Limited Guide: Bloomburrow - Draft, Pre-Release, and Sealed

Hey, everyone, how are you all?

We have barely recovered from everything Modern Horizons 3 did in Magic: The Gathering, but we already have a new set. Bloomburrow is here, with new mechanics and lots of new synergies!

In this article, we'll focus on limited, and review this set's mechanics, archetypes, mana bases, and removals for Draft, Sealed, and Pre-Release.

Bloomburrow is centered around creature types; its cards have different effects according to certain types.

Furthermore, Food Tokens are back, and, as we all know, they are extremely relevant in limited.

Let's discuss this set's mechanics first.

Mechanics

Offspring

Offspring is a new mechanic that creates a creature token identical to the original, but with 1 power and 1 toughness. You may pay a card's Offspring ability when you cast them; it can also be countered and thus not create any copy.

This mechanic lets you not only put more creatures on the board, but also maximize their effects. For instance, you can get a lot of card advantage if you copy the right card.

Gift

Gift is precisely what its name suggests: you may "gift" your opponent, and thus use the other effects in the card you just cast (or not).

Gift varies from card to card. Most often, they give your opponents a card, like a tapped Fish Token or a Food Token.

To sum up, this mechanic boosts effects but also offers your opponent an advantage to make up for it.

Forage

Forage is an alternative cost for your cards: either exile three cards from your graveyard or sacrifice a Food Token. You can use this to cast a card, or use a triggered or activated ability, and it also gives you new effects as well.

It is relevant for strategies that interact when cards leave the graveyard, or even when permanents are sacrificed.

Valiant

Valiant is an ability that triggers effects when your creatures are targeted by a spell or ability you control. It triggers only once per turn.

This ability has a lot of synergy with equipment, in particular, because it triggers when you equip a creature.

Expend

Expend is an ability that triggers according to how much mana you spent on your turn and, in this set, Expend is always 4. It will only trigger once per turn as well, considering it looks at all the mana you spent that turn. It doesn't trigger any time you "spend four mana multiple times"; "it's looking specifically for the fourth mana, not every fourth mana".

You'll find it in red and green cards from this set.

Threshold

Threshold enables a new effect whenever there are seven or more cards in your graveyard. This can be new activated abilities, or even new triggered abilities. In this set, this mechanic is tied to blue and black Rat creatures.

Now that we've seen all the new mechanics in this set, let's see the main archetypes in this format.

In Bloomburrow in particular, each archetype centers around a specific creature type, and you'll find many well-explored synergies with this throughout the set.

Azorius Birds

In blue and white, we have an archetype centered around Bird creatures. It uses these creatures to create synergies and get ahead, and takes advantage of their evasion to deal damage to your opponent.

An archetype that focuses on Flying creatures is quite natural for these colors. You'll delay your opponent with cards like Dire Downdraft or Dazzling Denial while dealing damage to them over their defenses.

The most critical card for this archetype is Kastral, the Windcrested, as any one of its three abilities is extremely relevant for your strategy at any point of the game. Because your creatures have evasion, it is relatively easy to trigger its effects.

Plumecreed Mentor and Seedpod Squire are ways to boost any creature outside this archetype. This is quite useful for Sealed formats, as they force us to use the cards we get, and not just the cards we draft, like draft formats.

Intrepid Rabbit is a creature outside this archetype that boosts the power of our battlefield.

Jackdaw Savior, besides quite aggressive, also gives more resilience to this archetype. It is great whenever you have to trade creatures.

Patchwork Banner, Valley Questcaller, and Warren Warleader are really efficient to boost your creatures with evasion. They give you an advantage whenever you need to be faster than your opponent damage-wise.

Best common cards:

Best uncommon cards:

Orzhov Bats Lifegain

In white and black, we have a combination of lifegain and Bat synergies.

The best example of this is Zoraline, Cosmos Caller, which gives you life whenever your Bats attack.

Moonstone Harbinger is also incredibly powerful for this archetype when you play it with cards like Lifecreed Duo, Moonrise Cleric, or any other pre-combat lifegain source. They'll give you good trades and boost any damage you deal to your opponents.

Starscape Cleric, Lunar Convocation, and Starseer Mentor are ways to attack your opponent's life points while you gain life.

Sinister Monolith gives you a steady flow of life drain, and thus gives you an advantage whenever you and your opponent are head-to-head on the battlefield.

Star Charter gives you more resources and keeps the entire archetype going.

Best common cards:

Best uncommon cards:

Boros Valiant Aggro

In red and white, we have an aggro archetype that uses Valiant to boost its attacks.

As you'll only find Valiant in Mouse-type creatures in this set, we'll also explore the synergies with this creature type. Cards like Patchwork Banner and Mabel, Heir to Cragflame, for instance, will be great to boost your entire board.

