Cardsphere Picks: Bloomburrow

What's as adorable as a baby bunny, as fearsome as a bear, as slippery as an otter, and as mischievous as a raccoon? Cardsphere Picks for Bloomburrow, of course! We're back with another edition of the Cardsphere Picks series to talk about cards from Wizards of the Coast's latest expansion.

Making picks on this foray into Bloomburrow are some courageous critters known as the Tunnel Snakes (our Discord moderators), Doug (@dougyfresh88), Josh (@gunhoe86), and Bodey (@bodey_). Joining them are two esteemed community members, Futura (Futurato on CS) and Zohfur (zohfur on CS; check out their website too!).

Bloomburrow is packed with powerful new cards, intriguing designs, delightful flavor, and an overwhelming amount of stunning artwork. As always, Cardsphere Picks can be based on any of these criteria and more, so don't scurry away just yet. Make yourself comfortable and let's see what's in store.

Doug

Eddymurk Crab

I think the whole cycle of Elemental uncommons feels flavorful and distinct, but Eddy definitely stands out as my favorite of the crew. Easily costing four or less in the right deck, this card can play as a defensive holdout before swinging back for lethal or coming down on your turn to push through some extra damage if your opponent's board is already limited.

Feed the Cycle

A new take on Bitter Triumph, I am interested to see if this card manages to find a home in any older formats. It may be that the cost remains too high for it to compete in that premium removal spot, but I have still enjoyed the flexibility it brings in Bloomburrow formats.

Innkeeper's Talent

Class enchantments have always been a bit iffy to me, but this one immediately brings comparison to Luminarch Aspirant. While it doesn't come with a body of its own, you get the bonus of being able to dump extra mana to add some protection to your creatures and eventually double the growth of your counters. I think this will find a home in a large variety of decks, and feels right at home with green.

Josh

Carrot Cake

First, the cheesy cards like Jacked Rabbit and Carrot Cake made me chuckle. My son heard about carrot cake recently and I'm pretty sure this card's artwork is what was going through his mind.

Cache Grab

The Pauper player in me is ready to test Cache Grab in my Dragon Delver deck. That deck aims to mill as many "Dragon" enchantments from Scourge (Dragon Fangs, Dragon Breath, Dragon Scales) as possible and delve a Gurmag Angler or Hooting Mandrills into play. Cache Grab will probably replace Commune with the Gods or Grapple with the Past. Does that sound janky? It should, because it is!

Glarb, Calamity's Augur

When Conspiracy: Take the Crown came out, I went all in on a Leovold, Emissary of Trest EDH deck. I should have known it would get banned immediately, and my saltiness after that announcement never wore off. Now that I see Glarb, Calamity's Augur, it's time to start thinking about Sultai Frogs and pick up some Gitrog and Yargle stuffs.

Bodey

Dawn's Truce

Just when I thought it couldn't get any better after Collective Resistance in Modern Horizons 3, we are gifted an arguably better Heroic Intervention. Yes, a better Heroic Intervention. Gifting a card to an opponent of my choosing in a four-player game is about as much of a downside as Path to Exile giving a land, and the gift may not even need to be given in the use cases I am most excited about. Being able to give you hexproof is a huge bonus! As a graveyard player, I can blank that Bojuka Bog trigger. Don't even think about that Villainous Wealth resolving. There are so many more use cases for this protection spell thanks to the simple addition of "You." The showcase art is also one of my favorite art pieces in the set, and the competition is stiff.

Sazacap's Brew

Speaking of favorite art pieces in the set, Sazacap's Brew is another one for me. I am an avid fan of whenever WotC prints Tormenting Voice variants, and we have come a long way. The small bonus of giving a creature +2/+0 seems like flavor text a lot of the time, but I am going to look at slotting this into my Dargo, the Shipwrecker voltron Commander deck over a less exciting rummage effect. Gifting a tapped Fish is also quite hilarious and I can't wait for opponents to thank me for all the Fish.

Baylen, the Haymaker

This card is obnoxious. An above-rate body and none of its abilities are restricted by how many times they can be activated. Tap any kind of token. Treasures don't have to be sacrificed to make mana. Clues don't have to be sacrificed to draw cards. I am thankful that it doesn't also create tokens. Aside from this card being a haymaker when it hits the battlefield in most cases, the name makes me smile. Growing up in rural areas of the Midwest, baling hay was a common occurrence. Baylen... baling... the hay... the Haymaker... Yeah, you get it.

