Just when I think I’ve spent enough time and money on Magic: The Gathering for the year, those mad geniuses go and pull a Secret of NIMH. A Redwall. A real Ferngully. Bloomburrow has finally arrived in stores and it might just be my favourite MtG release since jumping back into the game a couple of years ago.
Bloomburrow sees players venture into a woodland world in what’s easily one of the most fresh and exciting MtG sets in recent memory, giving echoes of The Animals of Farthing Wood, The Borrowers or just about anything from Enid Blyton. Of course, there promises to be as much action with swords and spells as there are button noses and fuzzy feet, so expect things to get fierce in the forest.
As someone who took a break from MtG for more than 15 years, coming back very casually in recent years thanks to friends and friendly local PR, Bloomburrow feels like it would’ve been a perfect re-entry point – free of much of the baggage and required reading of the wider lore and with a distinct charm and whimsy that really sets it apart. It’s part of a larger arc that’ll continue in AAA with Duskmourn: House of Horror in late September, but really stands out on its own. Bloomburrow itself is a plane where no humans exist, where everyone is a small, anthropomorphic animal – but it doesn’t stop the inhabitants from being formidable warriors, wizards and woodland weaponists.
If you, like me, are of the “dabbling, collecting, spending too much money in search of shiny cardboard” preclusion, you’ll also like to know that Bloomburrow is phenomenally gorgeous. There’s a whimsy and a wonderment on display in the art for this set that makes it really stand out. I’ve especially enjoyed seeing the usual gravitation toward certain archetypes turn from things like vampires and faeries to… frogs and squirrels. There are, of course, many new iterations on planeswalkers who’ve been turned into animals themselves, which is a lot of fun. I was very stoked to pull a very frogalicious Nissa, Who Shakes the World in her anime-ass Raised Foil treatment.
For those more serious/regular players, the new keywords and abilities introduced in this set are just as exciting. One of my favourite pulls so far is Kitnap, an enchantment that allows the casting player to take control of an enchanted creature, but adds a stun counter penalty to it unless that player promises a “Gift” to their opponent in the form of an extra draw (also, yes it’s a very nice-looking card). Others are even more in keeping with the theme, like Offspring or Forage, but one of the most interesting for me so far has been the Expend term, which looks at how much mana you’ve spent in a turn to activate effects – something that’s played fairly well with the Animated Army Commander deck I’m using that has a decent amount of ramp and a lot of opportunity to spend mana.
If you’re all-in on this buffet of fantastical fauna (buffet may be the wrong word in this situation?), you can duck on over to the official page for Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow or pick up any of the new packs and other goodies below:
