this into a 4/4 with first strike should be trivial.

Vinereap Mentor

Rating: 6/10

Sacrificing food to forage is generally going to be much better than exiling cards from your graveyard, so a strong creature that can give you two Foods pretty much free is high on my list of wants in a squirrel deck.

Vren, the Relentless

Rating: 10/10

In what way is Vren, the Relentless a fair card? The triggered ability is so powerful that your opponent can’t even risk chump-blocking anything, or you’ll just create a Relentless Rats token. Imagine playing this Dimir rat rogue and then on the following turn playing two removal spells. It doesn’t even matter what you kill because you’ll make a pair of 3/3s for your trouble that scale up as you play more rats. Vren, the Relentless is just unreal. It’s dumb, so take it early and win games with it.

Wandertale Mentor

Rating: 5/10

A 2-drop mana dork is the perfect way to enable expend 4 as early as turn 3. Costing both of your colors is a hefty downside, but at least the reward is there. You can accelerate your mana early, Wandertale Mentor randomly ends up as a 6/6 when you no longer need the mana and you just want to be attacking.

Ygra, Eater of All

Rating: 8/10

“Other creatures are Food” is a brilliant line of text. Can we all just take a moment and admire that?

Right then. Ygra, Eater of All is little more than a big, dumb creature, but this elemental cat should be the biggest dumb creature around. Every time it gets chump-blocked, it grows bigger. If your opponent puts enough stats in front of it to trade, you can just sacrifice your creatures and make it bigger. It also turns all your creatures into forage material if you really want to do that. Ygra is very beatable, but it’ll probably be very annoying to play against.

Zoraline, Cosmos Caller

Rating: 8/10

It’s a little weird that Zoraline, Cosmos Caller is more of an enabler for the bats mechanic rather than a payoff, but it’s got to be one of the strongest enablers around. A 3/3 with flying and vigilance is already great and is likely one of the best creatures on the board. Then, just attacking with it allows you to gain and lose life right away. You even get to reanimate a cheap creature for your troubles. Once you’ve picked up a Zoraline, be sure to pick up anything that pays you off for gaining or losing life so that you can make full use of it.

Artifacts

Barkform Harvester

Rating: 2/10

Changelings are great in typal sets and help enable any synergies based on specific creature types that you need. Barkform Harvester is very mediocre though, so I’m going to recommend you look towards the other changeling in the set, while this one should be more of a last resort.

Bumbleflower’s Sharepot

Rating: 1/10

Creating a Food is nice, and of course has synergies with some of the set’s themes, but that’s not enough to make up for the rest of the card being incredibly overcosted removal. I doubt you’ll ever want to play Bumbleflower's Sharepot, but since it makes food, it’s not so far outside the realms of possibility.

Fountainport Bell

Rating: 3/10

Fountainport Bell is a really nice design. We’ve had Traveler's Amulet in a lot of previous sets and that was always fine, but on the weak side. Now this version is almost the same card except it has cycling. Great if you need to fix your mana, but not entirely necessary if you’re a simple 2-color deck.

Heirloom Epic

Rating: 3/10

Jayemdae Tome was a hell of a card back in the early days of Magic, and oh how far we’ve come. Tapping your creatures to pay this cost is kind of dangerous to do, but at the same time, 4 mana is a lot just to draw a card. Assuming you have plenty of ways of going wide, Heirloom Epic looks like a good payoff, just be careful not to tap too many creatures that you leave yourself vulnerable to an attack.

Patchwork Banner

Rating: 5/10

I normally hate on the mana rock we inevitably get in each MTG set, but they usually aren’t Glorious Anthems. Assuming that my deck is focused on one specific type, I’d be very happy to simply play Patchwork Banner as an anthem, and the extra mana is a bonus.