Equipment with a low-equip cost are great ways to activate this ability, so we'll use cards like Short Bow to trigger it as many times as we can.

Similarly, we have Blacksmith's Talent, which, besides creating an equipment token, also lets us attach target equipment to a creature for no cost at all, and thus lets us activate Valiant.

Brambleguard Captain is another way to activate our creature's Valiant, and makes our strategy stronger for free.

If you have all the pieces you need to keep this strategy running, all you need to do is use your low-cost creatures and activate their Valiant through targeted abilities (equipment and auras) and combat tricks. So, cards like Flowerfoot Swordmaster, Nettle Guard, Emberheart Challenger, Heartfire Hero, Manifold Mouse, and Seedglaive Mentor are essential to build the board you need and close out the game as fast as you can.

As an alternative way to activate Valiant, we also have auras and combat tricks, and, though they don't activate Valiant more than once, they might just be what we need to finish our matches.

War Squeak gives you more pressure by giving a creature haste, and also removes your opponent's best blocker from combat. It is a great aura for what we are looking for.

Mabel's Mettle activates two Valiant on its own, so it's extremely efficient for our game plan.

Rabid Gnaw, besides working as a removal, activates Valiant, so it's everything we want for this archetype. Furthermore, it is a combat trick if we ever need it to be.

Sunspine Lynx, though not in this archetype per se, might be an important piece to deal with lifegain, considering our game plan is using our resources the best we can to finish the game as soon as possible. As lifegain is not insignificant in this format, we can't underestimate this card.

Dewdrop Cure is a way to keep pressuring the board, even after trading creatures or getting hit with a global removal, in case your opponent plays Starfall Invocation.

Best common cards:

Best uncommon cards:

Selesnya Rabbit Tokens

In green and white, we have an archetype centered around overpopulating the battlefield with creatures that create tokens.

Finneas, Ace Archer is one of its best representatives: it gives your board more power and might also give you card advantage as well.

Head of the Homestead, Warren Warleader, and Hop to It are the ones that create tokens for this archetype and widen your battlefield. This way, you'll be able to make the most out of effects in cards like Seasoned Warrenguard, Druid of the Spade, Hazardroot Herbalist, and Burrowguard Mentor. Mentor, in particular, is this archetype's finisher.

Pawpatch Recruit is critical to preserve your board's strength if your opponents use any removals or tempo strategies.

Caretaker's Talent gives this archetype more fuel. Considering your game plan is always growing your battlefield, you'll need a way to refill the cards in your hand. Furthermore, when we move to level 3, all our tokens become relevant for combat.

Valley Questcaller, besides being the right creature type, benefits us quite greatly; from controlling our top deck to boosting the power of our battlefield. If we manage to keep it on the board, we'll most likely find what we need to finish the game.

Another relevant mechanic for this archetype are Offspring abilities because they create incredibly relevant tokens for us. So, when you pick your cards to complete this archetype, prioritize the ones that have Offspring to get even more value.

Best common cards:

Best uncommon cards:

Dimir Threshold Rats

In blue and black, we have an archetype centered around Rats that needs more than seven cards in your graveyard for a very important reason: to activate Threshold.

One of the strongest cards in the entire format is Vren, the Relentless, which optimizes our removals, increases our board presence, and protects itself with an expensive Ward - so it is very difficult to deal with. As for Mindwhisker, besides controlling our top deck, it also accelerates this archetype's Threshold with Surveil. Its Threshold, in turn, reduces the power of your opponent's creatures.

Mind Drill Assailant is another option to control our top deck, and also has a great body to control our opponent's early game if they play any haste creatures. Daggerfang Duo is a way to speed up our game plan because of its mill, and its deathtouch deals with bigger creatures.

Once you build your setup, we'll need cards like Shoreline Looter to deal damage and filter our hand. Keep your best cards and avoid too many lands.

Persistent Marshstalker puts a lot of pressure on your opponents, as it becomes stronger according to how many creatures we control. Besides, we don't need to be scared of trading creatures, as we can bring them back from the graveyard to the battlefield, and keep putting pressure on the board.

Tidecaller Mentor returns our most impactful creatures, so it gives us some recursion regarding what we moved to our graveyard early on. Huskburster Swarm, for instance, makes the most out of the cards you discarded, and might come into play quite early, which will be a huge problem for your opponents.

We have no reason to avoid Maha, Its Feathers Night, considering it's really powerful and difficult to deal with, despite not exactly interacting with this archetype.

Best common cards:

Best uncommon cards:

Izzet Otter Spells

In blue and red, we have an archetype centered around Otters that interacts with noncreature spells.

So, we'll need creatures with Prowess or effects that trigger when we cast noncreature spells.

Stormcatch Mentor reduces the cost of our spells, and thus speeds up this archetype's game plan.

Coruscation Mage and Kindlespark Duo are ways to punish our opponents' life points while we delay or control them.

