After another somewhat forgettable Universes Beyond set, MTG players are more than ready to the game to return to its roots. Secrets of Strixhaven’s spoiler season is right around the corner, offering players a second stay at Magic’s illustrious School of, well, Magic. Early leaks are making players even more excited than usual, with one recently leaked card offering an almost direct Ancestral Recall reprint. It seems that the trend of insane leaks continues, with Beledros’s newest iteration, Witherbloom, the Balancer, outright breaking some EDH strategies.
MTG Witherbloom, the Balancer
Witherbloom, the Balancer has everything it needs to make a splashy and powerful MTG debut. The mana value of this card is somewhat deceptive, thanks to having Affinity for Creatures. In a focused strategy, casting this card for just two mana can be surprisingly easy. While Pinnacle Emissary starts can easily cast this creature on turn two, Witherbloom the Balancer also creates busted openings with the existing Standard Badgermole Cub package. Between the burst of mana and going wide with mana dorks, getting a turn 3 Witherbloom out is trivial. While this body is already powerful, Witherbloom also fuels a massive Nature’s Rhythm, tutoring up Craterhoof Behemoth with ease, even if your Cub dies.
As strong as Witherbloom, the Balancer is in constructed, it’s somehow even better in Commander. Cards like Scute Swarm and Chatterfang, Squirrel General, alongside some mana dorks, can easily get Witherbloom out ahead of schedule. Once you have a board established, recasting Witherbloom is also a cinch, thanks to Affinity for Creatures also reducing Command Tax.
This potential gives Witherbloom legs in both 100 and 60-card Magic, allowing players to cast massive instant and sorcery spells with ease. While casting a cost-reduced Torment of Hailfire is an easy way to end the game, there’s a ton of X-spells out there that fuel both of Witherbloom’s payoffs. Pest Infestation and Awaken the Woods, for example, can pile on even more tokens than usual with Witherbloom’s cost reduction, building towards a massive Finale of Devastation. If you don’t want to use Witherbloom’s abilities themselves, you can always use something like Neoform to cheat something much scarier into play.
With such a clear-cut way to build Witherbloom, the Balancer as a Commander, it’s no wonder that MTG players are excited for the leaked Elder Dragon. That’s just the beginning of the card’s antics, however, as players have already discovered some infinite combo potential.
Two-Card Infinite Tokens
Even though Witherbloom, the Balancer has just been revealed, players have already found a way to break it. The card can notably go infinite with Sprout Swarm, a card that has created its own share of issues over the years. So long as you have at least four creatures, Sprout Swarm will only cost one green mana to Buyback, flooding the board with 1/1 Green Sapling creatures. Thanks to Sprout Swarm having Convoke, you can create infinite tapped tokens this way, at instant speed, to boot.
While you can easily create an instant board of 1/1s on an opponent’s end step to kill the table, getting access to any number of infinite resources from this spot is trivial. Phyrexian Altar, for example, creates infinite mana, allowing you to win the game in any number of ways. If you have access to Concordant Crossroads and a token doubler, you can create an instant board on your turn and win immediately.
Thanks to having access to black, this infinite combo should be incredibly easy to assemble. With Demonic Tutor, Imperial Seal, and Vampiric Tutor available, Commander players should be able to consistently find Sprout Swarm with ease. Considering all of these applications, Witherbloom, the Balancer ironically doesn’t seem balanced at all.
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