Short Bow

Rating: 4/10

Let’s talk about equipment. If you have an equipment and enough mana, you can activate the equip ability multiple times, targeting each of your valiant creatures in turn, triggering all their abilities. Of course, if that equip cost is 2 or 3, you might not have enough mana to do that. But if it costs 1 mana, it should be trivial to be able to target everything. Considering that, I think Short Bow is going to be a very good card in white/red, especially given that it does give a good bonus anyway.

Starforged Sword

Rating: 2/10

+3/+3 is a huge bonus to get from an equipment, so I’m tempted by this. Ultimately, Starforged Sword probably costs too much, even when you promise the gift. Still, I could see this as a good way to break a board stall if I had a deck that was prone to it.

Tangle Tumbler

Rating: 5/10

There are a lot of decks in this format that have at least a small token focus. It’s worth noting that this vehicle doesn’t say “creature token”, so you can actually crew it with Food tokens. If you have enough tokens to reliably crew Tangle Tumbler, a 6/6 vigilance is a really big game. I don’t think you’ll be putting +1/+1 counters on anything, but it’s still a great bonus to have access to.

Three Tree Mascot

Rating: 3/10

We’ve seen similar cards to Three Tree Mascot that have all been hit or miss, but this time we have one that helps to enable every single typal synergy in Bloomburrow. If you have some cards that reward you for having a lot of a specific creature type, but you could do a lot worse than this artifact creature.

Lands

Fabled Passage

Rating: 5/10

Evolving Wilds with upside is always welcome. There are no common or uncommon dual lands in the set, so it’ll be worth grabbing Fabled Passage to fix your colors no matter what deck you’re building. You should always put this in your deck, though you may not want to prioritize it over good cards.

Fountainport

Rating: 3/10

Fountainport has a great set of abilities, but very few decks are able to use it. Colorless lands have a cost associated with them because they don’t provide your colors and could make your draws really clunky. This is definitely good enough if you have a slow deck that can afford that downside, but otherwise I wouldn’t bother with it.

Hidden Grotto

Rating: 2/10

While I liked Conduit Pylons in Thunder Junction, that card was a desert. Instead, Hidden Grotto has no such upside. I don’t think there are many reasons to splash third colors in Bloomburrow, and I wouldn’t want to play this card just to color fix in a 2-color deck.

Lilypad Village

Rating: 5/10

The next five cards are all part of the same cycle, so I’ll cover a few common threads here first. Firstly, they enter untapped and still provide their color towards creature spells. As such, these are going to be, for the most part, better than basic lands in pretty much every deck other than otters (because they’ll have far too many noncreature cards to play).

They then also have an extra ability that in some way references the four creature types in that color. These are all great. It’s hard to know where to take them, but they should pretty much always make the cut if they end up in your pool, unless you have too many noncreatures like you will if you draft otters. Lilypad Village is one of the better ones, as it’s repeatable and helps enable some themes, too.

Lupinflower Village

Rating: 3/10

Lupinflower Village is likely the worst of the villages. The activated ability just isn’t good. It’s one thing to be able to cash in a land to draw a card, but this could easily miss, and you can only do this in the late game, too. It’s still better than a Plains in most situations, but not that much better.

Mudflat Village

Rating: 5/10

Grabbing a good creature from your graveyard in the late game is a great ability. Mudflat Village is definitely better than a Swamp, and given that black is a shared color with both of the self-mill archetypes, this one really stands out to me.

Oakhollow Village

Rating: 5/10

This village looks especially broken in rabbits. Using Oakhollow Village on the same turn as Hop to It, Head of the Homestead, or something similar is just brutal. I’d play it in any green deck, but rabbits feel like the most natural home.

Rockface Village

Rating: 4/10

Rockface Village‘s ability isn’t the most exciting, but I like that it triggers valiant abilities. This feels best in mice, but it’s also fine in lizards and raccoons.

Three Tree City

Rating: 0/10

This is a really cool card for Constructed. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is a busted card, and while Three Tree City is nowhere close to that power level, it’s still a nice addition to the game. But yeah, in Limited it does nothing. Even if you had a lot of one creature type in play, there’s nothing you can cast that you couldn’t already just cast with basic lands.