Valley Floodcaller, besides giving us a lot of pressure by increasing the power of the creatures on our battlefield, lets us play our spells on our opponent's turns. So, with it, we'll be able to react to our opponents' moves and block better.

Harnesser of Storms gives us card advantage by giving us more access to our resources.

Kitsa, Otterball Elite, besides cycling the cards in our hand, also doubles spells, which improves our removals and card draw.

Spellgyre is a very welcome counter in this archetype because of its versatility. With it, you can refill your hand and find better pieces when you no longer need to use its counter effect. This will greatly improve your playability.

Pearl of Wisdom is also an excellent way to refill your hand. Otterball Antics, in turn, grows your board and activates this archetype's main effects. Furthermore, its flashback is great as well, as it's a way to make the most out of the resources you have.

Stormchaser’s Talent and Artist's Talent make this archetype even stronger, as they boost your spells.

Festival of Embers lets you reuse the instants and sorceries in your graveyard, so it's a great enchantment for the late game.

This way, we'll use the removals and tempo plays we have as bounces to delay our opponent and put pressure on their life points, all while we set up our own strategy.

Best common cards:

Best uncommon cards:

Simic Frogs ETB

In blue and green, we have an archetype centered around Frogs that trigger effects when they enter the battlefield (ETB for short).

This archetype uses creatures whose abilities trigger when another creature leaves the board without dying. That's how we'll make the most out of our ETBs: by returning our creatures to our hand and casting them again, or simply exiling them and putting them in play again.

Dour Port-Mage, Clement, the Worrywort, and Lilysplash Mentor are a few ways we have to keep this mechanic going.

With this in mind, we'll also want cards like Pond Prophet for card advantage, and Long River Lurker, to protect our creatures and clear the way for our attacks.

Splash Lasher is another way to keep pressuring our opponent and delay their game plan, as it pushes their blockers out of the way while we continue to create an advantage for ourselves.

Valley Mightcaller can easily go out of control, so it's a way to make this archetype significantly more aggressive.

Clifftop Lookout is how we'll get our lands, whereas Stickytongue Sentinel lets us use one of our relevant ETBs an extra time.

Splash Portal is another way to use our creatures' ETBs another time, and it also adds another card to our hand. Polliwallop is a great removal for this archetype, as it gets cheaper according to how many Frogs you control.

Best common cards:

Best uncommon cards:

Rakdos Lizards Aggro

In black and red, we have an archetype that focuses on Lizards and is quite aggressive. Its main mechanic uses your opponent's life loss to activate its creatures' abilities.

So, we'll want cards whose effects trigger when they deal damage or when your opponent loses life that turn.

Iridescent Vinelasher is incredible to keep this mechanic going, considering how often you'll draw lands in this format.

Ravine Raider is a great piece for early on - with it, you'll be able to keep dealing damage in the first few turns.

You can use Flamecache Gecko to make this archetype a bit more aggressive, as it lets you cast two low-cost creatures on turn 2 if you manage to deal some damage.

Hired Claw may easily get out of control because it grows fast and activates its own ability when you attack with it and another creature.

Kindlespark Duo is another way to keep this archetype going, as it deals damage to your opponents, and is even stronger when you play a removal.

Fireglass Mentor gives us card advantage if we deal damage.

Gev, Scaled Scorch's ability feeds this entire archetype retroactively because it deals damage to your opponents when you cast Lizards. It also puts counters on your creatures if they entered the board after one of your opponents lost life that turn. It's one of the best cards in this archetype.

Best common cards:

Best uncommon cards:

Golgari Squirrels Forage

In green and black, we have an archetype that focuses on Squirrels and the Forage mechanic.

As the fastest way to use Forage is by creating Food Tokens, we'll look for creatures that do that, like Vinereap Mentor or Bakersbane Duo. Daggerfang Duo is another way to speed up our game plan.

After you get your Food Tokens and feed your graveyard, you'll need cards that make the most out of this. Camellia, the Seedmiser and Corpseberry Cultivator are great options to make your battlefield even more powerful.

Treetop Sentries gives you card advantage, and Thornvault Forager gives you an opportunity to mana fix or ramp.

Ygra, Eater of All's ability lets you activate Forage with your creatures, which makes it easier to move forward with this archetype while you boost it even more.

Best common cards:

Best uncommon cards:

Gruul Raccoon Expend

In red and green, we have an archetype that interacts with Raccoons and Expend.

So, we need Raccoons with Expend, obviously.

Wandertale Mentor and Muerra, Trash Tactician, besides having synergy with how much mana you spend through their Expend, speed up your game plan by giving you more mana. That's how you'll cast expensive spells ahead of time.

Brambleguard Veteran is a key piece for this archetype, as it makes your creatures bigger and gives them vigilance, so they'll always be able to block.

