Away From Keyboard – Magic: The Gathering – Bloomburrow
Feature
Tiny Tails, Big Adventure
What would happen if the creatures from Wind in the Willows somehow stumbled into the Magic: The Gathering universe? My guess would be something similar to the Magic: The Gathering - Bloomburrow set, where players head out into the woods to do battle alongside mice, bats, badgers, lizards, and cute otters. Set in a fantastical woodland plane, and Magic's first entirely non-human plane, Bloomburrow is where courage and great power reside in the tiniest critters.
With all the cute woodland creatures included in the Blooburrow set, we were delighted to be able to attend the pre-release event at Plenty of Games. It was a wonderful opportunity to check out some of the beautifully drawn artwork and test out some of the new mechanics in the set.
Set mechanics
The Bloomburrow set features several new (and returning) mechanics that lend themselves to the little woodland creatures. These mechanics will certainly allow new strategies to be employed by Magic players.
Offspring
By paying an additional mana cost, the player creates a token copy of the original card, but with a 1/1 power and toughness. Offspring is a great way of using that extra mana players can often have in the mid to late game to add creatures onto the battlefield.
Gift
By promising the Gift specified on a card to an opponent, such as food tokens or drawing a card, players can receive any number of advantages to help sway the tide of battle. So, an opponent may get a small item, but you'll be rewarded for doing so. This can be particularly interesting in multiplayer Commander games.
Forage
Forage is a new action allowing players to exile three cards from their graveyard or sacrifice a food token to trigger varying effects. This could include adding +1/+1 counters onto the creature who is foraging, or returning a permanent from your graveyard.
Valiant
Creatures with a brave heart may have this new keyword which triggers bonus effects whenever the card is targeted by a spell or ability.
Expend
When players spend a certain amount of mana to cast a spell (or two) during a turn, the Expend mechanic comes into effect, granting those creatures extra bonuses such as temporarily gaining added power and/or toughness or damaging an opponent.
Modal Spells
Cards with Modal Spells allow players to spend up to five ‘pawprints’ with each effect costing one, two, or three pawprints to trigger. Effects can be triggered more than once, creating opportunities for powerful combinations
The Cards
Planeswalkers
Bloomburrow features several Planeswalkers, most of which have featured previously, albeit not in such a tiny form. Some of the Planeswalkers feature in Commander decks only.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion (White)
Jace, the Mind Sculptor (Blue)
Narset, Parter of Veils (Blue)
Liliana of the Dark Realms (Black)
Nissa, Who Shakes the World (Green)
Domri, Anarch of Bolas (Red, Green)
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman (Black, Green)
Ral, Crackling Wit (Blue, Red)
Tamiyo, Field Researcher (Green, White, Blue)
Teferi, Time Raveler (White, Blue)
Karn, the Great Creator (Colorless)
Lands
The Bloomburrow set features some wonderful locations, many of which depict the woodland locales from a woodland creature's perspective. However, my favourite is the one land that is depicted in each of the four seasons - the Three Tree City.
Product Types
Commander Decks (100 cards) - four variations
● Animated Army (Red, Green)
● Family Matters (Blue, Red, White)
● Peace Offering (Green, White, Blue)
● Squirreled Away (Black, Green)
Play Boosters (14 cards)
Collector Boosters (15 cards)
Bundle
Starter Kit
Players can follow along with the story of Bloomburrow in Mabel's Journey Play Season, exclusive to Wizards Play Network (WPN) stores in Asia-Pacific. Running from July 26 to September 13, players can obtain unique narrative-themed rewards.
By participating in eligible Bloomburrow in-store Prerelease Events, Limited Events (Draft and Sealed), and Friday Night Magic events, players can earn progressive rewards such as a themed MTG dicebag, character portrait cards, a Calamity Beast keyring, and finally, a wall tapestry representing a heroic scene from the Bloomburrow story. Players must earn each reward in order by participating in four consecutive events during the Play Season.
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