Explorer: 10 Best Cards from Bloomburrow

Preview season for Bloomburrow has finally come to an end. The new set brings a magical world where small creatures face large predators and marks the rotation for Standard, which promises to cause major changes in the same period in which some of the format's most important cards leave.

In addition to Standard, Bloomburrow also affects Pioneer and its equivalent in Magic Arena, Explorer, where the format's Metagame receives new additions and cards with the potential to impact some of the main competitive decks and/or function as potential answers to some of the format problems.

In this article, we rank the ten best cards in Bloomburrow for Explorer, based on their potential to affect the format's main archetypes today.

Honorable Mentions

The creatures above are commonly card types that establish archetypes on their own. Therefore, placing them in the Top 10 list requires a deeper dive into how the Explorer pool embraces each of them in the Metagame today, and you can expect an article with lists soon.

Jackdaw Savior plays around flying creatures and functions as recursion in aggressive decks. Archetypes like Spirits may be interested in it, but a Flyers or even Birds with some other Bloomburrow cards are options for where it might show up.

Eluge, the Shoreless Sea has a high cost and doesn't protect itself that well besides requiring too many colors, but its ability to reduce or colorless from spells shouldn't be underestimated, and transforming Slip out the Back or Stubborn Denial into free spells to protect it can be worth building a deck around it.

Stormsplitter has a dozen cheap cards to work on Explorer and requires just five spells to deal lethal damage, and all it takes is a good string of cantrips and efficient protections to put it on the radar and make it a potential competitor, especially in Best of One.

Ygra, Eater of All has a powerful combo with Cauldron Familiar to deal infinite damage. Thus, it might find a spot in a new archetype or alongside Inisiduous Roots.

10 - Thundertrap Trainer

Thundertrap Trainer offers good filtering and a decent blocker with the ability to generate two for one late-game. It doesn't seem ideal for the format today, but it's a solid addition to Control lists in need of a cheap creature to block and that digs deep for a more efficient answer.

9 - Darkstar Augur

Darkstar Augur is a good curve topper for Aggro with black, as well as being a potential replacement for Hostile Investigator in Waste Not lists, due to the low value of most of its spells while cards like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse mitigates its damage.

8 - Hugs, Grisly Guardian

Hugs, Grisly Guardian has a strong body and evasion for four mana, and its ability offers card advantage to Big Mana and/or Goodstuff archetypes of the format that can prolong the mgame, making it a good addition to Ramp or Five-Color Niv-Mizzet.

7 - Stormcatch Mentor

Stormcatch Mentor can give Best of One players reasons to try Izzet Prowess variants again. It interacts with Wizard’s Lightning, turns Lightning Strike into Lightning Bolt, improves other spells, has immediate impact, and benefits from our cheap cantrips, making it an excellent addition to the archetype.

6 - Keen-Eyed Curator

Keen-Eyed Curator competes with Scavenging Ooze on Pioneer. Its two green devotion and a more efficient body can earn it a spot in Mono Green Devotion, but the competition between both creatures is very fierce, as the life gain and greater ease in getting out of the range of red removals makes Scavenging Ooze more effective against Izzet Phoenix, while the new creature benefits from matchups where it can establish a fast clock while disrupting the opponent's plans.

5 - Dawn’s Truce

Dawn’s Truce is the closest the Explorer has to Teferi’s Protection and competes directly with Surge of Salvation in certain matchups. Its protection for the player can give it space in Metagames where we need to deal with combos that target players and/or to protect its controller from specific discards that would ruin a combo, having the potential to appear on the Best of Three sideboards.

4 - Ral, Crackling Wit

Ral, Crackling Wit can get out of hand quickly in lists with many low-cost spells. His first ability offers tokens that grow with cantrips and removals, his second interacts well with Arclight Phoenix and Proft's Eidetic Memory and his third can win games on its own by giving Storm to cards like Treasure Cruise.

Potential Sideboard staple for Izzet Phoenix, and may occasionally appear in the maindeck.

3 - Kitsa, Otterball Elite

Kitsa, Otterball Elite is another card for Izzet Phoenix and archetypes capable of sequencing spells in a single turn. Its potential to attack and still be able to copy a Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time can make a lot of difference in attrition matchups and/or on the Mirror, where it avoids the range of Fiery Impulse while extracting more value from your spells.

2 - Sunspine Lynx

Sunspine Lynx offers a maindeck answer against Amalia Benavides Aguirre's combo, and also punishes greedy manabases if used in more proactive strategies. It shouldn't be included in Prowess lists due to its high mana value, but it can be an excellent Meta Call and even worthy of the maindeck in certain archetypes.

1 - Beza, the Bounding Spring

Versatility is the keyword of Beza, the Bounding Spring and what makes it one of Bloomburrow's most interesting cards for Explorer. Its diversity of abilities means that the elemental doesn't have similar functions in any matchup, adapting to what you need at that moment while, on its own, it has a decent body for four mana and helps in putting pressure on if you are ahead.

Potential staple that could see play in lists with Chord of Calling and the like, or in the Sideboard of decks like Azorius Control or Azorius Lotus Field.

Bloomburrow doesn't seem as exciting for Explorer as other Standard sets this year, perhaps because it marks the rotation and, consequently, the need to level things down, or perhaps due to the misinterpretation of some cards, or mechanics in theory due to their creature types.

Another problem, this one more inherent, is that Explorer has been experiencing a stagnant scenario for some time, with well-defined best decks that, except for Izzet Phoenix, haven't benefited so much from the set to the point of causing major changes in the Metagame.

However, cards like Stormsplitter or Eluge, the Shoreless Sea can surprise and put new archetypes on the radar, or even some unknown interaction that leads to the format being broken once again.

Thanks for reading!