Keen-Eyed Curator, besides quite strong for a 2-cost card, is a way to prevent interactions with the graveyard, namely used by Dimir Rats and Golgari Squirrel. At the end of the game, it might be quite impactful for your board.

Byway Barterer gives us more resources: it refills our hand, but only after we spend some resources.

In general, this archetype plays like a stomp deck; always curving out and making the most out of its interactions with creature types.

Scrapshooter, besides efficient when dealing with flying archetypes, also deals with artifacts or enchantments. It is quite versatile, and has great stats for its cost.

Best common cards:

Best uncommon cards:

Lands

There aren't many options to fix our mana in this set. In fact, Bloomburrow mostly brought us some utility lands.

Fabled Passage is one of the best options if you do need to fix your mana. Another option is Uncharted Haven.

Hidden Grotto and Fountainport are other options to get the mana in the color you need, but Hidden Grotto is more like a mana filter.

Three Tree City might be efficient if we have many creatures of the same type, but, as it's situational and only interacts with creatures, it is also not that efficient as a mana fix.

Artifacts

Patchwork Banner is excellent for any archetype in this set, considering all archetypes focus on creatures. Furthermore, besides fixing your curve, it also boosts your creatures.

Fountainport Bell gets us the lands we need and refills itself later. It's a great option to fix your mana curve as well.

Three Tree Mascot is another option to fix your mana; it adds one particular mana color to your pool once per turn.

Creatures

The best ways to fix your mana are in green, namely Three Tree Rootweaver, as it creates all colors.

Tender Wildguide, though more efficient because it gives you counters and creates a token, is much harder to get, and less essential than other rare cards.

Thornvault Forager, besides great in the Squirrel archetype, doesn't really work as a mana fix, and will delay you by a couple turns until you can get the combination you need for its Forage.

Removals are critical for Limited formats, so let's see which are the main Bloomburrow removals in each color.

Colorless

Despite expensive, this card possibly removes any permanent, interacts with sacrifice mechanics, and creates a Food Token. So, it is great for Forage or even just life gain strategies.

It's great in your sideboard if you need to deal with enchantments and has no other option in your main colors.

White

Banishing Light is the best white removal in this set, as it deals with any permanents you might encounter.

Repel Calamity hits approximately 27.7% of the creatures in this set, and it's particularly efficient to deal with your opponent's finishers.

Season of the Burrow is incredibly versatile. With it, you can remove any enemy permanent in exchange for drawing them card, or just fill your board with creatures by choosing the same mode several times.

Sonar Strike deals with 89% of the creatures in this set, and is particularly efficient in Bat archetypes because it also gives you some lifegain.

Starfall Invocation is a global removal that will possibly bring back your best creature after you deal with the entire board. In a format full of creatures, this card might just win you the game.

Blue

Sugar Coat is a classic blue removal; it turns the target creature into a food artifact. It's better than effects that keep a creature tapped because it also prevents the target creature from triggering their abilities.

Kitnap is an excellent way to deal with an enemy threat, as it gives you control over it. You'll force your opponent to spend their resources to deal with the threat they put on the board themselves.

Black

Feed the Cycle is an excellent removal. Its cost, without Forage, is quite reasonable, and it resolves any creature in this set. Occasionally, it will remove any planeswalkers that come along.

Fell, as a removal, is great for its cost, and is also one of the best options in this set.

Early Winter, though way pricier than other cards, deals with enchantments, which is something black can't really do, so it's quite intriguing. It is also a common card, so it's quite accessible.

Red

Agate Assault deals with 89% of this set, but the best thing about it is that it also removes artifacts. This means we'll be able to deal with our opponent's Patchwork Banner with it.

Conduct Electricity removes all creatures in this format, but it's far too expensive, and thus, not as efficient.

Playful Shove, despite only dealing with 17% of the creatures in this set, also deals damage to our opponent directly and draws us a card. It might just be the damage you needed to finish your match.

Take Out the Trash handles approximately 45% of this format, and is particularly efficient in the Raccoon archetype, as it refills itself.

Green

There aren't many great removals in green, but Polliwallop's greatest advantage is that it's a removal at instant speed, and is more efficient in the Frog archetype.

Hunter's Talent is another interesting removal, as we can level up its class and get new effects after we use its removal. Keep in mind that this type of removal might become less efficient if your opponent answers it, so it's important to have some protection before you play it. Or, use it at a time your opponent can't answer it.

Bloomburrow brought us some very interesting synergies. It is also more focused on overall value than each card's individual power.

Its biggest problem is mana fixing. It will be incredibly difficult to use three colors in this set because its mana base is so limited.

Which archetype seemed more interesting to you?

Out of all these archetypes, Orzhov Bats Lifegain seemed the most efficient, though I truly enjoyed Selesnya Rabbits Tokens as well.

Thank you for reading.

Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below!

See you next time!