My Top 10 Cards for Bloomburrow
Magic players—myself included—seem pretty excited for Bloomburrow. This set feels like a classic Magic set updated to fit into where the game is today. The setting is fun and whimsical and the overall design space evokes memories of older sets without feeling like a retread. Of course, there are also plenty of cool cards for Commander. In this article, I’m going to talk about my top 10 cards from the set. Let’s do it!
Season of Weaving
Today I learned that casting complex magic is known as weaving on Bloomburrow. I like every single card in this cycle and I love the little paw prints to denote cost of the different modes, but this one is probably my favorite because of its versatility. Drawing cards, making copies of artifacts or creatures, and clearing the board are all great options. I can’t even decide which combination of modes is the best because they’re all so good. I think that we’re going to see a lot of the Seasons in Commander.
Alchemist’s Talent
I love Class enchantments, so I’m very excited that Bloomburrow is adding a ton of new ones to the game. While there are several that I’m excited to play, Alchemist’s Talent jumps out to me as the most generically useful because Treasure is so powerful in Commander these days. It’s extremely easy to cast this spell and get it to Level 2 in the same turn if you’ve been banking Treasures. It becomes trivial after that to reach Level 3 and start burning your opponents whenever you use Treasure to cast a spell.
Kitsa, Otterball Elite
I’m a big fan of looters with upside, especially when they’re in the command zone. While you might feel a bit limited with just mono-blue, this commander can churn through your deck or copy important spells once you resolve a couple of prowess triggers. I think this makes Kitsa a potential commander for a deck built around Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal, especially because you don’t need both pieces to do the combo. There’s even another Otter later in the article that’s perfect for the 99 of the deck!
Helga, Skittish Seer
If you want to cast big creatures and draw cards, you could do worse than playing Helga in the command zone. This card has such a fun design because it rewards you for casting expensive creatures rather than just playing the game like we’ve seen from previous Bant creature commanders such as Chulane, Teller of Tales. It’s also worth noting that Misthollow Griffin has a mana value of four, which makes Helga a reasonable option for a Bant deck focused around Food Chain. I wonder if we’ll see her in cEDH.
Dawn’s Truce
We’ve been seeing white expand its repertoire of protection spells to include mass hexproof and indestructible for all permanent types lately, and I’m here for it. This is white’s answer to Heroic Intervention. You need to gift your opponent a card in order to get the full benefit of the spell, but it does also come with added hexproof for the person casting it. This can be surprisingly relevant in certain situations where you’re being directly targeted, but I suspect the gift will be given more often than not.
Baylen, the Haymaker
How dangerous could a Rabbit possibly be? It turns out that the answer is very. Baylen is ready to do some cool stuff in your tokens deck by turning your tokens into mana, card draw, or a pump effect to allow him to swing in for extra damage with trample. I love designs like this one, because you can play him as a casual go-wide commander or a high-powered combo enabler. This versatility in design makes Baylen one of the most interesting Naya commanders that I’ve seen in quite some time.
Valley Floodcaller
As we’ve seen with Borne Upon a Wind, casting things at flash speed can be extremely powerful if your deck is built to exploit it because you can play on top of whatever anyone else tries to do, including a counterspell fight over a win attempt. Valley Floodcaller is another very interesting card for decks including blue, even though it only allows you to break timing restrictions for noncreature spells. I think that this card is likely to be undervalued at first, but I don’t think that will last once people see it in action.
The Infamous Cruelclaw
Weasel fans, your time has finally come! This is a commander for people who want to cast crazy spells off the top of their deck. I think that Cruelclaw will scale really nicely to a variety of power levels, because he’s only going to be as powerful as the things that you’re using him to do, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what people do with him. I definitely wouldn’t rule out seeing him as a fringe option in cEDH either, even though I think that his lack of a third color will hold him back significantly.
Pollywog Prodigy
This little Frog just wants to get bigger and draw you cards. All you have to do is evolve it a few times and you won’t have any trouble keeping a full grip. I’m expecting to see this card quite a bit. cEDH players will love curving into Tymna after playing this card and I’m expecting Simic decks to have an easy time evolving it in casual tables. Pollywog Prodigy is one of the most efficient card draw creatures that we’ve seen in years, especially since your opponents can’t opt to pay their way out of it like they can with Esper Sentinel.
Three Tree City
Kindred decks in Commander just got a new staple card. It’s less efficient than Gaea’s Cradle because it costs mana to activate the second ability and you’re locked into a single creature type, but it can produce mana of any color and even makes colorless on an empty board. There are no Humans in Bloomburrow, but I’m adding Three Tree City to my mono-white Humans deck. I’m hoping that being a Rare rather than a Mythic helps keep this card at a reasonable price for a while after release.
I actually don’t remember the last time that I made a top 10 list that included so many commanders. It’s a shame that none of the Calamity Beasts jumped out at me as much as the animal citizens of Valley. I definitely think that I’m only scratching the surface when it comes to Bloomburrow and I’m looking forward to playing these cards and seeing what other people do with them. I hope that you also find plenty of new cards to enjoy.
P.S. I’m contractually obligated to talk about this reprint of Karn, the Great Creator. Mike Burns did such an amazing job capturing how incredibly done Karn is with this turn of events. It seems like he can never catch a break. There are plenty of other great reprints between Special Guests, Imagine: Critters, and reprints with new art in the Commander precons, so I hope that your some of your favorites were included as well.
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