Uncharted Haven

Rating: 4/10

Uncharted Haven is basically another Evolving Wilds. It’s good at fixing your mana, and I’d always play it, but you don’t necessarily need to pick it up early in a draft.

Special Guests

As of Bloomburrow, The List is a thing of the past. This is great, as I hated when random cards showed up in packs that had no business being there. The Special Guest cards are here to stay though, but at least these are really cool reprints that theoretically synergize with the set in some way. Plus, they all have adorable artwork, so what’s not to love?

Swords to Plowshares

Rating: 9/10

Swords to Plowshares is the best removal spell in the history of Magic. One mana, exile any creature, done. Sure, your opponent gains some life, but that’s mostly irrelevant when you consider just how effective and efficient this is.

Ledger Shredder

Rating: 4/10

Ledger Shredder has proven its power in Constructed, showing up across Standard, Pioneer, and beyond. In Limited, it’s not that great. It’s cheap, and its ability can get very annoying, but it doesn’t amount to much beyond a simple 1/3 flier.

Rat Colony

Rating: 2/10

If you’re a rat deck, then sure, this might end up being a 3/1 or a 4/1. But that’s literally it. Rat Colony is just a weak vanilla creature and little more than that.

Relentless Rats

Rating: 0/10

Speaking of weak vanilla creatures, at least Gray Ogre was easier to cast. Okay, moving on from Relentless Rats.

Kindred Charge

Rating: 0/10

Kindred Charge looks like a powerful effect, but it’s too expensive and situational. For every time it works for you, there’s going to be a bunch of times where it’s stuck in your hand and doesn’t do anything.

Sylvan Tutor

Rating: 0/10

Tutors are powerful cards in certain formats, but not Limited. Worse yet, you end up down a card and have to wait to draw what you searched for. The artwork is stunning, but Sylvan Tutor‘s not playable here.

Toski, Bearer of Secrets

Rating: 8/10

Playing Toski, Bearer of Secrets on a board where you’re about to get a creature or two in for damage is extremely powerful. Toski is great on its own, but even better when you can set it up. If you can drop Toski, Bearer of Secrets and immediately draw some cards, it puts you much further ahead.

Then, being indestructible puts pressure on your opponent to keep blocking, which they might not be able to keep doing. It requires that setup, but it comes with a hell of a reward if you can manage it.

Frogmite

Rating: 0/10

Even if you could make Frogmite cost no mana, what would be the point? If this costs anything more than 2, it’s terrible, and you can’t get enough artifacts out early enough to make that consistent.

Sword of Fire and Ice

Rating: 10/10

Oh boy.

One of the things I loved to do in the first few years of playing Magic was to beat people with Sword of Fire and Ice. I played a lot of Legacy, and I loved watching blue and red decks cry as I stuck this equipment on something and just destroyed them with it. It kills creatures and draws you cards, and against the right decks it makes your creature basically invulnerable. This is likely the best card in all of Bloomburrow, and I doubt it’s even close. And it's among the most expensive cards in the set!

Secluded Courtyard

Rating: 3/10

I don’t think we need color fixing in this MTG set quite this badly. Secluded Courtyard is still a colorless land for noncreature spells, and your decks will also contain creatures of types outside of the main type you’re likely to build around. This should have probably been in the main set for Standard, but oh well.

Wrap Up

The Infamous Cruelclaw | Illustration by Christina Kraus

I haven’t been this excited for an MTG set in quite a long time. It’s so cute, and I’m sure I’m going to have a lot of fun with it.

What do you think of the set? Which archetypes are you looking forward to draft in Bloomburrow? Let me know in the comments below. If you liked this article, please follow us on Twitter and join our Discord server, too. Share the article with your friends and help drive the conversation further.

Until next time, take care of yourselves!