Futura

Season of the Burrow

I had to go back and check. The Walking Dead Secret Lair happened in 2020. It took two more years until Warhammer cards were then thrust upon us, but those were two very fitful years indeed of rumination and worry. And maybe even dread? At any rate, this wasn’t the end of the game, but it was a shift–an uncomfortable jostling, sliding us over into an awkward position that suddenly squeezes the elbow. Centrifugal force keeps us there. I can bring up the “All Sets” page on Scryfall and scroll back all I want, but it’s 2024 and the game I like is swinging me around.

I’m being overdramatic. We still get more original sets a year than we do Universes Beyond, and Bloomburrow is 2024’s fifth-ish compared to only two Beyond offerings to-date. That said, it somehow feels odd when a set gets announced that is so clearly in communication with an established IP that one’s left to wonder if all of this new worldbuilding only exists to cover up some rights acquisition failure. But that’s OK–that’s OK! This isn’t Brian Jacques’s Redwall and that’s just fine. Bloomburrow gets to be something different now. I even feel some sense of nostalgia in visiting a new plane, born from an amalgamation of inspirations instead of an adaptation of just one.

Ruthless Negotiation

These cards are beautiful. To me, these don’t exist without Bloomburrow being more than just Redwall. That story’s titular abbey has its historical tapestries, but these feel more religious and abstract, taking something from the Nepenthe Productions adaptation of Watership Down and its mythological prologue about a rabbit prince named El-Ahrairah and a god of all named Frith. These pieces feel to me to contain a similar spark of inspiration, digging deeper, past the belief systems of the world–already noteworthy feats of creative thought–and arriving at something even more resonant: how that world decides to communicate its beliefs artistically.

You only arrive at that sort of thing if the idea of the world itself is sound–beyond sound, even! Orchestral! There’s a palpable joy and whimsy in the art for Bloomburrow that sings beyond the card frame. Maybe it’s easier to see when the set is all about cute animals, but it really is more than that.

Builder's Talent

A lot of doing art on commission has the artist looking to find their own fun in the assignment if the core idea is uninspired or just flat out lame. Some ideas are just thin and runny and Magic’s had its fair share of sets that could be described as such in the past few years. Sometimes the artists succeed, find their own fun, and come up with something great. But it’s a world of difference when all the assignment expects of you is to feel the same upwelling of love that got the idea written down in the first place.

So much of Bloomburrow is love. It dazzles. It makes me smile. Yes, in the most cynical sense, it’s a sub-product of an uber-product that has been made to be bought, bought, bought … but sometimes you figure it’s OK to forgive capitalism because sometimes the product is kinda neat after all. I’m glad that this assorted gallery came to be because a corporation wanted to tap into something profitable according to their market research. But I’m honestly ecstatic without reservation that the artists and architects of Magic: the Gathering itself let flow the inspiration to make this happen. It’s comforting to know that Magic can still very much do its own thing.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Awooga! 👀👀

Zohfur

Alania, Divergent Storm

I've been waiting for like a year for a good Izzet commander that doesn't feel like I'm playing solitaire at the table. Alania is super flexible, being able to copy creatures, instants, and sorceries - being able to play five instants and then a stormed Elemental Eruption is so satisfying. Or I can just play a bunch of Otters and smash face with Bria, Riptide Rogue or Stormsplitter. Untap spells like Snap and Frantic Search go great with her as well. I like to play mid-power decks with some fun cards, and Alania fits that niche pretty well.

Coruscation Mage

This little dude is the new Guttersnipe, Thermo-Alchemist, Electrostatic Field, whatever you want to call the "play thing, ping thing" cards. Being able to kick him for a duplicate with offspring is pretty great later in the game, too. My friends get very scared when they see him come out. And he is very cute.

Patchwork Banner

An instant staple in every single kindred deck, ever. I am so happy I opened a playset of them because they're going in more than half of my Commander decks. I tend to gravitate towards kindred decks to be a little more "goofy and un-serious," and this is going in all of them. Honestly, it can go in just about any EDH deck and just buff the commander.

Where to Find Bloomburrow on Cardsphere

Bloomburrow
Bloomburrow Commander
Bloomburrow Special Guests