All 22 Raccoons in Magic Ranked

Last updated on August 5, 2025

Bello, Bard of the Brambles | Illustration by O-G Osahune

Bloomburrow gave several adorable creature types a chance to shine, and that includes everyone’s favorite trash pandas: raccoons. These little bandits only had a handful of cards printed for them before this MTG set, and their sightings are infrequent. Wizards may hold off on printing more until subsequent visits to Bloomburrow. There will likely be more than one in Marvel‘s Universes Beyond crossover sets.

For now, raccoons are mostly designed for creature-heavy builds. Some of their mechanics reflect raccoons’ love for trash while others lean into their rogue-ish personality and look. When a set like Bloomburrow comes around, I’m reminded how disappointed I am that Wizards has abandoned the three-set block model because I'd love several Magic sets full of these little guys to flesh out the creature type instead of having to wait for years (if we see any future support at all).

For now, let’s take a look at what raccoons we got in Bloomburrow, as well as the few that existed beforehand, and decide which are the best.

What Are Raccoons in MTG?

Bakersbane Duo | Illustration by Raluca Marinescu

Raccoons are a creature type in Magic, usually with a red-green beatdown focus, and recipients of Bloomburrow‘s expend mechanic. The first black border raccoon was printed in Streets of New Capenna, and they’ve popped up in a few sets since then. Thanks to Bloomburrow, raccoons have more of a presence in Magic and a few very interesting cards.

Honorable Mention: Squirrel Dealer

Squirrel Dealer was the first ever raccoon in Magic and one of the funnier visual gags from the Unstable un-set. Unfortunately, you won’t get many chances to play this card, unless your playgroup is okay with including it as a Rule 0 inclusion.

Honorable Mention: Arena-Exclusive Raccoons

Bramblearmor Brawler, Resourceful Collector, and Eager Flameguide are each Arena-exclusive, and quite playable in Alchemy.

#22. Junkblade Bruiser

Bloomburrow's expend mechanic is hit-or-miss, depending on the payoff. Junkblade Bruiser is an example of an underwhelming expend effect, as it doesn’t do much and it isn’t repeatable. This card can’t keep up with modern power creep. That said, it is a fine pick for Bloomburrow Limited.

#21. Roughshod Duo

Roughshod Duo’s expend ability is nice since it can buff any of your creatures. Granting trample is nice, but this duo's ultimately meant as a valiant mouse payoff in the Limited format than anything you should expect to see elsewhere.

#20. Cabaretti Initiate

Cabaretti Initiate was a decent pick in Streets of New Capenna’s Draft and Sealed environment. Its hybrid mana on the activated ability made it easy to slot into decks, and double strike can be huge in Limited, especially when combined with combat tricks.

It doesn’t see much Constructed play, which won’t likely change thanks to the white in its color identity. With the new Raccoon commanders being Gruul, this card will be left out of any typal decks for now.

#19. Bark-Knuckle Boxer

Bark-Knuckle Boxer’s ability isn’t terrible, but it just feels too slow. While it’s nice for attacking, abilities that grant indestructible are better when you can reliably use them at instant speed. It’s possible to do so with the right hand, but it’s unlikely. Still, Bark-Knuckle Boxer is relatively strong for its mana value, and I could see its Limited potential.

#18. Raccoon Rallier

Raccoon Rallier fills a narrow role in stompy decks, but a welcome one. Stompy Gruul decks always benefit from attacking with big creatures as soon as they enter, especially if they have powerful attack triggers, like with Etali, Primal Storm.

#17. Bakersbane Duo

Bakersbane Duo is an flexible pick for Bloomburrow’s Limited environment. It fits into Food and expend decks while retaining fine stats as a 2-mana 2/2.

Being a squirrel raccoon also means it can be used in a squirrel deck as well. Since squirrels have better typal support than raccoons, Bakersbane Duo may see more play than just a straight-up raccoon card of similar strength.

#16. Teapot Slinger

Cards like Teapot Slinger are excellent sources of pressure. Hitting all of your opponents instead of just one makes this raccoon warrior especially potent. Expending 4 in a turn isn’t too big of an ask, so I could see this working in a few different burn decks or even alongside spellslinger commanders.

#15. Scrappy Bruiser

Scrappy Bruiser gets extra points for being a cool-looking card. The idea of a little raccoon bare-knuckle brawling some Phyrexians is a fun mental image. The card isn’t terrible either. While bouncing a creature to your hand is a pain, it doesn’t matter if you win the game thanks to giving a large creature trample. This raccoon warrior can help you reuse an ETB creature.

This card also works well with threaten effects (that's to say, cards that let you steal your opponent's cards until end of turn) that are common in red. You can steal an opponent's creature, attack with it and Scrappy Bruiser to deal damage, and then bounce that creature back to its owner’s hand.

#14. Brambleguard Veteran

Brambleguard Veteran proves that expend can be powerful. It has a meaningful effect that benefits a wide range of your creatures, assuming you’re playing a raccoon-heavy deck. This green creature could also work in a changeling deck to mass-pump your creatures and give them vigilance.

#13. Rust-Shield Rampager

I think the offspring mechanic is great, so Rust-Shield Rampager automatically jumps up the rankings for me. Not only does it spawn some adorable tokens, but it's also a solid attacker thanks to its evasion. I could see this card being a very good Limited tool in Bloomburrow.

