Legacy: Bloomburrow Review for the Format!

Greetings, Legacy fans! As expected, Modern Horizons 3 came, left its mark, and is still impacting the metagame, even though the shadow of Scam (Grief + Reanimate + Troll of Khazad-dûm) is still dominating the format.

In the midst of all this controversy and debate about whether Wizards of the Coast should take some action or if they're right to wait and keep their preestablished window for balance announcements, another set has come along: Bloomburrow!

Unlike MH3, which was centered around Modern and whose power level was through the roof, BLB is a bit more grounded and should impact Legacy significantly less. Still, it also has some interesting things. Let's take a look!

Usually, I start these set reviews by discussing new mechanics, and Bloomburrow has a lot of them: Gift, Offspring, Forage, Expend, Valiant, and Pawprints.

However, this time, we had the incredible judge Antonio Faillace explain all of these mechanics beforehand in an exclusive article. Just click here to check it out.

Without further ado, let's tackle these cards head on and see how much potential they have in Legacy.

Beza, the Bounding Spring

Four mana tends to be the limit for a creature to be considered viable or not, though White decks typically go over these mana restrictions through Aether Vial.

Beza was designed to turn the tides back in your favor if you get behind in a match by giving you precisely the resources that gave your opponent an edge. If Legacy becomes a bit more aggressive, this card will be useful to change the game's tempo.

Dewdrop Cure

This card is great for games that turn into wars of attrition, as it rebuilds your board and, eventually, your hand, if you bring back things like White Orchid Phantom and/or Stoneforge Mystic with it.

Jackdaw Savior

Pre-War Formalwear has already shown us in Death & Taxes how valuable recursion is for white aggro decks. Jackdaw, on its own, will give you a new batch of Stoneforge Mystic or Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. If you add other flying characters to this line of thought, like Flickerwisp or Yorion, Sky Nomad, you might just find something interesting.

Eddymurk Crab

The best comparison for this card is with Delve cards, like Murktide Regent, or cards whose costs are discounted by sorceries/instants in your graveyard, like Sailor's Bane.

Flash definitely makes this card a bit more accessible and flexible, and its ability, which taps 2 creatures, might give you some room to breathe against aggressive decks. Or, you can just prevent a threat like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Atraxa, Grand Unifier from connecting damage.

Into the Flood Maw

This card is potentially better than Chain of Vapor, one of the most common cards to deal with problematic permanents in combo decks. I believe Into the Flood Maw will be a new option for blue decks to remove a few things from their way for very little mana.

Kitsa, Otterball Elite

This card is so interesting we dedicated an entire article to it. Though Psychic Frog will undoubtedly overshadow it, Kitsa will give a lot of value for aggressive blue decks that can't access black mana.

Mockingbird

We haven't seen a Clone effect this cheap since Phantasmal Image. There are many cheap creatures you'll be glad to copy with Mockingbird, like Death’s Shadow, or Phyrexian Dreadnought with Doorkeeper Thrull on the board, or even lords like Master of the Pearl Trident or Muscle Sliver.

Bandit’s Talent

8-Rack has disappeared from the format, but a card that has three roles in this deck might just bring it back: this is another The Rack for this list, as it maintains a sort of "discard critical mass" and also refills your resources when the game becomes a topdeck battle.

Feed the Cycle

This is another efficient and flexible removal for black in Legacy. What makes this card interesting is that it's not typically difficult to exile 3 cards from your graveyard, it doesn't have any restrictions on which creatures you can remove with it, and, on top of it all, it also gives you an answer for any occasional Planeswalker.

Byway Barterer

This card's cost is in line with the Sol Land (Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors) + red mana standard. It also has some sort of evasion through menace and refills your hand. It might find some space in Stompy decks.

Emberheart Challenger

Mono-Red Prowess met a new friend. This card plays particularly well with Mutagenic Growth, Reckless Charge, and the new Might of the Meek.

Might of the Meek

As we mentioned above, it might be interesting with prowess.

Stormsplitter

For years, Tendrils of Agony has been, undeniably, the finisher standard in Storm decks. Stormsplitter is a new option, one that, though possibly vulnerable to removals at the beginning of the cycle, is lethal with a much smaller spell count, as it grows exponentially: each new token creates new tokens that create more tokens. So, with very few spells, this card will give you a lethal board. It's 1 spell, 2 creatures. 2 spells, 4 creatures. 3 spells, 8 creatures, 4 spells, 16 creatures… You can tell how fast this will get out of hand, right?

Sunspine Lynx

This new Cat seems to be interesting for several aggressive decks. It has a respectable size, comes with a mini-Price of Progress built in, ignores the protection of The One Ring, and also deals with lifegain on cards like Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath and Atraxa, Grand Unifier.

Pawpatch Formation

Versatile removals like this one show up once or twice in sideboards, but this one will probably see plain even in your main deck because you can cycle it, and it creates a Food token.

Ral, Crackling Wit

This is another card that might breathe some fresh air into Storm decks, as it fills with loyalty counters extremely fast, and, once you activate its emblem, practically any spell you play afterward is lethal.

Stormcatch Mentor

Creatures that discount the cost of instants and sorceries have a lot of potential, but this one will probably also put pressure on your opponent in another way. Depending on how you set up your turn, it will deal a good chunk of damage and also discount the cost of several of your spells.

The Infamous Cruelclaw

Cruelclaw offers you a chance to cheat out a good amount of mana, particularly in a format in which Brainstorm and Ponder fix your top deck. The issue will be depending on a 3 mana 3/3 surviving, attacking, and connecting damage.

Heirloom Epic

Firstly, this is another option for Urza's Saga. Though 4 mana to draw a card seems completely unreal in Legacy, in practice, you'll only use 1 or 2 mana at most, as these decks can create tokens or low-cost creatures to make this spell cheaper.

Fountainport

This is an extremely versatile land that creates value in drawn-out games. It reminds me a bit of Retrofitter Foundry, but you won't have to use a slot in your deck for the artifact itself.

Three Tree City

This is a fixed version of Gaea's Cradle - that's how absurd the original one is. It might have some potential for some non-green Kindred deck.

After how heavy Modern Horizons 3 was, Bloomburrow even seems too casual for a set. However, much of this is due to its target audience - when I reviewed other Standard-centered sets for Legacy, I discovered it was typical to not see that much impact.

Sets like The Brothers' War, March of the Machine, and even more recent sets, like Wilds of Eldraine, and The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, only brought a few relevant cards for a format as vast as Legacy. I confess I didn't see any revolutionary cards in Bloomburrow, but rather a few solid additions for preestablished archetypes, and some cards for a few forgotten archetypes, like 8-Rack and Mono-Red Prowess.

What about you? What did you think of this set? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below!

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!