#12. Brazen Collector

Brazen Collector is a nice red rogue for getting some extra early-game mana. First strike makes it harder to block, so you’ll likely get a few triggers early on. In an aggro deck, that little bit of extra ramp could be all you need to get the game done quickly.

#11. Masked Bandits

This might be a hot take, given that these little bandits are sitting at $0.06, but I think Masked Bandits and the similar “family fixers” from Streets of New Capenna are a solid choice for budget mana fixing in 3- or even 4-color decks. Making a land tap for three colors from a colorless ability isn't bad. Once your mana is fixed, you can cast Masked Bandits from exile, not far from warp.

You could do a lot worse than this card if you need budget fixing for a Jund commander. If your Brawl commander is you get a rebalanced version with less cost to activate and one more point of toughness.

#10. Coati Scavenger

Coati Scavenger is a nice recursion piece. It’s cheap enough that you might get to replay the card you pick up from the graveyard later in the game. It isn’t ground-breaking by any means, but it’s a solid game piece for a Golgari deck running dredge or other self-mill tactics.

#9. Wandertale Mentor

Wandertale Mentor’s expend ability is another effective one since the +1/+1 counters have a lasting effect. This raccoon bard is also a mana dork, fueling its own ability.

At 2 mana, Wandertale Mentor easily hits the board early. In a stompy Gruul deck, it may also fly under the radar for a bit as you drop other threats, allowing it to become one itself.

#8. Trailtracker Scout

All-purpose mana dorks like Trailtracker Scout are always powerful. Its expend ability isn’t easy to trigger, but it’s great to have stapled to a creature that likely won’t be the first target for removal on the board in a Commander game. This adds some good passive late game value to a card that's already helpful in the early game.

#7. Byway Barterer

Byway Barterer is an excellent tool for decks that play most of their hand. Since this is a “may” ability, you only have to use it when it'll be a benefit to you. On top of its draw ability, a 3/3 with menace isn’t a bad deal for only 3 mana.

#6. Muerra, Trash Tactician

Muerra, Trash Tactician is a great Gruul commander for a raccoon typal deck. Not only will it give you a ton of mana in your first main phase, but its two expend abilities cash in on all the mana you’ll spend.

#5. Prosperous Bandit

Prosperous Bandit, apart from being one of the cutest raccoons, can be a powerful source of mana: It creates Treasure tokens whenever it deals combat damage to a player. This card works well with combat tricks or equipment to buff it up. The stronger the Bandit gets, the more mana you can generate.

On top of that, its offspring ability can give you two shots at getting damage through.

#4. Scrapshooter

Scrapshooter is a strong card just in terms of power and toughness for its mana cost, and it also has reach. Its gift ability adds nice utility by destroying artifacts and removing enchantments, and since it's optional, players don’t need to take the drawback just to play this powerful creature.

#3. Bramble Familiar

Wilds of Eldraine‘s Bramble Familiar is a handy mana dork with some good utility. Its adventure is expensive, but you don’t have to worry about this being a wasted draw early on: You can simply cast it, then return it to your hand once you can afford the adventure. Since it can be bounced at instant speed, you can easily protect it if an opponent tries to remove it.

#2. Keen-Eyed Curator

Keen-Eyed Curator fills a similar role to Scavenging Ooze in many decks. Its activated ability is instant speed graveyard hate that can buff itself. While it has an upper limit, unlike Scavenging Ooze, trample makes Keen-Eyed Curator a good threat.

#1. Bello, Bard of the Brambles

There are a lot of shenanigans that players can pull off with Bello, Bard of the Brambles. Animating enchantments or animating artifacts creates unique interactions that wouldn’t otherwise happen.

For example, playing a Doubling Season would now trigger Mirror March, possibly allowing a player to get several copies for a turn.

Players have already started breaking Bello, Bard of the Brambles, and it'll undoubtedly keep happening in a lot of creative ways the longer this raccoon commander is out.

Best Raccoon Payoffs

Since raccoons are a relatively new creature type, there aren’t many specific payoffs for them yet.Take Out the Trash, Valley Flamecaller, Rockface Village, Muerra, Trash Tactician, and Brambleguard Veteran all come from Bloomburrow, but there's nothing explosive yet.

Spider-Ham, Peter Porker is from the main set of Spider-Man and typal support for many critters, including raccoons.

Not much to fill out a 100-card deck, so cards that let you choose a creature type are next in line to help.

Raccoons are mostly Gruul and seemingly built for aggro, so anything that buffs creatures could synergize with them. Hopefully, we’ll return to Bloomburrow before too long and get a more fleshed-out strategy for these trash pandas.

Wrap Up

Bramble Familiar | Illustration by Simon Dominic

It’s always exciting when a new creature type gets more cards printed for it, especially one with as much personality as raccoons. While many raccoons are underwhelming and mostly good for Bloomburrow’s Limited environment, Bello, Bard of the Brambles hints that this creature type deserves some heavy-hitters further down the line.

What's your favorite creature type from Bloomburrow? Do you think Wizards should've leaned further into typal groups for this set like they did with Lorwyn? Do raccoons belong in Lorwyn Eclipsed? Let me know in the comments or on Draftsim’s Twitter.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to seeing you in the next article!